The Verge

Photo by Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images Netflix wants linear TV to die. CEO Reed Hastings has been banging the TV murder drum for more than 8 years now, and in the investor call today, he reiterated his belief, confidently saying that Netflix was in a great place because linear TV would be dead in “5 to 10 years.”Hastings is financially incentivized to say this. One of the biggest competitors for the largest streaming service on the planet is the set of totally free streaming channels that beam into any TV with an antenna, and their costlier friends on cable TV.Netflix needs linear TV to die because it needs the streaming holdouts still using linear TV. It shed a whopping 1.3 million subscribers across the US and Canada in the last three months, according to its 2022 Q2... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The electric rebirth of Scout, the classic off-road SUV brand, is getting real this week as Volkswagen names Scott Keogh as CEO of its new spinoff company. The former head of VW Group America, as initially reported by Axios, pushed for VW to start a new electric truck line after seeing a fully restored vintage Scout: “the rights to the brand were just sitting there,” Keogh said.VW acquired the Scout brand through a 2020 merger of its commercial trucking company Traton with Navistar, which the German automaker initially bought part of in 2016. In May, it was reported that VW Group is willing to pump $1 billion into the new Scout brand and set goals to sell a quarter million electric off-roaders under the name annually starting in 2026. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Another Samsung Unpacked virtual event is right around the corner, now confirmed to take place on August 10th at 9AM ET / 6AM PT, and along with it are some incentives for the early, early birds. Samsung is offering customers in the US the chance to put in free, no-commitment reservations for its upcoming devices on its website now, well ahead of preorders — and even the devices’ announcement.Galaxy fans who reserve before the August 10th Unpacked will later receive varying tier-levels of store credit once the devices can be ordered, ranging from $30 to $200, toward Samsung’s next devices. As for what devices you’re signing up for? We can say with certainty that among the rumors, leaks, and Samsung’s own invite graphic, you can expect... Continue reading…

Yep, that’s a foldable. | Image: Samsung Samsung has provided a clear solution to the unusual puzzle it provided yesterday, confirming that its Galaxy Unpacked event will indeed take place on August 10th. The image included with the teaser also confirms that its foldables will be taking center stage, with a Galaxy Z Flip-shaped device acting as a “greater than” symbol. The event will start at 9AM ET and will be streamed on Samsung.com.Based on the cryptic hint that Samsung dropped yesterday, along with the timing of last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 3 and Fold 3 launch, it was kind of a no-brainer to assume that we’d see updated foldable phones next month. If the phone in the invitation image is actually the Z Flip 4, then rumors that the device would feature minimal updates appear... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix’s upcoming ad-supported offering won’t include all of the content you can currently watch on the streaming service, Netflix executives said during the company’s Q2 2022 earnings interview video.“Today, the vast majority of what people watch on Netflix, we can include in the ad-supported tier,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said. “There are some things that don’t — that we’re in conversation about with the studios on — but if we launched the product today, the members in the ad tier would have a great experience. We will clear some additional content, but certainly not all of it, but we don’t think it’s a material holdback to the business.”“It’s certainly a nice to have,” said CFO Spencer Neumann. “But it’s not a must-have. As... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After Netflix reported losing subscribers for the first time in over a decade last quarter, the company’s Q2 earnings report revealed the number of worldwide subscribers dipped by 1 million, including a drop of 1.28 million in the US and Canada alone between the end of March and the end of June. That’s better than its projection of losing 2 million worldwide, but the subscriber shortfall in the US and Canada is double the 600,000 drop it reported for Q1. Netflix now reports it has 73.28 million paid subscribers in the US and Canada and 220.67 million worldwide.This comes nearly a week after Netflix announced a partnership with Microsoft on its cheaper ad-supported tier that it expects to launch by early next year. In the letter,... Continue reading…

