The Verge

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass new rules to enhance child safety on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram in his first State of the Union address on Tuesday. It’s the first time Biden has called for these rules, and the White House plans to make specific funding requests to study and improve children’s online safety.Specifically, Biden requested that Congress institute stronger children’s privacy rules, ban targeted advertising to children, and pressure social media companies to design their products from the ground up with child safety in mind. In a fact sheet provided by the White House earlier on Tuesday, the administration is also expected to target social media algorithms that discriminatorily target... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge After initially dropping the Russia-backed news channel RT in Europe, Roku says it is now dropping the channel from its Roku Channel Store everywhere — including in its US market.The company confirmed the carriage change to The Verge late Tuesday. Roku spokesperson Kimberly Sampson said in a statement: “We are removing RT from the Roku Channel Store everywhere, including the US.” The company had earlier confirmed the channel was being yanked from its European market.The streamer’s decision follows a similar move from DirecTV. Company spokesperson Nicholas Ammazzalorso told The Verge in a statement on Tuesday that DirecTV is “accelerating this year’s contract expiration timeline and will no longer offer their programming effective... Continue reading…

The company confirms it was hacked. | Photo credit should read Costfoto/Future Publishing via Getty Images Nvidia has confirmed that it was hacked — and that the actor behind last week’s “incident” is leaking employee credentials and proprietary information onto the internet. In a statement to PCMag, Bloomberg, and VideoCardz, the company says it became aware of the breach on February 23rd, and that it does “not anticipate any disruption to [its] business or our ability to serve our customers as a result of the incident.”Hacking group Lapsus$ has claimed responsibility for the attack, and has demanded that Nvidia make its drivers open-source if it doesn’t want more data leaked. Nvidia hasn’t necessarily agreed to those demands; the company says it’s made improvements to its security, notified law enforcement, and is working with... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The first batch of Steam Decks is starting to arrive to the lucky few who could order them on Friday, and a handful of owners have reported stick drift on their devices. But Valve now tells us that what’s going on is a “deadzone calibration issue” — which indicates this is a software problem, not a hardware one — and that the team has already shipped a fix for it.Joystick drift is an issue that causes your character or cursor in a game to continue moving even when you aren’t actually pushing the joystick in a direction. It’s a problem many have experienced with the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con controllers. While Nintendo itself has suggested the issue will never be fully addressed because Joy-Cons will wear down over time, it does repair... Continue reading…

Image: Bungie When will Bungie let Destiny 2 come to Valve’s Steam Deck handheld gaming PC? It’s looking like the answer is never — because the soon-to-be Sony subsidiary has published an help page that not only says the game’s unsupported, but outright threatens to ban prospective Steam Deck players (via Wario64).The help page has a new section titled “Steam Deck and Destiny 2,” which reads:

Image: Portuguese Navy A cargo ship carrying thousands of vehicles across the Atlantic Ocean has sunk, according to the company that operated the ship (via Insider). A fire broke out on the ship, Felicity Ace, on February 16th as it was traveling from Germany to the USA.Nearly 4,000 cars from the Volkswagen Group were being transported to the USA, the company confirmed to Insider. Felicity Ace was carrying both electric and non-electric vehicles, according to the Associated Press, and reports from February indicated Porsches, Bentleys, Lamborghinis, and other luxury cars were among those on board. While it’s unclear exactly what started the blaze, captain Joao Mendes Cabecas of the port of Hortas said lithium-ion batteries in EVs aboard the ship caught fire, R... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Google has begun rolling out a new fast emergency dialer (FED) feature designed to help users traveling internationally quickly access police, fire, and medical services, 9to5Google reported. The dialer was reportedly first seen last year through the Pixel’s emergency app, but Google confirmed to Android Police that FED is currently rolling out to a wider release.Accessing the Fast Emergency Dialer when your phone is unlocked will vary by deviceThough it’s designed for international traveling, anyone can use it at any location. According to the Google Support page, the emergency dialer will show options relevant to your location:

Kodi Adam Lackman, the self-described “former pirate” behind the Kodi add-on repository TVAddons, has agreed to pay $19.5 million ($25 million CAD) to a group of Canadian telecom giants over copyright infringement, according to a report from TorrentFreak.As noted by TorrentFreak, TVAddons was still accessible up until last week before going offline (seemingly) for good. In its heyday, TVAddons was a site that allowed users to upload unofficial add-ons for Kodi, the open-source media library you can install on streaming devices like the Amazon Fire TV Stick and Google Chromecast. While Kodi itself is legal software, third-party apps, like TVAddons, can direct people to pirated content.Canadian telecom giants filed the lawsuit in 2017A copy... Continue reading…

General Motors is selling its stake in Lordstown Motors, an electric vehicle startup that has struggled to produce its first vehicle. GM owned 7.5 million shares, or less than 5 percent of the company, with an initial equity value of $75 million. The news was first reported by the Detroit Free Press.The sale was made during the fourth quarter of 2021 following an undisclosed lock-up period. James Cain, a spokesperson for GM, confirmed the sale, while a spokesperson for Lordstown declined to comment.The stock sale signals the beginning of the end of GM’s relationship with Lordstown. The company traces its origins to GM’s announcement in 2018 that it would be closing down its Lordstown factory. Then-President Donald Trump assailed GM... Continue reading…

UFA Just in time for the US copyright on Fritz Lang’s Metropolis to expire this December, Apple’s gearing up to produce a new streaming series inspired by the original 1927 classic.Today, Apple announced that it’s brought on Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail to write, direct, executive produce, and showrun a new Metropolis show for Apple TV plus as part of Esmail’s overall deal with Universal Content Productions. Word of a new Metropolis first broke back in 2016 when it was not yet clear which network or streamer might want to move ahead with the adaptation.In Lang’s original Metropolis — adapted from author Thea von Harbou’s novel of the same name — a futuristic and highly stratified megacity becomes the epicenter of a revolution when Freder,... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge If you’ve had an Android phone for any length of time, it’s easy to get used to living with, well, chaos. If you’re anything like me, you’re constantly adding new apps, deciding they’re okay but not great, adding another, and so on. Then, a few months later, as you’re scrolling through your app drawer, you’re surprised to see several apps that you forgot about and perhaps don’t even remember what they’re used for.In a very short time, it can become a mess. And if you’re really an app enthusiast, it can start taking up more space than you can spare. (Here, we can take as written the obligatory KonMari reference.)There are essentially two steps to making sense of all of those Android apps: find a way to organize them (and there are a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has paused sales of its physical products in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, according to a statement from the company. This is Apple’s latest step after it imposed limitations for Apple Pay in Russia in accordance with sanctions, and it pulled some Russian news apps from the App Store outside of the country.In its statement, which you can read in full below, Apple says that it “stopped all exports into our sales channel in the country” last week in response to the violence. The company says that it will “continue to evaluate the situation” and that it’s communicating with the governments of affected countries.A Ukrainian official called on Tim Cook to cut Russia off last weekLast week, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister... Continue reading…

HP’s Chromebook x2 11 supported wireless charging of its stylus in a similar way to how USI 2.0 stylii will work. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge The Universal Stylus Initiative (USI) announced this week that it’s established a new USI 2.0 open stylus standard, which includes new features that will make way for better writing experiences on Chromebooks.A big new feature for USI 2.0 is wireless charging that’s compatible with the newest NFC spec, capable of 1-watt charging from compatible smartphones and other devices. “The simplicity and ease of use of wireless charging means that consumer adoption will be rapid,” said Mike McCamon, executive director of NFC Forum. NFC charging within the USI 2.0 standard means more devices can host wireless charging for attached styli, like how the Apple Pencil 2 charges against an iPad.USI technology is available on many Chromebook devices... Continue reading…

