The Verge

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra may have a 14.6-inch display with a notch. | Image by WinFuture Samsung might be adding its first-ever “Ultra” model to its upcoming Galaxy Tab S8 lineup, which will also include a Tab S8 and S8 Plus, as rumored by WinFuture.According to WinFuture, the flagship Ultra model could sport a 14.6-inch Super AMOLED display with a 2960 x 1848px resolution, a refresh rate of up to 120Hz, as well as a notch with two 12-megapixel (MP) cameras. It may also come with the option of up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, along with a 11200mAh battery. Image by WinFuture The Galaxy Tab S8 Plus is rumored to have a 12.7-inch display with no notch. When compared to the Tab S8 Ultra, the Super AMOLED display on the Tab S8 Plus is a bit smaller, potentially measuring at 12.7 inches with a... Continue reading…

Photo by Stefani Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images Wordle is a free browser game, and a browser game only — it has no accompanying apps, something that some people (myself included, regrettably) might not realize during a time when nearly everything has an app.This leaves plenty of room for fake Wordle apps to crowd app stores in an attempt to leech off of the word puzzle game’s sudden rise in popularity. But there’s one app coincidentally called Wordle! that’s not a clone — it actually existed before the browser game itself. That’s why its developer is teaming up with the mind behind the browser-based Wordle, Josh Wardle, to use its accidental success as an opportunity to give back, according to a report from GameSpot.The story unraveled in a thread on Twitter, with Wordle! app... Continue reading…

This is not a Sony A7 III, but it will do. | Illustration by Samar Haddad A mirrorless camera should just work; it did not Continue reading…

Photo by George Frey/AFP via Getty Images AT&T, Dish, and T-Mobile dropped billions of dollars in a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auction to acquire more 5G spectrum licenses in the midrange 3.45GHz to 3.55GHz band, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).While AT&T was the biggest spender at $9 billion, Dish spent $7.3 billion, and T-Mobile followed behind at $2.9 billion. Verizon was notably absent from the auction. A number of smaller players also made the list, like Three Forty-Five Spectrum, which you can view on Light Reading’s site.This is the third-largest FCC auction yet, with total bids reaching about $22.5 billionThe auction officially ended in November, but the FCC hasn’t publicly disclosed the winning bidders until now (PDF). Total bids... Continue reading…

Apple now requires store and corporate employees to get a COVID-19 booster shot, the company announced in an internal email seen by The Verge.Once an employee is eligible to get a booster shot, they will have four weeks to comply, otherwise, they will need to take frequent tests to enter a retail store, partner store, or Apple office starting on February 15th. Apple will require unvaccinated employees — or those who haven’t yet submitted proof of vaccination — to provide negative COVID-19 rapid antigen tests before entering the workplace beginning on January 24th, although it’s unclear whether this applies to both corporate and retail employees.Apple boosts safety protocols as the omicron variant spreads“Due to waning efficacy of the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple will let dating app developers offer alternate payment options in the Netherlands in compliance with the Dutch regulator’s ruling, according to a report from Bloomberg. This will allow dating apps — and only dating apps — distributed in the country to avoid Apple’s 15 to 30 percent commission on in-app purchases.In a message to developers on its site, Apple explains that it’s introducing two new optional “entitlements,” or specific app capabilities, that will let developers add third-party payment processors for dating apps in the Netherlands. Dating app developers can either direct customers to a website to complete their purchase or add a third-party payment service within the app. However, if developers choose to snub Apple’s... Continue reading…

Image: Showtime For the last few weeks, my mind has been filled with questions that, out of context, make little sense. I’ve thought long and hard about why a high school girl would start eating dirt and which middle-aged man might be covered in glitter. I’ve pondered the significance of everything from psychedelic mushrooms to a high school soccer coach’s pep talk to a missing bullet in a police officer’s gun. I’ve even rewatched video to see if a state championship-winning goal was offside — and don’t get me started on how much I’ve thought about cannibalism. What I’m saying is: Yellowjackets has completely taken over my brain. I haven’t been this obsessed with theorizing about events in a television show since the cast of Lost discovered the hatch.O... Continue reading…