The map includes filters for narrowing down what type of locations you’re looking for. Instagram’s latest update aims to make it easier for users to find local businesses or attractions by adding a searchable map that lets you “discover popular local businesses near you,” according to an Instagram Story from Mark Zuckerberg. The map will show you a list of places nearby and will let you see posts about a certain place or see only certain types of business.There are a few ways to get to the map — if someone tags a place in a post or story, you can tap on the tag and hit “see location” to get to the location’s page. If you move around on the map, you’ll then be able to search the area to see what’s nearby. Navigating to the map and searching it from a story sticker. You can also search for places... Continue reading…

The owl is cute, though. | Illustration by Alex Castro/The Verge Last year, I decided to start learning Korean. It was entirely on a whim — I don’t live in Korea and have no reason I’d ever need to go there. Nonetheless, it’s been an incredibly rewarding experience, and I’ve gotten to a point where I can speak, read, and write comfortably much faster than I ever thought I could.That’s entirely due to the wealth of apps and online services out there that I’ve been able to take advantage of. Without easy access to native speakers or in-person classes, much of my early journey involved scouring the internet for resources and trying every one I could find. Here, I’m going to briefly discuss my experience with each one and whether I’d recommend it for its price.It’s important that I make a few caveats... Continue reading…

Netflix actually used this image in its announcement tweet. | Image: Netflix Sam Raimi’s incredible Spider-Man movie trilogy will be available on Netflix beginning August 1st, the company announced on Tuesday.Raimi’s trilogy is the best Spider-Man trilogy, and I won’t hear another word edgewise. I know the films aren’t objectively the best — the third one is just bad — but for many people of a certain age like me, they’re formative movies that are packed with iconic moments and legendary memes.Tobey Maguire’s Emo Peter Parker is basically a permanent internet character. One of the best parts of Spider-Man: No Way Home was when Willem Dafoe got to say perhaps his most classic Norman Osborne line. Netflix itself even used a Spider-Man meme in its announcement tweet.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google Cloud and Oracle servers located in the UK struggled with cooling-related outages Tuesday as the country experienced record-breaking heat that reached as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius). Both companies blame temperature for the unexpected shutdowns.On its Google Cloud status page, Google notes it has experienced a “cooling related failure” in one of its UK-based data centers. “This caused a partial failure of capacity in that zone, leading to VM [virtual machine] terminations and a loss of machines for a small set of our customers,” Google states. The company adds that it has also “powered down” some of its machines to prevent any further damage.As pointed out by The Register and Bleeping Computer, Oracle has... Continue reading…

The Lego Movie. | Image: Warner Bros. Netflix plans to acquire the animation studio Animal Logic, which is known for making hits like Happy Feet and The Lego Movie, the streaming company announced on Tuesday alongside its Q2 2022 earnings.“Today, we announced that we will be acquiring leading animation studio Animal Logic, with ~800 amazing people mostly in Sydney and Vancouver, which will help us accelerate the development of our animation production capabilities and reinforces our commitment to build a world-class animation studio,” Netflix wrote in its Q2 2022 shareholder letter (pdf).The two companies are already partnering on The Magician’s Elephant (set for a 2023 release) and Ron Howard’s first animated film, The Shrinking of Treehorn. The acquisition is expected... Continue reading…

The cast of Zack Snyder’s Justice League. | Image: HBO Max/Warner Bros. Though there were quite a few real people campaigning for #TheSnyderCut’s release before Warner Bros.’ 2021 announcement, new reporting from Rolling Stone suggests that a sizable amount of the movie’s social media hype was being driven by bots and inauthentic accounts.When Warner Bros. announced last year that it planned to release an extended cut of its 2017 Justice League film, the move was seen by many as both a vindication of and capitulation to director Zack Snyder and his extremely online fandom. For years, Snyder loyalists insisted that the movement developed organically as people saw the cut Joss Whedon, who replaced Snyder as director, delivered — and found it lacking. But, according to Rolling Stone, which obtained copies of... Continue reading…

