The Verge

Google integrates hyperlocal data from PurpleAir’s network of sensors. | Screengrab by Thomas Ricker / The Verge Google Maps on both iOS and Android has a new Air Quality layer that can be useful when planning your next hike or bike ride in good times, or to plan your escape from smog and smoke in bad.The new layer displays an Air Quality Index (AQI) overlay directly onto the map grid using government data gathered from agencies like the EPA in the US to show how healthy the air is in general. Better yet, it also presents data collected from PurpleAir’s network of sensors to report hyperlocal conditions at the street level. Clicking on the AQI readings dotted around Google Maps provides more information on the health impact of the air quality, time and source of the last reading, and links to learn more.PurpleAir’s relatively low-cost sensors... Continue reading…

The app lets you “schedule a break” after a set period of time. | Image: TikTok TikTok is adding a series of new features that are designed to stop you from disappearing inside its infinite feed of addictive short-form videos, the service has announced. A new tool will show a reminder after using the app for a prolonged, user-defined period of time, adding a new safeguard to existing daily limits. Teenage users (between the ages of 13 and 17) will be prompted to use the screen time limiting tool if they spend over 100 minutes in the app in a single day.TikTok is also adding a new screen time dashboard that shows a summary of app usage. Statistics include the amount of time the app has been opened, a breakdown of daytime and nighttime usage, and an overall counter for the amount of time spent in the app daily. ... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge The Biden administration is revealing a new set of standards to help accelerate the installation of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers across the US by 2030.The new standards give states guidelines on awarding contracts for EV charging projects, directing the companies who get them to build chargers that are convenient, affordable, and accessible to the broadest number of people. And they outline the types of projects that won’t receive federal money, including proprietary charging stations that can only be accessed by one company’s vehicles, like Tesla’s Supercharger network.The new standards come as much of President Joe Biden’s climate change fighting agenda remains stalled in Congress. The president was able to secure $5 billion in... Continue reading…

Images of the prototype device published by Bloomberg. | Image: Bloomberg Meta has halted development of a smartwatch with two built-in cameras, Bloomberg reports. The device — codenamed “Milan” — had reportedly been planned for release in spring 2023 at a price of around $349. Technical issues, as well as general cost-cutting at Meta, are reportedly to blame for the cancellation. The existence of the watch had previously been reported by The Verge last year.Most smartwatches, including the Apple Watch, currently don’t feature any cameras at all, so Meta had hoped that the presence of not one but two cameras could have differentiated its wearable in a competitive market. The first would have been a 5-megapixel front-facing camera contained within a small display notch for use with video calls, while a... Continue reading…

A glimpse into the new Vivaldi Mail 1.0. | Image: Vivaldi Vivaldi has launched its own free built-in email client, Mail 1.0, with Vivaldi's Calendar and Feed Reader integrated.Mail 1.0 also grants users the option to add multiple email accounts, including Google and existing calendar services. As a result, users should be able to organize their emails and manage schedules, to-do lists, feeds, and more without leaving their browser.The new email client is similar to Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, with messages that are searchable and organized into multiple folders or views. Yet Vivaldi also offers a few slightly more unique ways to customize and manage emails, calendars, and feeds. Image: Vivaldi There are toggle buttons you can turn on and off and a search bar at the... Continue reading…

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. | Image: Netflix With all of the drama surrounding Cyberpunk 2077’s initial launch, it would be easy to forget that there’s another exciting project on the way: an anime spinoff from famed studio Trigger. (That’s the same team behind projects like Promare, Little Witch Academia, and Kill la Kill.) The Netflix series was first announced back in 2020, and now we finally have the first trailer for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. It’s hard to tell precisely what is going on in the one-minute-long clip, but it sure looks incredible.If you’re curious about the actual premise, here it is:

