The Verge

Image: EA / Maxis The Sims 4 is making it easier for players to create Sims that better reflect their lived experiences. As a free update coming at the end of the month along with the High School Years expansion, players can now choose their Sims’ sexual orientation and romantic / sexual attraction.It works like this: within the “Create a Sim” function, you’ll be able to fiddle with how your Sim experiences sex and romance. First, you can choose if your character is attracted to men or women. The Sims 4 team is aware that making this choice based on binary options isn’t ideal.“I understand that there will be concerns here around the initial options being gender binary,” SimGuruJessica, the design lead on the High School Years expansion wrote in the... Continue reading…

Amazon to begin testing drones in College Station, Texas. | Image: Amazon Amazon’s Prime Air delivery drones will begin testing in Texas soon. The drone delivery tests are happening in College Station, Texas, along with a test area announced last month located in Lockeford, California.The current MK27-2 design (shown above) has a hexagonal shape that Amazon says increases stability as well as propellers that the company claims will minimize high-frequency soundwaves.The company originally announced plans to create a 30-minute drone delivery service in 2013 and showed off this now-dated video (embedded above) as a demonstration of what the future might be like. Amazon showed off redesigned drones with hybrid VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) capabilities in 2019 and received approval from the Federal... Continue reading…

In yet another reminder of just how flexible Valve’s Steam Deck handheld gaming PC can be, an enterprising Redditor has gotten the Playdate Simulator running on their Steam Deck, as shared on Twitter by Valve designer Lawrence Yang.The Playdate, if you’re not familiar, is Panic’s tiny yellow handheld with a crank, but similar to the long reservation queue for the Steam Deck, Playdate preorders are backed up for months. If you place a Playdate preorder right now, it isn’t expected to ship until 2023. If you already have a Steam Deck and want to mess around with the Playdate’s old-school vibes, though, it looks like it’s possible to do that by installing the free Playdate Simulator.You can see a video of the simulator running on Steam... Continue reading…

Bungie, the developer of Destiny 2, is now officially a part of Sony. The PlayStation maker had announced its intent to acquire the gaming studio in January, and now, that acquisition is complete. At the initial announcement, Sony said (pdf) the deal was worth $3.6 billion, but in an SEC filing on Friday, it said the deal was worth “approximately” $3.7 billion.

The first full-color image released from the JWST. | Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Stars in the new images from the James Webb Space Telescope look sharper than they did before. And I’m not just talking about the image quality, which is astounding. I’m talking about the fact that many of the bright stars in the images have very distinct Christmas-ornament-looking spikes or, as one of my colleagues put it, “It looks like a J.J. Abrams promo poster, and I love it.”But this isn’t a case of too much lens flare. Those are diffraction spikes, and if you look closely, you’ll see that all bright objects in the JWST images have the same eight-pointed pattern. The brighter the light, the more prominent the feature. Dimmer objects like nebulae or galaxies don’t tend to see quite as much of this distortion.This pattern of... Continue reading…

Some fans are a little louder than others. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge The last time iFixit tried to offer replacement kits for the fans on Valve’s Steam Deck, they sold out so quickly most people didn’t even get a chance to stick a kit in a cart. In June, iFixit had a fan fix kit “drop” limited to just 100 kits. Now they’re back, and they seem like they’re sticking around. Even better, iFixit finally has a solution for replacing your Steam Deck battery.The Steam Deck is a tinkerer’s dream device. A powerful PC in a tiny design that you can crack open relatively easily when you want to swap out parts. Two days after my Steam Deck arrived, I was replacing the offensively slow 64GB eMMC drive with a 512GB SSD I picked up on eBay.But I’m also the kind of nerd that has a kit hanging around just to open up... Continue reading…

