The Verge

The robot in question is ElliQ. Think of it like a more proactive Siri or Alexa. | Image; Intuition Robotics The state of New York will distribute robot companions to the homes of more than 800 older adults. The robots are not able to help with physical tasks, but function as more proactive versions of digital assistants like Siri or Alexa — engaging users in small talk, helping contact love ones, and keeping track of health goals like exercise and medication.The scheme is being organized by the New York State Office for the Aging (NYSOFA), and is intended to help address the growing problem of social isolation among the elderly. An estimated 14 million Americans over the age of 65 currently live alone, and this figure is projected to increase over the next decade as the boomer generation ages. Studies have suggested that long-term loneliness... Continue reading…

The new Home Smart app controlling a Dirigera hub in an Ikea smart home. | Image: Ikea Dirigera makes Home Smart easier to use and more robust Continue reading…

The app now suggests which speaker you might like to use. | Screenshot: YouTube Music YouTube Music will now attempt to suggest which of your Cast-enabled speakers you want to stream music to. It’s a nice upgrade over the previous approach, where the app would simply list all of the Cast-enabled devices on your network in alphabetical order. If you’re anything like us, that could mean having to hunt through a list of half a dozen speakers, even if there’s only one you use on a regular basis.Now, ChromeUnboxed has spotted that attempting to Cast from the YouTube Music app will bring up a new menu, with a “Suggested” device highlighted above the standard alphabetical list. Google spokesperson Paul Pennington confirmed the new feature in an email to The Verge, and said that suggestions are based upon usage, history, and the... Continue reading…

Dyson has shown off a series of prototype robots it’s developing, and announced plans to hire hundreds of engineers over the next five years in order to build robots capable of household chores. The images are designed to show off the fine motor skills of the machines, with arms capable of lifting plates out of a drying rack, vacuuming a sofa, or lifting up a children’s toy.The company, best known for its range of vacuum cleaners, says that it aims to develop “an autonomous device capable of household chores and other tasks,” with The Guardian noting that such a device could be released by 2030. It comes over half a decade after the company released its first robotic device, the Dyson 360 Eye robot vacuum cleaner, in 2014. Dyson has... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge During its WWDC 2021 event, Apple laid down a slew of policy changes for the App Store, adjusting the rules for everything from bounty hunting to whether or not Roblox is a game. Now, with the WWDC 2022 event ready to start on June 6th, Apple is reminding developers that it’s ready to flip the switch on some policy updates that were previously delayed.Two App Store rule changes that Apple is confirming will take effect as of June 30th: a requirement that apps offering paid online group services use its in-app payment system, and a requirement mandating that developers offer easy account deletions (including stored personal data) within any app that allows users to create an account.The policy about online group services (like classes... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A lawsuit that accuses Tesla of fostering a workplace with “rampant” sexual harassment will continue in court after a California judge denied the company’s motion for arbitration, as first reported by Bloomberg. Although the female worker who brought up the case signed an arbitration agreement at Tesla, terminating her rights to sue, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Stephen Kaus still moved forward with the decision on Monday.Jessica Barraza filed the lawsuit last year, claiming she was subject to catcalling, lewd comments, and inappropriate touching while working as a production associate at Tesla’s Fremont, California factory. At least seven more female workers have since come forward with sexual harassment complaints, with some a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A group of more than 40 Democratic members of Congress has asked Google to stop collecting and retaining “unnecessary” location data out of fear that it could be used to identify and prosecute people who have obtained abortions.The request was made in a letter sent to Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Tuesday by members of the House and Senate, led by Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and including well-known progressive representatives such as Ayanna Pressley, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.“We believe that abortion is health care,” the letter states. “We will fight tooth and nail to ensure that it remains recognized as a fundamental right, and that all people in the United States have control over their own bodies.... Continue reading…

