The Verge

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…

The new USPS mail truck, announced last year, can be ordered with either gasoline or electric drivetrains. | Image: USPS The United States Postal Service has been urged to reevaluate its plans to spend billions on a new fleet of gas-powered delivery trucks, the Washington Post reports. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and White House Council on Environmental Quality sent letters to the USPS this week, asking it to reconsider plans that could see just 10 percent of its up to 165,000 new vehicles powered by electricity rather than gasoline.“The Postal Service’s proposal as currently crafted represents a crucial lost opportunity to more rapidly reduce the carbon footprint of one of the largest government fleets in the world,” wrote the EPA’s associate administrator for policy, Vicki Arroyo. The USPS announced its plan last February to purchase the... Continue reading…

A Ghost Robotics quadruped posing alongside ATVs in the southwest US. | Image: Ghost Robotics The latest addition to the United States’ border force could be robot dogs. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released new details this week of trials of quadrupedal robots on the southern border. The machines are being tested in a variety of surveillance-focused roles, and although the DHS has shared no timeline for full-term deployment, it says trials were “successful” and that work with the machines will continue.“The southern border can be an inhospitable place for man and beast, and that is exactly why a machine may excel there,” said Brenda Long, a program manager for the DHS’ research and development arm, the Science & Technology directorate (S&T), in a blog post. “This S&T-led initiative focuses on Automated Ground... Continue reading…

Image: Google Did you know that Google Maps has a nifty little trick that lets you adjust zoom with just one finger? Because I sure as hell didn’t until yesterday, when a tweet from Sketchfab CEO Alban Denoyel alerted me to its existence via a years-old YouTube video from 2013. The shortcut is simple: just double-tap the maps interface, but instead of lifting your finger after the second tap (the shortcut for zooming in), you leave it touching the screen. Then a swipe up zooms out, and a swipe down zooms in. Neat right?With this knowledge you can say goodbye to awkwardly holding the phone and trying to use two fingers to reposition the map to check your directions when your other hand is busy holding a dog leash, coffee cup, shopping bag, or... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge The Nintendo Switch had a relatively strong holiday quarter, with 10.67 million units shipped between October and December despite the global semiconductor shortage. That brings the system’s lifetime total to 103.54 million units shipped, meaning it took just under five years to overtake the Wii’s 101.63 million.Shipments were still down nearly eight percent year on year, but Nintendo was clearly less affected by the supply chain issues than some others. Sony, for example, announced yesterday that it only shipped 3.9 million PlayStation 5 consoles in the same period. Nintendo also launched the new OLED model of the Switch last quarter and says it “got off to a good start.”Nintendo did, however, further revise its forecast for Switch... Continue reading…

Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch Two members of Google’s Ethical AI group have announced their departures from the company, according to a report from Bloomberg. Senior researcher Alex Hanna, and software engineer Dylan Baker, will join Timnit Gebru’s nonprofit research institute, Distributed AI Research (DAIR).

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The FBI has confirmed to The Washington Post that the agency had a license to use NSO’s Pegasus spyware and that it tested out the software’s capabilities. The bureau insists that the software, which is capable of silently infecting phones and accessing camera and microphone feeds, contacts, texts, and more, was never used “in support of any investigation,” but the Post’s report says that there were at least discussions within the FBI and Department of Justice about how the FBI might go about deploying the spyware.The confirmation comes after The New York Times released a sweeping report last week, which included details about the FBI’s relationship with NSO. Not only did the FBI try out the spyware on phones using foreign SIM cards,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify released its quarterly earnings today during a particularly fraught time for the company. Its star podcaster, Joe Rogan, spurred multiple musicians to pull their discographies from the platform over his show’s spreading of misinformation; Spotify-employed podcasters themselves spoke out, and even the White House responded.CEO Daniel Ek fielded questions about the backlash to having Rogan on the platform and stood by the company’s decision to host, distribute, and monetize the show. He instead tried to reframe the discussion as one of free speech and making Spotify a platform that can help all audio creators make a living, regardless of their opinions.“We’re trying to balance creative expression with the safety of our users,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Since its inception, Facebook’s user growth has essentially been up and to the right. But on Wednesday, it 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 massive stock drop, which instantly wiped out roughly $200 billion in market value, shows that Facebook’s corporate rebrand to Meta isn’t enough to distract investors from the problems in its core business of social media. Not only was user growth across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp essentially flat last quarter, but the main Facebook app lost 1 million daily users in North America, where it makes the most money through advertising. That drop led to an overall decrease... Continue reading…

