The Verge

Image: Google Google has shown off a “design study” in ambient computing, with a series of objects that can subtly deliver notifications through taps, gentle breezes, and shifting shadows (shout out to Verge alumn Dieter Bohn for tweeting this to our attention). The company calls the experiment Little Signals and says it’s exploring “calm computing,” or ways of keeping you in the loop without having your phone blare a notification chime and light up a screen.Google has six objects in the Little Signals collection: the Air, Button, Movement, Rhythm, Shadow, and Tap. It shows off concepts of what the devices could look like in its video (which you can watch above) and explains what they all do on its website, though the descriptions can veer a bit too... Continue reading…

Perhaps the Gundam metaverse will look something like this. | Image: Bandai Namco Bandai Namco is making some big investments into the vaguely-defined idea of the metaverse, and it’s starting first with what it’s calling the “Gundam Metaverse Project.”Here is the summary of Bandai Namco’s broad metaverse vision, from a March press release. (I will warn you that there is a lot of jargon ahead.)

It’s all too easy to allow distractions such as social media or videos to seduce us from the things we’re supposed to be doing — such as, say, writing articles about Windows 11. Features such as Focus assist are now being included with operating systems to try to help us keep our eyes on the road, so to speak.Microsoft’s Focus assist was first introduced in a 2018 update of Windows 10, where it replaced a feature known as Quiet Hours, and while Windows 11 doesn’t offer any radical updates, it has made the feature easier to use. Focus assist stops notifications from popping up on your screen and can be activated automatically when you put on your display on presentation mode, are playing a game, or are using an app in full-screen mode.... Continue reading…

If you wanted a quality Nintendo Switch docking station you could actually slip into a pocket, the $70 Genki Covert Dock was your best bet — 30W of USB-C power, 1080p60 HDMI output, and a USB 3.1 port for peripherals all stuffed into a tiny folding prong charger thanks to the power of GaN.But now, its makers are making the choice a bit more difficult — with a new $49 Genki Covert Dock Mini (via Gizmodo) that’s way smaller, adds 4K30 output, and unfortunately makes a couple of sacrifices along the way. GIF: Human Things Yes, it’s basically a cube now. At 1.7 x 1.3 x 1.3 inches, the Covert Dock Mini is only slightly bigger than the tiny 5W chargers that Apple used to ship with iPhones (which admittedly didn’t... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s monolithic Xbox Series X is still challenging to get a hold of. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Xbox Series X is sometimes a little easier to buy than Sony’s PlayStation 5, but that doesn’t mean it’s a simple endeavor. The good news is that Best Buy has a restock of the flagship Xbox Series X consoles for its usual price of $499.99. The bad news is that this round of inventory is restricted to subscribers of Best Buy’s Totaltech, which costs $199.99 per year.That’s a steep added cost if you’re looking for a new Xbox, though Totaltech does offer extra tech support, included installation services, and extended product protection — in addition to paying your way toward the front of the line. Even as a Totaltech subscriber, you’re not guaranteed to get an Xbox today, but you have better odds.For the best chances on this restock,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Twitter’s board of directors has issued a new “shareholder rights plan” to block Elon Musk’s proposed buyout offer, a major setback to the billionaire’s efforts to take full financial control of the company.The plan was adopted “following an unsolicited, non-binding proposal to acquire Twitter,” the company’s board of directors noted in a press release announcing the change.This maneuver, known in the finance world as a poison pill, blocks hostile takeovers by giving certain shareholders the right to purchase more stock if an outsider attempts to seize control.The plan was adopted “following an unsolicited, non-binding proposal to acquire Twitter”The plan strongly suggests that Twitter’s board intends to fight Musk’s bid to take... Continue reading…

David Jenkins opens up about everyone’s favorite queer pirate show Continue reading…

If you’ve updated your PC from Windows 10 to Windows 11, you may have noticed that when you click on a link for a website, a PDF document, or a variety of other file types, you will now be sent to Microsoft’s Edge browser. In its new version of Windows, Microsoft seems to have become especially aggressive in pushing its own apps over the apps that had been installed as defaults before the upgrade. In other words, Edge suddenly became your default browser.Normally, the first time you go into another browser that is not Edge — say, Google Chrome — the not-Edge browser will ask if you’d like to make it the default instead. However, the process for changing your defaults in Windows 11 has become more complicated than it was in Windows... Continue reading…

