The Verge

Photo by Emil Lippe/Getty Images This week’s freezing temperatures and winter storms in Texas led to far fewer power outages than a similar freeze last year. But worryingly, a handful of Texas counties with high rates of power outages also have high numbers of people who need power for medical devices, according to a new analysis by the data group CrisisReady.Losing electricity in bitter cold is always dangerous, but it’s particularly scary for people who rely on it to keep medical devices like ventilators running. The new analysis pulled federal data on Medicare beneficiaries to identify counties with high numbers of people using electricity-dependent medical equipment. It found that six such counties had more than 1 percent of the population out of power at one... Continue reading…

The Les Mills BODYCOMBAT VR app. | Image: Les Mills Popular fitness club Les Mills is punching and kicking its way into the metaverse with a new VR game, BODYCOMBAT VR. The $29.99 game is an extension of an existing workout series that combines shadowboxing with martial arts and is available on the Meta Quest platform.The game was developed by VR studio Odder Labs and is led by Les Mills BODYCOMBAT directors Rachael Newsham and Dan Cohen. According to Les Mills’ press release, the game incorporates classic boxing moves like jabs, hooks, and uppercuts, as well as squats and slips to dodge walls. Other moves include grabbing targets to slam into a user’s knee. Levels are set against “intergalactic deserts and neo-city skylines” and set to curated playlists. Players earn points for both... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where we discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.This week on the show, The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Alex Cranz, Ashley Carman, and Alex Heath discuss Meta’s rough week: Facebook reported its first-ever quarterly decline of daily users globally, along with lower-than-expected ad growth that sent its stock plunging roughly 20 percent. The crew discusses the takeaways from Meta’s earnings report and the company’s struggle to keep younger users on its platforms.The crew also discusses Spotify’s response to the Joe Rogan controversy. This week, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended the company’s choice to work with Rogan and tried... Continue reading…

Image: EA In 2019, Respawn Entertainment surprised gamers by following up its Titanfall games with something slightly different, instead opting for a take on the (then) new and growing free-to-play battle royale genre with Apex Legends.You know what happened next. After a healthy dose of promoted live streams, the game quickly carved out a unique space and grew rapidly in popularity, racking up 25 million registered players in one week and crossing the 100 million mark in time for its second birthday. Now, Apex Legends is turning three, and in a conversation with The Verge, game director Steven Ferreira said that this year, players should expect to see the title do things that are completely unlike what we’ve seen so far while still keeping the... Continue reading…

Meta is adding a “personal boundary” system to its Horizon virtual reality experiences, aiming to stop harassment in VR. The new feature is being turned on by default in the Horizon Worlds creation platform and the Horizon Venues live event service. It creates an invisible virtual barrier around avatars, preventing other people from getting too close — although you can apparently still stretch your arm out to give someone a fist-bump or high five.The boundary system builds on an existing feature that could make users’ hands disappear if they got too close to another avatar. As described by Meta, it gives everyone a two-foot radius of virtual personal space, creating the equivalent of four virtual feet between avatars. Meta spokesperson... Continue reading…

GTA5’s Michael De Santa. | Image: Rockstar Games A new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is in active development, Rockstar Games has confirmed. “We are pleased to confirm that active development for the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is well underway,” the company wrote in a post on its website. In the more immediate future, GTAV and Grand Theft Auto Online will release on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S on March 15th.The popularity — and profitability — of GTAV’s online component has meant that there’s been an unusually long wait for a sequel. The game originally released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, over eight years ago. In contrast, GTAV released a little over five years after 2008’s GTAIV. “With the unprecedented longevity of GTAV, we know many of you have been... Continue reading…

News Corp says it was the target of a hack | Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images News Corp, the media company that owns The Wall Street Journal, said in a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it was the victim of a cyberattack last month. Its security consultant Mandiant, which is investigating the hack, believes the attackers “are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China’s interests,” Mandiant vice president of incident response David Wong said in an email to The Verge.According to the SEC filing, the company discovered in January that one of its cloud-based systems was the target of “persistent cyberattack activity.” A preliminary analysis found that “foreign government involvement may be associated with this activity, and that data was... Continue reading…