Amanda’s Umma coming back to haunt her. | Sony In Sony’s upcoming supernatural horror thriller Umma from director Iris K. Shim, the simple, quiet lives of a beekeeper and her teenage daughter are upended by the unexpected arrival of the woman’s mother — not as a living, breathing person, but as an urn full of remains following her cremation.Though Amanda (Sandra Oh) is clearly shaken by the news of her mother’s death in Umma’s first trailer, her daughter (Fivel Stewart) can’t help but wonder why she’d never been properly introduced to her maternal grandmother. Amanda’s loath to tell her why, specifically, she’s worked so hard to keep her daughter seemingly cut off from other people out in the wilderness and somewhat in the dark about their family in South Korea. But after Amanda... Continue reading…

Did Valve just gift us a new Portal game? Not exactly. But I can confirm that Aperture Desk Job, a free gamelet designed to show off the Steam Deck’s controls, is worth checking out if you’re a huge Portal fan like me. It’s quick, cute, reveals the answer to one of Portal 2’s biggest unanswered questions, and you can download and play it right now for free even if you never plan to touch a Steam Deck.Not only does the 30-minute, 3.1GB experience work on a standard Windows PC (as long as you’ve got a gamepad; almost any gamepad will do), but you won’t have to jump through hoops to make it run properly. It supports desktop resolutions, high refresh rate monitors, windowed modes, and comes with a readymade control scheme for gamepads like... Continue reading…

Jeep, the iconic American brand owned by Stellantis, revealed the first images of its upcoming electric SUV. The company isn’t sharing any other details or even the vehicle’s name, but it did confirm that the new EV will launch in 2023.Jeep has been slower to embrace electrification as compared to many of its rivals. The automaker has released plug-in hybrid versions of its Wrangler and Grand Cherokee SUVs and plans an off-roading version of the Grand Cherokee, the Trailhawk, which also comes with a hybrid motor.But the unnamed SUV coming out next year will be Jeep’s first purely battery-electric vehicle. The automaker recently announced that it would release “zero-emission” versions of all of its vehicles by 2025, along with... Continue reading…

Frances Haugen will join the first lady at Tuesday’s State of the Union address | Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images The White House announced Tuesday that Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen will be among the guests of first lady Jill Biden at President Biden’s first official State of the Union address.Haugen, a former product manager in Facebook’s civic integrity group, leaked a trove of internal Facebook documents to The Wall Street Journal last year that showed widespread problems within the company. She testified before Congress that Facebook “repeatedly” misled the public about “what its own research reveals about the safety of children and the efficacy of its artificial intelligence systems as a role in spreading divisive and extreme messages.”The White House release calls Haugen a “specialist in algorithmic product management” and an... Continue reading…

Good news: in a rare discount, Paramount Plus is celebrating its first birthday by offering an 80 percent discount to new and returning customers.Through March 7th, eligible subscribers can use the code BIRTHDAY to receive three months of the Essential Plan for $1 instead of $4.99 per month when they purchase their subscription from the company’s site. These customers can also get three months of the Premium Plan for $2 instead of $9.99 per month as well.Both plans offer access to thousands of episodes and films from Paramount Pictures, CBS, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, and more, as well as previous and new originals like Star Trek: Discovery and PAW Patrol: The Movie. However, unlike the cheaper subscription, the Premium Plan... Continue reading…

MediaTek might have just beaten out Qualcomm to claim the biggest market share of any chipmaker for Android phones in the United States — at least, according to one analyst group.According to IDC’s quarterly mobile phone sales tracker, as Q4 2021 MediaTek chips account for 51 percent of all Android phones in the United States, compared to 47 percent for Qualcomm, as spotted by PCMag. Those numbers are a stark inversion from the previous quarter, where MediaTek had a 41 percent market share to Qualcomm’s 56 percent.There are conflicting reports, however: Counterpoint Research’s own report puts the Q4 2021 split at 55 percent for Qualcomm, and 37 percent for MediaTek, so it’s possible that Qualcomm is still holding on to its crown for... Continue reading…

