The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Food and Drug Administration suspended its ban on Juul’s e-cigarettes as the company goes through the appeals process, the agency said Tuesday.The FDA rejected Juul’s applications to sell tobacco- and menthol-flavored e-cigarettes in June, saying the company had to pull its products off the market. Juul appealed the decision, and a federal court issued a temporary stay of the ban while the company went through the appeals process. The company also asked the FDA to stay its own ban, and the agency initially refused, according to court filings.Juul said in court filings that the FDA did not evaluate its entire application and that it made the decision to ban Juul’s products based on political pressure. Juul said it will continue to... Continue reading…

The joy of Summer Games Done Quick raising $3.01 million for Doctors Without Borders has been marred with a bit of controversy. During the charity marathon, Mekarazium, a Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance runner, faked his run of the Revengeance Blade Wolf DLC, playing a spliced video instead of running the game live. The fake run was discovered when Mekarazium himself confessed to cheating, prompting Games Done Quick organizers to remove the VOD of the run and ban Mekarazium from future events. Mekarazium was able to pull off the deception as, even though this was the first live GDQ since AGDQ 2020, he participated remotely, broadcasting from his home.On Thursday, June 30th, Mekarazium ran Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance on new game plus... Continue reading…

Ubisoft has officially announced The Division Resurgence, a free-to-play mobile game that it hinted was in the works last year. The company says it’ll be an open-world, third-person RPG shooter like the mainline games, with single-player and co-op modes that let players face off against the environment in story missions and other “PvE activities.”Resurgence will take place in the same world as The Division and The Division 2 did, though Ubisoft says its story will be “independent” from the original, offering a “unique perspective on key story events” as well as new characters and weapons. Personally, though, the trailer the company released for Resurgence reminds me a lot of the original 2014 cinematic trailer. It has a lot of the same... Continue reading…

Walmart’s InHome delivery costs $138 annually with Plus. | Image: Walmart Walmart is making its InHome delivery service available to Walmart Plus subscribers for an extra $7 per month or $40 per year. The service, which brings groceries and other goods from your local Walmart to the inside of your home, was previously available as a separate subscription costing $19.95 per month or $148 per year.InHome’s new $138 annual price is $10 less when compared to the previous annual pricing of InHome alone and also comes with the perks of a Plus membership. Of course, this doesn’t count the added fees associated with purchasing a compatible $49.95 Level smart lock, $49.95 Genie automatic garage door opener, or garage keypad (if you don’t have one already) that delivery drivers will use to open your front door or... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan is facing new pressure from top Senate Intelligence leaders to investigate TikTok after new reports that the company shares US data with China-based workers.In a letter to Khan on Tuesday, Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), Senate Intelligence Committee leaders, called on the FTC to open an investigation into TikTok’s data security practices. The call comes after a June BuzzFeed News report detailed how China-based ByteDance engineers had access to TikTok’s US data as late as January 2022.“In light of repeated misrepresentations by TikTok ... we urge you to act promptly on this matter”“In light of repeated misrepresentations by TikTok concerning its data security, data... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple is taking steps to increase security for people like journalists, activists, and politicians with a new setting in iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura called Lockdown Mode. This setting hardens an iPhone, iPad, or Mac’s defenses in ways that interrupt methods we’ve seen used to compromise devices for highly targeted attacks.Lockdown Mode blocks many message attachment types, disables link previews, turns off certain web browsing technology by default, blocks invitations and FaceTime calls from unknown sources, locks down wired connections to computers or accessories while the device is locked, and disables the ability to add new configuration profiles or enroll in mobile device management (MDM).These are the areas that we know... Continue reading…

