The Verge

Getty With a logo on a memo and a little bit of language trickery, Theranos snookered rich investors Continue reading…

Image: Zillow Zillow is trying to offload around $2.8 billion worth of houses onto investors after it bought them with the intent of selling them to hopeful homeowners and landlords, according to a report by Bloomberg. This follows another Bloomberg report that the real estate browsing website had to stop buying houses when it found itself with excess inventory after the company told investors it planned on ramping up its flipping business.On Tuesday, Zillow announced in its earnings report that it’s winding down the practice entirely, and estimated that it’ll lose over half a billion dollars in value on the houses it owns. It also announced that it would be laying off about a quarter of its employees, and said that it had underestimated how... Continue reading…

Robotics engineering student Ken Pillonel wowed the internet last month with a wild hack that managed to put a working USB-C port inside an iPhone X for a fully functional USB-C iPhone. And now, Pillonel has published a far more detailed video showing just how he managed to pull off the hack, along with a Github repository with technical details, CNC instructions, and information on the custom PCB that he designed for anyone brave enough to try and put together a similar hack.The 13-minute-long video shows off the nitty-gritty of Pillonel’s mod, which is simple in theory: combining a Lightning to USB-C connection together in a daisy chain to mimic a proper USB-C port.The video shows off virtually the whole development process. It’s... Continue reading…

Zillow has announced that it’s winding down the Zillows Offers program, a day after reports surfaced that it’s selling over 7,000 of the houses it purchased with the intent of flipping them to would-be home buyers. In a press release announcing its Q3 results, the company says that Zillow Offers only served “a small portion” of its customers. CEO Rich Barton now says that “We’ve determined the unpredictability in forecasting home prices far exceeds what we anticipated and continuing to scale Zillow Offers would result in too much earnings and balance-sheet volatility.”With the program shutting down, the company says it’s reducing the estimated value of the houses it’s purchased in Q3 or will purchase in Q4 by more than $500 million.... Continue reading…

Blizzard Entertainment During Activision Blizzard’s third-quarter earnings call, the publisher announced that Diablo IV and Overwatch 2 will now launch later than expected.“As we have worked with new leadership in Blizzard and within the franchises themselves, particularly in certain key creative roles, it has become apparent that some of the Blizzard content planned for next year will benefit from more development time to reach its full potential,” a Blizzard executive said during the call.Activision Blizzard mentioned “higher voluntary turnover” and “the departure of a number of individuals across the company” as factors contributing to this new delay.Blizzard Entertainment suffered a large number of firings and high-profile departures, including Diablo... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Jen Oneal is stepping down as a co-lead of Blizzard just three months after taking the role in the wake of the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against Activision Blizzard by the state of California. Mike Ybarra, a former Xbox executive who had stepped into the co-lead role alongside Oneal, will now be the sole lead of the studio, effective immediately.“I want you to hear from me personally that I have made the decision to step away from co-leading Blizzard Entertainment and will transition to a new position before departing ABK at the end of the year,” Oneal said in a statement on Blizzard’s website. “I am doing this not because I am without hope for Blizzard, quite the opposite — I’m inspired by the passion of everyone here, working... Continue reading…

The Nintendo Switch N64 controller. | Image: Nintendo The special Nintendo 64 controller for the Nintendo Switch briefly went on sale again on Tuesday, but if you missed buying one before they sold out, you won’t get a chance to pick one up until 2022, according to the controller’s listing on Nintendo’s website. We don’t know exactly when it will be back in stock, as all Nintendo says is that “more controllers will be available in 2022.” Switch N64 controllers are out of stock until 2022. The Nintendo 64 controller was released in October ahead of the availability of the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, a premium Nintendo Switch Online tier that gives you access to Nintendo 64 games and Sega Genesis games. You don’t need the controller to play Nintendo 64... Continue reading…

illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Former Google employee Meredith Whittaker could soon be working at the Federal Trade Commission as an AI policy advisor, according to a report by The Information. Whittaker may be best known for helping to organize a 2018 walkout at Google, where 20,000 employees protested against how the company handled alleged sexual harassment, and for leaving Google afterward, claiming that it had retaliated against her and other organizers. Now, the FTC seems to be in the process of hiring her to help shape regulations around AI and Big Tech.According to The Information, Whittaker hasn’t been officially appointed yet, as steps like running a background check aren’t complete. If she is hired, though, she’ll bring a good deal of experience — she... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Walmart’s latest PS5 and Xbox Series X restocking event was back for a second day of console restocks at 4PM ET / 1PM PT, but it seems to be over now. Perhaps these near-holiday restocks will be happening with greater frequency than we expected, since Walmart did two consecutive events.We expected to see Walmart’s new queueing system in action, which we saw for the first time during the November 1st restock. If you load one of these pages, you’ll get a place in line, and you can keep browsing Walmart’s site as a timer runs down to let you purchase a console, assuming there’s still stock left. However, that new queueing system wasn’t used for the November 2nd restock, for reasons unknown.The consoles may be the main course, but don’t... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft just announced its Microsoft Teams metaverse for meetings and video calls, but the company also has plans for gaming and entertainment. Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the software maker is “absolutely” focused on gaming for the metaverse with Xbox.“You can absolutely expect us to do things in gaming,” says Nadella. “If you take Halo as a game, it is a metaverse. Minecraft is a metaverse, and so is Flight Sim. In some sense, they’re 2D today, and the question is can you now take that to a full 3D world, and we absolutely plan to do so.”We’ve been waiting to see what Microsoft will do for Minecraft to transform it into a metaverse for VR and AR headsets for years. The company originally demonstrated... Continue reading…

These modular light bars add some flexible futuristic fun to your smart home Continue reading…

These days, hard copy paperwork is fast becoming the exception rather than the rule, and more and more official papers are being turned into PDF documents. (PDF stands for Portable Document Format; it is a standard created by Adobe in the early 1990s that allows paper documents to be turned into exact digital copies.) However, even digital documents have to be signed. You can do it the long way — print those documents out, sign them, and then scan them back into your computer — or you can create a digital signature and place it directly on the PDF.If you’re using a Mac, the process is refreshingly easy — just use the built-in Preview app to create and save your digital signature. (If you’re using a Windows PC, unfortunately, it’s not... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s the AI system once deemed too dangerous to release to the public by its creators. Now, Microsoft is making an upgraded version of the program, OpenAI’s autocomplete software GPT-3, available to business customers as part of its suite of Azure cloud tools.GPT-3 is the best known example of a new generation of AI language models. These systems primarily work as autocomplete tools: feed them a snippet of text, whether an email or a poem, and the AI will do its best to continue what’s been written. Their ability to parse language, however, also allows them to take on other tasks like summarizing documents, analyzing the sentiment of text, and generating ideas for projects and stories — jobs with which Microsoft says its new Azure... Continue reading…

The biggest change to Microsoft’s Office documents in decades is expanding into Microsoft Loop, a hub for a new way of working in Office. Microsoft Loop is the new branding for Microsoft’s Fluid work, blocks of collaborative Office content that can live independently and be copied, pasted, and shared with others.Much like Fluid, Microsoft Loop has three main elements: Loop components, Loop pages, and Loop workspaces. Loop components are live pieces of content that can exist across multiple apps, updated in real time and free for anyone to jump into. That could be a list shared in a Teams channel and also editable in a Loop page, or notes in a calendar entry that are also available to be pasted into Outlook and edited in real time within... Continue reading…

The Pro Type Ultra and Pro Click Mini. | Image: Razer Razer has updated its suite of productivity peripherals with the new Pro Click Mini wireless mouse, the Pro Type Ultra wireless keyboard, and the Pro Glide XXL mouse mat (also wireless). Among the new features of the peripherals are sound dampening foam in the keyboard, “silent mechanical” switches in the mouse, and improved battery life across both models.As its name suggests, the Pro Click Mini is a more compact version of Razer’s existing Pro Click wireless mouse, so it’s easier to stash in a laptop bag. Despite being cheaper at $79 rather than $99, it benefits from having a similar dual-mode scroll wheel to the Basilisk V3, which lets you swap between a free-spinning scroll mode and more traditional tactile scrolling. It’s not... Continue reading…