You can see Jupiter, its Great Red Spot, its moon Europa, and Europa’s shadow next to the Great Red Spot | Image: NASA After dazzling the world with the first images from the powerful James Webb Space Telescope this week, NASA released even more photos from the observatory yesterday, this time pictures from within our own Solar System. The space agency revealed the telescope’s images of the planet Jupiter, as well as an asteroid, used as reference targets when engineering teams were calibrating the observatory’s instruments.The pictures serve as a small teaser of the images we should be getting from our Solar System in the months and years to come. The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, may be known for its ability to peer into some of the deepest recesses of the Universe, but scientists will also be using the telescope to study our own cosmic... Continue reading…

A dust plume over the eastern Mediterranean, shrouding parts of Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus. The June 2020 image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. NASA’s EMIT mission will help scientists better understand how airborne dust affects climate. | Image: NASA A payload making its way to the International Space Station could help researchers back on Earth finally solve a climate mystery that’s stymied scientists for years. NASA launched a key instrument for its climate research, called the Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT), aboard a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft Thursday night from the Kennedy Space Center.Dust is a surprisingly powerful force up in the atmosphere, which is why NASA is determined to better understand it. The tiny particles waft up from deserts and other arid regions, and depending on many different factors, they can have a cooling or heating effect on our planet. Which scenario is actually playing out across the globe, however, continues to elude scientists.... Continue reading…

Carrie Underwood’s Apple Music Sessions performance is available now. | Image: Apple This morning Apple announced Apple Music Sessions, a series of live performances that will be available exclusively to subscribers of the company’s music service. Carrie Underwood and Tenille Townes are the first two artists to be featured, and for now, the sessions will mostly be geared toward country.That’s likely because they’re being recorded from Nashville, Tennessee, in what Apple describes as a “state-of-the-art” studio. The company plans to tap into other genres (and other recording studios around the world) “in the future,” according to today’s press release.For each session, artists will perform original songs as well as “creative” covers. Carrie Underwood went with Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mama, I’m Coming Home,” with Townes... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Starting Saturday, people in a mental health crisis will be able to call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline). It’ll connect people with mental health counselors 24 hours a day, seven days a week.The Lifeline is a network of over 200 local call centers. If local centers are busy, callers are redirected to a national backup center.Officials have billed the new number as the “911” for suicide prevention and mental healthcare. It replaces the old National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number — 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). One goal is to reduce the number of mental health crisis calls that go to 911, which often sends people to busy emergency rooms or puts them in... Continue reading…

The 16-inch MacBook Pro is $2,249. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you need something more powerful than the new M2-powered MacBook Air, last year’s 16-inch MacBook Pro is available on Amazon right now for its lowest price to date. Regularly $2,499.00, Amazon is selling the M1-powered model with a 10‑core CPU, 16‑core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB SSD for $2,249 — a price Best Buy is currently matching. We were very impressed with the 16-inch machine, which offers a Mini LED display that the new MacBook Air lacks and fantastic performance that makes it the most powerful laptop we’ve ever tested for content creation and creative work. The laptop also boasts some of the longest battery life we’ve seen. Plus, the port selection is terrific; whereas the MacBook Air only allows for one external display, you... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Update July 15th, 10:55AM ET: Looks like Amazon has pulled the invite requests at this time. Hopefully this is a sign of more console deal opportunities to come, especially as the Xbox Series X continues being more readily available.The console restock scene has been slowly improving over the course of a few months, with the Xbox Series S on sale just about anywhere, the Xbox Series X available without nearly as much trouble as in the past, and even the PlayStation 5 getting more reliable restock windows. What’s still rare on those last two are any discounts or savings. But right now, if you act quickly, you may be able to get a deal on the Xbox Series X from Amazon.During its Prime Day hangover, the e-commerce giant is allowing you... Continue reading…