Please just tell me where my phone is. | Photo by Jay Peters / The Verge If you own a Fitbit Charge 5 and are chronically forgetful, there’s good news — according to 9to5Google and Android Police, the fitness tracker’s latest update adds an app that lets you ring your phone from your wrist. This feature has been available on some Fitbit smartwatches for a while, but it’s exciting to see it come to one of the company’s simpler devices, especially as someone who used to ping my phone several times a day back when I had an Apple Watch.Charge 5 owners should get the find my phone feature automatically when they install the 171.50 update. Instructions on how to do so can be found in this Fitbit help article. Reportedly, the option will show up when you swipe down from the top of the screen, amid other options... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge New internal documents released Tuesday detail how three of Big Tech’s most prominent companies favored their own products as a means of stamping out competition. Their release comes as lawmakers push to approve stronger antitrust legislation by the end of the year.The documents were obtained by the House Judiciary Committee as part of its lengthy investigation into anticompetitive behavior from Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook’s parent company Meta. The investigation wrapped up in 2020, but the newly published emails, memos, and reports provide new evidence backing the committee’s calls to advance tougher competition rules for the tech industry.“It is time for Congress to act,” Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), chair of the antitrust... Continue reading…

The cat from Stray. | Image: Annapurna Interactive The PlayStation Network experienced some issues on Tuesday. At the time, Sony’s PlayStation status page said that says that things like launching games, buying, downloading, and browsing games, and signing in to your account may have been impacted.The issues popped up just a few hours after the release of Stray, the futuristic adventure game starring a cat. Sony didn’t give a specific reason as to why there were problems, so I’m going to place the blame for the outage squarely on the cute kitty. The cat wreaked havoc.It’s not clear how widespread the issues were. Things seemed to work fine on my PS5, though I saw a lot of people report issues on Twitter, and there was a spike of user reports of problems on Downdetector. Maybe someone... Continue reading…

If you had your keyboard repaired, you may be eligible for some money back. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple has agreed to pay out $50 million to settle a class action lawsuit that said the company knew about flaws with the butterfly keyboard switches it built into several MacBook models (via Reuters).The keyboards, introduced with the 2015 MacBook, were notoriously unreliable; basically any sort of grime, crumb, or dust could make it so that a key stopped responding altogether or got stuck, resulting in embarrassing typos. Apple tried several fixes for the keyboards, but each new generation failed to fix the core issue, with computers impacted as recently as the 2019 MacBook Pros and Air. (A full list of the affected computers is included on the first page of the settlement, but it’s basically all of Apple’s laptops from 2015 to 2019.)... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge When Facebook changed its name to Meta in October, there were a few concerns that the company was planning to dominate the nascent metaverse — but there’s one aggrieved party that’s only now going public.An installation-art company called META (or Meta.is) announced Tuesday that it will be suing Meta (or Facebook) for trademark violation, alleging that Zuckerberg’s name change violated the smaller company’s established brand.“On October 28, 2021, Facebook seized our META mark and name, which we put our blood, sweat, and tears into building for over twelve years,” reads a post on the smaller company’s site. “Today, after eight months of trying to negotiate with Facebook in good faith to no avail, we were left with no choice but to file... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The QA department at Blizzard Albany, the studio formerly known as Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2’s Vicarious Visions, has become the second QA department within Activision Blizzard to organize a union.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch is launching a new built-in fundraising tool called Twitch Charity to make it easier for streamers to run charity streams.Many streamers and organizations put on charity streams to help raise funds for causes they support. Right now, streamers often pledge donations, subscriptions, and Bits (Twitch’s virtual currency) received over a certain period of time to the charity of their choice. But there can be a lot to manage when hosting a charity stream — you can get an idea of what’s involved in this guide to hosting a charity stream from my former colleague Bijan Stephen.Twitch Charity is designed to simplify the fundraising process. Streamers will be able to go into “charity mode,” which activates a “Donate to Charity” button... Continue reading…

Buzz Lightyear in Lightyear. | Image: Disney / Pixar Lightyear, Disney and Pixar’s Buzz Lightyear-focused movie that hit theaters in June, will be available to stream on Disney Plus beginning August 3rd.