Microsoft is launching the stable version of its Edge browser for Linux this week. While preview versions of Edge for Linux have been available for more than a year, the official launch will now see Edge supported fully on Linux with regular stable channel updates.If you’re already running preview builds of Edge on Linux, you can get the latest stable version by running the sudo apt install microsoft-edge-stable command. If you’re new to Edge on Linux, then the installer is now available on Microsoft’s website.Many Linux users will already be using Chrome or Firefox, but Edge is yet another browser option that might work on distros where Chrome isn’t fully supported. Microsoft has also added a number of privacy features to Edge to... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is entering the race to build a metaverse inside Teams, just days after Facebook rebranded to Meta in a push to build virtual spaces for both consumers and businesses. Microsoft is bringing Mesh, a collaborative platform for virtual experiences, directly into Microsoft Teams next year. It’s part of a big effort to combine the company’s mixed reality and HoloLens work with meetings and video calls that anyone can participate in thanks to animated avatars.With today’s announcement, Microsoft and Meta seem to be on a collision course to compete heavily in the metaverse, particularly for the future of work. Image: Microsoft Teams will soon have new 3D avatars. Microsoft Mesh always felt like the future... Continue reading…

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft Excel used to only allow two types of data: text and numbers. After overhauling Excel with its own live custom data types last year, Microsoft is opening up Excel to give developers the freedom to create their own custom data types that can contain images, arrays, and more.A new JavaScript API will be available to preview inside Excel later this month, which will let developers create these custom data types for inputs and outputs and enable custom functions. Excel developers will be able to create their own add-ins or update existing ones to use the JavaScript API. Image: Microsoft Bloomberg is using Microsoft’s new JavaScript API in Excel. This will open Excel up to far more custom data types,... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft SwiftKey is getting a handy new feature that syncs your clipboard across Android and Windows devices (via MSPoweruser). So if you use SwiftKey on your Android device, you’ll be able to paste any text you’ve copied on your Windows computer (and vice versa).As MSPoweruser notes, the feature, called Cloud Clipboard, comes as a part of the most recent SwiftKey update, pushing the current version to 7.9.0.5. It was first available in the beta version of Microsoft SwiftKey in August, but now it’s officially rolled out to everyone.The Cloud Clipboard will only save the last piece of text you’ve copied and will automatically delete the clip after one hourSwiftKey has instructions on how to use the Cloud Clipboard on its support... Continue reading…

For the first time in nearly two years, there’s a new trailer for the upcoming Spider-Man spinoff Morbius, which stars Jared Leto as Dr. Michael Morbius, an ailing scientist who inadvertently turns himself into a “pseudo-vampire” while searching for a cure for his rare medical condition.Morbius is an unusual film, even by Sony’s Spider-Man universe standards. The character is what can best be described as a C-list Spider-Man villain, which Morbius is reimagining as a Venom-style antihero who wars between his doctoral duties as a healer and his newfound bloodlust.The new trailer helps give a broad introduction to the character, including his origin story and his powers, which include the usual super-strength and speed, “some form of... Continue reading…

The Nest Audio is a well-reviewed option from Google, and even more worth considering now on discount. | Photo: Dan Seifert / The Verge The world of smart home accessories grows each year, with the occasional new idea and the latest iterations on mainstay staples. This segment also heats up around the holiday shopping season and Black Friday as discounts become available, which is ideal because so many of them make great gifts. If you’re invested at all in Google’s Nest products — or you’re looking to dive in and test the waters — this week’s deals have a variety options you might want to strongly consider. Right now, there are significant discounts on Google Nest products at multiple retailers, including Best Buy, Wellbots, and more, encompassing smart speakers, video doorbells, home security, and smart displays.First off, and leading our selection of Nest deals, is... Continue reading…

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge One of our favorite gaming laptops, the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15, is currently available for its lowest price ever at Best Buy. And this is the model to get, as it features an RTX 3070 graphics chip, 1TB of NVMe SSD storage, and 16GB of RAM. Topping it all off, the laptop is powered by an AMD Ryzen 9 5900HS processor, and it has a 1440p display with a 165Hz refresh rate.This deal knocks $300 off the regular price, dropping it down to just $1,550, which is actually the same price that Asus is asking for its lesser 14-inch G14 laptop that has an RTX 3060. Our reviewer Monica Chin was impressed by the G15’s ability to compress such impressive performance into a lightweight and portable package. If this wasn’t sweet enough, this laptop also... Continue reading…