Photo by Pavel Pavlov/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Dmitry Rogozin, the blustering head of Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos, is out of the position following a big shake-up in the Russian government. He is being replaced by Yury Borisov, Russian deputy prime minister of space and defense, bringing an end to Rogozin’s dynamic reign as general director of the country’s space program.Rogozin has been in charge of Roscosmos since his appointment as director general in 2018, though prior to that, he was deputy prime minister since 2011, overseeing space and defense. He’s been a controversial figure for most of that tenure, resulting in strained relations with NASA — Russia’s largest partner in space. Rogozin was sanctioned by the United States in 2014 and barred from entering the... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, editor-at-large David Pierce, and managing editor Alex Cranz discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.On today’s episode, Nilay, David, and Alex chat with Verge reviews editor Dan Seifert about our review of Apple’s newly designed MacBook Air with the M2 processor. We’ve always considered the MacBook Air the best Apple laptop for most users — is that still true?Of course, we couldn’t let the week slip by without wading into the latest news in the “Elon Musk buys Twitter” saga. Verge senior reporter Liz Lopatto returns to break it all down and explain what options will be left... Continue reading…

Image: Rob Sheridan Horror is in the AI of the beholder Continue reading…

A home office in disguise Continue reading…

Yup, that’s Dwight’s stapler in jello. | Image: Lego It will be available for preorder on Friday for $119.99 Continue reading…

Suzume, the next film from director Makoto Shinkai, is only a few months away from theatrical release — and now we finally have a better idea of what to expect from the mysterious project. The movie’s latest trailer has all the bittersweet vibes you’d expect from the director of Your Name and Weathering With You, along with some offbeat additions like an adorable cat with its own Twitter feed and a sentient chair that loves to run. The trailer also introduces Nanoka Hara in the title role, as well as the film’s main theme song. (If you don’t speak Japanese, you can turn on closed captions in the trailer above to see the lyrics.)If you’re curious about what the actual story is, here’s the basic description:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Dive down into the menus to tune your iPhone to work for you Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The problem is clear, but the solutions are complicated Continue reading…

The face of a man who has decided he won’t defeat the spambots or die trying | Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images So it was a troll after all.Look, I was willing to believe I’d called it wrong after the merger agreement went through. Maybe Elon Musk was serious for a change! Maybe he really did want to own an also-ran social network! Maybe Musk was really looking forward to giving himself ulcers dealing with content moderation issues! People have done weirder shit for power, and I think we can all agree that Elon Musk is deeply interested in power. Why else would he be busy testing how well Americans enforce their laws?A quick recap: Musk is attempting to do a runner on the Twitter acquisition, and Twitter isn’t having it. Twitter lawyered up in the rudest possible fashion: with the firm that came up with the poison pill. That firm then filed a... Continue reading…

Microsoft is changing how it releases major versions of Windows again, and it could mean we see a Windows 12 release in 2024. Windows Central reports that Microsoft is shifting back to a three-year release cycle for Windows, which means the next major version of Windows is now due in 2024. It’s another big change to how Microsoft develops Windows.Microsoft originally moved away from its three-year cycle with the release of Windows 10 in 2015, prioritizing the idea of Windows as a service. Instead of a big release of features every three years in a new Windows release, Windows 10 was updated twice a year with big new features. For years, many Windows watchers thought Windows 10 would be the last big bang release of Windows, after a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Intel is getting ready to increase the prices of its CPUs and chips. Nikkei reports that the chip maker will raise prices on its flagship CPUs and a wide range of other chips later this year, including Wi-Fi and other connectivity chips. Intel has already informed its customers of the price increases, and it will likely lead to more PC and laptop price increases during the holiday period.Nikkei reports that pricing hasn’t been finalized, but some chips could go up by 20 percent. Intel already warned earlier this year that it was looking at price increases for certain chips, due to ongoing inflation and the rising costs of materials, shipping, and labor. “On its Q1 earnings call, Intel indicated it would increase pricing in certain... Continue reading…