Entergalactic. | Image: Netflix The first-look trailer for Entergalactic — a musical animated series from Kid Cudi and Black-ish creator Kenya Barris — is brief, but it’s bursting with style and life. The series follows a young artist named Jabari (voiced by Cudi) and has a slick visual style that’s almost like a cross between Arcane and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.Netflix also revealed today that the series has quite the cast of voice actors. Joining Cudi are Jessica Williams, Timothée Chalamet, Ty Dolla $ign, Laura Harrier, Vanessa Hudgens, Christopher Abbott, 070 Shake, Jaden Smith, Keith David, Teyana Taylor, Arturo Castro, and Macaulay Culkin. And the description of Chalamet’s character, Jimmy, sounds absolutely perfect:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s going to handle the lending for its new buy now, pay later (BNPL) service, and doesn’t plan on shifting that responsibility to a financial service, according to reports from Bloomberg and CNBC. The company’s subsidiary, Apple Financing LLC, is reportedly licensed to provide lending services and will remain separate from Apple’s main business.Apple announced its BNPL service, Pay Later, at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday. The service will let users make a purchase through Apple Pay, and then pay back that amount in four equal installments over the course of six weeks with no interest.It’s the first time Apple will take on financial responsibilitiesThis isn’t Apple’s first foray into finances, but, as... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Another executive change is hitting Meta after the recently announced departures of COO Sheryl Sandberg and head of AI Jerome Pesenti.David Mortenson, the company’s top engineering leader responsible for its data centers and core infrastructure, is stepping down from his role, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge. Santosh Janardhan, one of his direct reports and a current VP of engineering, will assume the role later this month. A spokesperson for Meta, Jon Carvill, confirmed the change.“I’m incredibly proud of everything we’ve achieved over the past two years I’ve been supporting Infra,” says Mortenson in the memo, adding that the company “survived the biggest capacity crunch in the company’s history (at least in the... Continue reading…

Charging cables for different mobile phone models. | Photo by Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty Images Slashing e-waste was a major driver in European Union lawmakers’ proposal yesterday to mandate a universal charger for mobile phones and other devices. But there are still a lot of other factors that have to come together for the measure to make a meaningful difference in the world’s e-waste problem.Piled together, unused and discarded chargers add up to about 11,000 metric tons of e-waste in Europe annually, according to the European Parliament. They’re hoping to shrink that pile by eliminating the need for different chargers for different devices — so in just a couple years, most new mobile phones will likely need to come with a USB-C charging port to be sold in the EU. Making the switch to USB-C will ultimately help consumers save... Continue reading…

NASA’s new powerful space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, got pelted by a larger than expected micrometeoroid at the end of May, causing some detectable damage to one of the spacecraft’s 18 primary mirror segments. The impact means that the mission team will have to correct for the distortion created by the strike, but NASA says that the telescope is “still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements.”NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, is the agency’s incredibly powerful next-generation space telescope, designed to look into the farthest reaches of the Universe and see back in time to the stars and galaxies that formed just after the Big Bang. It cost NASA nearly $10 billion to build and more than... Continue reading…

A rendering of a high-tech facility representing eBay’s new 31,000-square-foot vault facility that stores collectables. | Image: eBay Consider dusting off your attic shoeboxes filled with baseball cards; eBay might have a new home for some of them soon. The pioneering online marketplace site built a new 31,000-square-foot facility, called the eBay Vault, which is open now to house graded trading cards that are valued at over $750 and, in the future, physical collectibles of all kinds.The launch of the eBay Vault comes hot on the heels of its Authenticity Guarantee push, where it expanded from validating sneakers over $100 to partnering with Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) to grade trading cards valued at over $2,000. eBay is so far only accepting trading cards purchased on their site that are already graded by a list of reputable organizations like PSA and... Continue reading…