Free video recordings and package detection almost make up for a dull design Continue reading…

Image: Roku We’ve arrived at the end of another week, folks. And while today may be unapologetically February, we can always brighten things up a bit with some deals.If you’re in need of a new streaming device as we approach the Super Bowl or even this weekend’s NFL Pro Bowl, Roku’s Streambar Pro is a nice all-in-one solution as a soundbar and 4K-capable streaming device — and it’s currently on sale. You can pick one up for $149.99 ($30 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. The Streambar Pro runs Roku’s popular and straightforward user interface, and you can even expand it later by adding wireless speakers and a subwoofer to go full-on surround sound.If you don’t need such a large soundbar or expansive system to grow into, the smaller Roku Streambar is... Continue reading…

Image: Coachella Today, let’s talk about the very different reactions that two different types of fandoms are having to blockchain-based products — and whether that tells us anything about what average people might actually want out of crypto.The fandoms are gaming and music. And while you’re always going out on a limb when you try to draw conclusions about such large, diverse groups, I can’t help but feel like I’m seeing a trend in the way they have responded so far to efforts from industry to sell them various blockchain-related things.Start with the gamers. Outside those working on play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity, hostility toward crypto in the gaming community tends to be overwhelming. One of the most popular recurring stories over the past... Continue reading…

Sheila Francisco as Leonor Reyes. The elderly heroine of writer / director Martika Ramirez Escobar’s Leonor Will Never Die may not be the image that comes to mind when you think of an auteur filmmaker whose imagination is filled with an untold number of fantasies all yearning to be turned into blockbuster features. But the movie wants you to ask yourself: why not? Why can’t a retired lola from Manilla who’s perpetually late paying her electricity bill also be one of the most brilliant action directors of her era and someone who can only process existential crises by turning them into films within her mind?Throughout Leonor Will Never Die, Leonor (Sheila Francisco) herself rarely stops to ponder these questions because of how essential filmmaking continues to be to her... Continue reading…

These earbuds are onto something, but the execution isn’t there yet Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple plans to charge developers of dating apps a 27 percent commission on any in-app purchases made via alternative payment systems in the Netherlands, the company has announced. The change comes in response to an order from Dutch competition regulator, the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), which has demanded that Apple allow dating app developers — and only dating app developers — to use alternatives to Apple’s in-app payment system in the country. Twenty-seven percent represents only a 3 percent reduction compared to the 30 percent commission Apple typically charges for developers using its own payment system.The announcement follows Google’s proposal to reduce its commission by 4 percent for developers using alternative... Continue reading…

The feature lets your remove unwanted objects or people from images. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales The Google Pixel 6’s magic eraser feature, which lets you remove unwanted people or objects from your photos, appears to have been broken by a recent update, PhoneArena reports. Multiple users across Reddit and Twitter are reporting that attempting to use it causes the Google Photos app to crash, leaving them unable to use a feature that’s been heavily marketed in the promotion of Google’s latest flagship smartphone.The issue is the latest in a series of bugs to have hit the Pixel 6. Back in December, Google was forced to halt the rollout of an update after owners complained that it was causing network connection problems for their devices. Android 12 has been an unusually rocky update for many devices, but Google’s Pixel lineup seems... Continue reading…

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced plans to give an update on his company’s next-generation Starship rocket next Thursday evening. The presentation will come more than two years after Musk’s last update on the vehicle in 2019.Starship is the massive new deep-space rocket that SpaceX has been developing at the company’s test facility in Boca Chica, Texas, for the last few years. The fully reusable vehicle is designed to launch on top of a giant booster called Super Heavy, carrying people and cargo to distant destinations like the Moon and eventually Mars. So far, SpaceX has conducted a few high-altitude test flights with the vehicle but has yet to launch Starship to orbit. The company is currently awaiting approval from the Federal Aviation... Continue reading…