This iPhone looks a whole lot like Nothing using Dbrand’s Something skin. | Image: Dbrand After months of teasing and overhyping, the Nothing Phone 1 is finally here. We got our hands on the device this week and determined it’s mostly just a regular smartphone with a cool translucent rear — so wouldn’t it be cool if you could have that look on the phone you already own?That’s what device outfitter company Dbrand set out to do, and it wound up making… Something. It’s a collection of skins and cases that match the geometric white and gray style of the Nothing Phone 1’s visible internals, but you’re able to pair them with select iPhones, Pixels, and other devices. Image: Dbrand The iPhone 13 Pro Max and Pixel 6 Pro show off their insides like it’s Nothing. Dbrand CEO Adam Ijaz said that the Nothing... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Prime Day may be done and dusted, but there are still plenty of awesome deals to be found at Amazon and other retailers. Right now, for instance, are still plenty of discounts to be found on true wireless earbuds, laptops, TVs, video games, and a host of other tech. A few of the highlights still available include the Beats Fit Pro — which are still discounted to $159.95 (normally $200) — as well as the Apple Watch SE, which currently starts at $230 ($49 off) $219 ($60 off).We’ll continue to update this page by adding any products that we might have missed and removing anything that’s no longer available, so make sure to check back regularly.Some of the best Prime Day deals still standing

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Here is something I didn’t know when I purchased Amazon Ring cameras and Amazon Echo Dots: there is a webpage where law enforcement can fill out a form, say there’s a life-threatening emergency, and get access to your data without your consent, a court order, or any kind of warrant. There’s nothing in the Terms of Service about this, and the company has maintained for years that it helps police get consent first, but it’s happening anyhow.Over the past seven months alone, Amazon has provided private Ring videos to law enforcement 11 times, the company told Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) in a letter dated July 1st and provided to press this week.Here are Markey’s questions and Amazon’s answers about that specifically: (Markey... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Chrome OS, Google’s Linux-based operating system for its Chromebook devices, has been around for more than a decade, but the company has made a small but notable branding change: it’s now called ChromeOS, with no space in between. James Croom, Google’s senior director of marketing for ChromeOS, confirmed the change to The Verge.You can see the change for yourself all over Google’s ChromeOS dev page (though the official logo at the top appears to have a lowercase c.) Screenshot from Google’s ChromeOS dev page That’s three entire spaces saved just in this screenshot. (And four if you count the logo.) The change hasn’t rolled out everywhere just yet. On this ChromeOS page on Google’s Chromebook site, for example,... Continue reading…

Image: Hyundai, Screenshot: Umar Shakir / The Verge New car events are usually pretty cringe, full of pointless pyrotechnics, emotionless futurescapes, shameless pandering to “the youth,” or hapless CEO antics. (Remember Elon Musk’s Cybertruck window smash fail? Simpler times.) So it is with some degree of hesitation that I must point you to this video from Hyundai as the latest exhibit in this ongoing series of “car companies present depressing visions of the future.”The video, which was released yesterday, was intended to reveal the sleek-looking Ioniq 6, Hyundai’s latest electric vehicle with a 77.4kWh battery and 379 miles of range. Instead we got a smorgasbord of buzzwords — “trashion,” metaverse, NFTs — ideally aimed at appealing to a youthful demographic, but going about it in the... Continue reading…