Core on an iPad. | Image: Manticore Games Core, a free PC-based app built on Unreal Engine that lets you create and play games, is expanding to iOS and Mac this summer, developer Manticore Games announced Friday. The app is currently available only on Windows from the Epic Games Store, so the move to Apple’s platforms could mark a significant expansion for Core.Friday marks Core’s one-year anniversary of availability on the Epic Games Store (where it is in Early Access), and there are already more than 50,000 playable “games, worlds, and events” to check out, according to a press release. Crossplay will be enabled between the iOS, macOS, and Windows versions of Core, and developers who want to get a jump on preparing their experiences for mobile can begin working with a “suite”... Continue reading…

The UE Fits are on sale right now for $149, a considerable $100 off their typical list price. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’re in the market for a pair of true wireless buds that offer the best fit possible, look no further than the UE Fits. After all, there’s a reason the word “fit” is literally in their name: the unique buds permanently mold to the shape of your ear in 60 seconds during setup, which makes their ear tips some of the most comfortable we’ve ever tested. The Bluetooth earbuds also offer a host of other praiseworthy features, including good sound quality, a compact charging case, and lengthy, eight-hour battery life.If you don’t mind that they lack active noise cancellation and feature mediocre sweat resistance, they’re a great option to consider, especially now that they’re on sale for their lowest price to date. Now through 11:59PM PT... Continue reading…

Not the latest and greatest, but that’s not a problem Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Thursday morning, Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter to save free speech.“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” wrote the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire — who recently acquired a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter — in a filing. “However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”It’s not clear how this gambit will play out, but there’s also a more fundamental question: what does Elon Musk think free speech is, and who’s threatening it? Free expression is a... Continue reading…

This is Apple’s M1 Ultra, which could be getting an upgrade. | Image: Apple Apple is reportedly working on nine new Macs featuring its upcoming M2 processors, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. These rumors come hot on the heels of Apple releasing the Mac Studio and its announcement that the M1 Ultra would be the last chip in its current-gen lineup.Bloomberg isn’t predicting a replacement for the Studio yet, but it reports that most other Mac models will be getting an upgrade. Gurman says he’s seen evidence of an M2-powered MacBook Air with a 10-core GPU — contrary to previous predictions that a redesigned Air would still have an M1 — as well as an entry-level M2 MacBook Pro with the same specs. The 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros also make an appearance, along with a new Mac Mini and Mac Pro, all rocking... Continue reading…

It twists, taps, and turns. | Image: Scott Bezek Sometimes you come across a DIY project and immediately start figuring out ways you could use it in your life. That’s what happened to us here at The Verge when someone dropped the SmartKnob View, a proof-of-concept project by engineer Scott Bezek, into our Slack chat. While it doesn’t seem like it’s the type of project most people could go out and build themselves at the moment (more on that later), it’s easy to imagine a future where it’s available as a kit, or where somebody turns it into an actual product.The smart knob kind of looks like a mini Nest Thermostat, but Bezek’s programmed it to have loads of modes. Of course, it can just act as a spinning dial, but you could also program its motor to provide haptic feedback and... Continue reading…

It’s been a decade since Razer shipped its first Blade laptop, and they’ve all come with Windows. That isn’t quite changing today — but a company called Lambda is now putting Ubuntu on a souped-up version of last year’s Razer Blade 15 Advanced with Razer’s full blessing, with the aim of selling it to machine learning and artificial intelligence researchers.It’s called the Razer x Lambda Tensorbook, and the $3,500 machine is absolutely identical to a high-end version of last year’s laptop in most ways. It’s got an 11th-gen Intel Core i7 CPU, Nvidia RTX 3080 Max-Q graphics and 64GB of RAM underneath a 15.6-inch 165Hz 1440p display, all powered by a 80Wh battery inside an identically sized and shaped 4.45-pound chassis. It’s also got the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta is planning to bring its Horizon Worlds social metaverse platform to the web, Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth said in a tweet on Thursday. Being available on the web would mark a major expansion for the platform, which is currently only available on its Quest VR headsets.A web version isn’t the only one in the works — this week, Meta VP of Horizon Vivek Sharma told The Verge that it’s working on bringing Horizon to mobile phones later this year and is in “early discussions” about bringing it to game consoles. However, it’s still unclear exactly when Horizon might expand to the web, and Meta spokesperson Iska Saric said there were “no timing details to share at this time” when we asked.Boz’s tweet was included in a thread defending... Continue reading…