The company is moving beyond the Hero and the Max. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge GoPro will be expanding its camera lineup in the next year, adding two more models alongside its current Hero and Max cameras. According to Nick Woodman, the company’s founder and CEO who spoke during the company’s earnings presentation on Thursday, GoPro wants to offer more specialized cameras, while still using a lot of the same tech.GoPro used to have several models in its Hero lineup, from the White, Silver, and Black models of cameras like the Hero 3 and 7, to the rear screen-less Session cameras. Since the Hero 8’s release, though, it’s only released flagship models, opting to sell older flagships in lieu of introducing lower-spec but still current-gen cameras.GoPro isn’t going back to “good / better / best”More models doesn’t... Continue reading…

Workspace Essentials Starter is basically Workspace without Gmail. | Image: Google Google has announced a new, free tier of its Workspace suite, Workspace Essentials Starter. Basically, it lets workers use tools like Google Docs, Sheets, Chat, etc. with their co-workers without requiring them to switch over to Gmail if they’re already using something like Exchange or Zoho. While employees have long been able to replicate this use case with personal Google accounts, having an official product for it could help with security and make it easier to manage a team of people working together.According to Google’s blog post, users will be able to sign up for Essentials Starter using their existing email accounts and will then be able to invite their co-workers to work on projects with them. Google’s providing 15 GB of Drive... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Snapchat invented the Stories format of sharing pictures and videos that disappear. Now the company is indicating, along with Facebook, that the future of social media looks more like TikTok.In remarks to investors for its quarterly earnings report on Thursday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said that less time is being spent watching Stories from friends in the app, even though the company had hoped Stories engagement would pick up as pandemic lockdowns eased and people started leaving their houses more. Instead, Snapchat users are increasingly flocking to watch videos on Spotlight, Snapchat’s TikTok rival for viewing viral videos posted by random creators, and its Discover section for premium shows.“This is a continuation of the trend we have... Continue reading…

Sony’s latest showcase event was dedicated exclusively to Ghostwire: Tokyo with an in-depth gameplay trailer — and the game sure does look creepy. The paranormal action game from Tango Gameworks, the studio behind the Evil Within series, takes place in a modern version of Tokyo full of folklore creatures. It’s described as a “reimagining” of the Japanese metropolis, just, you know, with supernatural creatures lurking around.The gameplay trailer is nearly 10 minutes long (it’s followed by an inside look at development), making it the best look we’ve had at the game so far, and it’s full of terrifying creatures and slick first-person action. It also provides a bit more detail on Ghostwire’s story, which takes place after a mystery event... Continue reading…

Nestled in today’s Activision Blizzard’s quarterly earnings report (which was curiously delivered as a press release and not a traditional call ostensibly because of its pending acquisition by Microsoft and possibly the myriad other things going on over there) is the news Blizzard is working on a new Warcraft mobile title slated for a 2022 release.According to the press release, “Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including [...] getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time.” The press release doesn’t go into detail about the new game or when we can expect to hear more. For now, all we know is that it’s Warcraft, and it’ll be mobile.The news coincides... Continue reading…

Photo by LILLIAN SUWANRUMPHA/AFP via Getty Images It’s hard to believe we’re just coming off the heels of the last big Olympic event in Tokyo, which took place in summer 2021. But the XXIV Olympic Winter Games are officially here, with the opening ceremony kicking off on Friday, February 4th.Whether you’re planning to tune in with Peacock, watch with a cable subscription, find highlights through a streaming service, or are hoping to find it bundled in with your live cord-cutting solution, we gathered everything you need to know in order to stream the Olympic Games.How to watch the Winter Olympics opening ceremonyCoverage of the opening ceremony starts on Friday, February 4th, beginning at 6:30AM ET / 3:30AM PT. (Beijing is 13 hours ahead of the East Coast, and the event is scheduled... Continue reading…

Mozilla Mozilla is retiring its virtual and augmented reality web browser Firefox Reality, passing the baton to an outside team that plans to relaunch it under a new name. Free software consultancy Igalia is developing a browser using the source code underlying Firefox Reality, aiming to launch a comparable VR / AR browser called Wolvic next week. Meanwhile, Mozilla will remove Firefox Reality from app stores in the next few weeks.In a blog post, Mozilla framed the change as a natural evolution for Firefox Reality, which launched in 2018. “We’ve been at the forefront of developing new technologies,” the organization said, citing the WebVR and WebAR standards. “In some instances, Mozilla continues to remain the host and incubator of those new... Continue reading…