Play Wordle with your friends in this new board game. | Image: The New York Times and Hasbro The hit online puzzle Wordle is being turned into a multiplayer board game. The New York Times, which purchased Wordle earlier this year, is partnering with Hasbro to bring Wordle from the digital world to the physical one as Wordle: The Party Game later this year.Wordle rose to prominence in large part because, at least for a little while, it seemed like literally everyone was sharing their results on Twitter. But actually solving a Wordle puzzle is generally a solitary endeavor. In Wordle: The Party Game, though, Wordle becomes a group activity.One player thinks of a five-letter word that other players have to try and guess first. Once people have made their guesses, the word-thinker will slide translucent yellow and green tiles over... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge OpenSea co-founder and CEO Devin Finzer revealed this afternoon that the NFT marketplace is laying off about 20 percent of its employees. Finzer did not indicate how many people that represented. A Forbes article in January celebrating Finzer and his co-founder Alex Atallah’s $2.2 billion net worth (each) said the company employed more than 70 people, but an OpenSea spokesperson tells The Verge that 230 people will remain with the company.When we profiled OpenSea in February, the company had just received an additional $300 million in funding with a valuation of $13.3 billion and was the dominant player in selling the tokens, earning a 2.5 percent commission on trades.Still, a sustained drop in activity and prices has led to headlines... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Twitter’s experiment in letting two people tweet together has a weird loophole. It’s now possible to accidentally make an unlisted tweet. It’s not private, but you can only see it if someone sends you a link. Or embeds it in a website.Here is my unlisted tweet:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook will allow some users to have multiple profiles as part of a test, the company announced today, signaling a major shift as Meta looks for new ways to encourage users to stay on the platform amid increased competition from rivals.As part of the test, some Facebook users will have the ability to create up to four additional profiles tied to their original account. The idea is that additional profiles can be used for different purposes, like one for friends, one for co-workers, and others for interacting with interest groups and influencers. Users will still have one account but be able to switch between profiles with a few clicks.Users who create extra profiles won’t need to use their real identity for their display nameP... Continue reading…

Image: Nissan The Nissan Leaf, a pioneer electric vehicle and one of the cheapest EVs currently on the market, is nearing the end of its life span. According to a report in Automotive News, Nissan does not plan on introducing a next-generation version of the Leaf and may even discontinue the nameplate altogether.Production of the current version of the Leaf is set to wind down by mid-decade, the outlet reports, citing three anonymous sources. A spokesperson for Nissan declined to speculate on the Leaf’s future but did say that the company has noted a “renewed” interest in the Leaf amid high demand for EVs.“We are seeing renewed interest in LEAF with the increased demand for EVs and its overall value proposition,” Nissan spokesperson Stephen Oldham... Continue reading…

Coin Crew Games I’ve been in the mood for a good puzzle game. No, that’s not accurate enough. If a good puzzle game came to my door and proposed marriage, I would blow up my life and career for it the same way that journalist did for that pharma bro. (But I’d at least have the good sense to take the inevitable L privately.)I wanted Escape Academy to ruin my life like that, the same way Inscryption did.And while the escape room puzzle game / visual novel isn’t the equivalent of Tessa Thompson or Tom Hiddleston — or Tessa Thompson and Tom Hiddleston — showing up at my door on bended knee; I can say it’s more like that greasy guy from The Bear cooking an intimate dinner for two in his furniture-less apartment — absolutely incredible but sparse and far... Continue reading…

Netflix is partnering with Microsoft for its upcoming ad-supported streaming tier, the company announced Wednesday. The streaming service says Microsoft will become its “global advertising technology and sales partner” upon rolling out the cheaper option.“It’s very early days and we have much to work through,” Netflix COO Greg Peters writes in the post. “But our long term goal is clear. More choice for consumers and a premium, better-than-linear TV brand experience for advertisers. We’re excited to work with Microsoft as we bring this new service to life.”

Photo by Nathan Posner / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images BTS fans have quite a lot of content to look out for on Disney Plus. The streaming service has announced a collaboration with Hybe, BTS’s label, to bring what Disney describes as “five major content titles” to the platform. At least three of those titles are confirmed to feature BTS in some form.The two exclusive projects include BTS: Permission to Dance On Stage — LA, a 4K film of the band’s live performance at Sofi Stadium last November, and BTS Monuments: Beyond the Star, a docuseries about the band that’s said to feature “unprecedented access to a vast library of music and footage over the past nine years.”Also coming to Disney Plus is In The Soop: Friendcation, a travel reality show starring BTS member V and other entertainers,... Continue reading…