Image: Bandai Namco At this year’s Anime Expo in Los Angeles, Bandai Namco announced a new game based on the popular anime series My Hero Academia: a 24-player battle royale that pits teams of heroes and villains against each other. The free-to-play game, called My Hero Ultra Rumble, will be available on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PC.You can sign up for the closed beta, which is currently just for PS4 players, on Bandai Namco’s website. The first phase starts on August 17th at 10PM ET (7PM PT) and ends on August 18th at 6AM ET (3AM PT), while the second phase runs from August 18th at 10PM ET (7PM PT) to August 21st at 2PM ET (11AM PT).The confirmed roster so far includes just 12 charactersMy Hero Ultra Rumble seems like an interesting... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge One of the best ways to restore space to your computer or phone — or to fix a problem that may have been caused by a temporary file screwing up the works — is also one of the simplest: to clear the browser cache. However, unless you’ve been instructed sometime in the past to clear your cache, you may be unaware of this otherwise invisible feature.Here’s how to clear your cache on the major browsers and on your Android or iOS devices. We’ve also included instructions on how to clear the data for a single site if you need to.Chrome Check the cached images and files box.

Patch 1.17 is available now. | Image: Sony Horizon Forbidden West now offers variable refresh rate (VRR) and high refresh rate support as well as a new 40Hz “Balanced” graphics mode on PS5, developer Guerrilla Games announced Wednesday. They’re available as part of patch 1.17, which you can download right now.Variable refresh rates can dynamically adjust the refresh rate of your display while you’re playing a game. In practice, it means that games will generally feel smoother to play, though you’ll need a display that supports the feature.After messing around with the update for a few minutes while writing this article, I can say that Horizon Forbidden West does feel smoother on the “Favor Performance” graphics mode. (I have my PS5 hooked up to a TCL 6-Series Google TV, which... Continue reading…

The Ultrahuman Ring is the latest take on metabolism and fitness tracking. | Image: Ultrahuman Fitness startup Ultrahuman is launching a smart ring that it claims will give users “ultrahuman power.” And by ultrahuman power, the company means a fitness tracker that gives insights into your metabolism by monitoring sleep and movement. The smart ring can also be used with the company’s M1 glucose monitoring patch for more in-depth metabolic tracking.In terms of design and features, the Ultrahuman Ring seems to be taking a page from the popular Oura Ring. It has a PPG heart rate sensor, temperature sensor, and motion sensor. (Though Ultrahuman spokesperson Bilal Mahmood told The Verge it won’t have SpO2 sensors.) Like the Oura Ring, there’s no screen and no haptics — meaning you’ll have to look at the Ultrahuman app to see your... Continue reading…

Image: Sky Mavis The blockchain of high-profile crypto game Axie Infinity was reportedly hacked with an elaborate phishing scheme involving fake LinkedIn job offers. The Block reported the news today, citing two sources with knowledge of the incident. It revealed a new dimension to one of the biggest decentralized finance, or DeFi, hacks to date.According to The Block, hackers — identified by the US government as North Korean group Lazarus — targeted employees of Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis. They reportedly reached out over LinkedIn on behalf of a fake company, and when employees took the bait, they proceeded with multiple rounds of fake job interviews and then an “extremely generous” fake compensation package. The con culminated in one senior... Continue reading…

The Marriott International hotel chain has confirmed that it has been hit by yet another data breach that exposed staff and customer information in another unfortunate security incident for a company that was affected by a number of major hacks in recent years.In the latest incident, first reported by DataBreaches.net, hackers are reported to have stolen around 20GB of data, including confidential business documents and customer payment information, from the BWI Airport Marriott in Baltimore, Maryland. Redacted sample documents published by DataBreaches appear to show credit card authorization forms, which would give an attacker all of the details needed to make fraudulent purchases with a victim’s card.Melissa Froehlich Flood, a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A few options for each platform Continue reading…

Sony Sony’s upcoming historical action epic The Woman King from director Gina Prince-Bythewood tells the story of the all-female army that solidified the Kingdom of Dahomey’s status as a militaristic power player right up until the turn of the 20th century. Though the legacies of the actual Dahomey Amazons have lived on in fantasies like Marvel’s Black Panther, The Woman King’s going to make people understand why they became legends judging from the movie’s first trailer.The Woman King tells the story of Nanisca (Viola Davis), general of King Ghezo’s (John Boyega) Amazons, and Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), a young girl newly recruited into the kingdom’s famed army of warrior women. Much like Black Panther’s Dora Milaje, the Dahomey Amazons are skilled... Continue reading…

