The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games has filed its opening brief to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking to overturn the previous ruling that Apple’s control over the iOS App Store does not qualify as a monopoly. The company first gave notice of it appeal in September, but Thursday’s filing is the first time it has laid out its argument at length.“Epic proved at trial that Apple retrains trade...by contractually requiring developers to exclusively use Apple’s App Store to distribute apps and Apple’s IAP for payments for digital content within apps,” the filing reads. “If not overturned, [the district court] decision would upend established principles of antitrust law and...undermine sound antitrust policy.”Epic’s first legal challenge to Apple’s App... Continue reading…

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images Congress is one step closer to actualizing transformative antitrust reform for the tech industry after sending their most viable bill to the Senate floor.The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the American Innovation and Choice Online Act by a 16-6 vote on Thursday after hours of lengthy debate. The bill – sponsored by a bipartisan group of tech hawks like Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) – would ban dominant tech platforms from favoring their own services and products over those of their competitors.The successful committee vote comes after a week of antitrust action from the federal government that’s spooked the tech industry and put lobbyists in a frenzy. While prohibiting self-preferencing, like Amazon placing its... Continue reading…

TikTok has had some... interesting marketing campaigns recently. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nick Tran is no longer TikTok’s global head of marketing, reportedly because the company was unimpressed with his “side-show” marketing campaigns, according to the New York Post. Some of the most notable “stunt-marketing” schemes he came up with included opening TikTok Kitchens, letting people apply to jobs at places like Chipotle or Target via TikToks, and an NFT collaboration with celebrities like Lil’ Nas X and Bella Poarch.The Post reports that the restaurant campaign, where ghost kitchens would cook and deliver recipes that went viral on TikTok, was the one of the last straws for Tran. “We’re not in the restaurant business and we shouldn’t pretend to be,” one executive reportedly said. Looking at some of the campaigns, it is a... Continue reading…

Musk says trials should start this year. | Photo by Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images Elon Musk’s brain-machine interface company Neuralink has a new job posting for a clinical trial director, a position that could help the company move towards its stated goal of testing its brain implant in actual people.Since launching publicly in 2017, Neuralink has demoed its brain implant in pigs and monkeys but has yet to announce a start to the long-promised trials in humans. The company’s implant is a coin-like device with electrodes studded on thin, flexible wires. The wires are its main innovation over older brain-machine interfaces, which use stiffer needles that can damage cells in the brain.The company needs to do trials in humans before it can get Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for general medical use — key... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Every year, the cost of streaming gets more and more expensive — and just last week, prices started going up again. Netflix announced that all of its tiers would get an immediate price hike for new subscribers, boosting its most expensive plan to $20 per month. It’s the third price increase since 2019.At $15.50 per month, Netflix’s standard tier now slightly out-prices HBO Max ($15 per month) and the Disney Bundle (which includes ESPN Plus and Hulu for $14 per month), making it one of the most expensive on-demand streaming options among leading services. If you want 4K, it gets even pricier. That’s not an insignificant amount of money, considering people tend to have around four paid streaming subscriptions, according to recent data... Continue reading…

NYC Mayor Eric Adams will convert his paycheck into cryptocurrency | Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for Brooklyn Academy of Music Following through on a plan he announced before he took office, New York City Mayor Eric Adams said Thursday that his first paycheck, which arrives on Friday, will be converted from US dollars into cryptocurrency. The transaction will take place on Coinbase, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US, and will convert Adams’ pay into Bitcoin and Ethereum.“New York is the center of the world, and we want it to be the center of cryptocurrency and other financial innovations,” Adams said in a statement. “Being on the forefront of such innovation will help us create jobs, improve our economy, and continue to be a magnet for talent from all over the globe.”Adams tweeted on November 4th that he would take his first three paychecks in... Continue reading…

Ubisoft’s NFTs, pictured here, received a critical reception when they were announced. | Image: Ubisoft NFTs have been a contentious topic in the video game industry as of late. Fans did not respond well to Ubisoft’s NFT plans, and the outcry to NFTs in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl was so vehement that the game’s developers decided to cancel them entirely. But it’s not just video game fans that are skeptical of the new technology; many game developers have similarly strong feelings, according to the Game Developers Conference annual survey, which was released Thursday.“When asked how they felt about the possibility of cryptocurrency or NFTs in games, a few called it ‘the future of gaming,’” the survey said. “However, a vast majority of respondents spoke out against both practices — noting their potential for scams, overall... Continue reading…