Google is going to test AR devices in the real world soon. | Image: Google Google is planning to test augmented reality (AR) prototypes in public beginning next month, the company announced Tuesday. Google has been exploring concepts like AR glasses that show translations in real time, but the company wants to take its ideas from the lab into the real world. The Verge previously reported that Google hopes to ship its “Project Iris” AR headset in 2024.“This will allow us to better understand how these devices can help people in their everyday lives,” Google’s Juston Payne wrote in a blog post. “And as we develop experiences like AR navigation, it will help us take factors such as weather and busy intersections into account — which can be difficult, sometimes impossible, to fully recreate indoors.”Prototypes... Continue reading…

Image: Xbox Grounded, the survival co-op that combines elements of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and A Bug’s Life, is getting an animated TV adaptation, as first reported by Deadline. Brent Friedman of Star Wars: Clone Wars will write the story, with Halo 4’s Brien Goodrich sitting in the director’s chair.Grounded was developed by Obsidian Entertainment and launched on Xbox and PC in 2020. The game amassed over 10 million players and follows a group of four friends who shrink down to the size of ants, similar to the premise of the 1989 movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. As they battle their way through a backyard teeming with the now-giant insects, they must gather resources, craft supplies, and build a base to survive.Waterproof Studios / SC... Continue reading…

Passersby walk towards an LED sign saying “18 -19 July extreme heat only travel if essential.” | Photo by Sebastian Gollnow / picture alliance via Getty Images The UK recorded temperatures rising above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time in its 350 years of climate records. The searing heatwave is unprecedented in a country that’s used to much cooler summer weather and is a bellwether of more extremes to come.The heat is so bad that it’s buckled an airport runway, forcing London Luton Airport to temporarily suspend flights on Monday. Rail services across parts of the UK ground to a halt as tracks also buckled or overheated, and overhead cables failed and even caught on fire. Over 48 hours, England and Wales grappled with twice as many wildfires as it did throughout the entire month of July last year. Parched grass turned to tinder, sparking blazes that threatened... Continue reading…

Photo by Christoph Dernbach / picture alliance via Getty Images Panasonic has picked De Soto, Kansas, to build a new EV battery plant, which projects to bring up to $4 billion in investments for the state, the Kansas governor’s office said in a press release. The press release predicts the plant will create up to 4,000 jobs, plus estimates of 4,000 additional jobs with suppliers and community businesses.In April, Kansas and Oklahoma were both among the locations reportedly in the running for potential locations for Panasonic’s new battery plant. Oklahoma’s governor notably pushed lawmakers to approve a $700 million rebate package without naming which company it might benefit.In its press release, Kansas credited the passing of its Attracting Powerful Economic Expansion Act (SB 347), or APEX Act, in... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge “All warfare is based on deception,” Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War. Some 2,500 years later, the maxim applies to the virtual battlefield as well as the physical.As the war in Ukraine rages on, researchers from Google have discovered malware from a Russian state-backed group disguised as a pro-Ukraine app. The details were revealed in a blog post published by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG), which specializes in tracking and exposing state-sponsored hacking.According to TAG, the Cyber Azov app — which invokes Ukraine’s far-right military unit, the Azov Regiment — was actually created by Turla, a Kremlin-backed hacking group known for compromising European and American organizations with malware. Image: Google... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Today, a Delaware court ruled that Twitter’s lawsuit against Elon Musk for attempting to back out of his acquisition of the company will be heard in October. This is a win for Twitter, which asked for a shorter timeframe than Musk.Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April but then appeared to get cold feet about the deal. Despite having waived his ability to do “due diligence,” or research on the company he was planning to acquire, he claimed that Twitter had too many bots. He then tried to terminate the agreement. In response, Twitter sued to hold him to the purchase.During oral arguments before the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, Twitter claimed that Musk’s bot arguments were bad-faith attempts to back out of the... Continue reading…