Photo by Ryan Loughlin If you’ve ever wondered whether drug dealers might just fly packets of powder over the border wall with inexpensive consumer drones, wonder no more — the US Border Patrol caught a DJI Mini 2 dead to rights dropping off its own weight in meth last October.That’s according to a recently released search warrant from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which is trying to search the drone for evidence that might help them track down the pilot.On October 7th, according to the affidavit, Tecate’s Campo Border Patrol Station radioed that a drone was spotted flying over the 25-foot-high fence. An agent spotted the drone buzzing over a parking lot just the other side of the wall; watched it land; watched a grey Mercedes roll up with a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is raising the price of Prime in the US to $139 per year, up from the $119 annual fee that was instated four years ago. The price hike is meant to address higher costs Amazon is facing across the board, from shipping to labor to construction, according to analysts.The price change will go into effect for new members on February 18th and for current members after March 25th. The price for a monthly membership to Prime is also going up to $14.99 per month from $12.99 per month.Amazon cited higher shipping costs and increased benefitsAmazon cited “the continued expansion of Prime member benefits as well as the rise in wages and transportation costs” as reason for increasing the service’s price.Higher costs across led Amazon’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge On Wednesday, Congress held its first hearing on autonomous vehicles in over two years, and there was not a lot to show for it. At the end of the four-and-a-half-hour event, there was no indication that lawmakers were any closer to a consensus on how best to regulate this rapidly emerging technology.AV legislation has been stalled in Congress for over five years now, with lawmakers unable to reconcile differences over proposals to increase the number of autonomous vehicles on the road and prohibit states from setting their own performance standards. And after yesterday’s hearing, it was clear that a new set of concerns has risen in the interim, including the need to protect workers displaced by automation and to differentiate between... Continue reading…

Amazon warehouse workers petition to unionize | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Workers at a second Amazon warehouse on Staten Island in New York City have petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to join a union, according to the Amazon Labor Union. The group tweeted Wednesday that it had electronically filed a petition for election for workers at the LDJ5 warehouse.NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado said Thursday the petition was received by its regional office in Brooklyn, and that office will “make sure the union has met the showing of interest requirement to proceed with a union election.” This would mean signed cards from 30 percent of the unit petitioned for. If it meets the requirement, the NLRB would determine which positions would be included in the bargaining unit, Blado added, before setting a... Continue reading…

You’ll be able to easily switch between Gmail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet. | Image: Google Google has announced that Gmail’s new layout, which changes how Google Chat, Meet, and Spaces are integrated, will be available to try starting in February; become default by April; and become the only option by the end of Q2 2022. The view makes it so Google’s other messaging tools, which are part of (but not necessarily limited to) its business-focused Workspace suite, are no longer just little windows floating alongside your emails, but get their own screens in Gmail that are accessible with large buttons on the left-hand side.Google calls this the integrated view, and it’ll soon be familiar if you (or your employer) are a Workspace customer, or if you use Chat and Meet personally. Starting February 8th, Google says you’ll be able... Continue reading…

Image: 343 Industries If you ask me, the best part of Halo Infinite is Big Team Battle, an epic 24-player mode that lets you squad up with up to 11 friends across Xbox, cloud, and Windows PC — but it’s been riddled with matchmaking bugs that keep games from starting, kick out your buddies, or even crash the game. Today, 343 Industries is taking another stab at making things better with a new patch that’s now live.The February 3rd patch’s changelog is pretty basic, primarily just saying that there have been unspecified “service improvements” to Big Team Battle’s matchmaking and that “[p]layers should find full matches quicker and more consistently.”But 343 Industries had previously telegraphed that today might be the substantial fix we’ve been waiting for.... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft After revealing last week that Windows 11 is getting a bigger than usual update in February with Android apps, taskbar improvements, and much more, Microsoft is now detailing its plans for Windows 11 testing throughout 2022. The software maker says it plans to experiment more with features for Windows 11 testers to evaluate that may never ship.“As part of this ongoing evolution, Insiders will see us lean more heavily on the Dev Channel as a place to incubate new ideas, work on long lead items, and control the states of individual features,” explains Amanda Langowski, the lead for the Windows Insider Program. “In some cases, these concepts will never ship, but by experimenting more, we can better refine experiences, and deliver solutions... Continue reading…