Google VP Clay Bavor. | Photo By Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images Project Iris could see Google go up against Meta and Apple in the coming headset wars Continue reading…

Meta Messenger for Kids is adding new games to teach online safety | Photo Illustration by Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Facebook parent company Meta has launched new activities on its Messenger Kids platform aimed at teaching internet etiquette to children. According to a blog post by Erik Michael Weitzman, director of product management at Messenger Kids, the new gamified activities will “help kids learn how to use the internet safely and practice making healthy decisions online.”Pledge Planets is based on what Weitzman says are the tenets of the Messenger Kids Pledge: be kind, be respectful, be safe and have fun. The first episode titled “Be Kind” includes two games that will help kids “learn and practice how to act with kindness,” the company says:

An animation of the SEE-1 module attached to Axiom’s space station on the ISS. | Image: Axiom/S.E.E. On Thursday, a UK-based company that claims to be producing Tom Cruise’s upcoming film in space said it plans to attach the first-ever space movie studio and sports arena to the International Space Station as early as 2024.Called Space Entertainment Enterprise, or S.E.E., the company also announced it is working with commercial space station builder Axiom Space, which has its own partnership with NASA to build and attach an experimental space station to the ISS. That station is called Axiom Station, and Axiom hopes to launch its first module, called Axiom Hub 1, to the ISS by 2024. The company will then build out the space station before eventually separating it from the ISS in 2028 and making it a free-flying vehicle.S.E.E. plans to... Continue reading…

Aardman / NETFLIX After years of Chicken Run fans wondering whether the stop-motion classic would ever be back for a sequel, Netflix finally answered last summer with a resounding “yes,” but was tight-lipped about key details like who all might be coming back to reprise their roles and who might not.Though we’re still a ways out from director Sam Fell’s Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget’ premiere, Netflix has just shared a cache of new information about the sequel along with our first look (sort of) at the movie’s central hero. Set some time after the first film, Dawn of the Nugget finds Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) and Rocky (Zachary Levi) settling into new lives on an idyllic island completely devoid of humans where they feel safe enough to finally start a... Continue reading…

iRobot’s Roomba j7 Plus and its auto-empty base. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Let’s get down to the dirty business of things and keep it professional. Here’s a deal on a robot vacuum that detects doo-doo.The iRobot Roomba j7 Plus is one of the newest models from the most recognizable brand in the robot vacuum world. It’s currently on sale for $599 ($250 off) at Best Buy, Amazon, and Wellbots. This one has the kinds of fancy features you may come to expect from a fairly expensive robo-vac, like room mapping with keep-out zones, spot cleaning, and automatic bin-emptying. It also has an ace up its sleeve: the ability to detect pet waste and (ideally) not run over it.Our resident smart home expert and reviewer, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, recently tested the Roomba J7 Plus against the Samsung Jet Bot AI Plus, and the... Continue reading…

Boost’s first 5G phone is cheap but unremarkable Continue reading…

Image: USPS While it’s nice that the government will be sending us four free at-home rapid COVID test kits a month, that’s not going to be enough for many households. However, if you’ve got private insurance through an employer or a group, you do have an alternative: you can get a reimbursement for — or pick up free at approved retailers — up to eight FDA-authorized at-home COVID tests per person per month.Announced back in January, the new rules state that private health insurers are required to cover these tests without needing approval from a doctor or other medical provider. (If you need more kits, you can also get them covered if it is ordered by a medical provider.) This requirement went into effect on January 15th.How do you take... Continue reading…

Cartoon Network Though the newest season of Cartoon Network’s Craig of the Creek only just picked back up earlier this week, the network’s already decided that it wants to see much, much more of Craig, the rest of the Johnson family, and the other Creek Kids.In a move that’s sure to calm fans who can never be certain if and when these shows are coming back, Cartoon Network has just announced that Craig of the Creek has been renewed for a fifth season that will continue to follow the adventures of Craig (Philip Solomon), Kelsey (Noël Wells), and J.P. (H. Michael Croner) as they discover new depths of the creek they call a second home.With a whole new half of the Creek suddenly becoming accessible to Craig and the gang in the show’s last season, Craig... Continue reading…