The US Treasury Department blames North Korean hacking group Lazarus for stealing $625 million in cryptocurrency from the Ronin network, the blockchain backing the Axie Infinity play-to-earn crypto game, according to a report from Vice. On Thursday, the Department of Treasury updated sanctions to include the wallet address that received the funds and attributed it to the Lazarus group.In an updated post about the incident, the Ronin network, which is owned by developer group Sky Mavis, explains the US Department of Treasury and FBI have pinned the attack on Lazarus. “We are still in the process of adding additional security measures before redeploying the Ronin Bridge to mitigate future risk,” the post reads. “We expect to deliver a... Continue reading…

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal told employees Thursday that the company was still evaluating a $43 billion offer by Elon Musk to buy the company and take it private, setting the stage for a potentially drawn-out feud with the world’s richest person.After clips of the songs “I Say A Little Prayer” and “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys played, Agrawal launched into a 25-minute Q&A session with employees Thursday, according to a person in attendance. He didn’t say when the board would have an answer to Musk’s offer or which way it was leaning, frustrating some who expected a more detailed explanation. The board would follow a “rigorous process” and make a decision “in the best interest of our shareholders,” he said.Agrawal, who took... Continue reading…

Jassy calls 2021 a “crazy and unpredictable year.” | Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images Andy Jassy, who became Amazon’s CEO last year, has released his first annual letter to shareholders, which acts as a recap of how the company did in 2021 and outlines its goals for the future. The letter starts by extolling Amazon Web Services’ role in helping businesses during the pandemic — familiar subject matter for Jassy, whose previous role was as CEO of AWS. The letter also discusses familiar subjects like supply chain disruption, labor shortages, and Amazon’s focus on getting out more Prime packages faster.Labor is a hot-button topic for Amazon right now. Beyond the difficulty of getting new employees, Jassy does address reports that the company has significantly higher injury rates than the industry average for warehouse... Continue reading…

Take a good look — it’s the last you’ll see of Snapshot. Google’s Snapshot feature, which was introduced back in 2018 and occasionally (but not often) updated, is finally gone, according to an article at 9to5Google.The Android feature, which could be accessed via a small and easily overlooked inbox icon on the Assistant screen, would show all your current information via a scrollable interface — things such as appointments, weather forecasts, traffic, and reminders. It was a small but useful feature — unfortunately, though, it was also not easy to find unless you knew where to look. As a result, it’s probable that not many Android users actually knew about it.So it was almost inevitable that Google would eventually announce that Snapshot was going to be sunsetted — which it did when it... Continue reading…

Image: Segway Segway has a new speaker accessory attachment for its electric scooters that makes V8 engine noises. The Ninebot Engine Speaker is a Bluetooth wireless speaker that straps onto a number of Segway’s personal transport vehicles. It can not only get rowdy with your favorite beats but also cause a ruckus like there’s a neighborhood drag race (via Gizmodo).The Engine Speaker comes with a mounting system that straps onto Segway / Ninebot electric scooters, GoKarts, electric bikes, and even its self-balancing vehicle offerings. The speaker then slides right on, looking like an add-on battery pack for the scooter. But really, the speaker runs on its own 2,200mAh battery that can play for up to 23 hours and charges via USB-C. The speaker is also... Continue reading…

Twitter’s board may have its work cut out for it. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Twitter’s board could be in for a fight with the company’s single largest shareholder. According to a report from The Information, it views Elon Musk’s offer to take over the company as unwelcome. This follows Musk’s offer to purchase the company for $43 billion earlier today. The company hasn’t publicly indicated how it’s planning on responding to Musk’s offer, but it’s reportedly planning to address it at an all-hands meeting at 5PM ET / 2PM PT today.Twitter’s board is also reportedly considering using a “poison pill” strategy to make it more difficult for Elon to acquire a large stake in the company and avoid a hostile takeover. Poison pills can, as one example, flood the market with shares once an investor acquires stock above a... Continue reading…

Blizzard Entertainment An exclusive chat with developers about Overwatch’s first Black female hero Continue reading…

Photo by Brandon Wade/Getty Images YouTube and Major League Baseball have renewed their streaming pact for the 2022 season, which will result in 15 regular-season games being shown exclusively on the platform. The first will be streamed on May 15th between the Washington Nationals and Colorado Rockies.The news continues MLB’s effort to reach viewers across many different streaming services. Here’s a breakdown of what’s happening over the current season:

The OnePlus 10 Pro now works on two out of three major US carriers’ 5G networks. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge The OnePlus 10 Pro officially went on sale today in the US today, and as expected, the phone has received certification to work on Verizon’s 5G network just in time for new owners. That 5G support includes C-band Ultra Wideband — that good mid-band 5G spectrum that’s coming online over the next few years — but not the super-fast millimeter wave (mmWave). That’s no great loss; mmWave is impressively fast but has a very short range and is likewise hard to find. Realistically, C-band strikes the right balance between speed and signal range, so it’s great to see it supported on the 10 Pro.The OnePlus 10 Pro’s availability in North America and Europe was announced at the end of March. At that time, OnePlus said it was working with Verizon on... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge ASUS has officially launched the Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition, and it’s available for $1,999.99 on Newegg and Amazon. The laptop comes with a 12th Gen Intel i9-12900H plus integrated Intel Iris Xe graphics — but its futuristic design is what really makes it stand out. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The company first previewed the Space Edition Zenbook at CES in January, and my colleague Monica Chin got to experience the spacey-ness firsthand. One of the most noticeable things about this laptop is the mini 3.5-inch display on the lid. It’s there to display notifications, animations, and customizable other text, such as the date and time.You’ll also see various engravings across the laptop’s entire... Continue reading…

Elon Musk took the Securities and Exchange Commission to task during a TED appearance Thursday, claiming he had the funding to take Tesla private despite the agency concluding that he had not.“I should say actually... with Tesla back in the day, funding was actually secured,” Musk said. “I want to be clear about that.”Musk has been trading blows with the SEC over the agency’s order that his tweets be reviewed by a lawyer before being publicly posted. The order is based on Musk’s decision to send the now-notorious “funding secured” tweet on August 7th, 2018, in which he claimed to have the finances to take Tesla private at $420 a share. (Tesla has been a publicly traded company since 2010.)“funding was actually secured”The SEC... Continue reading…

Customizing the Workout app on your Apple Watch can help you close your rings more easily. | Vjeran Pavic / The Verge While you can use any compatible fitness app to track activities on the Apple Watch, the native Workout app gives you a ton of options. That said, the default settings may not always be to your liking. This is especially true if you’re following a training plan, have specific targets you’d like to hit, or want to choose which metrics you see on screen during your activity.The good news is that you can totally customize the Workout app to better suit your needs. Here’s how to get started.Setting a workout goal Image: Apple This is what the Time goal looks like for a hiking activity. Starting an activity in the Workout app will default to an “open goal” session, which means you don’t have any particular goal... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge This morning, Elon Musk, the current wealthiest man in the world, offered to buy Twitter outright for $43 billion and take the company private. That is quite a lot of money to spend on a company that allows users to post their thoughts in 280-character increments.The shocking move had many at The Verge wondering: what else could Musk spend $43 billion on? We thought we could provide some options in case Twitter’s board decides they don’t like the offer.Return to the Moon Elon’s biggest dream is to start a settlement on Mars, but first, he is eager to construct a base on the surface of the Moon. “If you want to get the public real fired up, we got to have a base on the Moon,” Musk said in 2017. “That’d be pretty cool.” He’s reiterated... Continue reading…

Elon Musk demonstrates his enthusiasm at a “Cyber Rodeo” | Photo by SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images Epic shitposter representation Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Speaking for the first time since news broke of his attempts to buy all of Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his offer had been made for the public good.Musk emphasized that he was motivated by the public interest value of the platform. “Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square. So it’s just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they’re able to speak freely within the bounds of the law,” Musk said.Musk was speaking at TED 2022 conference in Vancouver; the interview was opened up for livestreaming earlier this morning.To protect that venue, Musk went on to say he believes Twitter should “open source the algorithm” in order to build trust and ensure availability. “The code should be on... Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red Now that Cyberpunk 2077 is in a somewhat more stable position, developer CD Projekt Red is talking more about the future — including the game’s first expansion. Today, the studio revealed that the previously announced expansion for the game will be launching in 2023. Unfortunately, that’s all we know; there’s no information on what to expect from the first major content update for the game. CD Projekt Red says to expect more details “later this year.”The news was revealed as the studio outlined its upcoming production plan, which includes continued work on Cyberpunk, development of the next Witcher game (which kicks off “a new saga for the franchise” and is built in Unreal Engine 5), and the next-gen update for The Witcher 3, which is... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Creators making YouTube Shorts will now be able to use video clips from billions of YouTube videos in new Shorts, the company announced today in a blog post. In YouTube Shorts — the company’s TikTok clone — creators were previously only able to splice short audio clips from other videos on the platform. This most recent update will allow users to clip 1- to 5-second segments from eligible long-form videos and Shorts to use in new short-form content.When a new Short is created with a clip from an existing video, the original video is credited via a link. The library of videos available for remixing is vast, though creators have the option to exclude their content from being remixed, and videos with a copyright claim or... Continue reading…