Bungie is getting ready to launch what could be one of the biggest expansions to Destiny 2 we’ve ever seen later this month, The Witch Queen. While the expansion will follow the story of Savathûn, it also introduces new exotic weapons, weapon crafting, and big changes to the Destiny 2 sandbox.Bungie is previewing some of those weapon changes today, alongside detailing exactly how Destiny 2 players will be able to craft their own weapons in The Witch Queen. Players of the new expansion will be given the opportunity to forge a new Glaive weapon type early on, including all the necessary materials to craft this initial weapon. Image: Bungie Get ready to craft weapons in Destiny 2. Weapon crafting in Destiny 2... Continue reading…

Dominion Energy hired the Luxembourg-flagged vessel Vole Au Vent | Image: Dominion Energy The short supply of ships capable of deploying giant wind turbines at sea is becoming an even bigger problem as offshore wind ambitions grow. By 2024, demand for wind turbine installation vessels will likely outpace supply, according to a recent analysis by Norwegian firm Rystad Energy. That’s even sooner than a prediction the firm made back in 2020 when it said that the global fleet wouldn’t be enough to meet demand after 2025.Massive, specialized vessels are required to carry wind turbine components out to sea and install them. With just over 30 of these vessels navigating the world’s seas in 2020, according to Rystad, offshore wind projects already have to vie for time with a limited number of ships. A growth spurt in turbine... Continue reading…

A big gaming laptop with a price tag that’s only kind of extravagant Continue reading…

Halle Berry as Jocinda Fowler and Patrick Wilson as Brian Harper in Moonfall. | Lionsgate For movies like Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall that are ostensibly about mysteries meant to keep you guessing, it’s never a good sign when the studios behind them more or less spoil their own plots with overstuffed trailers. If you’ve caught any of Moonfall’s bombastic TV spots or seen some of its busier print ads, you’ll probably see each of the film’s uninspired twists coming long before any of its characters do. But that might not be enough to prepare you for how breathtakingly bad Moonfall — a movie that feels like it could have been great — ends up being.Like many of Emmerich’s far better action / disaster epics, Moonfall’s story orbits around a small group of embattled heroes who step up to the challenge of saving humanity when no one... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Wednesday, the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Wormhole became the victim of the largest cryptocurrency theft this year — and among the top five largest crypto hacks of all time — when an attacker exploited a security flaw to make off with close to $325 million.The attack seems to have resulted from a recent update to the project’s GitHub repository, which revealed a fix to a bug that had not yet been deployed to the project itself.The attack took place on February 2nd and was noticed when a post from the Wormhole Twitter account announced that the network was being taken “down for maintenance” while a potential exploit was investigated. A later post from Wormhole confirmed the hack and the amount stolen.

Philips Hue’s new smart outdoor light fixture the Inara harkens back to a less high-tech time. | Image: Signify Spring is coming (soon, we promise), and smart lighting company Philips Hue has some new products that can help you spruce up your outdoor space, so you can enjoy spending more time outside when the ice finally melts.Signify, which owns Philips Hue, has announced three new additions to its outdoor smart lighting line, all arriving in the US on March 1st, 2022. Plus, two new lighting effects are scheduled to arrive on the Hue app later this year to add features to its indoor smart bulbs.The Philips Hue Inara wall light ($99.99, available on March 1st) is a vintage-style outdoor wall light featuring a filament bulb. Also known as an Edison bulb, a filament bulb has its “electric” filament visible through the bulb, resembling that... Continue reading…