EMBARGO: June 15, 2021, 10:30am ET | Photo by Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge Mercedes-Benz announced it will integrate Luminar’s lidar sensors into future production vehicles to enable autonomous driving capabilities.The German automaker is also taking an equity stake in the Orlando, Florida-based company, acquiring a total of 1.5 million shares. Based on Luminar’s share price of $13.45 at market close January 19th, Mercedes-Benz is purchasing approximately $20.2 million worth of shares, or less than 1 percent of the company.Lidar, a key ingredient in autonomous driving, is a laser sensor that uses near-infrared light to detect the shapes of objects. This helps autonomous vehicles “see” other objects on the road, like cars, pedestrians, and cyclists, all without the help of GPS or a network connection.M... Continue reading…

Market share for the world’s largest music streaming services. | Image: Midia Research Spotify was the largest music streaming service in the world as of the second quarter of 2021 with a market share of 31 percent, with Apple Music in second place at 15 percent, and Amazon Music and Tencent Music each tied at third with 13 percent apiece. That’s according to a report from Midia Research, a media and entertainment-focused research and analysis agency.Although exact subscriber numbers and market shares may have changed in the months since Q2 2021 (the use of older data is because of how long the market analysis process takes, Midia tells me), the report sheds light on how the world’s biggest music streaming services are stacking up against one another. While Spotify releases official subscriber numbers at the end of each... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a blog post published in the early hours of Thursday morning, cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com acknowledged that the company had lost well over $30 million in Bitcoin and Ethereum after a hack that took place on January 17th.The company has been criticized for vague communication around the hack, which was only officially confirmed yesterday by CEO Kris Marszalek.The new blog post said that the total value of the unauthorized withdrawals was 4,836.26 ETH and 443.93 BTC — equivalent to roughly $15.2 million and $18.6 million respectively, at current exchange rates — as well as $66,200 worth of other currencies. According to the post, 483 Crypto.com users had their accounts compromised.Crypto.com has said that all affected... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Social media conglomerate Meta is exploring plans to let users create, showcase, and sell NFTs on Facebook and Instagram, according to a report from The Financial Times.If the company launches such tools, it would be the biggest show of mainstream support for NFTs to date, and help solidify the controversial assets’ place in the digital world.As per the FT, the plans are “at an early stage and could yet change.” The publication says teams at Facebook and Instagram are “readying” a feature that will let users display NFTs as their profile pictures, as well as working on a prototype to let users mint new NFTs. Others at Meta are reportedly discussing “launching a marketplace for users to buy and sell NFTs.”Exactly how far along these... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is rolling out its Communities feature, a rival to Facebook Groups and Reddit, to Android users worldwide. Since its launch in September, Twitter Communities has been limited to iOS or the web, meaning Android users could only join and participate in communities through a browser and not the native Twitter app.Android users can now easily join, request to join, or participate in Twitter Communities, opening up the feature to a lot more of Twitter’s userbase. Twitter Communities work like a private group, or like a subreddit. Twitter users can choose to tweet directly to a Twitter community, and that tweet won’t show up on their own feed or to their followers.Twitters Communities is still in betaTwitter Communities is still an... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon Amazon Style is a new kind of physical store from the online shopping giant that will focus on clothing, footwear, and other fashion accessories, the company announced today. It’s due to open at The Americana at Brand shopping mall in Los Angeles later this year, where it will be Amazon’s “first-ever physical apparel store.”In line with Amazon’s existing retail locations, the new Amazon Style store is packed to the gills with shopping tech. Amazon says clothes racks will feature QR codes, which customers can scan to see available sizes, colors, customer ratings, and product details. Then, with a tap of a button, selected items will be sent to a fitting room to try on without having to first rummage through racks. Amazon will also send... Continue reading…

Microsoft is getting ready to overhaul the Task Manager in Windows 11. Like the rest of the operating system, the Task Manager is getting a new design that matches Microsoft’s new Fluent Design language. It seems Microsoft hid the new design in the bowels of recent Windows 11 builds, but engineering student Gustave Monce, who previously got Windows 11 running on a phone, uncovered the work-in-progress and shared it on Discord this week.It’s possible to enable the new Task Manager inside the latest preview builds of Windows 11, but Microsoft hasn’t officially announced the redesign. “This is a hidden feature in the new build,” says Monce. “Everything is broken though.” It’s clearly early days for this new design, but it already includes... Continue reading…