This is supposed to be pink. | Image: u/A_Giant_Baguette on Reddit Google Pixel 6 and 6 Pro users aren’t impressed with Google’s $30 first-party cases. Looking at Reddit and reviews on Amazon, there are dozens of people complaining about the transparent plastic showing extreme yellowing, warping, or just plain not fitting the phone from the factory. Some users have posted some gnarly-looking pictures of their cases, saying that they degraded in anywhere from several months to just two or three weeks. An editor here at The Verge says that their case has also started to look “a bit dingy.”While there are plenty of positive reviews for the cases, it’s hard to ignore the number of complaints. It also seems unlikely that this is just from a bad batch of cases. There’s a Reddit thread complaining about the... Continue reading…

Sony has had slightly more frequent restocks of its flagship console lately. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Update May 24th, 4:59PM ET: Sony has sold out of PS5 consoles for this restock.Update May 24th, 4:30PM ET: This console restock from Sony is for new boxed bundles of the PS5 with Horizon Forbidden West included. The cost of this bundle with the disc-equipped PS5 is $549.99, which reflects a $20 discount off the $69.99 price of the game.The latest restock of hard-to-get PlayStation 5 consoles has arrived. Sony has opened a public queue that you can join now for a chance to buy a $499 PlayStation 5 that has a disc drive. We also expect Sony may have the $399 PS5 Digital Edition without a disc drive on offer, as well as your choice of accessories and games. Sony has routinely offered invite-only opportunities to buy a PS5, but recently,... Continue reading…

DroneUp can deliver packages within a mile-and-a-half radius of a Walmart. | Image: Walmart Walmart announced on Tuesday that it’s planning on expanding the number of stores that offer drone-delivered packages; by the end of the year, it hopes to fly deliveries from 34 sites across Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia. The company says the expansion will give up to 4 million households access to the service, which is a significant increase. When the company launched the program in November 2021, it was only available in a single town in Arkansas.Walmart says that customers who live near drone-capable stores will be able to order items weighing less than 10 pounds in total between 8AM and 8PM. The deliveries, which cost $3.99, are done via a drone operated by a company called DroneUp, which has a partnership... Continue reading…

At long last. When Google and Samsung announced Wear OS 3 last year, I had lots of questions about how well Google services would run on Samsung hardware. Of Google’s expansive suite of apps, I was most curious about Google Assistant. The only catch was it wasn’t available when the Galaxy Watch 4 lineup launched — and there were only vague promises as to when it would actually be available. But yesterday, Google Assistant finally arrived on the Galaxy Watch 4, and after a few hours of playing around with it, I’m cautiously optimistic.Google Assistant was already a feature on older Wear OS 2 watches. It just wasn’t great. Because Wear OS 2 watches struggled with underpowered hardware, Google Assistant was often laggy and never fully lived up to its... Continue reading…

Image: Stellantis Stellantis, the parent company of Dodge, Jeep, and Chrysler, has selected Kokomo, Indiana, as the site for its next electric vehicle battery factory. The plant will be built in partnership with South Korea’s Samsung SDI, a leading EV battery maker. The companies made the announcement Tuesday alongside Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb and several other local officials in Kokomo.The new facility will create 1,400 new jobs and cost $2.5 billion to construct, though Stellantis and Samsung are willing to spend up to $3 billion on the project, Mark Stewart, chief operating officer of Stellantis, said at the press conference. The cost will be split between the two companies.The new facility will create 1,400 new jobs and cost $2.5 billion to... Continue reading…

Trees sway in the wind from Hurricane Ida in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 29th, 2021. | Image: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images Forecasters expect a busy 2022 Atlantic hurricane season, with a 65 percent chance of an above-average season. There’s also a wildcard in the mix that raises the risk of more severe storms in the Gulf of Mexico this year.Between 14 to 21 tropical storms could grow powerful enough to be named this season, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in its season outlook briefing, which was released today. The average Atlantic hurricane season, which starts on June 1st, typically has about 14 named storms. Another prominent forecast from Colorado State University predicted 19 named storms this year.NOAA expects six to 10 storms to strengthen into hurricanes. NOAA also forecast between three to six major hurricanes,... Continue reading…