Šatochin. Late last year, the Slovak Design Museum released a translated collection of ’80s text adventures from the region. The games, often programmed by teenagers, capture a moment in history when the first generation of Slovak developers were learning their craft to share among their friends.The museum didn’t always cover games. Maroš Brojo, the general manager of the Slovak Game Developers Association, pitched the multimedia collection that he now curates. “When you get the patronage of a museum… it gives you much more credibility,” he says. “Suddenly, people start to have a very different view of this actually being part of something important. Our culture and our heritage.”The 10 games that make up this first batch of translations and... Continue reading…

Razer’s Basilisk V3 is on sale at Amazon today for just $59.99. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge We’re starting the weekend with some exciting news for gamers: our pick for the best wired gaming mouse is now available for its lowest price to date. For only the third time, Amazon is selling Razer’s Basilisk V3 for just $59.99 instead of $69.99. The comfortable mouse delivers notable improvements over its predecessor, particularly in regards to its scroll wheel. Depending upon how hard your scroll, the mouse can switch between ridged scrolling and free-spin modes, which make it easier to scroll down the page more freely — a perk that comes in handy even if you’re not using the mouse for gaming. It also touts a 26K DPI sensor, RGB lighting, and 11 programmable buttons, so you can adjust the controls to your liking within Razer’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge When we were all at the office, many of us were connected to the office network. We didn’t need to give sharing files much thought. But now that we’re scattered across the landscape, securely sharing important files can take careful planning. Here’s why you might want to use powerful file-sharing services to share sensitive files safely, so you can collaborate better no matter where you’re working.Probably the easiest way to share a file is to just attach a document to an email, or to a Slack or other instant message. But either way invites trouble on several fronts. If you rely too much on your email or messaging system, your poorly archived files could become available to prying hackers with phishing lures. If you’re sharing... Continue reading…

Microsoft is making its Walkie Talkie feature of Microsoft Teams generally available to all users of its communications app today. Walkie Talkie lets Microsoft Teams users turn smartphones or tablets into a walkie-talkie that works over cellular data or Wi-FI. It was originally announced two years ago and has been available mostly in preview ever since. The feature launched widely on Android in September of 2020, but now Microsoft says it’s available for Zebra mobile devices as well as iPhones and iPads.Microsoft has primarily pitched this at frontline workers, employees who are customer-facing and run day-to-day operations inside companies. The software maker’s collaboration with Zebra Technologies makes it work with a dedicated... Continue reading…

The company is implementing new policies as COVID-19 cases rise across the US. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google will require anyone going to one of its US offices or facilities to have received a negative molecular test for COVID-19, the company informed employees Thursday in a memo obtained by CNBC. Workers going to the office regularly will have to get tested weekly, chief health officer Karen DeSalvo said in the memo, and employees have been asked to report their vaccination status and wear surgical-grade masks indoors.Google spokesperson Lora Lee Erickson confirmed to The Verge that a new temporary COVID-19 policy is now being implemented, one where “anyone accessing our sites in the US are expected to obtain a recent negative COVID-19 molecular test before coming onsite” and that it’s offering various kinds of tests at no cost.G... Continue reading…