The Stealth 600 Gen 2 Max will arrive in black, white camo, or red. | Turtle Beach Turtle Beach has announced the Stealth 600 Gen 2 Max, a new $129.99 wireless headset that’s one of a few models out there that can work with Xbox and a myriad of other platforms. Typically, you get compatibility with Xbox or with other platforms like PlayStation, PC, and the Nintendo Switch’s dock, but not both. This headset’s included USB-A audio transmitter has a switch that can toggle wireless modes, ensuring compatibility no matter which system you’re on. It’s worth noting that SteelSeries offered a similar feature with its Arctis 1 Wireless headset back in early 2020 (albeit with a fancier USB-C dongle), but it’s still generally difficult to find a headset that can accomplish this feat.Outside of this functionality, the ins and... Continue reading…

The much-anticipated feature is rolling out to TVs like the X90J. | Image: Sony Sony reportedly started rolling out an update to enable variable refresh rate on its 2021 TVs with the Bravia XR processor almost a year after promising that the feature was coming, according to HDTVTest’s Vincent Teoh and posts on an owners’ forum. Variable refresh rate, or VRR, essentially lets your TV smooth out any stutters or frame rate drops that may happen while gaming, without the annoying screen artifacts or slight input lag that can come with other solutions.Somewhat ironically, Sony’s own PlayStation 5 doesn’t support VRR yet — the company promised it would add the feature via a software update, but so far there haven’t been any signs of it. The Xbox Series X and S, however, do support it, as will any gaming PC with a... Continue reading…

Ahead of its release on March 25th, Ghostwire: Tokyo is getting a free visual novel, available now on PlayStation. Ghostwire: Tokyo - Prelude, will introduce players to KK, the deuteragonist of Ghostwire, and his squad of spirit detectives as they investigate paranormal disturbances throughout Tokyo. Players will be able to make different choices throughout the visual novel to unravel the story of Ghostwire’s world and the spirits who haunt it.Ghostwire: Tokyo is the latest game from The Evil Within developer Tango Gameworks. Its slick and extremely unsettling gameplay trailer showcases a world overrun by apparitions that KK must banish with the help of Akito, the human KK possess and imbues with supernatural ghost-killing power.G... Continue reading…

Instagram has added auto-generated captions to videos. | Image: Instagram Instagram head Adam Mosseri said Tuesday the company is adding auto-generated captions to the videos in your feed. He acknowledged the captions have been “a long time coming” — rival TikTok introduced auto-captions last April — and said the captions will be on by default for creators on the platform.

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Domain registrar and hosting provider Namecheap is terminating service provision for customers based in Russia in the face of what it describes as “war crimes” committed in Ukraine.An email sent Monday from Namecheap to customers, and shared online by various customers of the company, reads:“Unfortunately, due to the Russian regime’s war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine, we will no longer be providing services to users registered in Russia. While we sympathize that this war may not affect your own views or opinion on the matter, the fact is, your authoritarian government is committing human rights abuses and engaging in war crimes so this is a policy decision we have made and will stand by.”The original email gave... Continue reading…

Oleg Kutkov with his Starlink dish he bought off of eBay. | Image: Oleg Kutkov On Monday night, in between the hourly air alarms reverberating outside his home, Oleg Kutkov stuck his SpaceX Starlink dish outside of his window in Kiev, Ukraine, and pointed it up at the sky. To his surprise, he got a signal in just 10 seconds from one of SpaceX’s satellites overhead, indicating he was receiving broadband internet.“I honestly didn’t believe that it would work,” Kutkov tells The Verge. “I thought there might be some problems with obstructions, might be some problems with my Dishy. But no, it just connected. I got really good speed, really good connectivity.”“I honestly didn’t believe that it would work”Kutkov has actually had a Starlink dish for a few months now, but wasn’t able to use it. A software and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge MIT and Harvard’s Broad Institute was the first to apply the gene-editing tool CRISPR to human cells, the US Patent and Trademark Office said Monday. The decision stymies years of efforts from the University of California, Berkeley to obtain lucrative patent rights to the technology. UC Berkeley is home to Jennifer Doudna, who won a 2020 Nobel Prize with Emmanuelle Charpentier for discovering the CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technique.It also complicates the work of some biotech companies to develop gene-editing therapies based on CRISPR: many, including companies like Caribou Biosciences (co-founded by Doudna) and Intellia Therapeutics, which licensed the CRISPR tech from the UC Berkeley group.“This decision once again confirmed Broad’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta has stopped recommending content by Russian state media to all users of Facebook, and soon Instagram, as the country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine wages on.In a call with reporters on Tuesday, Meta executives said Russian media affiliated with the government had been demoted in the main Facebook Feed, and that it was no longer being recommended algorithmically anywhere on the social network. Instagram is also in the process of blocking all recommendations of Russian state media globally, the executives said, adding that links to outlets under the influence of the Russian government will be labeled on both apps.The moves come after the Russian government last week started throttling internet access to Facebook and Instagram in the... Continue reading…