A still captured from PS5 footage provided by Sony. | Sony Sony’s latest State of Play presentation offered a closer look at the cars, tracks, and game modes that Gran Turismo 7 will deliver when it launches on PS5 and PS4 on March 4th, 2022. Beyond offering a deep car simulator experience with a hefty amount of customization options for each car, there are some new and returning features that should give returning fans (or first-time players) plenty to do.Starting with some key highlights from the show, the game will offer over 400 cars on launch day, along with 34 racing locales and 90 track layouts. It’ll have two-player split-screen multiplayer (along with online play), and like most PS5 games, Gran Turismo 7 includes a frame rate mode for 60 frames per second performance or a ray tracing... Continue reading…

UC and UW aren’t just academic institutions, they’re also kinds of 5G. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’ve noticed cryptic new icons popping up on your phone next to the 5G logo, you’re not alone. Carriers are expanding their 5G networks in a big way this year, and those little “UW” and “UC” logos you’re suddenly seeing represent the different varieties of 5G you’re encountering in the wild. Like Pokémon, but way more confusing.Isn’t 5G just… 5G?Nope. There are low, mid, and high-band varieties of 5G spectrum. They all provide different levels of data speeds, and all major US carriers use all three. Naturally, they also have different names for them. Depending on your carrier, you may see abbreviations pop up next to the 5G symbol on your phone when you’re connected to the corresponding network. Here’s a quick guide to the... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel issued a proposal that could make it much harder for robocallers to leave “ringless” voicemails in your inbox without getting your permission first. Ringless voicemails are those annoying messages that appear in your voicemail inbox without your phone actually ringing first.Ringless voicemails are messages that appear on your phone without it ringingRosenworcel says the technology behind ringless voicemails should be subject to the same rules laid out by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which is supposed to block robocallers from dialing your number without your consent. The TCPA sets a number of other rules as well, requiring telemarketing agencies to... Continue reading…

Rocksteady’s take on the Suicide Squad won’t be coming out for another year. | Image: WarnerMedia The release of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is being delayed until next year, according to a report from Bloomberg. The game, which is being made by Rocksteady (the studio behind Batman: Arkham Asylum, City, and Knight), was scheduled to come out sometime in 2022. The game’s Twitter account still lists the release date as 2022 in its bio, but as Bloomberg points out, a tweet from WarnerMedia’s CEO about the company’s 2022 game lineup didn’t include Kill the Justice League.It’s a slightly odd delay, given that the first gameplay trailer was just released in December and made the game look like it was getting close to being done. As we’ve seen, though, making a game during a pandemic is difficult, and most high-profile games on... Continue reading…

02 February 2022, Lower Saxony, Stadland: The Unterweser nuclear power plant (KKU), which has already been decommissioned and has been in the process of being dismantled since 2018, stands behind photovoltaic panels of a solar park. | Photo by Hauke-Christian Dittrich/picture alliance via Getty Images The European Commission inflamed tensions over what role nuclear energy and gas should play in the clean energy transition when it proposed new rules today on what can be labeled a “green investment.” After more than a year of heated debate, it decided to consider gas and nuclear “sustainable” under certain conditions.“Taking account of scientific advice and current technological progress, the Commission considers that there is a role for private investment in gas and nuclear activities in the transition,” the Commission said in its announcement.The EU has committed to producing no net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 — a target research has shown is necessary worldwide to prevent the worst effects of climate change. By 2030, the EU... Continue reading…

Photo by Jason Koerner/Getty Images CNN president Jeff Zucker, a leading proponent of forthcoming streaming service CNN Plus, has resigned from the company following the discovery of a consensual relationship with another high-ranking executive.The relationship, which was not disclosed internally when it began, was discovered as part of an investigation into conduct by former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. Cuomo was fired from the network in December following a probe into his own involvement in the handling of sexual harassment allegations against his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.Zucker reportedly had a consensual relationship with EVP and chief marketing officer Allison Gollust, who will remain in her position at the company, the New York Times reported.... Continue reading…