Part of Firefox’s new mobile homescreen. | Image: Mozilla Mozilla is updating the homescreen on its Firefox mobile apps to help you more easily jump back to pages you had viewed recently. With Firefox 94, which will be available Tuesday, you’ll be able to see things like your last open tab, recently-viewed bookmarks, and recent searches grouped by topic right on the mobile homescreen. You can get an idea of what it looks like in this image from Mozilla: Image: Firefox The new Firefox mobile homescreen. Firefox 94 is also giving Android users the ability to tailor Pocket recommendations that show up on the homescreen by selecting different story topics they are interested in. According to a screenshot shared by Mozilla, topics include things like technology, health,... Continue reading…

Amazon Music Amazon Music first put podcasts on its platform last year, and now it’s launching its first feature built around them. The service plans to roll out automatically generated, synchronized transcripts on both iOS and Android in the US starting today, meaning the transcripts will match the audio you’re hearing, and you can toggle around them to jump to specific parts of the audio. The transcripts are interactive and can be viewed full-screen or on top of the album art within the app.For now, the transcripts are only coming to certain Amazon Music and Wondery shows, along with partner programs that have worked with Amazon on the feature, like This American Life and Crime Junkie. (The third-party launch partners include American Public... Continue reading…

BBC Studios on Apple Podcasts | Image: BBC Wow, November 2nd. Can you believe it’s Christmas already?!In all seriousness, though, we do have a lot of presents for you today. Specifically: Three! exclusive! announcements! Also, if you don’t know me yet — hey! I’m Aria, Ashley’s Hot Pod sidekick. I publish mostly on Fridays for our Insider audience, which is another great reason to subscribe over there. I’m in for Ashley today, as she traverses the depths of hell, aka moves across NYC.Now, guided by my trusting hand, let us go! To the news!EXCLUSIVESBBC brings exclusive podcasts abroadAs of today, Apple has another big partner for its paid podcast channels: BBC Studios. And unlike other subscription products, which mostly offer perks like ad-free listening for existing... Continue reading…

Dock an iPhone into the Tempo Move and it’ll output workouts to a connected TV. | Image: Tempo Tempo, the smart home gym that uses computer vision to track your workouts and offer guidance in real time, has gone on a diet. Today it’s launching the Tempo Move, a new home workout setup that ditches the original’s 42-inch touchscreen with Microsoft’s Azure Kinect sensors built in, in favor of using existing TVs combined with the sensors built into the iPhone XS / XR and up.It means that the Tempo Move’s setup is slimmed down compared to the original Tempo Studio, but there’s still a lot of hardware here. At the center is what Tempo’s calling the “Core,” which is effectively an iPhone dock that can connect to a TV via HDMI. The kit also comes with a storage unit containing “smart weights” including plates and dumbbells. With a... Continue reading…

Zoom is piloting showing ads to users on its free “Basic” tier, the company has announced in a blog post. Ads will appear on the browser page shown to users at the end of a call. Zoom says ads are being rolled out to free users in “certain countries,” though its blog post doesn’t detail exactly which these are. Users on the service’s Basic tier will only see ads if they join a meeting hosted by another Basic tier user.Although ads won’t be shown during meetings themselves, it’s still a potentially big shift for the videoconferencing service. Zoom has typically imposed only minor restrictions on its free tier, which helped the service explode in popularity last year as people around the world adapted to working and socializing from home.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is lifting its mask mandate for fully vaccinated warehouse workers in the US (via CNBC). The company reportedly sent out a notice to operations employees, stating that vaccinated workers are no longer required to wear masks starting November 2nd. Masks will still be required if state or local laws mandate them, however.Amazon will continue to evaluate its COVID-19 safety measures“Vaccines are universally available across the US, and vaccination rates continue to rise, which enables the ability to return to our previous mask policy,” the notice reads (via CNBC). An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that the company will be lifting its mask mandates for vaccinated employees.“Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the health... Continue reading…