Photo by Abigail Bassett for The Verge Toyota sold its 200,000th plug-in electric vehicle in the US, triggering a slow phaseout of the federal EV tax credit over the next 15 months, according to Bloomberg. The automaker is the third manufacturer to pass this mark, following Tesla and General Motors.The phaseout for Toyota is poorly timed, coming just weeks after the company’s new electric SUV, the bZ4X, went on sale in the US. It’s the latest bad piece of EV news to hit the automaker, coming just a few weeks after it was forced to recall the bZ4X over loose hub bolts that could cause the wheels to come off while driving. Toyota pledged to spend $17.6 billion to roll out 30 battery-electric models by 2030.The phaseout of the federal tax credits begins two quarters after an... Continue reading…

An artistic rendering of CAPSTONE at the Moon. | Image: NASA/Daniel Rutter Update July 6th, 11:45AM ET: On Wednesday morning, NASA announced that the mission team had reestablished contact with CAPSTONE. Our original story about the communications blackout that occurred after spacecraft separation continues below.NASA is having trouble establishing contact with its new CAPSTONE spacecraft, a tiny probe that just launched from Earth to test out a new orbit around the Moon. Because of these communication issues, NASA had to delay a planned maneuver of the vehicle that would help refine its path to deep space. The agency is still trying to reestablish contact.CAPSTONE is the first mission of NASA’s Artemis program, the agency’s efforts to eventually send humans back to the Moon. As part of this lunar return,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Cryptocurrency broker Voyager Digital filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday in the wake of the collapse of the major crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). Voyager’s Chapter 11 filing comes just days after 3AC filed for bankruptcy — and about a week after 3AC defaulted on a loan provided by Voyager.In a press release, Voyager Digital states that it has about $1.3 billion worth of crypto assets on the platform, $110 million in cash and crypto assets on hand, and the $350 million it holds in an FBO (For-Benefit-Of) account for customers. It also says 3AC still owes more than $650 million.Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich blames the company’s financial struggles on “the prolonged volatility and contagion in the crypto markets” as well as 3AC’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Posting “online insults” will be punishable by up to a year in prison time in Japan starting Thursday, when a new law passed earlier this summer will go into effect.People convicted of online insults can also be fined up to 300,000 yen (just over $2,200). Previously, the punishment was fewer than 30 days in prison and up to 10,000 yen ($75).The law will be reexamined in three years to determine if it’s impacting freedom of expression — a concern raised by critics of the bill. Proponents said it was necessary to slow cyberbullying in the country.But there aren’t clear definitions of what counts as an insult, Seiho Cho, a criminal lawyer in Japan, told CNN after the law passed. The law says an insult means demeaning someone without a... Continue reading…

Rivian’s promise to upend the auto industry with beautifully designed emissions-free, adventure-themed trucks and SUVs was almost dependent on the company’s ability to deliver actual vehicles to actual customers. And, in that respect, Rivian is getting slightly better.The company announced that it had produced 4,401 vehicles during the second quarter of 2022, a 72 percent increase over the previous quarter. It also delivered 4,467 vehicles to customers, a 267 percent increase over the first quarter. How many of those vehicles were R1T electric trucks and how many were its electric delivery vans (EDV) for Amazon, we can’t say — Rivian didn’t provide a breakdown.The company hasn’t said when it will report its Q2 earnings, but there... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo Bubbling up from the painted-splattered floor comes a new Switch OLED model. Nintendo has announced that on August 26th, it will release a special edition Splatoon 3 SWOLED. Check out the video highlighting all the details below.For those of you with misophonia (or you just hate all the wet paint sounds Splatoon games like to throw around) and can’t stand more than five seconds of the video, the Splatoon 3 SWOLED features a blue and yellow gradient controller along with a white graffitied dock. Accompanying the new Switch OLED will be a Splatoon 3-ified Nintendo Switch Pro controller and carrying case.The SWOLED launched on October 8th of last year, and this seems to be the first special edition of the console. It stands to reason... Continue reading…