Netflix Netflix has never been one to slump during summer movie season, but it would be fair to say that the streaming studio’s been gearing up to make sure that you won’t be able to turn around without seeing one of its new feature-length projects this year. The good news is, more than a few of the new movies Netflix announced today sound like they might be worth tuning in to.The Adam Project Netflix Zoe Saldana as Laura and Ryan Reynolds as Big Adam. Director Shawn Levy’s (Free Guy) The Adam Project bucks conventional time-traveling wisdom with the story of Adam (Ryan Reynolds), a pilot who journeys into the past in order to save the future with the help of a younger version of himself and their father, who’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The price of shares in Meta — the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Meta Quest (fka Oculus) — has dropped more than 25 percent from the previous day’s close, the morning after it revealed its first-ever sequential decline in Facebook’s daily active users. After closing at $323 Wednesday, they dropped as low as $238.90 before recovering slightly. Image: Google Bloomberg reports that the $200 billion plunge may rank as the biggest single-day drop in market value ever, as Meta struggles with waning relevance among young people and CEO Mark Zuckerberg refocuses its aim toward “metaverse” plans.Meta wasn’t the only company having a rough Thursday; the entire Nasdaq exchange was off by nearly 2 percent... Continue reading…

Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images In 2016, Apple announced that it had developed a recycling robot, called Liam, that could deconstruct an iPhone in 11 seconds. Six years and several machine generations later, Apple still won’t disclose how many iPhones its robots have recycled for parts.But the potential impact of artificially intelligent robots on e-waste recycling more broadly might soon become clear, thanks to a new research project that seeks to develop AI-powered tools that allow a robotic recycler to harvest parts from many different models of phones. If such technology can be commercialized, researchers are hopeful it could vastly improve the recycling of smartphones and other small, portable electronics.While today’s e-waste recyclers are mostly handling... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Sony has tip-toed its way into making its PS5 console more customizable. First, there was a batch of DualSense controllers in red and black, and more recently, it released a variety of vibrant color options that I really dug. At last, after threatening legal action against Dbrand, which beat Sony to the punch with PS5 console covers of its own, Sony has launched its own swappable console covers in midnight black and cosmic red, with more colors on the way.I got to slap some of these new console covers on my PS5, helping me to see the console in a different light and giving me some much-needed practice at removing the covers (it still feels less intuitive than it should). There isn’t much to say about the console covers; they’re... Continue reading…

After a rocky beginning, TCL’s flagship Google TV is a winner Continue reading…

The celebrity ranks of Fortnite’s battle royale continue to grow, with the game adding two more musical stars in the form of Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak. The duo, who perform together under the moniker Silk Sonic, will be available in the Fortnite item shop starting on February 10th. (Though players will have a chance to get them early via an in-game tournament on February 7th.)While the game is known for mashing up pop culture worlds from Marvel, Star Wars, and elsewhere, real-world celebrities are also some of the most popular characters. That includes athletes like LeBron James and Neymar, streamers like Bugha and Ninja, and other musicians such as Marshmello and Ariana Grande. This also isn’t the first time the members of Silk... Continue reading…