This is the fan page verified as Elon Musk. A Facebook fan page for Elon Musk with 153,000 followers had been verified as the official page representing the Tesla Technoking — in violation of Facebook’s own rules — but sometime after we first published this story on Monday, the page became inaccessible. It’s unclear if Facebook took it down or the owners chose to make it unavailable.To be clear, the page wasn’t pretending it’s Musk; it openly stated that it was a fan page in its About section (emphasis ours):

The Beats Solo Pro on-ear headphones are being discontinued despite being newer than models that will remain available. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge On the same day that it announced the new $200 Fit Pro earbuds, which are receiving universal praise in early reviews, Apple’s Beats brand is thinning out the rest of its product lineup.As noticed by MacRumors, the company has quietly discontinued the Powerbeats, noise-canceling Solo Pro headphones, and entry-level Beats EP headphones. All three products are no longer available directly from Apple, and while stock may remain at third-party retailers, they’ll be gone once current inventory is sold through.A Beats spokesperson confirmed the news, but declined to go into detail on why these specific products have gotten the axe. It’s reasonable to speculate that their sales came in well below the company’s more established hits. Clearly... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Epic Games, the developer behind Fortnite, is shutting down the battle royale in China in mid-November (via CNET). A translated post on Fortnite’s website reveals that the “test” of the game “has come to an end.”The post says users will no longer be able to sign up or download Fortnite starting Monday. On November 15th, Epic Games will shut down Fortnite’s servers completely and bar users from logging in. The notice thanks players for “boarding the bus” and participating in the game. Epic didn’t provide any additional information on why it decided to close out the game.Epic Games doesn’t provide any additional information on why it decided to close out the gameHowever, it may have something to do with China’s new gaming restriction... Continue reading…

An Ecobee smart thermostat Toronto-based smart home thermostat startup Ecobee is being acquired by Generac Holdings for $770 million, the companies announced Monday.The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter. Ecobee CEO and founder Stuart Lombard told The Verge that he will stay on as CEO, and the company will operate as a subsidiary of Generac. It has no plans to move out of its Toronto office and has plans to “significantly” grow the office later this year, Lombard said.Ecobee was founded in 2007 and has expanded from the smart thermostats it’s known for, adding a voice-controlled home security camera that doubles as a home security system to its lineup. Generac, based in Waukesha, Wisconsin, was founded in 1959 and makes backup residential... Continue reading…

Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images Chris Pratt’s next big role has been revealed: he’ll voice Garfield in a new animated film based on the famous comic strip cat, according to The Hollywood Reporter.Pratt does have big shoes (paws?) to fill, as he’ll be following Bill Murray’s take on Garfield from Garfield: The Movie and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties. Additional details on the new movie are light, though, and we still don’t know exactly when we’ll be able to hear Pratt as Garfield scarf down some lasagna. THR does report that Garfield creator Jim Davis will serve as an executive producer, though.The surprising revelation that Pratt will play Garfield follows another huge Pratt Cast(ing): Nintendo announced in September that Pratt will voice Mario in the Mario movie... Continue reading…

Image: Tesla Tesla has launched a new at-home wall charger that works with other electric vehicles, as spotted by Electrek. The new Level 2 wall charger was quietly added to the company’s online store on the same day it started allowing non-Tesla EVs to charge at Supercharger stations in the Netherlands — the first step in a much larger plan to open up access to Tesla’s charging network around the world.The new charger uses a standard J1772 connector, not Tesla’s proprietary one, meaning it should work fine with other electric vehicles in North America. It’s competitively priced, too, at $415 (though it has to be installed by a professional electrician). Tesla says it can charge at up to 9.6kW and is designed for both indoor or outdoor... Continue reading…

“Have you experienced an accident?” | Nilay Patel Apple is reportedly working on a new iPhone and Apple Watch feature that detects if you’re in a car crash and dials 911 automatically. The current plan is to roll out such a feature next year, according to The Wall Street Journal.Google’s Personal Safety app on Pixel phones already includes a feature to call for help when it detects car crashes, just like connected car services in modern vehicles do, including GM’s OnStar, Subaru’s Starlink, and Fiat Chrysler’s Uconnect. Many cars on the road today are not equipped with any connectivity features, so getting crash detection on an iPhone too means more drivers can get the help they need in an accident as long as they have one in their pocket or mounted to their dash.The rise of unsafe... Continue reading…