You can get older phones covered too. Zagg, a company known for its cases and screen protectors, is now offering its own phone protection plan to compete with the likes of AppleCare, SquareTrade, and Asurion. The company is pitching its Zagg Protect service as a lower-cost and more flexible alternative to other plans — it’s $100 a year, the deductible for incidents is only $49, and you don’t have to decide if you want it while you’re buying a new phone. Zagg says any phone running iOS 11 or newer or that runs Android and has access to Chrome browser version 68 or newer is eligible, as long as it’s in working condition when you sign up.The plan seems focused on repairing, instead of replacing your device — according to Zagg’s website, the plan will pay up to $500 per... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Mozilla is combining its Multi-Account Containers add-on with its VPN service, which lets you keep your online personas — such as your work and personal browsing histories — separate.Multi-Account Containers has been available as a Firefox add-on since 2017. It works to “contain” your different online lives into separate tabs that you can label with colors, icons, or names. The containers just don’t hold your browsing histories — they also store cookies and tracking information, which means you can sign into different accounts on the same site just by clicking over to another container.But using the add-on with Mozilla VPN comes with a distinct advantage (well, at least in my option): the ability to hide your location across... Continue reading…

Nearly two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, Apple has made Face ID useful again in iOS 15.4 by finally adding the ability to use the face unlock feature while wearing a face mask.I’ve been testing out the new iOS 15.4 beta for a few days, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how well Face ID works with a mask — in addition to simply enjoying being able to use my iPhone the way it was originally intended to work, instead of mashing in a six-digit passcode a dozen times whenever I leave the house.The Face ID vs. Touch ID / fingerprint sensor debate had been a conversation long before COVID-19 and the new norm of almost constantly wearing a face mask when out in public settings or traveling on buses, trains, or planes. But while masks... Continue reading…

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images Continuing work started when he was vice president, President Joe Biden announced today the White House is relaunching a cancer “moonshot” — aiming to “end cancer as we know it today.”The ambitious effort has two main goals: to reduce the cancer death rate by 50 percent over the next 25 years and to improve the lives of people with cancer and their families. Biden’s son, Beau, died in 2015 at age 46 from brain cancer.The White House announcement points to a few strategies to meet those goals, like diagnosing cancer sooner. President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will encourage people to get regular cancer screenings, the White House will push for more access to home screenings, and federal agencies will work to develop tests that... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Tesla vehicles are inexplicably slamming on their brakes for no reason, frightening owners and eliciting over 100 complaints to the federal government in the last three months alone, according to The Washington Post.It’s been a persistent issue for the automaker. Last October, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that the company was forced to “roll back” version 10.3 of its Full Self-Driving beta software because of issues with forward collision warnings and phantom braking.But since then, the number of complaints about Tesla’s braking has spiked. According to The Washington Post’s analysis, reports from Tesla owners about phantom braking to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) rose to 107 complaints in the past... Continue reading…

Image: Vizio Hump Day is better when it’s paired with excellent deals, and excellent deals are all the better when one of them is a great TV for a new low price.There’s a great deal on Vizio’s P-Series of 2021 TVs that fits nicely with anyone seeking a match for the latest consoles. The P-Series Quantum supports many of the sought-after specs that a PS5 or Xbox Series X owner should look for, including HDMI 2.1, HDR, and a variable refresh rate with 120Hz at 1080p and 60Hz at 4K. When it comes to streaming TV shows and movies, there’s built-in Chromecast and Apple AirPlay 2 compatibility. These TVs come in 65 inches, 75 inches, and a massive 85 inches. Right now, you can get the 65-inch P65Q9-J model for just $899 on Amazon, knocking $300 off. The 7... Continue reading…

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images The NFT gold rush made OpenSea into a $13 billion company — but can it stay on top? Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge DeepMind has created an AI system named AlphaCode that it says “writes computer programs at a competitive level.” The Alphabet subsidiary tested its system against coding challenges used in human competitions and found that its program achieved an “estimated rank” placing it within the top 54 percent of human coders. The result is a significant step forward for autonomous coding, says DeepMind, though AlphaCode’s skills are not necessarily representative of the sort of programming tasks faced by the average coder.Oriol Vinyals, principal research scientist at DeepMind, told The Verge over email that the research was still in the early stages but that the results brought the company closer to creating a flexible problem-solving AI — a... Continue reading…

The most colorful shooter in recent memory, Splatoon 2, is one of the many Nintendo Switch titles currently on sale. | Image: Nintendo The overwhelming popularity of the Nintendo Switch means there’s no shortage of games in its library. If there’s a game that's capable of working with the Switch hardware, odds are it's already available or will be soon. Thankfully, having a massive library of games also means there are regular price breaks on a variety of titles, from first-gen offerings like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, to remasters like Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2.If you’re looking for deals on Nintendo Switch games, we’ve rounded some of our favorites below. The Nintendo eShop is typically the best place to find deals on digital downloads, especially if you prefer the indie variety, but there are some exceptions where retailers will... Continue reading…