Image: Vizio Prime Day 2022 is quickly approaching. The two-day sale event that’s exclusive to Prime members will kick off Tuesday, July 12th, (who said Tuesdays always have to be boring?) and last through Wednesday, July 13th. We’ll be covering every great deal that’s available so you won’t have to worry about missing out on stellar discounts. But all of that’s for next week. Here’s what you can save big on today.Vizio’s high-end, 48-inch Elevate 5.1.4 sound system is selling for the lowest price that we’ve seen yet. Originally $1,099 (though currently selling for $999 through Vizio), you can supercharge your entertainment center for $698 at Amazon. While less costly soundbars like Sonos’ second-gen Beam claim to have Dolby Atmos support, it’s a... Continue reading…

RadioShack: dying IRL, thriving on social. | Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images There are no good, practical, rational reasons to care about RadioShack anymore. So what do you do when your once-venerable electronics store goes the way of Blockbuster, Sears, and the local mall? You get super horny on the internet, apparently.Input has a very good, very fun story today about RadioShack’s increasingly unhinged and sex-crazed Twitter account, and the marketing executive who runs it. “You really have to make an impression in order to basically get known with youngsters,” Ábel Czupor, RadioShack’s chief marketing officer, told Input. (Czupor didn’t share his age, but appears in photos to be much younger than the average person who uses words like “youngsters.”) Czupor says there’s a team of people thinking about... Continue reading…

God of War will be available on PS5 and PS4. | Image: Sony God of War: Ragnarok, one of Sony’s biggest games of the year, now has an official release date. Sony announced today that Ragnarok will be hitting both the PS4 and PS5 on November 9th. In addition to the release date news, the developer also put out a new CG trailer that teases out some of the story. Here’s the somewhat ominous description:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Social media conglomerate Meta has created a single AI model capable of translating across 200 different languages, including many not supported by current commercial tools. The company is open-sourcing the project in the hopes that others will build on its work.The AI model is part of an ambitious R&D project by Meta to create a so-called “universal speech translator,” which the company sees as important for growth across its many platforms — from Facebook and Instagram, to developing domains like VR and AR. Machine translation not only allows Meta to better understand its users (and so improve the advertising systems that generate 97 percent of its revenue) but could also be the foundation of a killer app for future projects like its... Continue reading…

Love the frunk. Still not sold on the headlights. | Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge I only popped one tire, which seems like a win Continue reading…

Apple’s upcoming M2 MacBook Air comes in four color options. | Apple Apple’s upcoming MacBook Air with M2 processor finally has a shipping date. After a bit longer wait than usual, the new $1,199 laptop will begin shipping on July 15th, with preorders opening on July 8th at 8AM ET. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar announced alongside it at WWDC 2022 is already available. While that familiar-looking model was first out of the gate with the second-generation chip, this MacBook Air is offering a whole lot more that’s new, like a MagSafe charger, 1080p webcam, and a revised design with a larger, notched 13.6-inch display.Though the new MacBook Air has a lower starting price than its 13-inch Pro counterpart, it’s certainly the more colorful and unique-looking one. Unlike prior Air laptops, it shifts... Continue reading…

A lot of people liked Stranger Things 4. | Courtesy of Netflix Stranger Things 4, the most recent season of the hit show, just became the second Netflix show ever to surpass a billion hours viewed. Since the first installment of the season dropped on May 27th, viewers have spent a cumulative 1.15 billion hours watching the season’s nine episodes, including 301 million hours just this past weekend. That makes Stranger Things 4 the second most-watched Netflix season ever, after Squid Game in 2021. It was in Netflix’s Top 10 in 93 different countries this weekend, the company says. The show is so popular right now that it’s boosting the older seasons, too: all four Stranger Things seasons were in Netflix’s six most-watched shows over the weekend, with only The Umbrella Academy able to keep up.N... Continue reading…