The January update promises to fix numerous bugs reported by Pixel 6 owners. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales Google is in the process of releasing a much-anticipated update for Pixel 6 phones. Earlier today, Android expert Mishaal Rahman noted that Google posted OTA and factory images to its developer site for the January 2022 patch. That means anyone can sideload the update to their Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro now, and the official over-the-air update has already arrived on some devices (including some owned by Verge staff).In an email, Google confirmed the rollout has begun, and that the software will automatically roll out over the next week, depending on your device and wireless carrier.Using the phones’ built-in checker may start the process now, and if it doesn’t, sideloading is still an option. However, waiting for the regular rollout... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US Federal Trade Commission and at least three states are investigating Meta for antitrust violations in its virtual reality division, according to Bloomberg. The report says the FTC and attorneys general from New York, Tennessee, and North Carolina began speaking last year with third-party VR developers who have concerns about Meta’s business practices. It’s one of multiple probes into Meta’s dominance in the small but growing market of VR.The Bloomberg report references well-known controversies around Meta (formerly Facebook) and its VR division (formerly Oculus). Regulators have reportedly asked developers if the Oculus app store discriminates against third-party apps whose features overlap with its own offerings, and they’ve... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is raising prices across all of its plans in the US today. The company’s standard plan will rise to $15.50 per month from $14, while the 4K plan will rise to $20 per month from $18. The basic plan, which doesn’t include HD, is also rising to $10 per month from $9. Prices are rising in Canada as well.The price hikes go into effect immediately for new subscribers. For existing subscribers, the changes will be rolled out “gradually,” with Netflix promising to email members 30 days before the price hike goes into effect.Prices for a Netflix plan have steadily gone up in recent years. The standard plan went to $14 per month from $13 in late 2020, after previously rising to $13 from from $11 in 2019. Prior to that, Netflix raised... Continue reading…

Eero might be upgrading its Pro line to support Wi-Fi 6E. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Amazon-owned Eero seems to be close to announcing new routers sometime soon, as new FCC filings appeared this week for devices that appear to be called the Eero 6 Plus and the Eero Pro 6E. That 6E branding for the Pro could indicate it will support Wi-Fi 6E, meaning it can take advantage of 6GHz spectrum for faster connections.Router makers have slowly been introducing Wi-Fi 6E-capable mesh routers, though some have been quite expensive, such as this $1,500 Orbi system from Netgear and Linksys’ $1,200 option. While we don’t know how much Eero’s 6E-capable system could cost, it could be more affordable than those options, given that a 3-pack for the Eero 6 Pro launched at $599.The new router names show up on labels Eero included in the... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge You might think a Google phone would be the best choice to control your Google-branded speakers, but that’s not necessarily true: Google’s actions have potentially opened the door for other manufacturers to do what the Pixel legally cannot, writes Android sleuth Mishaal Rahman at Esper.Last week, we wrote how “Your Google home speakers are about to get slightly worse because Sonos sued and won.” If you’re using a Google Pixel, that’s true — among other things, you won’t be able to control the volume of a multi-zone Google Cast speaker group. That’s because the US International Trade Commission ruled that Google copied Sonos’ technology and threatened to block imports unless Google implemented five specific software tweaks. One of the... Continue reading…

Starfield, Bethesda’s upcoming space-themed game, may feature an in-game smartwatch that you’ll be able to get and wear in real life, based on an early copy of a manual found by Reddit user SquiddyVonn. The manual details the real-life watch’s functions, which include showing the weather and step tracking, and it even includes pictures that give us a good look at the interface. It also shows us that the watch is being made by a well-known replica company that’s worked with Bethesda in the past.According to “The Wand Company LPV6 Chronomark Smartwatch User Manual,” the watch will be able to receive forecast information from a phone, display notifications, and show various sets of information on a series of watch faces. It also shows the... Continue reading…