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd. The Book of Boba Fett — much like all of Disney’s current and future Star Wars shows — has a Luke Skywalker problem. And it’s one that no amount of expensive CGI technology can solve.Spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett, episode six aheadThe issue goes something like this: Luke is, obviously, a hugely important character to Star Wars as a franchise. Star Wars’ current plan for its future is heavily focused on Disney Plus TV shows set in the post-Return of the Jedi era, like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, set five years after Return of the Jedi, where Luke is roughly 28 years old.Mark Hamill — who is still portraying Skywalker — is 70, meaning that a vast array of de-aging technology and body doubles are needed to allow the... Continue reading…

Master of the multitask Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Money laundering through the buying and selling of NFTs is a small but growing sector of criminal activity, according to a Chainalysis report released Wednesday.The report found a small but growing portion of activity on NFT marketplaces that could be attributed to money laundering, which quantified this amount by tracking value sent to NFT marketplaces from cryptocurrency addresses known to be associated with scams, theft, malware operators, and accounts under legal sanctions. In total the amount tracked was small — around $1.4 million in Q4 2021 — but had grown significantly from the beginning of the year.“All of this activity represents a drop in the bucket compared to the $8.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency-based money... Continue reading…

The refreshed GoTo Meeting app. Yes, there’s officially a space between ‘GoTo’ and ‘Meeting’ now. | Image: GoTo LogMeIn, the company that owns remote collaboration software like GoTo Meeting and password management company LastPass is changing its name to GoTo. The rebranding comes after the company reported over $1 billion in revenue and that “GoTo” product usage is growing — including a 36 percent year-over-year sales increase of its GoTo Connect VoIP, video conferencing, and collaboration platform.With remote working spiking during the pandemic, the GoTo suite of Software as a Service (SaaS) products is a popular choice. In a statement emailed to The Verge, the company claims GoTo Meeting has 300 million participants, along with 50 million for GoTo Webinar and 5 million for GoTo Training. Image: GoTo New company, new... Continue reading…

Google explains how it keeps user-created reviews on Google Maps free of fraud and abuse in a new blog post and accompanying video. Like many platforms dealing with moderation at scale, Google says it uses a mix of automated machine learning systems as well as human operators.The details come amidst growing scrutiny of user reviews on sites like Google Maps and Yelp, where businesses have been hit with bad reviews for implementing COVID-related health and safety measures (including mask and vaccine requirements) often beyond their control. Other reviews have criticized businesses for supposedly leading them to contract COVID-19 or for not keeping to usual business hours during a global pandemic.Earlier today, Yelp reported that it... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony’s surprise acquisition of Bungie earlier this week for $3.6 billion was about a lot more than just Destiny. In an investor call today, Sony has revealed it plans to launch more than 10 new live service games by March 2026. That’s a hugely ambitious plan, and marks a major expansion for Sony’s PlayStation games beyond its traditional console exclusives.“The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise, as well as major new IP Bungie is currently developing, but also incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies Bungie has developed in the live game services space,” says Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki. “Through close collaboration between Bungie and... Continue reading…

The new Starlink Premium dish. | Image: SpaceX SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink is getting a pricey new high-performance tier called Starlink Premium. Announced by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the new service includes a larger high performance antenna and advertises speeds of between 150 and 500Mbps (20 to 40ms latency), up from the 50 to 250Mbps (20 to 40ms latency) promised by its regular service. Premium also claims roughly double the upload speeds at 20 to 40Mbps, compared to 10 to 20Mbps for the standard tier.This increase in performance doesn’t come cheap. While the base Starlink service costs $499 for the hardware and $99 a month, Starlink Premium will cost $2,500 for the antenna, and $500 a month. Deliveries are due to start in the second quarter of this year.... Continue reading…