The Wink Hub has been offline for two weeks, the longest ever for the smart home platform. | Image: Wink Wink, the once-innovative smart home platform, has been down for two weeks with no sign of a fix. The outage has left customers of the Will-i-am-owned company — who pay $5 a month for the service to run their connected lights, locks, sensors, and other devices through the Wink Hub — completely in the lurch. It’s so bad that even Wink’s website and email are affected, which gives off strong whiffs of “somebody didn’t pay the bill this month.”There was initially no formal word from Wink, but an email to users posted on Reddit arrived 10 days after the outage began. It states in part, “Starting on July 1st, our systems have regrettably become temporarily unavailable …. We assure you that we’re working hard on a resolution for the ongoing... Continue reading…

Home Assistant Amber is a smart home hub for the free, open source home automation platform. | Nabu Casa Home Assistant, the powerful-yet-prickly smart home automation platform, is finally moving toward the mainstream. Nabu Casa, the company behind the free, open-source software, has launched Home Assistant Yellow, its first ready-to-use hub that can run Home Assistant software out of the box. Unlike with prior methods of using Home Assistant, there’s minimal programming required and no need to build your own computer when you have the Yellow.Debuting on the creators’ crowdfunding platform Crowd Supply this week, the $149 box is designed for both beginners and experienced HA fans. Shipping is targeted for June 2022, provided the $140,000 funding goal is met (it’s about a third of the way there as of publish). Image: Nabu... Continue reading…

Wing, the drone delivery company operated by Google parent Alphabet, unveiled a series of new prototype aircraft designed to handle a variety of payloads. The company said the new drones will share the same underlying components with the aircraft currently in use delivering pharmaceuticals and other small packages in the suburbs outside of Dallas-Fort Worth.According to Wing CEO Adam Woodworth, the aim is to right-size the delivery industry in order to match the appropriate package with a similar sized vehicle. “Just as the ideal vehicle for carrying a ton of gravel would be a dump truck rather than a sedan, the ideal aircraft to carry a bottle of medication is not the same as the best one to deliver a gallon of milk, and neither is... Continue reading…

One of the launch event’s attendees holds Nothing’s Ear 1 earbuds on its Phone 1. | Image: Nothing Hype giveth, and hype taketh away Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter went down for around 40 minutes this morning, in a major outage for the social network. Issues started with the service at around 8:05AM ET, with many users reporting “over capacity” error messages, and even errors saying “this page is down.” The issues affected Twitter web, mobile, and even the company’s TweetDeck app.Downdetector had thousands of reports of issues with Twitter, but Twitter’s own status page claimed “all systems operational.” While the main Twitter.com domain loaded, many users weren’t able to log into the service or access tweets. Twitter started to come back to life at around 8:40AM ET, with many able to tweet and access the service again.At 9:10AM ET Twitter tweeted, “we’re working to get it back up and... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Chat service Omegle is on the hook for a lawsuit after its matching system paired an 11-year-old girl with a man who then sexually abused her. A district judge in Portland, Oregon, said the company’s system wasn’t protected by the legal shield that covers much user-generated content. The case isn’t concluded, but it opens the door to more prosecutions based on how a platform designs its services.The legal complaint, filed late last year, alleges that Omegle’s service was defective and falsely represented. It’s a common strategy that’s often failed in court before, including with Grindr in a harassment case, typically due to the legal protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This time, however, Judge Michael Mosman... Continue reading…

Venture into Ventura. I know, sorry, didn’t have time to workshop this one. As my colleagues downloaded the public beta of macOS Ventura, the underwhelmed reactions began to roll in. “Everything looks the same,” one of my colleagues lamented. “This kinda sucks,” another complained. Nothing was particularly wrong with the operating system — it just looks and feels exactly the same as Monterey did. Many of the most significant features of this operating system are things that many users may not ever know about or use.But things could definitely be worse. Unlike with Monterey (I feel like we literally just got Universal Control a few days ago), those significant features are basically all up and running in the beta now, and they seem mostly solid.Ventura also isn’t full of bugs or glitches that are ruining... Continue reading…