Live shopping is big in Asia, but not so much elsewhere. | Image: TikTok TikTok may seem like an unstoppable global entertainment machine, but at least one part of the company’s offering isn’t quite taking over: TikTok is scaling back its live commerce plans in Europe and the US, the Financial Times reported, after early launches simply haven’t been successful.TikTok has been testing live shopping in the UK since late last year, starting with a multi-brand event called “On Trend” last December. But the FT reported that those shopping livestreams haven’t drawn big audiences and haven’t sparked many sales, and some of the creators involved in early TikTok Shop projects have dropped out altogether. TikTok had been planning to roll out Shop in Germany, France, Italy, and Spain by now, and was hoping to launch... Continue reading…

Apex Legends: Awakening Collection Event | Image: EA Update July 5th, 2:30PM ET: On Tuesday afternoon Respawn and EA released a new patch saying it should address the issue, and after playing a bit I can confirm it has fixed input lag with all the controllers I used on Xbox Series X.Last week, EA’s battle royale shooter Apex Legends launched a “collection event,” which is shorthand for a limited-time setup that is mostly about players buying a bunch of cosmetic items from the in-game store. The only problem is that this time, the massive update has made the game nearly unplayable for many people on consoles.Without warning, the battle royale shooter’s usually tight and responsive controls — a known quantity for Respawn Entertainment games since Titanfall and a reflection of its Call of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter announced on Tuesday that it has launched a lawsuit against the Indian government, the latest salvo in an ongoing fight over the country’s aggressive speech laws. The lawsuit comes after Twitter was ordered to remove a series of accounts and posts that violate Indian obscenity and defamation laws, as first reported by The New York Times. Twitter has now removed the posts, but is seeking judicial protection from such orders in the future.The fight started last May when India issued new IT rules for online content, shortly followed by a police raid on Twitter’s India offices. The following July, Indian regulators threatened to hold Twitter liable for any future infractions by its users.Broadly, Twitter has long argued that it... Continue reading…

Avatar’s first sequel releases later this year. | Screenshot: Avatar: The Way of Water It’s okay if you’ve lost track, but here’s a quick reminder that this year’s Avatar: The Way of Water is just the first of a potential four sequels to the 2009 sci-fi epic. And now, in a new interview with Empire, director James Cameron has given an update on where the rest of the series is headed.The most interesting detail? Cameron might not actually direct the fourth and fifth Avatar films, which were originally announced in 2013 and 2016. (Like I said, it’s okay if you’ve lost track.) “The Avatar films themselves are kind of all-consuming,” Cameron tells Empire. “I’ve got some other things I’m developing as well that are exciting. I think eventually over time – I don’t know if that’s after three or after four – I’ll want to pass the... Continue reading…

The HTC A101. | Image: HTC HTC, the once-impressive Android smartphone manufacturer, has a surprise tablet to accompany its bizarre metaverse-focused Desire 22 Pro. The new A101 is an Android tablet with a 10.1-inch display, entry-level specs, and a design that’s straight out of the middle of the last decade. The device, which we spotted via AndroidPolice, appears to have been quietly announced last month — according to the Wayback Machine — and is aimed at the African market. It follows the A100 tablet, which was launched in Russia last year to a similar non-reaction.Given that the tablet appears to be marketed solely at emerging markets, I don’t want to be too snarky about its specs or design. But it’s still just plain weird to see HTC — makers of literally the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is planning to remove Xbox 360 games from its monthly Games with Gold offer in October. The software maker has started emailing Xbox Live Gold subscribers to warn them of the change, noting that the company has “reached the limit of our ability to bring Xbox 360 games to the catalogue.”Games with Gold is a monthly benefit for subscribers of Xbox Live Gold and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. Microsoft hand picks free games each month, and all Xbox 360 titles are playable on the latest Xbox Series X / S consoles and Xbox One.Microsoft’s Xbox backward compatibility program briefly returned with 76 new games last year, but the company made it clear it had “reached the limit of our ability to bring new games to the catalog from the past... Continue reading…

Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images One of the strange features of American government is that an 82-year-old’s broken hip can cause a sea change in telecom policy. The 82-year-old in question is Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who had surgery after a fall on Thursday and is said to be resting comfortably. But while Leahy recuperates, he won’t be able to cast votes and Democrats won’t be able to flex their razor-thin Senate majority — which could cost the administration its last chance to institute net neutrality rules.The temporary stalemate caused by Leahy’s recovery has lots of downstream effects. The Washington Post has a good piece running down the panic over federal judicial appointments, which require confirmation from the Senate. But the same also applies to Gigi Sohn,... Continue reading…

A spider crab at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. To the best of our knowledge, this crab is innocent of any scientific crabotage. | Photo by Doug Duran/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images Studying an underwater volcano is hard enough without a spider crab getting in the way. In an absolutely delightful field dispatch, Jes Burns of Oregon Public Broadcasting tells the story of a crab, some geologists just trying to set up their equipment, and a remotely operated vehicle named Jason that, from the sound of it, is locked in seemingly eternal crustacean combat.“We expect sabotage, crab sabotage. Because there’s obviously a battle going on between Jason and the crabs at Axial Seamount,” Oregon State University volcanologist Bill Chadwick told Burns.Burns is embedded on a ship with Chadwick and other researchers, reporting on the serious scientific effort to study the Axial Seamount, an underwater volcano 300 miles off the... Continue reading…

The ROG Phone 6 Pro comes with an extra screen on the back. | Image: Asus Asus announced two new devices in its gaming-focused Republic of Gamers phone lineup, the ROG Phone 6 and the ROG Phone 6 Pro. They’re gamer phones for gamers who like to game, and the upgraded displays look pretty impressive.Both models run Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, and come with up to 512GB of storage. They have 6.78-inch OLED screens, the same size as the previous ROG Phone 5S, but their 165Hz refresh rates and 720Hz touch-sampling rates are both substantial improvements over the last model. They have 6,000mAh batteries, same as previous models, and an upgraded three-camera setup. The Phone 6 will start at €999 and the 6 Pro at €1,299 — they’re set to launch in the UK and Europe first, and Asus says they’ll come to... Continue reading…

When renewable portable power is more important than emergency backup Continue reading…

Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, the Mighty Thor, and Chris Hemsworth as Thor Odinson. | Image: Marvel Studios Marvel’s fourth Thor movie is about as messy as any complicated breakup Continue reading…

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood. | Image: Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, the first game in the Assassin’s Creed franchise to feature multiplayer, will see its online services shut down on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 in September, its publisher Ubisoft has announced. It’s part of a collection of over a dozen games that will see their online elements discontinued that month, which means players won’t be able to play their multiplayer components, access their online features, link Ubisoft accounts in-game, or install and access downloadable content.“Closing the online services for some older games allows us to focus our resources on delivering great experiences for players who are playing newer or more popular titles,” Ubisoft’s help page reads. With Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood having... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is working on a smaller and faster Outlook Lite app for Android. The software giant has detailed the app in its Microsoft 365 roadmap, where it describes Outlook Lite as “an Android app that brings the main benefits of Outlook in a smaller app size with fast performance for low-end devices on any network.”The roadmap reveals that the Outlook Lite app will be available worldwide at some point this month. ZDNet reports that an Outlook Lite app already exists in a few countries, so Microsoft appears to be readying it for a broader release. Microsoft’s own documentation on Outlook Lite suggests the app will be limited to only Outlook, Hotmail, Live, and MSN accounts, and won’t support work or school accounts.Outlook Lite will... Continue reading…

FIFA, the international governing body of association football,* has announced it will use AI-powered cameras to help referees make offside calls at the 2022 World Cup.The semi-automated system consists of a sensor in the ball that relays its position on the field 500 times a second, and 12 tracking cameras mounted underneath the roof of stadiums, which use machine learning to track 29 points in players’ bodies.Software will combine this data to generate automated alerts when players commit offside offenses (that is: when they’re nearer to the other team’s goal than their second-last opponent and receiving the ball). Alerts will be sent to officials in a nearby control room, who will validate the decision and tell referees on the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has agreed to simplify the process of canceling Prime in Europe, meaning customers in the region will be able to end their subscription in just two clicks, the European Commission has announced. The changes, which were implemented as of July 1st, should bring to an end the “multiple pages” filled with “distracting information” and “unclear button labels” that Amazon has previously used to add friction to the cancellation process.The European Commission says the changes apply to the European Union and European Economic Area. Despite the UK having left the former as of the beginning of 2020, The Guardian reports that UK subscribers will also benefit from the two-click unsubscribe process. But when contacted for comment, a... Continue reading…