Warner Bros, Warner Bros. went out of its way to make sure that James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad wasn’t exactly looked at as a direct sequel to David Ayer’s Suicide Squad even though that’s what it was. In the case of HBO Max’s new Peacemaker spinoff series, though, the studio’s taking a much different approach to addressing the connections between its rather messy cinematic universe.It’s become commonplace for spinoff superhero series informed by the events of big superhero movies — Marvel’s latest batch of Disney Plus series all come to mind — to dance around the specific details of how they fit into the larger picture until about halfway through the season. Though you can usually infer that these sorts of shows are set after the events of the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Rumors have swirled for years about Apple releasing some kind of virtual reality / augmented reality headset. While reports had pegged a possible 2022 release for the company’s first mixed reality headset, the device is hitting some development snags and may not release until 2023, according to Bloomberg.Apple planned to reveal the headset at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, but “development challenges related to overheating, cameras and software have made it harder to stay on track,” Bloomberg reports. The issues mean the reveal may happen at the end of the year — or even later — with the headset going on sale in 2023. And Apple had apparently, at one point, planned to reveal the device even earlier; Bloomberg reports the... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Russia’s domestic security service, the FSB, has arrested numerous members of the REvil hacking group at the request of the US government, the FSB said on Friday. The move, which marks an unusual degree of cooperation between Russian and US agencies, comes amid increasingly aggressive Russian military activity on the Ukrainian border and tense diplomacy as the United States attempts to prevent armed conflict.Reporting by the Russian Interfax news agency claimed that the FSB seized 426 million rubles ($5.6 million) in a raid against 14 members of the group, along with more than $600,000 worth of cryptocurrency and 20 luxury cars. The FSB told Interfax that it was acting at the request of US authorities and had informed them of the... Continue reading…

Photo by Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images Companies like Apple and Samsung aren’t the only ones making high-tech devices that are hard to take apart and recycle. So are the manufacturers of critical clean energy technologies like solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicle (EV) batteries — and unlike the consumer tech industry, which is slowly starting to reverse some of its unsustainable design practices, there isn’t much being done about it.Batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines are all essential tools for combating climate change. However, these technologies take considerable energy and resources to make, and the best way to ensure we can keep making more of them sustainably is to recycle those resources at end of life. But today, clean energy recycling is limited... Continue reading…

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where we discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.This week on The Vergecast, Nilay Patel, Alex Cranz, and Russell Brandom start the show with news of federal judge James Boasberg allowing the FTC to proceed with an antitrust lawsuit against Meta. The crew explains why the case can go forward after a dismissal last year and what can happen next.The next topic of discussion focuses on the viral success of the web-based puzzle game Wordle and the race to clone it. The Vergecast walks you through the drama, resulting in a bunch of Wordle clones being removed from Apple’s App Store.Later in the show, Verge deputy... Continue reading…

An illustration of Die Gute Fabrik’s studio space. Some game companies are spearheading the idea that employees should work less rather than more Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Bollinger, a Michigan-based startup, announced today that it was postponing its plans to manufacture electric trucks in order to focus on commercial delivery vans.Bollinger burst onto the scene several years ago with a pair of rugged, box-like electric truck prototypes: the four-door B1 (which is shaped like a Jeep Wrangler) and the B2 (which is longer and has a pickup bed). It’s the latest EV startup to run into speed bumps as it attempts to build a complicated vehicle manufacturing business from scratch.Bollinger has already delayed both vehicles, so their postponement may not come as a huge shock to close watchers. The trucks were originally scheduled to go into production in 2020, but that date was moved to late 2021, with the... Continue reading…

You’ve got yourself a small weekend project. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge In most cases, people purchase M.2 NVMe drives to stick into their desktop PCs or laptops for more of that good, fast storage. But there are some other, more practical applications that don’t require opening up your hardware. You can get one of these fast SSDs, then stick it into a small enclosure, and suddenly you’ve made yourself a convenient and speedy portable USB-C drive that’ll cost you as little as $93 with today’s deals.If that sounds like something you’d like to add to your tech repertoire, Sabrent’s tool-free USB-C Gen 3.2 enclosure is down to just $22.94 (usually $40) at Amazon. Adding an M.2 drive to it is simple, just pop the top off and follow the instructions for carefully guiding the drive into the slot. Then, you fasten... Continue reading…

Your case of Final Fantasy XIV FOMO is nearing its end. Last night, game director Naoki Yoshida wrote on the Final Fantasy XIV website that Square Enix will resume digital sales of the popular MMO on January 25th.Final Fantasy XIV grew so popular with the launch of its latest expansion Endwalker that the queues to log into game servers were thousands of people long and took hours to get through. Servers were so congested that in December, Square Enix suspended the sale of digital versions of the game. As more players progress through the content, levels of server congestion are finally starting to even out, permitting sales of the game to resume. Yoshida also acknowledged that FFXIV’s meme-able free trial offering will remain... Continue reading…