An aerial view of the Whinstone US Bitcoin mining facility in Rockdale, Texas, on October 9th, 2021. | Photo by MARK FELIX / AFP via Getty Images Bitcoin mining could bring higher electricity bills and more pollution to Texas Continue reading…

Cover artwork for Beyoncé’s upcoming album, Renaissance | Image: Carlijn Jacobs / Beyoncé The world’s biggest pop star just joined one of the world’s most popular social media platforms.Beyoncé joined TikTok Thursday morning, announcing her presence with a video compilation of fans dancing to her latest single, “Break My Soul,” which has been trending on the app since its release last month.“Seeing y’all release the wiggle made me so happy! Thank you so much for all the love for BREAK MY SOUL! - Love B,” she wrote.Along with her TikTok, Beyoncé’s entire catalog will be available on the platform for people to use as sounds in their own videos, as reported by Variety. Even before Beyoncé joined, “Break My Soul” was a popular sound used on TikTok, with thousands of fans dancing, lip syncing, and using it as backing audio.B... Continue reading…

Image: Annapurna Interactive I am an avowed cat-disliker, a certified hater, and yet I want the Stray cat backpack. In the mother of all video game branded merchandise crossovers, Annapurrrrna (sorry, I had to) Interactive has announced it is launching a limited-edition cat backpack and harness and leash set in collaboration with Travel Cat — a company that makes all sorts of feline transportation devices that your cat probably thinks are torture devices. Image: Travel Cat Look at that cat. They’re either high or terrified. The cat-pack holds “up to 25 lbs of cat,” which is a delightful-sounding metric, and has a little bubble window so your cat can peer out into the wide world. If your feline friend prefers to do their exploring up close... Continue reading…

An early screenshot from Skate. | Image: EA EA’s new Skate is going to be a live-service free-to-play skateboarding game, developer Full Circle announced in a video on Thursday. Fans have been eagerly asking for some kind of Skate 3 follow-up for years, but this new title won’t be the Skate 4 they might have been expecting; instead of a numbered iteration, Full Circle is imagining Skate (that’s the name, though EA stylizes it with a period at the end) as a constantly evolving world with community-created content that’s easy for everyone to ollie into.“It’s an authentic evolution of the franchise and taking what Skate 3 was in 2010 and bringing it to now and to the future,” Deran Chung, a creative director on Skate, said in an interview with The Verge. “That is not only an... Continue reading…

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge On Thursday, the Treasury Department announced that it would provide millions of dollars to build out high-speed broadband projects in four states.The funding is part of the American Rescue Plan’s Coronavirus Capital Projects Fund (CPF), which provides $10 billion for states and tribal governments to fund new broadband networks. The combined projects — in Kansas, Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota — will expand high-speed broadband to over 83,000 homes and businesses, according to a Treasury Department Thursday press release.“The pandemic was many things but one thing that was for sure was a national teaching moment of the need for accessible strong broadband in the home that was strong enough that multiple people could both work and learn... Continue reading…

Matt Damon making that “Fortune Favors The Brave” commercial for Crypto.com will go down in history as one of the best things that ever happened to South Park. (And the worst thing that happened to a lot of crypto investments: if you put $1,000 into Bitcoin when the ad first aired last October, you’d have about $325 today.) The show has been making fun of crypto, Damon, and that phrase ever since. But with South Park The Streaming Wars Part 2, which just hit Paramount Plus, the show’s crypto jokes hit a new level.Knowing the plot of South Park The Streaming Wars Part 2 is not important to enjoy the videos below. Though, if you haven’t watched the Damon commercial, you should. Actually, here it is, it’s always worth a rewatch:Anyway,... Continue reading…