Image: Nomad Nomad has finally revealed its first officially licensed MagSafe charger, the Base One (that is to say, one that actually has the Apple MFi-approved MagSafe module built in, and not one with a separate charging cable threaded through). Unfortunately, that convenience doesn’t come cheap: the Base One costs $129.95.As is typical for a Nomad product, the Base One is a handsome slab of glass and aluminum that promises a more refined experience than simply slapping Apple’s $40 charging puck on your nightstand. And it certainly looks nice enough, with a neat floating glass effect and about a pound of heft to keep it from falling off your nightstand. Image: Nomad But the $130 price tag here is definitely rough,... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Waymo, the autonomous vehicle unit of Alphabet, got the green light to start charging for rides in its autonomous taxis in San Francisco. The California Public Utilities Commission awarded the company a permit that allows them to charge for rides as long as there’s a human safety driver behind the wheel.California requires that AV companies obtain a series of permits in order to start earning money from their autonomous vehicles. The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles oversees test permits, while the CPUC determines when those companies can start commercial businesses. The permit obtained by Waymo is one of the last steps required before the company can launch a fully fleshed-out robotaxi business. The company will need to obtain a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge, Shutterstock Accuracy doesn’t have to trump safety Continue reading…

President Joe Biden is scheduled to deliver his first State of the Union address at the US Capitol on Tuesday, March 1st, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to escalate.This will be Biden’s first State of the Union address, as he had not been in office long enough to officially deliver the address last year. Last year, Biden did give a speech before a joint session of Congress laying out his administration’s plan to invest in infrastructure, including broadband expansion and creating a nationwide electric vehicle charging grid. He also announced plans to address the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.This year, Biden is expected to make similar remarks during his Tuesday address. He is also expected to focus heavily on the ongoing... Continue reading…

Screenshot: Crunchyroll via YouTube Crunchyroll is inheriting a slew of titles from Funimation in a move that’s supposed to unify the two biggest anime streaming services under one subscription. This also consolidates Funimation’s French-language subsidiary, Wakanim, and the Crunchyroll-owned streaming service, VRV, into the sole Crunchyroll platform.The consolidation of Crunchyroll doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Last August, Sony — which also owns Funimation — completed its acquisition of Crunchyroll for $1.175 billion and announced plans to unify both services under a single subscription.An FAQ page notes that Crunchyroll subscribers will now have access to simulcast content that was previously only available on Funimation and Wakanim, as well as 80 percent of... Continue reading…

Just days after Disney quietly confirmed that all of Netflix’s Marvel shows are set to migrate over to Disney Plus for Canadian audiences this March, we now know when all six of the series will make a similar jump to Disney’s own streaming service in the US as well.Today, Disney announced that in mid-March, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Defenders, The Punisher, and ABC’s Agents of SHIELD will begin streaming on Disney Plus alongside all of Marvel’s other superhero programming, a sign that may point to those characters’ futures in the MCU. In a press release shared this morning, Disney’s president of streaming, Michael Paull, framed the impending IP homecoming as a further unification of Marvel’s brand and as a sort... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Last week, we held Hot Pod Summit 2022, our invite-only event about the future of the podcast industry. It was a day of laughs, gasps, and jabs at all our favorite audio giants.Ashley helmed nearly all the panels, and at the end of the day, she publicly shared that she’s beginning a new adventure. After more than six years at The Verge and many months in charge of Hot Pod (including weeks spent writing “test runs” before she officially started??), she’s now off to Bloomberg. Hot Pod will be getting someone new soon, but until then, we’re going to take things a little slower to get all our ducks in a row. And also allow our ducks to sleep. I am one of those ducks.I’m going to be off until next week’s Insider issues, so our editor Jake... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Protecting your patents against tech giants Continue reading…