You can react to messages with a thumbs up, heart, laughing face, shocked face, crying face, and prayer hands. | Image: WhatsApp WhatsApp announced on Thursday that it’s adding emoji reactions to its chat app, letting you express your feelings toward a message without having to send an individual emoji as a message. Although the company announced reactions alongside its new communities feature, Meta spokesperson Joshua Breckman told The Verge that reactions will be available on all chats when they launch, which will be “soon.”The feature will be relatively limited to start, only letting you react with six emoji (though, in my opinion, WhatsApp has picked most of the important ones). However, Will Cathcart, the head of WhatsApp, said that it will support “all emojis and skin-tones” in the future.

SunPower Station in Hongyuan county, Sichuan province, southwest China on 24th June 2015. Sunpower stations at Hongyuan and Zoigê County are the first of Apple major solar projects in China. | Photo by Jie Zhao/Corbis via Getty Images Apple suppliers have more than doubled their clean power over the past year, the company announced today. The renewable energy projects they support prevented 13.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution from entering the atmosphere. That has almost the same impact as taking 3 million cars off the road for a year, the company says.It’s part of Apple’s efforts to curb climate change by becoming completely carbon neutral by 2030. The climate pledge the company made in 2020 set it on a path to reduce greenhouse emissions by 75 percent this decade and find ways to draw down its remaining climate pollution.Apple has gone a step farther by pledging to slash emissions from its supply chainsUnlike other companies that have only... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Peloton announced in a press release today (via CNBC) that it plans to raise the cost of its all-access subscription for live and on-demand classes from $39 / month to $44 / month starting on June 1st, 2022. However, new, lower prices for Peloton’s exercise equipment are set to go into effect at 6PM ET today, according to CNBC — the Bike will cost $1,445 (including a $250 shipping fee) instead of $1,745, the Bike Plus will go for $1,995 instead of $2,495, while the Tread will drop to $2,695 (including a $350 shipping fee) from $2,845.The lower equipment cost could help attract customers who may have been intimidated by the company’s steep price tags and gives Peloton the opportunity to gain more revenue from recurring subscriptions.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk just blew up the entire tech news cycle this morning with his offer to buy 100 percent of Twitter at $54.20 in cash, days after quietly becoming one of its largest shareholders and then rejecting a previously accepted seat on the board. And amazingly, he’s also giving a TED Talk this morning, any moment now (it was scheduled for 9:45AM PT), which the TED organizers have graciously decided to make public.This is the link to watch the newly public livestream of Elon Musk.It lets you rewind, too, so you should be able to scrub back if you’re seeing this late. But Elon is often the one who is late, and that appears to be the case today, too.We have no idea what he will say. But now, you can watch for free. Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A judge reduced the amount of money that Tesla will have to pay to a Black former employee who successfully sued the company for racial harassment and discrimination.Last October, a jury awarded Owen Diaz, who worked as an elevator operator at Tesla for nine months in 2015–2016, $137 million in damages after he accused the company of ignoring racial abuse and discrimination.On Wednesday, US District Judge William Orrick issued a ruling that said that Tesla was liable to Diaz but that the amount awarded to Diaz by jurors was “excessive.” Orrick slashed it by nearly 90 percent to $15 million while also rejecting Tesla’s motion to reduce the award amount to $300,000.The judge said the amount awarded to Diaz by jurors was “excessive”I... Continue reading…

A mysterious and dangerous location on Monkey Island. | Image: Terrible Toybox Read on for an interview and the first screenshots from Return to Monkey Island Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Starting this week, the concept of group messaging on WhatsApp is significantly expanding.WhatsApp has primarily been about messaging with people you know since before Facebook bought it in 2014. The experience is intentionally intimate: you need someone’s phone number to add them, and group chats are capped at 256 participants.Now, a new tab, first rolling out to a small, select number of groups, will let thousands participate in a Community that hosts multiple sub-group chats. The idea is that various organizations, from a school to a business whose employees communicate on WhatsApp, can more easily organize discussions and have their admins message everyone across different groups.If you ask WhatsApp, Communities is a response to... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re a newcomer to the Nintendo Switch, or perhaps you’re buying for someone who needs a boost to their game library, it’s always wise to snag the console’s best games when they go on sale, as they rarely do. Best Buy is listing several games that I consider to be must-play experiences for $20 off — both in physical and digital formats. Other retailers, like Amazon and Walmart, are honoring the price cuts, too. Better yet, there’s a range of games included in this sale, suiting people who want a shooter, a turn-based strategy game, or a good ol’ 3D Mario platformer.Super Mario Odyssey is an inviting and delightful take on the traditional 3D Mario game, giving Mario a throwable cap to vastly extend his move set and to possess... Continue reading…