Photo by Noam Galai / Getty Images for Webby Awards We’ve got a lot to dig into today, from mergers and acquisitions to breakups, both amicable and acrimonious. But first, I want to give a shout-out to my friend Karishma, who alerted me to the Desus and Mero drama blowing up on Twitter when I just wanted to bury my head in some copyright law. The second you look away is when it all goes down.How Desus and Mero brought podcast quirkiness to late-night comedyWe learned Monday night that comedy duo Desus Nice and The Kid Mero are officially over, bringing their critically acclaimed talk show on Showtime to an end. Desus & Mero was one of the very few new late-night shows to break through during the streaming era, thanks in part to the pair’s ability to successfully translate the... Continue reading…

Proposed redesigns of the Chrome icon. | Image: Google Google changed up its Chrome logo earlier this year, for the first time since 2014. The new Chrome logo has some subtle differences from before, thanks to a lack of shadows, slightly different proportions, and brighter colors. Most Chrome users might not have even noticed its introduction in Chrome 100, but Google had experimented with far more radical designs that didn’t make the cut.Some of the more striking proposals included completely different shapes for the Chrome logo or separating the colors with white borders. “In the exploratory phase, we tried all kinds of ideas; softening corners, different geometries, whether or not to separate the colors with white,” explains Thomas Messenger, a visual designer at Google. “We also tried... Continue reading…

Tekken: Bloodline | Image: Netflix Back in March, Netflix announced its Tekken TV show, and now we have a full trailer as well as a release date: August 18th. Dubbed Tekken: Bloodline, this anime adaptation follows the story of the King of Iron Fist Tournament from the perspective of Jin Kazama, as he’s trained by his grandfather Heihachi Mishima on a quest for revenge.It wasn’t the most original storyline when the games debuted in the ‘90s, but with a supernatural Ogre, corporate power battles, and genetic traits that promise incredible powers, there’s enough to make something more watchable than the movie released in 2010, which had a zero percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.Here’s how Netflix summarizes its new show:

Walmart, Microsoft, and Best Buy all have the Series X in stock. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Having a single retailer restock the Xbox Series X is rare enough, but you can currently find the rarefied console at a trio of retailers while supplies last. Anyone still trying to get their hands on Microsoft’s monolithic console can pick one up at Best Buy, Microsoft, or Walmart for the standard retail price of $499.99.Amazon is also still offering its invite program for anyone that’s willing to wait. In addition to the standalone 1TB console, all of the retailers mentioned here are offering bundles that include games, peripherals, or Xbox Game Pass subscriptions with your purchase. Microsoft, for example, lets you bundle an additional controller with your order for a $10 discount, while Best Buy has a package that includes a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is introducing a slew of new shopping features for creators, including the ability to link storefronts and sell products directly on the platform through a partnership with Shopify.In a blog post published today, YouTube says its partnership with Shopify will allow creators to display products throughout their channels, like below videos, during livestreams, or at the end of videos. Inventory will sync with Shopify so viewers can see in real time if something is out of stock. YouTube will also give US-based creators the option to enable on-site checkout, meaning viewers can purchase products directly on the platform without leaving YouTube.In addition to the Shopify integration, YouTube says it will dedicate a section of the... Continue reading…