The Verge YouTube, Instagram, Discord, and Twitter moved quickly to pull social media pages that appeared to belong to Robert Crimo III, a person of interest in the Chicago suburb shooting that left six dead and dozens injured this afternoon. Under a pair of aliases, Crimo seems to have posted more than a dozen videos to YouTube and hosted a Discord channel named “SS,” which was open to the public through an invite link.Crimo’s apparent YouTube account hadn’t posted in around eight months, based on The Verge’s viewing before the account was pulled. The most recent video included concerning language and imagery that appeared to involve classrooms and stick-art depictions of people being shot. Another clip seemed to be a music video for a rap song,... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge They might often be an afterthought nowadays, but in the console generations of yesteryear, game manuals were often essential reading. Compared to the scant pack-ins that come with games today, those vintage instruction manuals were on a completely different level in terms of the care and detail that went into them — and the page count was much higher, too.Now, as noted by Kotaku, a community project led by led by streamer Peebs has successfully scanned and uploaded every last English-language game manual for the Super Nintendo. You can check out the entire collection here. Peebs was motivated to assemble one central resource for manuals during an eight-year quest to play and beat every SNES game for his Twitch viewers.Perusing... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon It just got way easier and more convenient to remotely watch Amazon Prime Video’s TV shows and movies together with your friends. The service’s “Watch Party” feature has received a much needed expansion from the limited use cases where it worked before — on Fire TV devices, desktop web browsers, and the Prime Video mobile app — and it now supports non-Amazon streaming devices, smart TVs, and Xbox / PlayStation gaming consoles. TechCrunch first reported on the expansion.Watch Party allows for up to 100 people with a Prime subscription to view content at the same time. The host is able to play, pause, skip, and fast forward or rewind for the group, and everyone can chat about what they’re watching.For now, Amazon’s Watch Party feature... Continue reading…

The launcher image for Minecraft: Java Edition. | Image: Microsoft Minecraft has been updated with a tribute to the popular streamer Technoblade, whose death from cancer was announced by his family last week. The splash image for Minecraft in the game’s launcher now features a pig wearing a golden crown — a callout to Technoblade’s Minecraft character, a royal pig-man wearing a bejeweled crown.The Minecraft team tweeted on Friday that the team was ”heartbroken over the loss of Technoblade,” writing that he “brought so much joy” to the game’s community.

Amazon has launched its first “micromobility hub” in the UK with the aim to swap “thousands” of polluting delivery trucks with electric cargo bikes — and, in some cases, walking. The project is intended to help Amazon achieve its climate goals to have 50 percent of its deliveries be carbon neutral by 2030.Starting in the London borough of Hackney, the company says that it will deliver 1 million packages a year using walking and electric cargo bikes, in addition to deliveries that are made with electric vans. Delivery workers on foot and e-bikes will help displace “thousands” of traditional van trips, Amazon said.E-bikes will help displace “thousands” of traditional van tripsThe carbon neutral trips will take place within a tenth of... Continue reading…

David Crosby in 2019. | Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images Crosby, Stills & Nash are back on Spotify, five months after the supergroup abandoned the platform in protest of Joe Rogan’s spread of COVID misinformation. The group will donate streaming profits to COVID-19 charities for “at least a month,” according to Billboard.The musicians’ return to Spotify marks a quiet and relatively unglamorous end to their protest, which has largely had the effect of boosting Rogan’s subscriber numbers, if the podcaster is to be believed. Crosby, Stills & Nash originally announced back in February that they would pull their music in solidarity with sometimes-bandmate Neil Young, who kicked off a series of artist protests of Spotify when he removed his music and published an open letter criticizing the company... Continue reading…