Image: Sonos Last year the Sonos Roam arrived as a portable smart speaker option that not only provided quality sound you could take with you, but also access to assistants like Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. It was initially priced at $169, but Sonos cited the global chip shortage as a reason for bumping the price up to $179 last fall. If you were interested in the product but want to save a few bucks, Sonos is now introducing the Roam SL, a mic-less version that costs $159, and mimics the similarly mic-less One SL it released two years ago.According to the FAQ, losing the microphone doesn’t just cut out support for either voice assistant. It also means no automated Trueplay sound tuning, and living without the Sound Swap feature that lets you... Continue reading…

How Endwalker explores the relationship between video game food and tech culture Continue reading…

The new Xbox app update is available now. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is finally allowing games from the Windows store to be installed to any folder that can be accessed freely. The software giant started testing this functionality last year, and it’s now rolling out in the Xbox all for all Windows 10 and Windows 11 users today.This will greatly improve the game install process from the Windows store, allowing PC gamers to install titles into any folder of their choice with unrestricted access to game files. It should address the many headaches of installing games from PC Game Pass, and Windows users should be able to backup game files and restore them in the future. The new install features on the Xbox app. Microsoft previously forced Windows users to install PC games from... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Photography by Sergei Guneyev / Getty Images But how much will it matter? Continue reading…

Microsoft Flight Simulator is launching on Xbox Cloud Gaming today, allowing Xbox One owners to access the game for the first time. The Xbox Series X / S exclusive was previously only playable on the latest Xbox consoles, but you can now play Microsoft Flight Simulator through a web browser, on Android and iOS devices, and on Xbox One consoles.Microsoft Flight Simulator first launched on PC in 2020, before arriving on Xbox Series X / S nearly a year later. It was missing from the Xbox Cloud Gaming part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and is now available in the cloud thanks to Xbox Series X hardware upgrades that Microsoft has made to its datacenters. Before the upgrades, Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) was powered by Xbox One S consoles, and the... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s Surface Headphones 2 are selling for their second-best price to date at Amazon. A good pair of noise-canceling headphones can be useful when you need to tune out the world around you, especially if you need to multitask or are on a deadline. That’s why today’s deal on Microsoft’s Surface Headphones 2, currently one of the best pairs of noise-canceling headphones you can buy, is a standout.Right now, multitaskers on the market for a solid set of headphones can pick up the gray model at Amazon for $225.50 instead of $249.99. That’s not as low as their sale price during Black Friday, but it’s the lowest price we’ve seen on the headphones since and their second-best price to date. If you prefer the matte-black model, you can pick them up for just a few bucks more at Target for $229.99.Boasting excellent multipoint... Continue reading…

Thermacell’s new Liv smart mosquito repellent system runs on-demand, taking about 15 minutes to form an invisible dome of protection around your patio. | Image: Thermacell When the snow melts and the flowers start to bloom, biting, buzzing mosquitos appear out of nowhere. Tackling these bloodsuckers is no easy task. While covering up and dousing yourself in bug spray or blanketing your garden in pesticides may work, it's not always the nicest experience nor the most environmentally friendly.Thermacell, makers of a mosquito repellent that creates a zone of protection around you rather than you having to cover every inch of your skin, has an intriguing solution: the Liv Smart Mosquito Repellent System.Launching today, Liv is Thermacell’s first connected, on-demand mosquito repellent system for the home. Starting at $699 for a three-repeller kit plus a hub, the app-controlled system should protect about... Continue reading…

Photo: Razor Razor, the company that helped kick off the scooter craze over two decades ago, announced new, electrified versions of its classic kick scooter models. And this time, they’re built for adults.Razor is launching a Kickstarter campaign for the new scooters, with the first models scheduled to start shipping in August 2022. The scooters, modeled on the company’s iconic kick scooters originally built for kids, will come in five different colors: orange, blue, red, pink, and black. And thanks to powerful 350W motors, these scooters will go a little faster than those that rely solely on leg muscles.Razor is looking to tap into Gen Z’s nostalgia for the simpler times of their childhood with their marketing pitch for these new, electrified... Continue reading…