Image: Throwboy A company called Throwboy is back with another Kickstarter for a collection of pillows shaped like classic Macs, following its 2018 line of Apple-inspired plushes. It’s fittingly called The Iconic Pillow Collection 2, and features pillows shaped like soft versions of Apple’s Lisa, iBook, and both the cheese grater and cube flavors of Power Mac. For Apple history buffs who want to spruce up their living or bedrooms, it may be a campaign worth investigating.In its original collection (which featured pillows shaped like the Finder icon, original Macintosh, and iPods), Throwboy tactfully didn’t mention specific computer names, and it refrained from doing so this time around as well. The Lisa-shaped pillow is called the 1983, the iMac... Continue reading…

An inspired musician can use pretty much anything as an instrument, but this just-in-time for Halloween cover of the Ghostbusters theme song goes in an unexpected direction. Device Orchestra is dedicated to posting music videos recorded solely with the sounds of common household devices. It’s the work of a Finnish YouTuber who’s been creating gadget-powered covers since 2014 (via Wikitubia). This time, Device Orchestra busted out 14 gadgets for its composition — including electric toothbrushes adorned with googly eyes.One electric toothbrush with pipe cleaners for arms stands front and center, belting out the familiar chorus in a tone comparable to a musically-inclined bumblebee. It might be the star of the show, but it has plenty of... Continue reading…

Nikon’s Z9 pro mirrorless camera has no mechanical shutter, relying solely on an electronic shutter. | Image: Nikon Nikon recently announced its new flagship camera, the Z9. This camera represents Nikon’s first mirrorless camera fully geared towards professional photographers and hybrid shooters, with a huge spec list designed for use in the demanding fields of photojournalism, sports, nature, birding, and any other use-cases that call for a camera that shoots incredibly fast at high resolution. The $5,500 Z9 is also Nikon’s first camera to omit a traditional mechanical shutter, allowing it to achieve new levels of speed and autofocus performance.Faster speed is great, especially for sports photographers. But it’s interesting to think about where this technology could be used to take traditional-style cameras in the future. This might be the first... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Just as the FDA officially approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for kids between the ages of five and 11, Meta, Facebook’s brand new identity, announced that it’s rolling out stricter policies for vaccine misinformation targeted at children (via Engadget). The platform previously put restrictions on COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in late 2020, but didn’t have policies specific to kids.Meta says in a new blog post that it’s partnering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to take down harmful content related to children and the COVID-19 vaccine. This includes any posts that imply the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe, untested, or ineffective for children. Additionally, Meta will... Continue reading…

Climate activists “set fire” to George Square, Glasgow, with an art installation of faux flames, smoke, and banners, and giant fire extinguishers, creating a field of climate fire to welcome world leaders to Glasgow for the Cop26 conference. Picture date: Thursday October 28, 2021. | Photo by Andrew Milligan/PA Images via Getty Images One of the most anticipated rounds of international climate negotiations this decade will go down at a United Nations summit in Glasgow over the next couple weeks. But many representatives from the frontlines of the climate crisis won’t be there: people from islands that may be lost under rising seas, representatives of indigenous tribes, and activists who typically turn high-level negotiations into boisterous events with their demonstrations.The 26th annual United Nations Conference of Parties, or COP26, is the five-year anniversary of the Paris climate accords. Signatories, which included nearly every country on Earth, agreed to limit global warming to a level that might be manageable for humanity. Those nations are not close to... Continue reading…

Feds say a Minnesota man illegally streamed major league sports games | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Federal authorities have accused a Minnesota man with trying to extort $150,000 from Major League Baseball after hacking into its computer system. The US Attorney’s office for the southern district of New York and the FBI have charged Joshua Streit, 30, with illegally streaming content from MLB, as well as from the National Hockey League (NHL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Football League (NFL).The law enforcement agencies said in a news release that between 2017 through August of 2021, Streit operated a website where he illegally streamed the sports leagues’ live games for profit. He gained unauthorized access to the leagues’ websites, and misappropriated login credentials from legitimate subscribers,... Continue reading…