An artistic rendering of the robotic outpost, servicing satellite, and other pathfinder vehicles that Quantum Space hopes to build. | Image: Quantum Space A new startup run by a former acting NASA administrator hopes to capitalize on the recent zeal for lunar space exploration by building robotic outposts and spacecraft to send to space near the Moon. Their goal is to create a fleet of robotic helpers that can do a variety of tasks near the Moon, such as providing internet capabilities, collecting data, refueling spacecraft, and assembling structures in lunar space.The company called Quantum Space was formed in 2021. At the helm is Steve Jurczyk, who served as NASA’s associate administrator beginning in 2018, before becoming the agency’s acting administrator when President Biden was inaugurated. After retiring in May, Jurczyk decided to team up with three additional entrepreneurs and... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Need a sleek 15-inch laptop that’s powerful but won’t totally break the bank? Today, the Microsoft Surface Laptop 4 is available at a new all-time low. Amazon is currently selling the laptop with an AMD Ryzen 7 CPU, ‎8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD for $1,288.99 instead of $1,499.99. In her review, The Verge’s Monica Chin praised the device for being such a massive improvement over its predecessor, the aptly-titled Surface Laptop 3. She was also impressed by the laptop’s excellent battery life, lightweight build, and tall 3:2 display. While it released in April 2021, it remains a good buy if you’re looking for an efficient Windows machine and don’t mind its distinct lack of ports.While slightly more expensive, Best Buy is also offering a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify CEO Daniel Ek addressed employees about the Joe Rogan controversy in a 15-minute speech yesterday, of which The Verge obtained audio, defending the company’s choice to work with Rogan, explaining its reasoning, and defining why he believes Spotify is a combination of a platform and a publisher. Employees had been skeptically awaiting the discussion at the company’s regular town hall meeting for nearly a week: since things had escalated with Joe Rogan, the company’s star exclusive podcaster, employees had been venting inside the corporate messaging system and awaiting a response from leadership about why it chose The Joe Rogan Experience over Neil Young, setting off a domino effect of other musicians and podcasters pulling content... Continue reading…

Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images New York state might take a first-of-its-kind step toward addressing the environmental impact of the fashion industry.A bill before the New York State Assembly, the “Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act,” or Fashion Act, would require apparel and footwear brands operating in New York state with more than $100 million in revenue worldwide to note and disclose the environmental and social impact of their operations. The bill, first introduced in October, was taken up by the Consumer Affairs and Protection committee last month.The bill’s introduction comes as the fashion industry is increasingly under scrutiny for its outsized climate impact and unsustainable practices. Fashion contributed to 2 to 8 percent of global... Continue reading…

Motorola is back with its latest refresh of its budget stylus phone, the Moto G Stylus. The new 2022 model keeps the same $299 price tag as last year’s version, but promises improvements in battery life, a faster refresh rate, and upgraded cameras over the old model.Let’s start with what hasn’t changed, though: the 2022 Moto G Stylus still has the same 6.8-inch display as last year, although the hole-punch camera has been moved to the center (instead of the top left corner of the screen.) It still has its eponymous stylus (which neatly stores inside the phone), a 3.5mm headphone jack, a rear triple camera array, and 128GB of onboard storage. But Motorola has made some important upgrades, too. The display now has a 90Hz... Continue reading…

OlliOlli World might be the strangest skateboarding game of all time. It takes place in a fictional realm called Radlandia, which is ruled by skate gods, where players train continuously to become a skate wizard by grinding their way through haunted deserts and mystical forests. It looks and sounds like a long-lost animated series on Adult Swim. But even with all of the oddball humor and bizzaro levels, OlliOlli World still manages to capture the soul of skateboarding — and it’s a hell of a lot of fun.The OlliOlli series dates back nearly a decade, and is probably best-described as a side-scrolling take on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. You control a tiny skater in a 2D world, skating your way through intricately-designed levels in search of a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Valve is starting to let Steam users see the size of a game before they attempt to install it. Library pages of games will finally list the total space required for a game, without having to first click install to see the disk space details and estimated download time. It’s a minor change that’s rolling out as part of a beta update to Steam this week, meaning it should be live for all Steam users in the coming weeks.The change comes after Valve updated its downloads page to make it a lot more informative in September. The overhaul included an improved section for managing storage, as well as showing more details on download progress and installation progress.Valve redesigned its Steam libraries in 2019, making it easier to find games,... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge GameStop plans to launch its own marketplace for non-fungible tokens (or NFTs) and is co-creating an “up to $100 million” fund for game developers who use it. The marketplace will mark GameStop’s expansion from a popular meme stock to a company that dabbles in cryptocurrency and Web3 tech — although it may also provoke the wrath of gamers who are stridently opposed to NFTs.The new GameStop NFT marketplace is supposed to launch later this year. It’s built on Immutable X, a platform based on the popular Ethereum cryptocurrency blockchain. Designed by Immutable, the company behind the NFT trading card game Gods Unchained, Immutable X is intended to mitigate the biggest drawbacks of Ethereum: its massive energy consumption and the high... Continue reading…