Photo credit should read NOAH BERGER/AFP via Getty Images The United States’ biggest tech companies are seriously worried about new antitrust legislation. So much so that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai have been personally “calling and meeting with senators,” urging them to oppose the mooted legislation, according to a report from Punchbowl News that cites “​​multiple Senate aides.”The legislation in question is The American Innovation and Choice Online Act, a bipartisan bill spearheaded by Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). The legislation is currently in its early stages, and is set to be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee today. The bill would need to pass votes from both the House and Senate to become law, but it’s still easy to see why it’s... Continue reading…

Sony has responded to Microsoft’s blockbuster proposal to buy Activision Blizzard with a comment on what that might mean for the future games like Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles. “We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform,” a spokesperson tells The Wall Street Journal.That statement’s wording is less than definitive. It’s not surprising that Sony would expect Microsoft to honor any existing contractual agreements regarding PlayStation games, as it did when PS5 console exclusive Deathloop was released after Microsoft’s acquisition of publisher Bethesda Softworks. Once existing agreements expire, it opens the door for Microsoft to pursue Xbox exclusivity... Continue reading…

Canon has announced a new camera that brings cinema-grade video capabilities to a conventional full-frame mirrorless body. The EOS R5C looks a lot like the EOS R5, which in turn looked a lot like a Canon DSLR, but it’s much bulkier in the back. This is to accommodate an active cooling system so it can shoot for long stretches without overheating.How long? Well, Canon says the cooling system allows the R5C to shoot up to 8K/60fps indefinitely. This was an issue with the R5; it was advertised as being able to shoot 8K for about 20 minutes, and Canon later released a firmware update to improve overheating problems. The R5C also supports 8K HDR recording in HLG and PQ formats as well as 4K/120fps recording in 4:2:2 10-bit color without... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Roku experienced a significant service disruption on Wednesday evening, which resulted in some of the company’s streaming devices and even Roku TVs getting stuck on the loading screen or going through a reboot loop and becoming effectively useless. Roku TV sets from TCL, Hisense, and other manufacturers were affected.Users took to social media and Roku’s subreddit to report problems with their Roku hardware, and Down Detector showed a spike for Roku’s services. The company’s support account acknowledged the ongoing issues at around 8:30PM ET.“Roku is aware of an issue reported by users who are unable to access some Roku services,” the company said. “If you are trying to activate your device, please try again later. Our priority is to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’re a new or existing user of YouTube Premium and Music Premium, which let you watch and listen ad-free, you might be able to save up to $36 a year with Google’s new annual plans, as 9to5Google reports. From now until Sunday, January 23rd, users can receive an extra discount with the promo rate, but the new annual plans cost less than the current monthly rate either way.YouTube Premium’s new annual plan is currently selling for $107.99, roughly $36 less than you’d pay for a year at its current monthly price of $143.88.For YouTube Premium Music subscribers, the annual rate is currently $89.99, but will be priced at $119.88 after Sunday — still nearly a $30 savings over paying monthly.Users are still able to sign-up for a... Continue reading…

You’ve heard that PC graphics cards are nearly impossible to find, or that you’ll have to pay exorbitant sums. But if you were hoping the $200 budget AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT was about to change that, we have some very bad news. Reviewers are positively ripping it a new one, and not just because of its cost, or the fact it only has 4GB of VRAM — but apparently because this brand-new GPU is laughably bad.“[T]his is the worst GPU release since I can remember, and I’ve been doing this job for over two decades,” writes TechSpot’s Steven Walton.“AMD RX 6500 XT is worse than 2016’s GPUs,” declares Gamers Nexus.“WTF AMD!?” and “WTF is AMD thinking?,” ask Hardware Canucks and KitGuruTech respectively. “A GPU you might be able to buy... but... Continue reading…