Screenshot: Qualcomm While Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear chips power the vast majority of current Wear OS watches, the platform itself has never really delivered. Thus far, Snapdragon Wear chips have been repurposed mobile processor designs built on outdated tech and are a big reason why Wear OS watches have been so lackluster. But today, Qualcomm is launching an overhauled wearables platform called Snapdragon W5 Plus and W5. And this time, it seems like Qualcomm means business.For starters, the company is ditching the Snapdragon Wear branding. That might seem irrelevant, but it’s more like a symbolic fresh slate. Instead, the new W5 Plus and W5 chips will be folded under the main Snapdragon umbrella. The W5 Plus is envisioned for premium smartwatches, while... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google will start allowing the developers of non-gaming apps in the European Economic Area (EEA) to offer alternate payment systems. In a blog post, Google outlines its plans to comply with the Digital Markets Act (or DMA), a piece of legislation aimed at regulating big tech.The DMA passed through the European Parliament earlier this month, but it isn’t expected to go into force until spring 2023. But Google is rolling out the changes ahead of time to make sure that its plans “serve the needs” of users.The legislation requires “gatekeepers,” or companies with a market capitalization of €74 billion or over, to follow a set of rules meant to promote competition among digital platforms. Failing to comply could lead to fines of up to 10... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Exactly 10 years ago today, Microsoft completed its $1.2 billion purchase of Yammer, an enterprise-focused social networking platform. Despite a big Yammer overhaul in 2019, Microsoft has been increasingly focused on Teams and its new Viva platform as the hubs of communication in workplaces.Microsoft is now launching Viva Engage today, a new Facebook-like app inside Teams that encourages social networking at work.Viva Engage builds on some of the strengths of Yammer, promoting digital communities, conversations, and self-expression in the workplace. While Yammer often feels like an extension of SharePoint and Office, Viva Engage looks like a Facebook replica. It includes a storylines section, which is effectively your Facebook news... Continue reading…

Excel Live inside Microsoft Teams. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is bringing Excel directly into Teams meetings. Excel Live is a new way for Teams meeting participants to edit Excel spreadsheets together in real time. It’s part of a trio of new features coming to Teams that continue Microsoft’s focus on hybrid work. Teams is also getting video clips that can be shared in chats and collaborative annotations that allow colleagues to doodle on top of content during Teams meetings.Excel Live is part of Microsoft’s Live Share functionality in Microsoft Teams that the company detailed earlier this year. “What it does is it allows you in a Teams meeting to edit a workbook live in real time, right in that meeting stage itself,” explains Nicole Herskowitz, vice president of Microsoft Teams, in an... Continue reading…

Maybe it won’t be a dystopia? Continue reading…

The Hisense U6G includes Dolby Atmos, Dolby Vision, and HDR 10 Plus. | Image: Hisense Prime Day 2022 may be done and dusted, but there are still plenty of deals worth checking out. For instance, Walmart has discounted the 55-inch configuration of the Hisense U6G ULED TV to $378, the lowest price we’ve seen for this model that usually costs $449.99. While it may lack the higher refresh rates found in pricier models, the low-cost U6G has a few impressive features, like Dolby Vision and HDR10 Plus, for a more cinematic, contrast-rich viewing experience. This model also has Google Assistant built in, allowing you to control playback with your voice instead of having to frantically search for the remote for the hundredth time.For something that won’t cost as much, the second-generation Lenovo Smart Clock is currently... Continue reading…

Image: Chevy Chevy is bringing the Blazer to its electric car lineup. The midsize crossover SUV is the latest of the GM brand’s gas cars to feature an all-electric version, joining the Chevy Equinox EV, Silverado EV, and GMC Hummer EV.Chevy isn’t going light on the options for the Blazer EV: buyers can choose between front-wheel drive, rear-wheel drive, or all-wheel drive models. Plus, there will be a high-performance Blazer SS model capable of 557 horsepower. It can go from 0 to 60mph in less than four seconds using what the company calls a WOW (wide open watts) mode that recalls other high-performance electric settings like Tesla’s Ludicrous and Plaid options, Lucid Motors’ Launch Mode, or the Unbridled Extend setting on the Mustang Mach-E. Other... Continue reading…