Niantic Niantic made a name for itself in the mobile gaming industry through the enduring success of Pokémon Go. Now the company is hoping to become something else: a platform for other developers to build location-aware AR apps on top of.This plan has been in the works since at least 2018, but it’s taking a big leap forward this week with the long-awaited release of Niantic’s location mapping software for AR, which it calls the Visual Positioning System, or VPS in a nod to GPS. The technology makes it so that AR experiences can be grounded to a physical location, like the front of a building or a park monument, rather than just floating aimlessly through a phone’s camera view.Developers can now use VPS as the tentpole feature of Niantic’s... Continue reading…

The Detect COVID-19 test is an at-home molecular test. | Image: Detect The at-home molecular COVID-19 testing company Detect is partnering with healthcare provider Carbon Health to give customers who test positive easy access to antiviral treatments, the companies announced today.The “Test to Treat at Home” program runs directly through the Detect app, which connects people who test positive for COVID-19 with Carbon Health. Then, they can set up appointments for virtual or in-person visits, depending on their location. At that appointment, a provider can prescribe an antiviral like Paxlovid, and patients can pick the drug up the same day — a timesaver for a drug that has to be taken within five days of symptoms starting.The program is modeled off the Biden administration’s Test to Treat program, which... Continue reading…

Photo by Rodin Eckenroth/FilmMagic After bottomless headlines about podcast licensing deals, I guess getting acquired is cool again. Or maybe Conan is just tired. I’m tired, and I didn’t even spend three decades as the “good king” of late night. On that note, I will be out for the next few days, so send all pitches and thoughts to Jake (nice ones, please!!).SiriusXM acquires Conan O’Brien’s podcast networkSo much for sticking to mid-tier deals, SiriusXM (though kudos on the misdirection). On Monday, the audio giant announced it has acquired Conan O’Brien’s production company, Team Coco, and locked the comedian down in a five-year talent contract. At a reported $150 million, the transaction is by no means the industry’s largest, but it’s a callback to the kind of M&A... Continue reading…

The Microsoft Store for Windows 11. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is finally adding restore apps to the Microsoft Store on Windows 11. The software maker will soon start testing a new feature that allows you to restore apps onto a new Windows 11 PC. The existing Microsoft Store hasn’t offered an automatic way to restore apps, instead forcing Windows users to manually install apps from their library.“To make it easier for customers to transition to their new PCs quickly and seamlessly, we will soon test a new feature in the Windows Insider channel that helps customers automatically restore their apps, previously installed from the Microsoft Store, to their new Windows device,” explains Giorgio Sardo, general manager of the Microsoft Store. “This will also help developers retain their... Continue reading…

Image: Waze Waze has finally introduced support for Apple Music on iPhones, allowing you to control your music through the navigation app’s built-in audio player. This should make it easier for you to pause, play, and switch between songs while following the directions to your destination. You’ll also get access to Apple Music’s wide selection of playlists directly through Waze, which means you shouldn’t have to open the Apple Music app at all.Apple Music joins a host of other audio streaming services that already connect with Waze. The app first rolled out support for Spotify in 2017 and later added Pandora, TuneIn, and Deezer. In addition to other popular music services like Amazon Music, YouTube Music, and iHeartRadio, Waze also supports a... Continue reading…

The Logitech G435 wireless headset comes in three unique colorways. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Today’s deals kick off with some great prices on Logitech gaming and streaming gear from Amazon’s deal of the day, and just like monkey see, monkey do, Best Buy is following suit and matching many of those prices.The selection of discounted Logitech products ranges from mice and headsets to steering wheels and a webcam. There’s even a Blue Yeti USB microphone kit with a Compass desk mount for $143.99 (about $46 off compared to buying them separately) that’s ideal for podcasting and streaming — and because Logitech actually owns Blue. A lot of these deals are great, but let’s dive deeper into some of our favorites.One of our overall top choices for gaming headsets is the Logitech G435 Lightspeed wireless. It currently sits number one in... Continue reading…