Polestar, the electric automaker jointly owned by Volvo and Geely, likes one-offs. There was the more powerful version of its electric fastback Polestar 2 sedan made for the Goodwood Festival of Speed. And now there’s the Arctic Circle, a high-riding, studded winter-tire-sporting, icy blast of winter racing prowess from the company’s Swedish engineers (who know how to design a vehicle for snow riding).The one-off was designed by Polestar chief chassis engineer – and trophy winning rally driver – Joakim Rydholm, who said he took on the challenge in order to improve the accuracy of the Polestar 2’s handling. “With such low levels of grip, we can feel and analyze the dynamics at a much slower pace than on tarmac, which means we can really... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony shipped just 3.9 million PlayStation 5 consoles in its all-important holiday quarter, a slight bump over the previous quarter’s figure of 3.3 million, demonstrating how the electronics giant is still struggling to meet demand during the ongoing global supply chain crunch. 17.3 million units in total have been shipped as of December 31st, nearly three million fewer than the PlayStation 4 had managed at the equivalent point after its release. The PS4, however, was easily found on store shelves during its first year on sale, whereas we don’t yet have a good measure of true demand for the PS5.The gaming division’s revenue was down 8 percent year on year to 813.3 billion yen (~$7.09 billion), but operating profit rose 12.1 percent to... Continue reading…

After seven years in development, Albert Marin and his small team have completed their exhaustive reworking of Resident Evil 4’s graphics on PC. Compared to some other projects where developers upscale or otherwise modernize the visuals for a new generation or platform of hardware, this team pored over every image asset, using funds donated by fans of the project to improve upon Capcom’s PC port of the game.In some cases where old textures just didn’t look all that good at a higher resolution, the team remade many of them from scratch using photos or AI, while striving to remain faithful to the aesthetic of the original game. When I interviewed Albert Marin in early 2021, the team had amassed over 4,500 Photoshop files and had put in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro (modified Corin Faife) / The Verge Okay, so here’s the deal.We’re a month into 2022 and the NFT market is still scorching hot. Already this year we’ve had Coachella NFTs, Lamborghini NFTs, NFT profile pics on Twitter, NFT teasers from YouTube and Meta, and the usual raft of ill-advised NFT projects that were announced and then quickly canceled. The NFT projects keep on rolling.It’s pronounced “neft”As a security reporter, I tweeted that I get DM’d about NFT scams more quickly than I can write about them, a state of affairs that (sadly) looks like it’ll keep rolling too. Apparently this year I’m going to be writing “NFT” a lot, you’re going to be reading “NFT” a lot, and before we all get completely sick of it let’s get something straight:It’s pronounced “neft.”L... Continue reading…

The new fullscreen UI makes it easier to like a video or add it a playlist. YouTube is rolling out a new interface for its mobile app’s full-screen player, which should make it easier to like or dislike a video (privately, of course), view comments, and share what you’re watching. The old version hid most of those features behind a swipe-up gesture on the “more videos” section, where the new version puts them front and center, relegating related videos to a button in the corner.The change only shows up when you’re watching in full screen — the app looks largely the same when you’re watching a video in portrait mode. Doing so, however, used to come with the upside of having easy access to the share button and other controls. Now, you’re getting that when watching in landscape view as well. W... Continue reading…

Image by Microsoft Microsoft Lists is now available as a free preview to users with personal Microsoft accounts — but only for the first 200,000 people who sign up to try it. Lists, which is a sort of task management meets to-do list app, has only been available to business and enterprise users up until now. Image by Microsoft Gallery view in Microsoft Lists. Microsoft says the preview is built off “the core of Microsoft Lists,” and comes with some new features, including tabbed views and the ability to add images in-line. The preview isn’t a feature-complete version of Lists, unfortunately, as Microsoft mentions that it’s missing some functionalities of the standard app (although it’s not clear exactly what). It’s also not... Continue reading…

MetaWorms | Image: Team17 Yesterday, Team17, the developer and publisher of many beloved indie games, announced a “MetaWorms” project tied to its series of Worms games that stretches over 23 years and has sold over 75 million copies. Team17 said the generative NFTs would be “giving fans the chance to own a unique piece of video game memorabilia.” 24 hours later, Team17 now says it “is today announcing an end to the MetaWorms NFT project. We have listened to our Teamsters, development partners, and our games’ communities, and the concerns they’ve expressed, and have therefore taken the decision to step back from the NFT space.”How did things change so much, so quickly? As we’ve seen in the response to the announcement of NFTs for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, Ubisoft’s G... Continue reading…