You can’t just throw it in the wash. | Image of cloth: Apple Here’s the scenario: you managed to get your hands on Apple’s hottest product, its $19 polishing cloth meant for cleaning nano-texture screens and other Apple devices. But oh no! Instead of hanging it up with the rest of your priceless artifacts, you accidentally used it to actually clean something, and now it’s dirty. Thankfully, Apple has bestowed us with a guide on how to make our cloth good as new, and 9to5Mac has brought those instructions to our attention.Are you ready? Here’s how Apple’s “How to clean the nano-texture glass on your Apple display” support article describes the process:

Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images The 2022 Super Bowl won’t be broadcast or streamed in 4K again this year when the game takes place on February 13th, NBC Sports has confirmed to The Verge. The lack of a 4K stream marks the second year in a row that the big game won’t be available with the higher level of picture quality.“The game will not be in 4K,” Dan Masonson, a spokesperson for NBC Sports, told The Verge.NBC, which is hosting the big game this year, has never actually aired an NFL game in 4K or HDR before, despite hosting the nationally televised Sunday Night Football game every week during the regular NFL season. NBC, for what it's worth, isn’t the only network: CBS doesn’t produce any of its games in 4K (the network cited COVID-19 issues for the lack of a 4K... Continue reading…

Playdate Pulp is in public beta. | Image: Playdate Panic, the maker of the quirky Playdate handheld, has released a public beta of its Playdate Pulp in-browser game builder. The company describes it as “a friendly tool for making tiny but visually and narratively rich games for Playdate,” in its developer documentation.In the Pulp editor, you’ll be able to do things like make pixel graphics, build levels, write music, and even create custom fonts. As you’re working on your game, you can test it right in your browser, and when you’re ready, you can export your game as a .pdx file (a clever reference to Panic’s Portland roots) so you can load it onto a Playdate handheld. You don’t have to write any code to make a game in Pulp, but if you do want to try your hand at some coding, you can... Continue reading…

Disney has named Joe Earley, a former EVP of its tentpole streaming service Disney Plus, to the position of president of Hulu.Earley previously served as EVP marketing and operations at Disney Plus and is headed to its sister service after joining the company in January of 2019. In the new role at Hulu, Earley will be tasked with building on the service’s brand and will liaise with its various content studios.The announcement comes as part of a reorganization as Disney continues to rally resources around its streaming business. Earley will report to Michael Paull, who the company has appointed to the role of president of Disney’s overall streaming business. In this newly created position, Paull will oversee the company’s ESPN Plus,... Continue reading…

Google is launching a limited beta of its app to bring Android games to Windows PCs. Google Play Games will be available in beta in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan today, allowing Windows PC owners to play popular Android games like Mobile Legends, Summoners War, State of Survival, and Three Kingdoms Tactics.Players in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan will be able to sign up to access the beta and access Google’s standalone app on Windows PCs. Google is promising “seamless gameplay sessions between a phone, tablet, Chromebook, and Windows PC,” suggesting that you’ll be able to easily resume games between multiple devices.“Players can easily browse, download, and play their favorite mobile games on their PCs while taking advantage... Continue reading…

Photo by Apple A new trailer gives us a glimpse of Apple TV Plus’ WeCrashed, an upcoming miniseries about the real-life buildup and dramatic downfall of WeWork, the coworking space with the weirdly bombastic public filing that laid off thousands of employees while later giving its brash CEO a huge golden parachute. The script practically writes itself.Jared Leto stars as WeWork’s former eccentric CEO, Adam Neumann, while Anne Hathaway takes on the role of his wife, Rebekah Neumann, who served as the company’s chief brand and impact officer and was former CEO of WeGrow. The trailer opens with Leto reimagining a run-down building as a vibrant office space — and then making that vision a reality. Leto and Hathaway are then seen leading a “WeWork” chant... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge C-band’s rollout has endured months of controversy Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, Kris Marszalek, has finally confirmed that hundreds of user accounts were indeed compromised by hackers and had funds stolen as a result, though details of the exact method of breach remain unclear.Marszalek acknowledged the hack in an online interview with Bloomberg Wednesday, stating that around 400 customer accounts had been compromised. He also told Bloomberg that he had not received any outreach from regulators since the attack was first disclosed but would share information if official inquiries were made.Previous statements from Marszalek and other communications from Crypto.com have been criticized for being vague and unclear. Official messaging from the company referred to a... Continue reading…