An update to Samsung’s Family Hub smart fridge brings an art mode and live TV through the Samsung TV Plus streaming service. | Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Samsung is releasing a new update for its Family Hub refrigerators that brings Samsung TV Plus — the tech giant’s free, ad-supported live TV service — to its fridges with a tablet built-in.At its second annual Bespoke Home event on Tuesday, the company said the update (which was first announced last year) will arrive this July on Family Hub 2.0 models (2017 and later). The live TV option is only available in the U.S. and Korea.Currently, users of Samsung’s smart fridge can watch television on the fridge’s built-in touchscreen by mirroring a Samsung TV to the fridge or content from a Samsung smartphone. But without one of those devices, your fridge just had to be boring.I have attempted to watch TV on a Family Hub and it’s not a... Continue reading…

Last year’s iPhone 13. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge This week, European Union lawmakers agreed on new proposals to force manufacturers of everything from smartphones and headphones to digital cameras and tablets to use the same universal charging port: USB Type-C. The plan is for the new rules to come into effect by fall 2024, after which these devices that charge using a wired cable will need to do so via a built-in USB-C port.The single biggest impact of this legislation is likely to land on Apple’s iPhone. While the rest of the smartphone industry has gradually converged around USB-C as a single, standardized wired charging port, Apple has steadfastly stuck with Lightning, the proprietary connector it introduced with the iPhone 5 way back in 2012. The EU’s legislation could finally... Continue reading…

Image: Unit 2 Games Crayta, a platform that lets players create, share, and play games with friends, is coming to Facebook Gaming’s cloud-streaming service. The collaborative game-building platform is built on Unreal Engine 4 and features a library of thousands of player-made games users can browse or add to with their own creations.While Crayta shares the element of game creation with Roblox, it also takes some cues from Fortnite, with the most obvious being its bright and cartoonish art. It also has rotating seasons, offers a battle pass, and lets users customize their own avatars. But probably one of the coolest — and most unique — things about Crayta is that it lets you share a game with just a single link, allowing your friend to hop right in from... Continue reading…

Insteon hubs are back online. | Image: Insteon Last April, Smartlabs switched off its cloud servers, leaving users of its Insteon smart home system without app or voice control of their connected switches, plugs, thermostats, and other devices paired to its smart home hub. It happened overnight with no warning, and now, the same thing has happened in reverse: someone suddenly turned the switch back on.As first reported by Stacey on IoT, numerous Insteon users across the country say that their hubs are up and working again today, with the Insteon app now functioning and voice control through services such as Amazon Alexa also working. Because Insteon devices used a proprietary wireless radio protocol, many Insteon users’ homes were able to continue running in some fashion. It was... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Twitter is preparing to grant Elon Musk unprecedented access to platform data in an effort to address his concerns about automated accounts, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. Citing a person familiar with the company’s thinking, the report says Twitter is preparing to give Musk access to the so-called “firehose” API that contains every tweet as it is posted.In April, Musk legally committed to purchasing Twitter but has grown increasingly vocal about possible bot activity on the platform, in what some see as an effort to cancel or renegotiate the deal on more favorable terms.“Mr. Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations”In an SEC filing on Monday, the Tesla CEO accused Twitter of... Continue reading…

It’s no secret that Infinity Ward has been working on a sequel to 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and, now, the studio is finally unveiling its next blockbuster. It’s called Modern Warfare II, and it features both a single-player campaign that’s a direct sequel to the previous game as well as multiplayer including a new tactical co-op mode.First, the campaign. Here’s how Infinity Ward describes the setup:

Android 13’s latest beta arrives today. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google announced Android 13’s third public beta today and says that it has reached platform stability. That’s an indicator that Google has locked in major updates, and from here until the final release, it’s all about putting on the finishing touches. It’s also reaching this milestone a full two months earlier than Android 12, which was a much more ambitious update that reached Android device owners with plenty of bugs intact.Android 13’s first developer preview arrived in February, the first public beta came in April, and the second public beta came with a big I/O announcement in May. While Android 12 centered around introducing some major new customization options in the form of Material You, Android 13 is a smaller update that takes... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is testing a new shopping feature for previewing upcoming product releases. The feature, called Product Drops, allows brands to tease items before they go on sale, and customers can sign up to be reminded prior to the release through in-app notifications.The company shared how reminders would work in a blog post today. When brands set up product drops, shoppers can sign up for alerts by clicking a “remind me” button. Product drop tweets act like other posts on Twitter and can be liked, retweeted, bookmarked, and shared. Users who opt in to get reminders will get a notification 15 minutes before the time of the release and at the set time of the drop. When it’s time to purchase and users click the notification, they’ll be... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge At WWDC 2022, Apple announced it was adding a number of big fitness updates to watchOS 9. Most notably, that included a ton of new running metrics, as well as a new multisport mode for triathletes. As a runner and wearables reviewer, the presentation immediately made me think, “Holy guacamole, Apple is gunning for Garmin.”Right now, smartwatches fall into one of two categories. First, you have full-featured flagship watches. These are the ones with not-so-great battery life, but the most advanced tech. They can call emergency services if you’re injured, have built-in voice assistants, control your smart home, have third-party apps, enable advanced health features like EKGs, and support cellular connectivity. The Apple watch obviously... Continue reading…

General Motors released some more images of the Cadillac Celestiq show car, and as you can see, we’re still only getting the bare minimum here.The Celestiq, which is expected to be the next all-electric luxury vehicle from Cadillac, “represents the purest expression of Cadillac design, technology and performance,” the automaker says. And here’s a picture of a door hinge to prove it! GM first showed off the Celestiq to a handful of reporters at its EV Day event in early 2020, but it has yet to publicly release any images of the full vehicle. The ultra-luxury sedan is meant to serve as a companion to the Cadillac Lyriq, which just entered into production earlier this year. Both vehicles will be built on... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge More than six years after Apple’s Eddy Cue proclaimed that “the future of TV is apps,” Apple’s 2022 WWDC keynote came and went with barely any mention of tvOS — the software that runs on its Apple TV hardware. That quote from Cue came alongside the introduction of the Apple TV’s App Store back in 2015. But the dearth of WWDC news on tvOS suggests the platform isn’t exactly one of Apple’s top priorities at the moment.tvOS has continued to steadily evolve in recent years, and the Apple TV 4K remains perhaps the best all-around option on the market. The user experience is intuitive, app performance is consistent and stable, and Apple doesn’t shove ads in your face like Roku and Amazon. And the Apple TV app has actually gotten fairly good... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge PayPal has been granted a full BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services, the company announced in a press release. This makes PayPal the first company to trade in a conditional BitLicense for the real thing.New York introduced its BitLicense in 2015 as a way to regulate businesses that provide customers with the ability to buy and sell cryptocurrency in the state. However, some crypto advocates criticized the policy, stating it could potentially make it harder for businesses to get involved in crypto. In 2020, New York launched a proposed conditional BitLicense in response, a supposedly more streamlined process for obtaining the documentation.“The conditional license is now a proven framework for licensure”C... Continue reading…

Image: Razer Razer has announced the $99.99 Kishi V2, its new mobile controller that can cradle your Android phone to deliver a more handheld console-like experience. In terms of what’s new over the previous iteration, the Kishi V2 features some hardware traits in common with Razer’s Wolverine V2 controller. Namely, that its buttons utilize microswitches instead of membranes, so they’ll have a clicky feel. Also, there are two macro buttons near the triggers, one on each side, that can be custom programmed with a mobile app.Let’s be honest, there’s a lot about the Kishi V2 that looks aped from the Backbone One controller for iPhone. To start, the Kishi V2 uses a similar extendable rear bridge design in place of the not terrible, but less intuitive... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft says it’s “significantly” scaling down its business in Russia, more than three months after Russia invaded Ukraine. The software giant first pulled the plug on “new” sales of products and services in Russia in early March, and now Bloomberg News reports that the company is laying off 400 employees in Russia as it begins to wind down its business there.“As a result of the changes to the economic outlook and the impact on our business in Russia, we have made the decision to significantly scale down our operations in Russia,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to Bloomberg News. “We will continue to fulfill our existing contractual obligations with Russian customers while the suspension of new sales remains in effect.”M... Continue reading…