Netflix has announced that it’s adding two new titles to its small but steadily growing lineup of mobile games — including Riot’s newest League of Legends spinoff. Starting today, users can play Dungeon Dwarves and Hextech Mayhem on Android and iOS devices for free with a Netflix subscription.Dungeon Dwarves, developed by Hyper Hippo, is an idle dungeon crawler that continues to play if the app isn’t active. You control a party of five dwarves who beat down walls and monsters to reclaim their underground home bit by bit. They continue their dungeon dive even if you aren’t actively playing the game, rewarding you with the loot and weapons they found whenever you return.The more notable of the two releases is Hextech Mayhem, a rhythm... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google parent company Alphabet hit a new record for annual revenue in 2021, showing no ill effects from the lingering coronavirus pandemic or ongoing issues with the global supply chain. For full-year 2021, the company saw a 41 percent year-over-year jump in revenue to $257 billion. The company reported revenue of $75.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, up 32 percent from the year earlier.“Q4 saw ongoing strong growth in our advertising business, which helped millions of businesses thrive and find new customers, a quarterly sales record for our Pixel phones despite supply constraints, and our Cloud business continuing to grow strongly,” Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement accompanying the earnings release.... Continue reading…

Joby even has an accessory that lets you get two-axis movement. | Image: Joby Joby, the company behind the bendy GorillaPod tripods, has come out with two new gadgets aimed at content creators who shoot with their phones but still want to get some professional-looking shots. The $90 Spin and $130 Swing (hardware to mount your phone to them is sold separately, but some creators may already have what they need) are designed to act as small, relatively inexpensive devices that you can use to mimic the movements that a motion-control head or slider can produce without the need for a trained operator or heavy mounting equipment. Oh, and they charge with USB-C, which is always a plus.For those unfamiliar with the video production process, adding motion to your shots can be a bit of a bear to deal with — you have to... Continue reading…

Netflix has finally added the option for users to manually delete shows and movies from their “Continue Watching” row. That means you can finally get rid of the half-finished documentaries that you gave up on or binge-watched TV shows that you never quite got around to finishing that haunt the row of Netflix’s user interface.The new feature is already out on Netflix’s web, mobile, and TV apps. To remove a show or movie, all you have to do is select the offending card in the row and scroll down to the new “Remove from Continue Watching” option to clear it. Clicking a second time will quickly undo the removal, in the event you accidentally remove that octopus documentary that you’ve been really, truly meaning to get around to watching... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Ford will spend as much as $20 billion to reorganize its business for the electric future, according to Bloomberg. The automaker is also mulling whether to spin off some of its EV business as a special acquisition company (SPAC) in order to attract more investment. Ford has previously stated that it would spend $30 billion on electric and autonomous vehicle development by 2025.Ford is reportedly putting former Apple and Tesla executive Doug Field in charge of the reorganization, which will include converting its factories from gas-powered to electric vehicle production and hiring more engineers. (General Motors, which is reporting its fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday evening, recently announced an initiative to hire 8,000 people to help... Continue reading…

Android Auto’s new UI, codenamed “Coolwalk,” seen in leaked image. | Image by u/RegionRat91 via Reddit More images of Android Auto’s next major redesign have been leaked, and it looks like Google has been taking some notes from Apple CarPlay (via XDA Developers). As seen in images from AndroidWorld and Reddit user u/RegionRat91, the redesign, codenamed “Coolwalk,” could come with several practical changes. Image by AndroidWorld The new UI may show the map side-by-side with other panels. For one, the redesign eliminates the status bar, which contains your phone’s battery life, cell reception, and time and instead places it in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Meanwhile, on the left side is a home screen button that appears to open up retractable widgets when long-pressed. Similar to CarPlay, the new UI may... Continue reading…

Wordle is the pandemic game we didn’t know we needed, so there’s understandably some fear that its brand-new owner, The New York Times, might eventually ruin it somehow.But as technologist Aaron Rieke brilliantly explains in a Twitter thread, there’s little chance of that — because Wordle is a webpage, and webpages can be saved. You could download a complete copy of the game right now that contains all the answers, cycles to the proper new puzzle each day, and still comes with the same “Share” button so you can share those all-important little squares with fellow players.

Google’s VPN is available for Premium subscribers. | Image: Google The VPN service that’s included with a Google One Premium subscription is finally available on iPhones after Google’s promise in October 2020 that it would come to iOS. While a Google-run VPN has been available on the platform for months via the Google Fi cell service, today’s update means that anyone who pays for 2TB or more of Google One storage should now also get a VPN for their phone.The VPN is available to people in 18 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, and Mexico. iPhone users may be familiar with the idea of an upgraded storage plan that also comes with a way to keep your IP and internet traffic private — Apple includes its Private Relay service in all of its paid iCloud plans.Google’s VPN doesn’t let Americans watch... Continue reading…