Amazon Luna — the company’s cloud-based game streaming service — is officially launching in the US today for anyone to use, in addition to adding a variety of new features, including free games for Amazon Prime members.Luna was announced in fall 2020, but since then, it has only been available to a limited number of customers through an invite-only “early access” program. Today’s launch, however, finally opens up the service for anyone to use in the United States, which could significantly expand the number of Luna customers.Alongside the broader launch, Amazon also announced three additional “channels” (Luna’s term for bundles of games that customers can subscribe to on a monthly basis, similar to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass) that... Continue reading…

The Mobvoi TicWatch GTH Pro claims to measure long-term heart health. | Image: Mobvoi While smartwatches have generally opted to measure heart health through EKGs, Mobvoi announced today it’s taking a different tack. The company claims its latest fitness tracker, the TicWatch GTH Pro, can measure a person’s long-term arterial health.The watch was developed over two years in partnership with global health tech firm Cardie X. According to Mobvoi, the $99 TicWatch GTH Pro introduces a new “Arty Heart Health” analytics platform that noninvasively measures central arterial waveforms. It’s essentially measuring the strength of your pulse to deliver insights about your heart health. While the watch does not measure your blood pressure, the platform is based on tech that measures central and brachial blood pressure data. Experts... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber introduced a new app feature called “Explore” that allows customers to buy concert tickets, book restaurant reservations, and get discounted rides to popular destinations. It’s the latest attempt by the ride-share company to turn its app into more of a lifestyle product.Uber has always had aspirations outside of just being a taxi broker. But as the company shifts more into food and grocery delivery, it can be hard to remember its roots as a product used by people to move around cities. Now, Uber wants to remind its customers of that legacy, while also bringing more Yelp-style features into its app.Starting March 1st, Uber customers in over a dozen North American cities will see the new Explore tab when they open the app. Tapping... Continue reading…

The high-end Android phone of choice in 2022 — just go easy on the battery Continue reading…

Newell personally handing an early Steam Deck to a customer. | Screenshot: Valve One of my favorite things about famous game developers is how hyper-specific their fame is. So naturally I was delighted to see a promotional video put out by Valve showing its co-founder and president Gabe Newell — one of the most famous game developers in the world — confusing the heck out of some members of the public by hand-delivering Steam Decks in person.To be fair, a handful of recipients immediately recognize a face-masked Newell when he shows up at their doorstep with a Steam Deck in hand. But in a lot of other cases the deliveries are accepted on behalf of other members of the household. “What’s with the camera crew?” the confused wife of a man on a ski trip asks, while another politely checks whether they need to sign... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has blocked Russian news channels RT and Sputnik across Europe in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Alphabet-owned company confirmed the news on Twitter, saying it would “take time for our systems to fully ramp up” and that it would continue to “monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action.”It’s the latest example of internet platforms blocking Russian media outlets in response to the war. Yesterday, Meta blocked RT and Sputnik on both Instagram and Facebook after receiving requests to do so from a number of governments in the EU. TikTok also banned the two channels. YouTube had already stopped these outlets from generating revenue on its platform via advertising and restricted access to these channels... Continue reading…

Dozens of cameras suspended from the store’s ceiling track customers and their purchases. | Image: Amazon Amazon has brought its cashierless Just Walk Out technology to a Whole Foods store for the first time, allowing customers to shop and leave the store with their items without having to interact with any kind of cashier. The revamped store opened on February 23rd in Washington, DC’s Glover Park neighborhood, where there’s been a Whole Foods store for over 20 years.Although Amazon has been operating cashierless grocery stores in increasingly large Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh-branded stores, this is the first time it’s bringing the technology to a Whole Foods store. Amazon bought the grocery chain for $13.7 billion in 2017, but until now the brand’s integration with Amazon has been more minimal, consisting of discounts and free delivery... Continue reading…