Nintendo has confirmed that both the Wii U and 3DS digital storefronts will no longer allow new purchases of paid or free content starting March 27th, 2023. Previously, it was broadly targeting March 2023, giving gamers plenty of time to fill out their collections before they no longer have the chance to do so — legally, at least. Now, there’s a final date.There’s a bit more urgency, however, if you were hoping to purchase a Nintendo eShop card (which are typically available at some sort of small discount) to add funds to your account on Wii U or 3DS. As Nintendo previously shared, the cutoff date to add funds via this method is August 29th, 2022, which is just over one month from the time of publishing. Those funds will be yours to use... Continue reading…

Image: Hasbro This is a Nerf blaster unlike any you’ve seen before. It doesn’t shoot reusable foam darts or foam balls, but rather pellets of squishy, water-infused gel. Pellets so small you can fit 800 of them into this blaster, and so cheap it’ll come with 10,000 of them right out of the box. It’ll shoot them fully automatic with an included rechargeable, swappable 7.4V battery you can top up with a USB-C cable — just like a phone.It’s called the Nerf Pro Gelfire Mythic, it’ll cost $79.99 this November, and it’s wild to see it exists — partly because it’s such a departure from kid-friendly darts, and partly because it feels like Hasbro is finally conceding that it doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel to attract an older audience. I... Continue reading…

Trust us, 16:10 aspect ratio is just better. | Image: Dell Dell heard our call in 2021 for more laptops with tall displays and finally answered it a year later. It’s launching the Dell G16 (model 7620) on July 21st, starting at $1,399.99 and going up, and the display seems to be most of the story here. Instead of a 15.6-inch 16:9 aspect ratio display that Dell has traditionally used in its prior models, this is its first crack at a 16-inch model with a taller 16:10 aspect ratio screen. Most everything else is a known quantity from April’s G15 launch, but I’ll go over it again a bit later.Like displays that we’ve seen before in gaming machines from Lenovo, Acer, and more, this is a QHD Plus display sporting a 2,560 x 1,600 resolution, along with a 165Hz refresh rate. Are 160 extra vertical... Continue reading…

Image: Alienware Not content with settling for meeting the industry’s best refresh rates in a laptop at an already high 360Hz, Alienware is going for broke with 480Hz screens (3ms, 300-nit, 100 percent sRGB color gamut) in the M17 R5 and X17 R2. While each model can be configured with up to 4K displays, this new 480Hz model is a 1080p screen edging closer to perfection in terms of delivering smoother animations. And, perhaps more important for Dell’s target audience for these machines, it’ll help to further nix stuttering gameplay. The 480Hz option is but another screen configuration for the already launched Alienware X17 R2 and M17 R5 (costing $300 to upgrade over the base 165Hz panel).This news coincides with the launch of the AMD Advantage version... Continue reading…

The Atari 2600 Lego model. | Image: Lego The Atari 2600 is getting the Lego treatment. The Danish toy company’s latest model is based on the 1980 revision of the iconic console rather than its 1977 debut and consists of a meaty 2,532 pieces (which seems like a missed opportunity to offer 2,600 pieces, but I digress). It’ll be available on August 1st for $239.99 and coincides with the Atari’s 50th anniversary.The launch of the set comes a little over two years after Lego made a similarly loving recreation of Nintendo’s classic NES console. But while the Lego Nintendo console included both a buildable console itself as well as an accompanying CRT TV, the Atari model is more self-contained; there’s the console itself as well as a controller with a movable joystick.... Continue reading…