Mouse and keyboard, meet boy and Kratos Continue reading…

Founder of Microsoft and chairman of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, to establish the Breakthrough Energy Europe investment fund, Bill Gates looks on during a press conference at the EU headquarters in Brussels on October 17, 2018. | Photo by JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images Bill Gates’ climate investment fund is moving forward with plans to funnel billions of dollars into emerging green technologies. This week, the fund, Breakthrough Energy, put out a Request for Proposals for projects in Europe through Breakthrough Energy’s Catalyst program. It comes after the Catalyst program released its first RFP for similar projects in the US last month.The Catalyst program, launched last June with the aim of enabling a zero-carbon economy through public-private partnerships, says it has fundraised $1.5 billion over the past six months and hopes to raise $3 billion by the middle of next year. It plans to use that money to boost four different kinds of technologies: green hydrogen fuels, sustainable aviation fuels,... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Block, the payment company formerly known as Square, is working on building an “open Bitcoin mining system,” its CEO Jack Dorsey has announced. In a thread, Block’s general manager for hardware Thomas Templeton outlined the company’s goals for the system, which is for it to be easily available, reliable, performant, and relatively power efficient compared to its hashrate.The overall aim is to make mining more decentralized, in turn making the overall Bitcoin network more resilient. As the cryptocurrency’s value has increased, and it’s become more challenging to mine without economies of scale, there have been fears that the network has become centralized on too small a group of miners. Making mining more decentralized is “a long-term... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales While Slack began as a workplace instant-messaging tool, over the last few years it has become popular as a way for anyone to keep in contact with a group of friends, colleagues, or family. It now even offers a way for groups to create in-the-moment “huddles,” in which two or more people can move from text to audio — if you’re on a paid plan.Although Slack is largely intended for group collaboration, it also has tools if you just want to chat one-on-one with somebody. Here, we’re going to go over some of the ways you can have a private text, audio, or video conversation with one other person via the free version of Slack.Text conversationsUsing the Slack desktop app:

Finally, a Garmin hybrid that checks off all the boxes Continue reading…

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft’s board of directors is hiring a law firm to review the company’s policies on sexual harassment and discrimination after years of complaints of wrongdoing at the company. The review, which will be conducted by law firm Arent Fox, will include a public transparency report “assessing the effectiveness of the company’s workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies, training, and related policies.”It will also include an assessment of Microsoft’s previous investigation into allegations against the company’s co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates. GeekWire reports that this review won’t reinvestigate Gates’ affair with a company employee in the year 2000. Bill Gates resigned from the Microsoft board in March 2020,... Continue reading…

Google’s 2020 Chromecast with Google TV. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google TV’s director of product management Rob Caruso has outlined what the company’s plans are for its TV operating system in 2022 in a new interview with Protocol. While Caruso stopped short of making any specific feature announcements, he said that the company is interested in offering fitness and video conferencing services though Google TV, and better smart home controls.Caruso called fitness a “big area of exploration,” and cited Android’s recent smart home control changes (which, for example, made them easily accessible from a phone’s power menu) as a clue for what might come to Google TV. Zoom was cited as a potential addition to the platform (Google’s own Duo video calling service is already available), and he said Google is... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hackers attacked a number of Ukrainian government websites on Friday, temporarily disabling sites and leaving messages warning readers to “be afraid and expect the worse.”A spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry described the incident as a “massive cyber attack,” according to reports from Bloomberg and Sky News, but noted that no content on the sites had been altered and no personal data had been leaked.Websites for the government’s cabinet, security and defense councils, and ministry for education were among those affected. “Our specialists are already working on restoring the work of IT systems, and the cyber police opened an investigation,” said the spokesperson.Russian troops have been gathering on Ukraine’s border for... Continue reading…