The new panel will appear to the right after a Lens search. | Image: Google Google Lens, the search giant’s powerful image recognition software, is becoming slightly less cumbersome to use within the Chrome browser on desktop. Currently, if you want to use Lens on an image on a website, the browser opens a page of results in a new tab. But in the future, the browser will instead show results in a panel to the right of a webpage. Only when you want to find an image’s source will Chrome open a new browser tab.The search giant’s image recognition software has long been available on mobile, where it’s accessible via Google’s apps on iOS or the native camera app on some Android phones. But last year, Google Lens came to desktop via the Chrome browser and can be accessed by right-clicking an image and then selecting... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge; Photo by Oliyarnyk / CC-BY-SA-4.0 With Michael Chobanian, the president of the Blockchain Association of Ukraine Continue reading…

Chris Evans as Lloyd Hansen. | Netflix In both the Mark Greaney book, The Gray Man, and Netflix’s forthcoming movie adaptation by the Russo Brothers, one of the CIA’s most highly-trained and valuable agents becomes its number one target after he unearths a dark truth about the agency. The Gray Man’s first trailer introduces you to Court Gentry (Ryan Gosling) as he fights to stay alive with one of the world’s largest bounties looming over his head and a mustachioed psychopath hot on his heels.Though Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) and Gentry were once technically colleagues, the two men find themselves at odds in The Gray Man’s first trailer as Hansen’s tapped to lead the worldwide hunt for Gentry’s head. Gentry’s able to hold his own against Hansen to a point, but his survival... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s all about developers Continue reading…

Microsoft’s Project Volterra device. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is working on a native Arm64 version of Visual Studio 2022 and a miniature Arm PC. A preview version of an Arm native version of Visual Studio 2022 will be available “in the next few weeks” and is expected to ship fully later this year alongside Arm64 .NET support.While Arm devices like the Surface Pro X have been able to run Visual Studio through x64 emulation, some features haven’t been supported and performance has suffered, too. Developers will certainly be intrigued to hear more about native Arm support for Visual Studio 2022 and VS Code, and Microsoft is creating what it describes as an “Arm-native toolchain”:

Windows 11 widgets. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is planning to support third-party widgets inside Windows 11 later this year. At its annual Build developer conference today, the software giant says it will open up access to Windows 11 widgets to developers as companions to their win32 or PWA apps.Currently, the Windows 11 widgets system is restricted to native widgets created by Microsoft, and the selection is rather limited. Microsoft has built widgets for its Outlook and To Do apps, but the rest are largely web-powered ones that present the weather, entertainment feeds, or news in the dedicated widgets panel for Windows 11.Third-party widgets will need a companion Windows app“We’re energized by the customer feedback on Widgets to date, people are enjoying the quick... Continue reading…

The new OneNote design. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft has started testing its new OneNote design refresh. The software maker first teased the visual update last year, revealing that it will unify its OneNote and OneNote for Windows 10 apps into a single OneNote app. Beta testers can now get access to some of the new OneNote design changes as part of the traditional desktop version of OneNote.The design changes allow OneNote to slot in more seamlessly with the rest of the Windows 11 aesthetic. The navigation panes and full-screen mode are being updated, and the page list, section tabs, and notebook dropdown all look different, too. Microsoft is using its Mica effect, which is used in the Windows 11 theme and desktop wallpaper, for the general app window of OneNote. ... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft put PCs in the cloud with Windows 365 last year, and now, it wants to entice developers to use a cloud-powered developer workstation. Microsoft Dev Box is a new cloud service that includes apps and services designed for developers to quickly access a preconfigured developer workstation.Microsoft Dev Box is built on top of the foundations of Windows 365, so it’s easy to spin up a new virtual machine and get working. That means Microsoft Dev Box will work on any modern browser, and the machines support any integrated development environment (IDE), software development kit (SDK), or tools that run on top of Windows. Image: Microsoft Microsoft Dev Box integrates with Windows 365. Microsoft is pitching... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is adding a new Live Share feature to Microsoft Teams, which will allow participants to start co-editing or co-creating during Teams meetings. Live Share will be available through apps that integrate into Microsoft Teams, offering more interactive meetings that go beyond simple screen sharing.Developers at Frame.io, Hexagon, Skillsoft, MakeCode, Accenture, Parabol, and Breakthru are all currently experimenting with apps that utilize this new Live Share functionality. Hexagon has created an app prototype that uses Live Share in Microsoft Teams to allow engineers to zoom in, annotate, and edit 3D models in real time during a Teams meeting. Image: Microsoft Microsoft Teams Live Share in a Hexagon prototype... Continue reading…

