The Verge

Image: Samsung Samsung’s latest Unpacked event has introduced a new lineup of tablets, the Galaxy Tab S8 series — the Galaxy Tab S8, S8 Plus, and S8 Ultra. Samsung has gone with the good, better (bigger), and best (biggest) approach on these. As the top end of the line, the Ultra touts a massive screen size of 14.6 inches with 2960 x 1848 resolution and starting price of $1,099.99. The Tab S8 Plus is the next size down with a formidable 12.4-inch, 2800 x 1752 display for $899.99, and the smallest Tab S8 has an 11-inch, 2560 x 1600 panel for $699.99.These new models create a little more choice if you’re in the market for an Android tablet — a fairly small field outside of Samsung. We will have to do a full review before we can say how good the Tab S8... Continue reading…

Save $20 on the classic Switch at Woot | Photo by James Bareham / The Verge The regular price for the standard Nintendo Switch is $299.99, but Woot is currently offering a rare discount on this popular handheld, lowering the price to $279.99 for Amazon Prime members. The standard Switch comes packaged with a pair of Joycons and a charging dock to connect the console with your TV. While the Switch does come equipped with built-in storage of 32GB, that space can go pretty quick with the number of titles available for this console. Besides being home to first-party Nintendo titles featuring Mario and Zelda, the Switch eShop is chock full of amazing indie titles like Shovel Knight and Hades.The LG C1 OLED is a popular pick for The Verge staff, thanks to its combination of gaming features, slim profile, and image... Continue reading…

We compare the new S22 line to Apple’s iphone 13 The Samsung Unpacked event revealed a number of new devices, namely a new iteration of its flagship Galaxy series of phones, the Galaxy S22. These new phones are set to release on February 25th and become the bleeding edge of Samsung’s smartphone lineup. Naturally, we’re curious to know how these stack up against Apple’s iPhones, so we’ve collected some of the most relevant features to show you how they stack up against the iPhone 13 lineup on paper.The standard iPhone 13 and its variants came out last September and started at $699.99 for the 13 Mini, reaching all the way up to $1,099.99 for the 13 Pro Max. The Galaxy S22 and its other variants are set to release later this month and have a price point starting at $799.99 for the... Continue reading…

Screenshot: Dark Souls 3 Dark Souls’ servers on PC will remain offline until after the February 25th release of Elden Ring, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware announced on Twitter. The game publisher and developer are also investigating the upcoming Elden Ring for the same issue that shut down Dark Souls: a remote code execution (RCE) exploit that could let bad actors infiltrate your system.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Samsung’s Galaxy S22, S22 Plus, and the S22 Ultra have been announced at the company’s Unpacked event. Each phone has a new design, with new components that put them ahead of 2021’s leading Android phones. As for the S22 Ultra, it absorbed the Galaxy Note’s coolest trick of having an S-Pen built-in. If you want to jump right into our hands-on coverage, you can check out our early impressions with the hardware right here or in the video below.Though, there’s a chance that you’re already sold on the improvements and changes made to this year’s lineup. If that’s the case, I’m going to get right to it and tell you how to preorder the S22 phones so you can get them on launch day.Order before 2/24 to get preorder bonusesNo matter where you... Continue reading…

Peacock The Fresh Prince of Peacock has arrived in Bel-Air Continue reading…

Garmin’s Instinct 2 watches come in two sizes, a smaller 40mm (left) and the standard 45mm. | Image: Garmin Garmin’s back with yet another multisport smartwatch lineup. The Instinct 2 series is billed for “rugged individualists,” but this time there’s an interesting twist. The company says the solar models of the smartwatch can get unlimited battery life thanks to improvements in their solar technology.Garmin has been tinkering around with solar charging for a while now. It introduced the feature with the Fenix 6 Series and later expanded it to other watches, including the original Instinct. When it launched the flagship Fenix 7 Series last month, Garmin noted it had vastly improved the solar charging tech. Now it’s bringing those advances to its mid-range Instinct 2 series.That said, unlimited battery life is a bold claim — especially for... Continue reading…

Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images The estates of Robin Williams and George Carlin have filed lawsuits accusing Pandora of streaming the late comedians’ jokes without the proper licenses. The suits are joined by complaints from Andrew Dice Clay, Ron White, and Bill Engvall, who also allege they weren’t given “a fraction of a penny” for their work as a result of Pandora’s “willful” wrongdoing.As explained by Puck, comedians are fighting for recognition of two copyrights on a comedic work: one for writing a joke and another for recording it. Companies have traditionally only purchased licenses for the recordings, not the jokes themselves. Puck points out that the argument streamers need both has never really been tested in court, so it’s not entirely clear if Pandora is in... Continue reading…

Lucasfilm Ltd. The final episode from The Book of Boba Fett has arrived, bringing a close to the increasingly crowded series. But the finale still can’t manage to corral the show’s various plot threads into a satisfying ending, despite some big action moments designed to delight fans.Fett’s character has always been one full of potential: a morally ambiguous bounty hunter roaming the galaxy with a badass outfit and a cool-looking ship. Unfortunately, this week’s finale falls flat in a similar manner to the rest of the show. Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) still feels strangely sidelined in the series that bears his name, defanged of his fearsome reputation into a more family-friendly hero. And the show leaves viewers with more questions than answers... Continue reading…