Update v37 adds many new features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Meta is adding a new feature to its Quest virtual reality headsets that lets you pinch your fingers to access the Quick Action menu, according to a blog post published Wednesday. The Quick Action menu functions similarly to the Control Center on iOS, so this new feature should give you an easier way to access some top-level settings.To do the gesture while using hand tracking on the Quest, “hold your hand palm-up, then make a pinching motion, and you’ll be able to call up a shortcut menu that will make it easier to take screenshots, activate voice commands, and more,” Meta said. The company also made a handy GIF to show the gesture: This new gesture is arriving with v37 of the Quest software, which is rolling out... Continue reading…

Halo Infinite multiplayer | Image: 343 Industries Microsoft’s latest Halo game has finally arrived, and as we’ve seen, the Infinite campaign mode delivers. But for players already missing features like campaign co-op and Forge customizations, ongoing issues with the Halo Infinite Big Team Battle matchmaking have been another source of disappointment. A little over a week ago, the developers at 343 said a hotfix was on the way, and now it has arrived. But there’s bad news — it doesn’t seem to work.The size of the update varies by platform, but players report it comes in at about a gigabyte on Xboxes and 110MB for PC players via Steam. If you’ve been online the whole time, you may need to restart your game to download it.Here’s 343 on what’s happening:

Over half of internet-connected devices used in hospitals have a vulnerability that could put patient safety, confidential data, or the usability of a device at risk, according to a new report from the healthcare cybersecurity company Cynerio.The report analyzed data from over 10 million devices at over 300 hospitals and health care facilities globally, which the company collected through connectors attached to the devices as part of its security platform.The most common type of internet-connected device in hospitals was an infusion pump. These devices can remotely connect to electronic medical records, pull the correct dosage of a medication or other fluid, and dispense it to the patient. Infusion pumps were also the devices most... Continue reading…

Microsoft Corp. With the impending purchase of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion dollars, Microsoft is now the third-largest video game publisher in the world by revenue. It owns several of the biggest gaming franchises of all time, including Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls, and now Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Since the early 2000s, Microsoft has slowly but steadily expanded its holdings, adding to its stable of first-party developers. An explosion of acquisitions in the late teens combined with the purchase of Bethesda last year made Microsoft a many-armed behemoth in the gaming industry, surpassed only by Sony and Tencent. Here’s a breakdown of the studios and games Microsoft could own if the deal goes through.

AMD claimed back in 2020 that 4GB of VRAM was “insufficient” for modern PC games and could result in error messages, warning limits, lower framerates, and even gameplay stutter or pop-in issues. Today, AMD is launching the $199 RX 6500 XT with... 4GB of VRAM, and the blog post featuring AMD’s original claims has mysteriously disappeared.KitGuru reports that AMD has hidden the blog post today, as it was previously accessible yesterday, and a Google cached view version from January 16th has the post in full. “AMD is leading the industry at providing gamers with high VRAM graphics solutions across the entire product offering,” said Adit Bhutani, a Radeon marketing specialist for AMD, in the blog post from 2020. “Competitive products at a... Continue reading…

Image: FuboTV Live streaming app FuboTV is bringing its FanView widgets to Apple TV users, allowing them to view stats alongside single or multi-view match streams.Multi-viewing, which allows sports fans to stream up to four live TV channels at once, was previously supported on Apple TV. But beginning today, users will be able to use the streaming service’s Multiview and FanView features on Apple TV all at once. FanView allows users to see stats and scores from games alongside their matches on the same screen.With the feature support, Apple TV users will now be able to stream two games and two FanView widgets simultaneously, the company announced today. Mike Berkley, chief product officer at FuboTV, said in a statement that the addition will allow... Continue reading…

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano(pictured here on January 6th) erupted on January 14th. | Photo by Maxar via Getty Images The effects of a colossal volcanic eruption in the Pacific archipelago of Tonga are still being calculated, but one consequence is clear: Tonga has been cut off from the internet, after the lone undersea cable that connects the country to the rest of the web was damaged during the eruption.Like many island nations, Tonga relies on just a single undersea cable, about the thickness of a garden hose and filled with fragile fiber-optic filaments, to get citizens online. But on Tuesday, the government of Tonga said “communications both international and domestic were severed due to damage sustained by the submarine cable.”No internet has made it hard to get to detailed reports on the volcano’s damageThe government added that “limited... Continue reading…