Though director David Cronenberg is capable of inhabiting a number of artistic modes as a storyteller, his deft command of body horrors like Neon’s upcoming Crimes of the Future is what he’ll always be known for, and with good reason. Hard as it’s been to believe some of the early buzz about Crimes of the Future being a controversial feature that’s going to polarize audiences, the movie’s first teaser trailer and some new details suggest that the hype might be warranted.Crimes of the Future tells the story of Caprice (Léa Seydoux) and her partner Saul Tenser (Viggo Mortensen), a performance artist who’s made a name for himself with his avant-garde projects like his latest: a showcase of his organs going through a metamorphosis. While... Continue reading…

David Pierce The Verge and the Vox Media Podcast Network today announced that David Pierce is returning to The Verge as editor-at-large to join the cast of the site’s namesake podcast The Vergecast. Pierce begins his role on April 18th, appearing on The Vergecast for the first time since he left The Verge in 2015 on the show’s April 22nd episode.Pierce will co-host The Vergecast, which each week unpacks the tech news of the week. This marks a homecoming for Pierce, who was previously deputy editor at The Verge, and a frequent guest on The Vergecast during his original stint at the site. In addition to his hosting duties, Pierce will also write and report for The Verge, focusing on major tech companies and consumer technology.“David was one of our... Continue reading…

Fortnite is adding Coachella to its long, long (long) list of in-game collaborations. The annual music festival announced today that it’s partnering with developer Epic Games to release Coachella-themed skins and in-game features for its first foray into gaming.These days, Coachella is equally known for its performances as it is for the outfits attendees wear — so it’s fitting that both are coming to Fortnite. Coachella will release two series of skins to coincide with weekends one and two of the music festival, beginning April 14th and April 22nd. The outfits, inspired by the Coachella style, react to music playing in the game. The first group of items goes on sale in the Fortnite shop at 8PM ET tonight.In addition to the skins,... Continue reading…

It’s time to prepare for a summer outdoors. Sumer is icumen in — or, in other words (and if you’re not Chaucer), “Get ready, summer’s around the corner!” Especially if you’ve been cooped up all winter watching the COVID stats and waiting for a chance to get outdoors, now’s the time to get ready to see the sky.We asked the staff of The Verge to tell us about their favorite gear to help them enjoy the outdoors, whether it was on a bike, on a scooter, hiking, camping, or just hanging out and watching the world go by. Here’s what they reported.Petzl Actik Core headlampWeighing in at 2.65 ounces, the Petzl Actik Core is not an ultra-light headlamp, but it makes up for that fact by being really bright — using two LEDs, it can pump out up to 450 lumens, which can really help if... Continue reading…

When you’re in Austin and you hear there’s going to be a party Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, Reddit is updating its search feature to index comments. For the first time, users will have an option to pull results from replies to posts, making it less of a hassle to find something specific outside of general Reddit posts, communities, and people. The rollout is Reddit’s latest change to help users encounter content from outside their usual subreddits following the addition of a discovery tab on its mobile app in January.Reddit says that in a user survey last year, the ability to search comments was one of the top results. During “limited initial testing,” Reddit claimed 26,000 users went on to use the feature against five billion comments. Right now, the new ability is available globally for users searching on Reddit’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Tesla CEO Elon Musk is making his “best and final” offer to buy 100 percent of Twitter in an updated 13D filed Thursday with the SEC. He’s offering $54.20 per share in cash.Naturally, Musk had to sneak a “420” into the offer.Musk’s wealth hovers around $260 billion, according to Bloomberg. Twitter’s market valuation is about $37 billion. Musk’s offer values Twitter at about $43 billion, according to CNBC.Musk is offering to “acquire all of the outstanding Common Stock of the Issuer not owned by the Reporting Person for all cash consideration valuing the Common Stock at $54.20 per share.” The proposal was delivered in a letter to Twitter on April 13th. Musk says Twitter must go private to undergo changes that need to be made.“Twitter... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Independent contractors are pushed to handle customer service without compensation Continue reading…