Amazon is selling the 41mm, GPS-equipped Apple Watch Series 7 for just $300 instead of $399. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Update June 8th, 10:47AM ET: Our lead deal on the Vizio 5.1.2 soundbar sold out, unfortunately. So, we swapped it out for one on the Apple Watch Series 7 that we feel is just as appealing.We’ve got some good news today for Apple fans: for the first time ever, the Apple Watch Series 7 is selling for just $300 at Amazon instead of $399. That discount is available on the green, 41mm, GPS-equipped model, although you can also buy other colors for $329. If you’ve got larger wrists, the 45mm GPS-enabled wearable is on sale for $359. No matter which model you buy, each sports an always-on display that’s larger than its predecessors, making the screens easier to read at-a-glance. The newest Apple wearable comes with fast charging and IP6X dust... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A YouTuber named Yannic Kilcher has sparked controversy in the AI world after training a bot on posts collected from 4chan’s Politically Incorrect board (otherwise known as /pol/).The board is 4chan’s most popular and well-known for its toxicity (even in the anything-goes environment of 4chan). Posters share racist, misogynistic, and antisemitic messages, which the bot — named GPT-4chan after the popular series of GPT language models made by research lab OpenAI — learned to imitate. After training his model, Kilcher released it back onto 4chan as multiple bots, which posted tens of thousands of times on /pol/.“The model was good, in a terrible sense,” says Kilcher in a video on YouTube describing the project. “It perfectly... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Sony’s WH-1000XM5 are the company’s latest flagship noise-canceling headphones. And as our review can attest, they’re perhaps the most comfortable, best-sounding set in the 1000X series so far.As a result, you’re inevitably going to see them a lot — on flights, at the coffee shop, etc. — over the next several years. And should you end up with a pair yourself, it’s worth knowing about some of their more advanced features and tricks that aren’t always obvious in basic day-to-day use. Here are some worth trying out as you explore your new headphones.How to control the WH-1000XM5 headphonesLike their predecessors, the WH-1000XM5 headphones are controlled using touch gestures on the surface of the right ear cup.

Installing a wired Ring doorbell such as this Ring Pro 2 takes about 45 minutes. Installing a Ring video doorbell is one of the easiest smart home upgrades to tackle (with the possible exception of screwing in a smart lightbulb). Made up of a motion-activated camera with a microphone and speaker, a Ring video doorbell will send alerts to your smartphone and smart speakers to tell you when there’s someone at your door so you can see and talk to them. This is handy for making sure you don’t miss a visitor as well as for keeping an eye on packages if you’re not home.Getting a Ring video doorbell set up on your front or backdoor should take between 10 and 45 minutes, depending on which of the seven models you decide to go with and whether you choose battery-powered or wired. If you have existing doorbell wires, I highly... Continue reading…

Ghostbusters: Afterlife. | Image: Sony The Ghostbusters cinematic universe is expanding once again — this time with an animated series.Netflix announced today that it’s partnering with Sony for a new animated show based on the long-running spectral franchise. There aren’t any real details yet, but there’s reason to be excited: the project will be led by two of the key minds behind 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Both Jason Reitman (director and writer on Afterlife) and Gil Kenan (writer on Afterlife) will serve as executive producers on the animated series. No word yet on what the show will be about or when it might hit the streaming service.The news comes as Netflix is in the midst of its now-annual Geeked Week event. So far, the company detailed quite a few new projects... Continue reading…