Giga Texas Belt Buckle now costs 835 DOGE. Tesla now lets customers buy select items of merchandise using Dogecoin, the company’s CEO Elon Musk has announced. Products buyable with the meme-based cryptocurrency include the Cyberquad for Kids (12,020 doge / around $2,320), the Giga Texas Belt Buckle (835 doge / around $161) and the Cyberwhistle (300 doge / around $58). Business Insider notes that Dogecoin was up 16 percent to around $0.20 following the news.The initiative was initially announced by Musk on Twitter on December 14th when he said that the company would “see how it goes” with the cryptocurrency payment option. It’s unclear if or when Tesla might eventually accept payment for its vehicles in Dogecoin, which Musk has previously said may be his favorite cryptocurrency.... Continue reading…

Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images Tesla has never been fantastic at meeting deadlines, so it’s not too surprising that the company’s ambitious electric pickup — the Cybertruck — is running a little late. Recently, reference to a 2022 production schedule was scrubbed from its website, and Reuters is now reporting that production of the vehicle won’t begin until the first quarter of 2023.The Cybertruck was originally announced in 2019, with Tesla promising that the vehicle would be rolling off production lines in late 2021. Then, in August that year, full production was delayed to some time in 2022. Now, that deadline seems to have been waived, too.Changes to the Cybertruck order page were first spotted by Edmunds. The site originally told buyers: “You will be able to... Continue reading…

PUBG-maker Krafton filed a big lawsuit Monday. | Image: Krafton PUBG-maker Krafton filed a big lawsuit Monday: it’s suing the developer of two mobile games that it accuses of copying PUBG: Battlegrounds, the hit PC battle royale shooter, and it’s suing Apple and Google for distributing those games on their app stores. Krafton even accuses Google of hosting YouTube videos with gameplay of the two games in question, as well as “numerous posts containing a feature-length Chinese film that is nothing more than a blatantly infringing live-action dramatization of Battlegrounds.”The games Krafton takes issue with are called Free Fire and Free Fire Max, offered by developer Garena. On both the App Store and Google Play, they show up as Garena Free Fire and Garena Free Fire Max. Both are available for free... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge NBC News has published a great report on the struggles Amazon employees face trying to get tested for COVID after the company stopped onsite testing last summer, and the HR quagmire they could end up in when reporting their results or dealing with illness-related PTO. The story is well worth a read, as it delves into Amazon’s policies and systems, and gives a voice to the employees they affect.The author of the report spoke to workers who faced breakthrough cases and unexpected costs as they tried to get tested for COVID, struggling with an overburdened and difficult-to-navigate healthcare system. “I really wish they would bring free COVID testing back to us,” says one employee.One employee says Amazon’s systems “take the human out of... Continue reading…

She ran a program that used iPods to teach reading and math to underprivileged Native American schoolkids living on tribal land. Now, 46-year-old Kristy Stock of New Mexico is getting 18 months in prison for stealing 3,000 of them, which she resold for a personal gain of over $800,000 between 2013 and 2018.That’s according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland (via Engadget), and Stock isn’t the first who’s been sentenced as part of this scheme — it all seems to center around around 36-year-old Colorado resident Saurabh Chawla, who bought up stolen electronics and other goods and resold them on eBay and Amazon. Law enforcement raided him in 2019, according to an earlier press release, and he bought stolen iPads from... Continue reading…

Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne just after rocket separation on a previous flight | Image: Virgin Orbit This afternoon, small satellite launcher Virgin Orbit successfully lofted seven tiny satellites into orbit around Earth, marking the third successful mission for the Virgin Galactic spinoff company. The payloads consisted of various research satellites for the Department of Defense, along with three small satellites from companies SatRevolution and Spire Global.The launch comes less than a week after Virgin Orbit’s stock began publicly trading for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange. Virgin Orbit announced in August its plan to go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, making it one of three small rocket launch companies to follow the trend in 2021. On Friday, January 7th, Virgin Orbit CEO... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images ViacomCBS has canceled 60 Minutes Plus at its tentpole streaming service Paramount Plus, axing a title that was touted as one of the service’s premium exclusives.The company confirmed to The Verge that it will no longer produce 60 Minutes Plus, a spinoff of its award-winning broadcast news magazine 60 Minutes. The series had only streamed one, 30-episode season as of the cancellation announcement, which was shared with staffers Thursday morning, Variety earlier reported, citing sources familiar with the situation. In a statement, the company said that the content the series produced will remain on Paramount Plus.“The excellent work that has been done by the 60+ team will continue to be on Paramount+.”“We are proud of the team at 60... Continue reading…