Finally, form and function in one Continue reading…

Mike Calabro urbancamper.com Serial 1, the e-bike company spun out of Harley-Davidson nearly two years ago, unveiled another premium model designed to make you open your wallet in helpless surrender. The Bash/Mtn is the company’s first electric mountain bike, and from the look of it, it can absolutely destroy an off-road trail.A rigid, single-speed eMTB (electric mountain bike), the Bash/Mtn is designed for serious off-roading, while also promising to require less maintenance thanks to its simplified design. But it won’t be cheap, with a suggested retail price of $3,999.“No fussy suspension to tune, no finicky drivetrain to adjust — just two wheels, one gear, and one purpose, to provide the most direct connection between you and the trail,” the company says.“... Continue reading…

The new game will be released one day before Amazon’s big new show. | Image: Daedalic Entertainment The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, the upcoming video game starring Gollum that was first revealed in 2019, will finally be released on September 1st, developer Daedalic Entertainment announced Tuesday. The game will be available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X / S, with a Switch version in the works for “later this year,” according to a press release.I was able to see a short preview of the game in a Zoom call last week. If you’re familiar with Gollum’s shadowy nature from the books and movies, you won’t be surprised to hear that you’ll be doing a lot of sneaking around to get to where you need to go. But the video featured quite a bit of environmental traversal as well — Gollum spent a lot of time scaling walls and making... Continue reading…

The standard Nova Pro is a compelling wired option, too Continue reading…

You can’t summarize the webcomic Mr. Boop better than its first panel, which emerged out of what felt like the raging id of the internet on February 28, 2020. “My wife Betty Boop is really hot,” says Alec, the strip’s spectacled, grinning protagonist, a cartoon avatar for actual writer and artist Alec Robbins.His wife, you see, is Betty Boop. She’s really hot.At first blush, Mr. Boop might not seem all that different from the webcomics that largely defined the genre’s boom a decade or so ago: imperfectly drawn panels, constant flirtation with copyright violation, and a horny, endlessly self-indulgent hero based directly on the author.But Robbins isn’t just channeling the tropes of a largely bygone era of fanfiction; he’s weaponizing... Continue reading…

Remember, the x360s are the flippy ones. | Image: HP HP’s newest budget laptop, the Pavilion x360 14, will be available this summer for a starting price of $599, the company has announced. The clamshell, higher-end Pavilion Plus 14 — HP’s thinnest ever Pavilion model at 0.65 inches — is another addition to the line, available now for a starting price of $799.The new x360 14 also has optional 5G support via Intel’s 5G Solution 5000. While we don’t know exactly how much the 5G-enabled model will cost, the $599 base price makes it likely that this will be one of the most affordable ways to get 5G on a laptop this year (many other 5G-enabled models cost well over $1,000).The Pavilion x360 14 will also be HP’s first consumer laptop to include a manual camera shutter — another feature... Continue reading…

Sample images from Google’s new text-to-image AI. | Image: Google (collage by The Verge) Imagen what else this thing can do Continue reading…