Alex Castro / The Verge The First Amendment is up for debate Continue reading…

Dwayne Johnson as Black Adam and Aldis Hodge as Hawkman. After some major delays, director Jaume Collet-Serra’s Black Adam feature starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is finally hitting theaters this fall, and a new trailer’s just dropped introducing the movie’s titular antihero as he first comes to power in the modern age.Black Adam’s first trailer introduces Teth-Adam (Johnson), a man born into enslavement in the fictional country of Kahndaq some time in the distant past. Though Teth-Adam dies by the hand of his enslavers, he’s brought back to life by a magical bolt of lightning seemingly called down by his son shortly before the boy dies from the strain of the ritual. It’s Teth-Adam’s son’s death in the past that first radicalizes him and emboldens him to use his newfound powers to seek a... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo There are few things in life that aren’t improved with the addition of destructive red shells and slippery banana peels. It turns out that soccer is no exception. Mario Strikers: Battle League is Nintendo’s latest attempt at an arcade-style soccer game, and it’s an experience that’s both streamlined and chaotic. That means that it’s easy to pick up and play but also that there’s a lot going on, offering both depth for skilled players and some shortcuts for newbies. It follows much of the same ethos as Mario Kart, only you’re kicking a ball around instead of hugging the curves on Rainbow Road. It’s an incredible amount of fun — but to get the most out of it, you’ll definitely need to bring some friends along.At its core, Strikers is a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge IRA Financial Trust, a platform that lets users save for retirement in alternative assets like cryptocurrency, is suing the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange over an alleged failure to protect its customers from a heist that resulted in the theft of $36 million in crypto. The financial platform partners with Gemini, owned by the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler, to allow customers to trade and store cryptocurrency.In February, IRA was the victim of a major attack that drained the millions in funds customers had stored with Gemini. The company was reportedly swatted, the act of calling the police to report a fake crime at someone’s location, when the cyberattack occurred. Police showed up at IRA’s South Dakota headquarters after false... Continue reading…

Illustration by Mengxin Li / The Verge If code is law, countless NFTs are built on buggy code Continue reading…

The phone’s 16-megapixel selfie camera is neatly concealed under a 6.8-inch screen. To grossly oversimplify it, there are two challenges behind making an under-display camera (UDC): to convincingly hide the camera under the screen and to produce images that look as good as traditional selfie cameras. With its third-gen UDC on the Axon 40 Ultra, ZTE has nailed the “hide the camera” part of that challenge. As for “take good photos,” ZTE has come a long way on that since its first attempt, but there’s still work to be done.First, some basics: this is a 16-megapixel camera residing under a 6.8-inch 2480 x 1116 OLED panel. On the back of the phone, there are three 64-megapixel cameras: a 16mm-equivalent ultrawide; a stabilized 35mm standard wide; and a stabilized 91mm telephoto lens. ZTE has made some improvements to the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Mengxin Li / The Verge An art critic takes stock of the tokenized digital aesthetic Continue reading…

An early image of the phone’s home screen released in March. | Image: Nothing Nothing, the consumer tech startup led by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, will announce its first smartphone at an event on July 12th, the company has announced. The Nothing Phone 1 will be the company’s second device, following the release of its Ear 1 true wireless earbuds last year. The in-person event will be held in London alongside a simultaneous livestream at 11AM ET. Nothing is branding the launch as Nothing (event): Return to Instinct.The company has already teased and officially announced several aspects of the smartphone. At an event in March, the company teased details of its Nothing OS launcher, which will run on top of Android 11. This launcher was released in beta last month. The phone will reportedly feature transparent... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Insider is reporting that Microsoft’s Alex Kipman, who led the teams that developed the company’s HoloLens augmented reality headset and the Kinect motion controller for Xbox and serves as one of Microsoft’s top technical fellows, has resigned after allegations of verbal abuse and sexual harassment.Microsoft wouldn't immediately confirm or deny the report, but GeekWire has already corroborated it by obtaining an internal email from Microsoft cloud boss Scott Guthrie: “We have mutually decided that this is the right time for him to leave the company to pursue other opportunities,” he writes. The memo, which you can read at GeekWire, says nothing about the allegations, and says Kipman will stay on for two more months to help with the... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge In January, Protocol revealed that Google was working on a cheaper Chromecast video streaming dongle that would top out at 1080p resolution, which could possibly be sold as the “Chromecast HD with Google TV.”Now, a new Google filing with the Federal Communications Commission (via Droid-Life) suggests that device is indeed on the way.Mind you, the FCC filing doesn’t straight-up confirm a Chromecast. For now, it’s simply designated the “Google G454V.” There aren’t any juicy leaked pictures; the filings simply describe as a “wireless device” with dual-band 2.4GHz and 5GHz 802.11ac Wi-Fi plus Bluetooth LE.But if you’ll let me direct your attention for a moment to this diagram, friends, I think it will all become clear: ... Continue reading…