With HBO’s House of the Dragon set to debut just a little over a month from now, you’d be hard-pressed to bone up on your High Valyrian in time for the premiere by trying to watch all of Game of Thrones. Surely, some will try, but for those looking for a less time-consuming way of learning the fictional language or refreshing their skills, Duolingo has an alternative.Just in time for House of the Dragon’s launch, Duolingo’s expanding its High Valyrian course with 150 new words developed in partnership with David J. Peterson, the fantasy linguist who helped design the language for HBO’s Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. Duolingo’s expanded High Valyrian course also features over 700 new sentences directly related to House of the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Slack is putting its prices up in September, alongside some big changes to its free plan. It’s the first price increase since Slack launched in 2014, but will only affect users of Slack’s “Pro” plan. On September 1st, monthly Pro subscriptions will increase from $8 to $8.75 per user per month, and annual Pro subscriptions will increase from $6.67 to $7.25 per user per month.The price increases will only impact Pro customers worldwide, and not companies on Slack’s Business Plus or custom enterprise plans. There is a way to avoid the price increases for another year, though. Current annual Pro subscribers can lock in the existing annual rate for another year by renewing their subscription early before September 1st. Monthly Pro... Continue reading…

These colors combine to spell out the event’s date. | Image: Samsung In a trio of images posted to its official Twitter account, Samsung Mobile appears to have confirmed the date of its next Unpacked event as August 10th, 2022.The first image presents a grid of letters, numbers, and symbols, while the second shows the same grid replaced with colored circles. Match the characters to the colors, and you can decode the message on the third image as 081022 — aka August 10th, 2022.

Image: Vizio Vizio was once the de facto recommendation for TV shoppers looking to spend under $1,000 on a new set. But over the last several years, companies like TCL and Hisense have made their presence felt in the mid-range price segment that was long Vizio’s specialty — and sometimes with better performance.It didn’t help that Vizio hit some snags with its 2020 TV lineup (particularly in the area of next-gen 4K gaming), requiring multiple firmware updates to get those TVs where they needed to be for the most demanding gamers. So it makes sense that the company took its time with the 2023 models being announced today.What’s not being refreshed are Vizio’s highest-end sets. The 65- and 75-inch P-Series Quantum, 85-inch P-Series Quantum X, and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is taking legal action against the admins of over 10,000 Facebook groups that it says facilitate fake reviews for products on its platform by promising money or free products in exchange for positive reviews. The groups are allegedly responsible for fake reviews across Amazon’s sites in the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Japan, the company has announced. Just one such group, called “Amazon Product Review,” reportedly had over 43,000 members.The e-commerce giant has a well-documented problem with fake reviews, which has grown more pressing as third-party marketplace sellers make up a bigger and bigger proportion of sales on its platform. It officially banned incentivized reviews in October 2016, but four years later in... Continue reading…

At least one card issuer is tired of paying fees. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge A proposed class action lawsuit is taking aim at Apple Pay, claiming that Apple has an illegal monopoly over contactless payments on the iPhone, letting it force card issuers into paying fees (via Bloomberg). The suit is being kicked off by Iowa-based Affinity Credit Union, which issues debit and credit cards that are compatible with Apple Pay, but the company’s lawyers hope to make it a class-action case so other card issuers can join the lawsuit.According to the complaint, which you can read in full below, Apple makes over $1 billion a year charging credit card companies up to 0.15 percent per transaction in Apple Pay fees, and yet those same card issuers don’t have to pay anything when their customers use “functionally identical... Continue reading…

Photo by: Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Duo Desus Nice and The Kid Mero, who established one of the top comedy brands of the decade with their podcast Bodega Boys and their eponymous show on Showtime, are well and truly done.Desus and Mero, otherwise known as Daniel Baker and Joel Martinez, respectively, are arguably the biggest podcast to Hollywood crossovers in the industry. After breaking into podcasting with Complex TV’s Desus vs. Mero podcast and Bodega Boys, the pair had a show on Viceland from 2016 to 2018 before getting the Showtime late-night series that would take them mainstream.“Desus Nice and The Kid Mero will be pursuing separate creative endeavors moving forward,” Showtime said in a statement Monday evening. “Showtime’s late-night talk show Desus & Mero will... Continue reading…