Microsoft’s Build social media profile template has a cute cat as a placeholder. You can download it here (warning: 75MB zip file) along with themed wallpapers and Teams backgrounds. | Screenshot: Umar Shakir / The Verge Microsoft’s yearly developer conference is kicking off Tuesday, May 24th and running through Thursday, May 26th. The conference, historically attended by IT professionals, engineers, and students, moved online in 2020 due to the pandemic and also became an entirely free event.Microsoft is continuing this trend in 2022 and keeping its sessions open to anyone interested in learning the latest on what the company is cooking up. So if you’re into checking out the latest Windows and Edge browser updates, understanding the difference between a product and a platform, and learning from other people that work heavily in Microsoft land, check out the links below!How to watch MS Build 2022 Keynote and SessionsIf you want to attend any sessions,... Continue reading…

Asus’ ROG Swift 500Hz monitor | Image: Asus Nvidia and Asus are announcing the world’s first 500Hz G-Sync display at Computex 2022 today. While we saw a prototype 500Hz gaming monitor earlier this year, Asus is promising a shipping 24-inch 500Hz TN panel that’s designed for esports titles running at 1080p. Asus has not yet announced pricing or a release date for its new ROG Swift 500Hz monitor, though.The announcement comes just over two years since Nvidia and Asus teamed up to introduce 360Hz gaming monitors for esports at CES 2020. PC gamers have typically purchased 144Hz gaming monitors, and even 240Hz panels still aren’t particularly common. So 500Hz might sound like overkill, but Nvidia claims it will make a difference for competitive gamers who want the best of the best.N... Continue reading…

Photo by Annette Riedl/picture alliance via Getty Images Grocery app Gorillas, which promises to deliver goods in as quickly as 10 minutes, is laying off half of its office staff. In a press release, the company said it was letting go of roughly 300 employees from a “global office workforce” of 600. (This workforce also includes roughly 14,400 staff working in warehouse and as delivery drivers.)The company is also planning to tighten its focus on five markets that account for 90 percent of its revenue: the UK, US, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. The company also operates in four other European markets — Spain, Denmark, Italy, and Belgium — where it says it is “looking at all possible strategic options for the Gorillas brand.” That might mean pulling out of these markets, but Gorillas... Continue reading…

Leaked renders of Motorola’s rumored smartphone. | Image: WinFuture Motorola could have not one, but two very interesting smartphones launching in China next month. The company has teased the first in a Weibo post, which promises to be one of the first phones in the world with a 200-megapixel camera. It could be joined by a third-generation foldable Razr, too. Motorola’s general manager Shen Jin recently posted a cryptic teaser for the new foldable on Weibo, which appeared to show a silhouette of a device unfolding.The smartphone with the 200-megapixel camera has reportedly been developed under the codename “Frontier,” and has leaked a couple of times in recent months. In January, WinFuture posted several renders of the device along with a more-or-less complete set of specs. The phone’s all-important... Continue reading…

See how a location has changed over time. | Image: Google Google Maps’ Street View feature is getting a couple of upgrades to celebrate the service’s 15th anniversary, the search giant announced today. The first is a new feature coming to its iOS and Android apps that’ll display historical Street View imagery on your phone. The second is a new, more portable camera that Google hopes will make it easier for it to capture Street View imagery in the future.Since 2014, it’s been possible to use Street View to see how a place has changed over the years via the desktop version of Google Maps. But now, the service’s iOS and Android apps will have the same ability. You access it by tapping anywhere on the screen while in Street View mode, and then select “see more dates” to access a location’s... Continue reading…

A rack full of these could hold so much liquid (and computing power). | Image: Nvidia Nvidia has announced its new plan for reducing the energy use of data centers crunching massive amounts of data or training AI models: liquid-cooled graphics cards. The company announced at Computex that it’s introducing a liquid-cooled version of its A100 compute card, and says that it consumes 30 percent less power than the air-cooled version. Nvidia’s also pledging that this isn’t just a one-off, it’s already got more liquid-cooled server cards on its roadmap, and hints at bringing the tech to other applications like in-car systems that need to keep cool in enclosed spaces. Of course, Tesla’s recent recall for overheating chips shows how tricky that can be, even with liquid cooling.According to Nvidia, reducing the energy needed to... Continue reading…