Okay, Deathloop isn’t scary, but the deal on it is scary good. It’s the spooky holiday this weekend, but you probably already knew that since Halloween decorations have likely been up in your town for the last month and a half. But what hasn’t been around as long (and will disappear faster than those decorations) are the deals below. To match the mood, we’re going to share special discounts on scary video games that you need to play if you’re trying to get in the holiday spirit this weekend. Just so you know, Steam’s Halloween sale ends Monday, November 1st, likely at 1PM ET / 10AM PT. Following that gaming-centric section, you’ll find deals on tech gadgets that we think you’ll enjoy.Gaming dealsOkay, so Deathloop is far from being a scary game at its core (though it can become quite tense when... Continue reading…

Google’s software makes the Honor 50 a contender rather than competitive Continue reading…

Intel is building dedicated gaming graphics cards, due out in Q1 2022, and we may have just gotten our first look at the big one, the Arc Alchemist. Here are some leaked images from YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead (via Videocardz): Arc is Intel’s new GPU brand, designed to compete with Nvidia GeForce and AMD Radeon, and the Arc Alchemist is the first GPU in the company’s roadmap that’s actually scheduled to release. The company had previously built the Intel DG1 to test the GPU waters, but that was a comparatively weak card, based on the Xe LP (low-power) graphics architecture, and consumers couldn’t actually buy it. This new card is part of Intel’s Xe HPG roadmap (high-power / gaming) and is said to deliver... Continue reading…

Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge Nintendo is closing its Redwood City, California and Toronto, Canada offices, the company confirmed in a statement to The Verge. Kotaku reported on the closure of the Redwood City offices earlier on Friday.Here is the company’s full statement on the decision:

Image: Supernatural Meta has announced that the studio behind VR workout game Supernatural will be joining the company, adding to the roster of studios owned by what used to be known as Facebook’s Oculus division. The company says that Within, the company behind Supernatural, will continue to work on the popular fitness app and will also help Meta’s Reality Labs “enhance future hardware to support VR fitness apps.”Meta scooping up Within isn’t necessarily a surprise move: it’s spent the last few years acquiring tons of popular VR studios, like Lone Echo devs Ready at Dawn, the team behind Beat Saber, and others working on projects that some have called the VR versions of Fortnite and Roblox.Given Meta’s focus on its headsets as workout tools... Continue reading…

Image: Twitter Twitter is allowing all iOS users to Super Follow select creators. The feature, first released in September and only available in the US and Canada, allows users to monetize their Twitter account and create exclusive content through monthly subscriptions.Twitter first announced Super Follows in February and rolled it out to select creators in September. Within the first two weeks, subscribers had contributed around $6,000, according to SensorTower.

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.This week on The Vergecast, managing editor Alex Cranz (that’s me), deputy editor Dan Seifert (that’s not me), and senior reporter Alex Heath (also not me) join Nilay and Dieter to talk about Facebook’s big rebranding, expensive polishing cloths, our reviews of the Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, and both flavors of the new MacBook Pro.You can listen here or in your preferred podcast player for the full discussion.

Image: Roku Roku is launching a new independent developer kit that will allow developers to “experiment with and customize their devices” in personal-use capacities. Roku says it hopes the IDK will lead to innovation around internet-of-things applications, such as connecting a Roku device to a thermostat or game development.Roku unveiled its plans for the new IDK at its online developer summit this week. The company made it clear in an announcement about the IDK that its Roku SDK will remain the primary channel development kit for commercial applications but said that the new developer kit “enables developers to explore the platform’s capabilities and personalize their Roku experience.”The company isn’t quite clear on how developers will use the... Continue reading…

Image: iFixit I can’t say I expected there to be more news about Apple’s $19 Screen Polishing cloth, but here we are. Not only has iFixit given it the teardown treatment and a (perhaps slightly tongue-in-cheek) repair score, but it’s apparently become one of Apple’s hardest-to-get products. And yes, to reiterate, we are still talking about a cloth made to clean your devices’ screens.As noted by The New York Times, the 6.3-inch-sided square of fabric is now backordered, with Apple’s website saying that you won’t get it for 10-12 weeks, meaning it’ll get delivered sometime between January 7th and January 21st, 2022. If you order pretty much any configuration of the redesigned MacBook Pro that the cloth launched with, you’ll get your custom-built laptop... Continue reading…