Taco Bell Defy in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota | Image: Taco Bell / Border Foods Today, Taco Bell opened the doors to its new digital-driven, two-story restaurant concept, Taco Bell Defy, in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Taco Bell first told us about Taco Bell Defy back in August 2021. The location uses technology to speed up service, with a “bold goal of creating a 2 minute or less drive-thru experience for customers of this concept,” according to Taco Bell President Mike Grams.Most of all, the design of the new restaurant is meant to be more mobile order and third-party delivery friendly. It delivers orders from the elevated kitchen area via a vertical lift / “food tube” seen in the video below that brings meals down to ground level — think a drive-thru bank but you get a Chalupa and Baja Blast instead of cash.... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Nearly a year ago, YouTube TV announced plans to add 5.1 surround sound support for its streaming TV package. When we spoke to YouTube chief product officer Neal Mohan earlier this year on The Vergecast about new features rolling out for the platform, he told us it would arrive soon. Now, it’s here for more devices, including the most recent Chromecast with Google TV.The company announced that, in addition to previously existing surround sound support on traditional Chromecasts and TVs made by Vizio, LG, or Samsung, the immersive audio experience is rolling out to Google TV, Android TV, and Roku.According to a support page for YouTube TV, if you have a compatible hardware setup and the program you’re watching is available with 5.1... Continue reading…

Apple software developer Karen Xing details and demos Continuity Camera. | Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge It was easy to laugh yesterday when Apple revealed that you’ll soon be able to stick an iPhone on the back of your Mac to get a better webcam. Some joked that Apple design legend Jony Ive was off crying somewhere. Others wondered whether this was truly the best Apple could come up with after years of grainy MacBook images and how the Apple Studio Display’s camera fell short.

A few years ago, I was shopping for a Chromebook to take on a business trip. I wanted something lightweight enough to carry around all day and inexpensive enough that I wouldn’t mind as much when I spilled coffee on the keyboard. I was considering two different models when a sales rep came over to see if I needed help. “You’re aware,” he said, “that these are Chromebooks, right? They only work online; you can’t save any files to the hard drive.”It wasn’t the first time I’ve caught a sales rep in a mistake, of course. But this is a mistake that seems to have persisted.Yes, Chromebooks were created to be used predominantly online. In fact, when the first Chrome OS laptops were introduced in 2011, there were very few apps that could be... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Ford has been vocal about the new F-150 Lightning’s bi-directional charging capability that enables owners to use the electric truck’s massive battery to charge other EVs. And, now, the company is apparently including a new accessory so these Good Samaritan truck owners can help out stranded Teslas.A member of an online forum for new F-150 Lightning owners shared a photo of the new accessory, a J1772 Adapter for Tesla vehicles by an EV charging company called Lentz. The owner was surprised because the adapter was not listed among the standard accessories that would be provided with the new truck.While most electric vehicles feature a standard J1772 charging connector, Tesla requires a proprietary connector that’s found at the... Continue reading…

Image: Instagram Instagram now lets you pin up to three posts or reels to the top of your profile. Just like pinned posts on TikTok and Twitter, they’ll sit at the forefront of your Instagram grid as if you recently posted them.You can use the feature by selecting one of your posts or reels and then tapping the three dots at the top-right corner of the post. From there, hit Pin to your profile. When you return to your profile, you’ll see your post at the top-left corner of your grid with a white pin icon. If you decide to add another post or reel, any existing pinned posts will get pushed to the right.