Thor: Love and Thunder | Image: Marvel The first full trailer for Thor: Love and Thunder has arrived, and somehow found a new angle on the journey of Chris Hemsworth’s titular hero. This time around we’re also getting a solid look at Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher, a galactic killer “who seeks the extinction of the gods.”There are also more shots of Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), playing up some interactions she’ll have with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), who, as we saw in the teaser trailer, is wielding Mjolnir, and even a quick flash of some Guardians of the Galaxy friends. Image: Marvel Christian Bale as Gorr the God Butcher. So, who is holding the title of Mighty Thor, and what has Jane been doing for the last eight years, seven months,... Continue reading…

Image: Starlink SpaceX’s Starlink is still scaling up its constellation of internet satellites, and the service is only intended for use at the specific location where the user is registered. But as we noted earlier this month, for an additional $25 per month, it will let users take their dish somewhere else every now and then with the service’s new “portability” feature.For that package with portability, you still need to have at-home service first, and it warns users they’ll be de-prioritized while away from home. But if you’re a vanlifer or RV enthusiast who is willing to buy a dish without having a “home” address with prioritized service, now Starlink for RVs will let you sign up and grab a dish for access right now. There’s no waiting required,... Continue reading…

Klarna lost about one-third of its valuation since last year. | Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images Klarna, the Swedish “buy now, pay later” service (BNPL), announced that it’s laying off 10 percent of its global workforce in a prerecorded video message, according to reports from Protocol and TechCrunch. The company currently has about 7,000 employees, and a 10 percent cutback puts the number of affected workers somewhere around 700.BNPL services like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay allows users to purchase a product for nothing or a small fraction of its full price. Customers can then make incremental payments over a set period of time but will face a typically interest-free fee for any late payments. BNPL businesses soared at the height of the pandemic when many people were strapped for cash and had nothing else better to do than shop... Continue reading…

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell sent a company-wide email last week responding to a report of allegations of sexual assault against CEO Elon Musk, claiming she doesn’t believe the allegations to be true. The email, first reported by CNBC and reviewed by The Verge, also reiterated that SpaceX has a “ZERO tolerance” policy for harassment.“Personally, I believe the allegations to be false; not because I work for Elon, but because I have worked closely with him for 20 years and never seen nor heard anything resembling these allegations,” Shotwell wrote in the email. “Anyone who knows Elon like I do, knows he would never conduct or condone this alleged inappropriate behavior.”Last week, Business Insider published a report alleging that... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok has announced a program that lets viewers pay to subscribe to specific live streamers they want to support. Dubbed Live Subscription, it gives fans access to perks like a subscriber-only chat, creator-specific emotes, and badges that differentiate them from non-subscribers (via TechCrunch). It’s launching in beta on May 26th, according to an announcement video posted on the TikTok Live Creator page.That page has also posted videos from several creators announcing that they’re part of the program and announcing the potential benefits to their followers. While custom stickers for livestream chats and the opportunity to take part in subscriber-only chats are likely the biggest draw for viewers, a few creators have noted that they’re... Continue reading…

Google TV profiles are now available to all users — including kids | Image: Google TV After being delayed for months, Google is finally rolling out its personalized profiles for Google TV “over the next few weeks.”Announced in October, Google TV profiles will make it simpler for multi-watcher households to navigate content by giving people access to individualized recommendations, watchlists, and Google Assistant responses.Google has been expanding Google TV to make it less of a single-storefront experience for household members who prefer different content. Just last year, Google TV launched kids profiles, where parents can pick which apps are available and set watch time limits. Earlier this month, the team began rolling out an ambient mode screensaver with personalized cards that will show things like weather,... Continue reading…