In November, Valve gave everyone some bad news, revealing a two-month delay for the Steam Deck, but it’s starting off 2022 on a better note. In its latest update, the company says it “looks like” Steam Deck shipments will start by the end of February. Of course, we’re in a pandemic, and things can always change, but the preorder windows for Verge staffers are holding steady with their original projections — you can check your status here.

Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images Congress has sent subpoenas demanding information from Meta (formerly Facebook), Twitter, Reddit, and Alphabet concerning the January 6th, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The House of Representatives Select Committee that’s investigating the attack wants each company to disclose moderation policy details and other information that could illuminate how participants organized their efforts or spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.The committee requested records from dozens of companies on a voluntary basis last year, but it says the response from the aforementioned four has been “inadequate” so far. “Two key questions for the Select Committee are how the spread of misinformation and violent extremism contributed... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Phone companies could have to follow new rules about how they notify customers and the government following a data breach if a proposal from the Federal Communication Commission’s chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel passes. The notice of proposed rulemaking, released on Wednesday, cites the “increasing frequency and severity of security breaches involving customer information” as a risk to consumers.The current rules give telecommunication providers seven business days to notify the FBI and Secret Service of data breaches that leak customer proprietary network information, or CPNI. In most cases, the company cannot notify customers about the breach until seven business days after information has been relayed to federal law enforcement. The... Continue reading…

A recruiter works on a computer, 19 June 2007 at the cyber cafe “Le Milk” in Paris, during the Neo Job-Meeting (NJM) event, the first virtual job fair on the 3-D “Second Life” on-line game. | Photo credit should read STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images Throughout months of metaverse hype, with all the new names and virtual real estate speculation, I can’t count how many times I’ve thought, “Didn’t Second Life already do that?” Apparently, the people behind Second Life agree and are trying to pull our attention back to their virtual world that (rather helpfully) exists somewhere you can visit on your existing computer.

Silphwave / Dirt Funding a media outlet is a tricky business, and in recent years, some journalists have looked toward the cryptocurrency world to do it. That includes Dirt, an entertainment newsletter co-founded by Kyle Chayka and Daisy Alioto in late 2020. Dirt has raised money since launch by selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and earlier this week, it announced plans to work those NFTs into a decentralized autonomous organization or DAO — giving its audience input into where Dirt spends its money.Dirt isn’t the first blockchain-based media outfit. In 2017, for instance, a project called Civil funded a panoply of websites using its own cryptocurrency token. But Civil collapsed after a difficult launch and initial funding that quickly ran dry.... Continue reading…

Twitter is opening up the ability to record Spaces. | Image: Twitter Twitter is now letting all Android and iOS users record Twitter Spaces, the company announced Thursday. Users will be able to choose to record a Space when they’re setting one up and the recording will be available for public playback for 30 days after the Space has ended. If you’re in a Space that’s being recorded, you’ll see an icon at the top of the Space letting you know.You can see how it all works in this tweet from Twitter’s support account.

Activity data from a Fitbit can predict changes in blood sugar control for adults with prediabetes, a condition that affects around one in three adults in the United States, a new study shows. The findings point to a strategy that tech companies might use in their rumored efforts to build diabetes technology into wearable products.“It kind of makes sense intuitively — more movement, more physical activity leads to overall better health, and better health is one of the factors behind improved glycemic control,” says Jessilyn Dunn, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University who wasn’t involved with this study but has also done work on wearables and glucose monitoring.People with prediabetes have elevated blood... Continue reading…