Philips Hue’s white smart bulbs have dropped to an all-time low. | Image: Signify If you’re looking to light up your home with smart home tech for less, Philips Hue is selling an E26 starter kit containing four white ambiance smart bulbs and a Hue Bridge for just $59.99 instead of $119.99, which is an all-time low. These steep discounts come well after Philips Hue launched new 1,100 lumen smart bulbs, which means it’s likely offering this steep discount on the 800-lumen bulbs looped into this deal until they’re sold out for good.These popular smart bulbs can be customized with adjustable smart timers, and they allow you to set different hues of white light, with a warmer color temperature to help you relax, or a brighter, cleaner color temp to help you focus. You can also pair the bulbs with your existing setup via... Continue reading…

Screenshot: Arcanium: Rise of Akhan Netflix’s foray into the mobile gaming subscription market is showing no signs of slowing down. This week it added a pair of new titles to its service, a card-battling roguelike called Arcanium: Rise of Akhan, and a hidden object game called Krispee Street. Both are available to download on iOS or Android free of charge if you’re already subscribed to the streaming service.Arcanium follows an increasingly familiar template for Netflix’s mobile game releases, in that it’s a pre-existing title added to the subscription service. The game originally launched in early access on Steam back in 2020, where it currently boasts “Mostly Positive” user reviews. Its Steam listing describes it as an “open-world, single-player strategy card adventure”... Continue reading…

The image from Samsung’s website, showing the unannounced tablet. | Image: Samsung A Samsung support page for, of all things, Bixby, may have just given us our first official look at the company’s upcoming flagship tablet. The picture, which was spotted by 91Mobiles, shows a familiar looking Samsung smartphone alongside a very unfamiliar looking tablet, complete with a display notch that Samsung savagely mocked when first introduced on the iPhone X. Reports suggest this new tablet will be called the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, and it may be announced as early as next month.The design shown in the image on Samsung’s site corresponds with unofficial renders of the tablet released last October, leaked images from December, and leaked details from WinFuture from this month. If these unofficial details are to be... Continue reading…

Nintendo has announced the next game coming to its Switch Online service: Nintendo 64 platforming classic Banjo-Kazooie. The game is inextricably associated with the N64 — it’s a collect-a-thon with blurry cartoon graphics and cute animal characters — but this will actually mark the first time you’ll have been able to play it on Nintendo hardware since Microsoft bought original developer Rare in 2002.Rare did release a couple of spin-off titles for the Game Boy Advance, but the last major Banjo-Kazooie game was 2008’s Nuts & Bolts for the Xbox 360. That game, as well as 360 ports of the original Banjo-Kazooie and sequel Banjo-Tooie, are also available on modern Xbox consoles through Game Pass and a compilation called Rare Replay.B... Continue reading…

Photo by BENOIT DOPPAGNE/BELGA/AFP via Getty Images It looks like the FAA may have made a whoopsie. Remember when the US aviation authority suggested that FedEx might possibly potentially maybe be able to stick a laser onto its cargo planes to knock missiles out of the sky? Yeah, no: “further internal study is necessary,” the FAA wrote on Thursday (via Reuters), adding that the proposal “is not moving forward at this time.”Before you say that of course the FAA wasn’t going to let a private company mount a frickin’ laser beam (sorry, old reference) to their airplanes, you should know that we’re not exactly talking about the kind of high-energy solid state lasers that can literally blast things till they catch fire and/or explode — though the US military has certainly tested those sorts... Continue reading…

Some Nest customers are unhappy with Google’s changes. | Photo: Dan Seifert / The Verge Google offers many ambient sounds from the Google Assistant, including one for white noise that might help block out noise to make it easier to sleep or study. The company seemingly changed its white noise sound last week, and many expressed frustration with the update, as reported by 9to5Google. But Google tells us it has fixed what it describes as an issue, and the sound should work like it used to.“There was an issue impacting our white noise experience. It’s fixed now and working as it previously did,” Google spokesperson Robert Ferrara said in a statement to The Verge.The change had been disruptive for a lot of people, as documented in this Google Nest community thread which had more than 150 replies when we first published this... Continue reading…