A24 Men, A24’s upcoming horror thriller from Annihilation director Alex Garland, tells the story of a woman attempting to put some literal and metaphorical distance between herself and a devastating loss by escaping to the English countryside only to find herself being followed by something or someone dead set on catching her. Men’s first trailer didn’t quite explain who the person tailing Harper (Jessie Buckley) is, but it more than seems like it may be her recently deceased ex-husband.In contrast to its title, Men’s first trailer seemingly only features one man — a guy looking much worse for wear than any living, breathing person — silently chasing after Harper through the lush landscape she was hoping to be able to enjoy. After first... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Will iterative upgrades cure Samsung’s sales problem? Continue reading…

Watching a YouTube video with friends in Google Duo. | Image: Google New live sharing features, including the ability to watch videos together and view the same online whiteboard, are coming to Google Duo on Samsung’s new Galaxy S22 devices and Tab S8 tablets. Google and Samsung announced the new features during the launch event for Samsung’s new flagship phones and tablets. As well as Galaxy smartphones, the feature is also coming to Pixel devices, according to Engadget.Google says Duo’s live sharing feature works across many popular apps including Jamboard, the company’s collaborative whiteboard software that lets up to 50 people write and draw on the same surface. Other supported apps include YouTube for watching videos together, Google Maps, Samsung Notes, and Samsung Gallery. Non-Samsung and Google... Continue reading…

The new Galaxy S22 phones will get four generations of Android OS upgrades. | Image: Samsung Samsung announced today during its Galaxy Unpacked 2022 event that the new Galaxy S22 phones and other recent devices will get up to four generations of Android OS upgrades.The company revealed the news in a press release today:

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge It gains an on-board stylus, plus some incremental hardware and software upgrades Continue reading…

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole Designers struggle with fast fashion copying their time-consuming creations Continue reading…

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images A group of four progressive lawmakers — Sens. Markey (D-MA) and Merkley (D-OR) and Reps. Jayapal (D-WA) and Pressley (D-OH) — sent letters to several federal agencies on Wednesday calling for an end to their use of Clearview AI’s controversial facial recognition system.The letter was sent to the Departments of Justice, Defense, Homeland Security, and the Interior. All four agencies were identified in an August 2021 report from the General Accounting Office as using Clearview for “domestic law enforcement” purposes.“Clearview AI’s technology could eliminate public anonymity in the United States,” the letter reads, describing the system as “capable of fundamentally dismantling Americans’ expectation that they can move, assemble, or... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Open App Markets Act, one of legislators’ latest attempts to limit big tech companies’ power — a big step toward opening up iOS and Android’s app stores. But the proposal has raised questions about moderation and security alongside praise from anti-monopoly watchdogs, mirroring a tech world debate about the perks and harms of walled gardens.The bill is aimed at increasing competition in mobile computing, a field where plenty of people agree a few companies have too much power. But as a series of proposed amendments demonstrated, though, not everyone agrees where that power should stop.What is the Open App Markets Act?You can read the Open App Markets Act or S. 2710 for yourself —... Continue reading…

Photo by Anthony Wallace - Pool/Getty Images LGBTQ dating app Grindr has limited the global visibility of users logging in from the Beijing Olympics Village in order to protect athletes from potential outing and harassment.The app’s “Explore” function, which lets users browse profiles from any location worldwide, has been adjusted to exclude profiles logging in from the Olympic Village, reports Bloomberg News. Users in the Olympic Village will still be able to browse nearby profiles, but the new privacy setting should save athletes from international snooping and exposure.In past Olympics, social media users have used the app’s Explore function to retrieve Grindr profiles from the event and share them online — a dangerous activity considering some athletes are from countries... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Nothing has added voice assistant support to its Ear 1 earbuds, allowing you to summon either Google Assistant or Siri with a triple-tap, the company announced on Twitter. The addition comes as something of a surprise given Nothing originally told Android Central it had no plans to add voice assistant support to the Ear 1.According to 9to5Google, the functionality is rolling out with firmware version 0.6700.1.86, and also supports Amazon’s Alexa in addition to both mobile OS’s native voice assistants. Unfortunately, it sounds like the feature is currently a little buggy, with 9to5Google reporting the earbuds sometimes fail to register that all-important third tap.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s long-rumored virtual or augmented reality headset might not launch until 2023, but developers have spotted additional mentions of a new “realityOS” that could power it. First referenced as “rOS” in 2017 by Bloomberg News, realityOS was also spotted as part of some pre-release iOS 13 builds. 9to5Mac reports that developers have now found references to realityOS in GitHub repos and in App Store upload logs.“What is Apple’s realityOS doing in the App Store upload logs?” asks iOS developer Rens Verhoeven. Fellow developer Steve Troughton-Smith says a GitHub repo referencing realityOS confirms it “has its own OS & binaries... and has a realityOS simulator.” He also speculates this could simply be “a remnant of somebody’s pull request... Continue reading…

Photo by Guo Junfeng/VCG via Getty Images The European Union has outlined an ambitious new industrial policy that aims to make the bloc a significant player in the global semiconductor industry.The European Chips Act, adopted this week by the EU Commission, bundles together €43 billion ($49 billion) in public and private funding for the sector, with an end-goal of doubling the EU’s share of global chip production from 9 percent to 20 percent by 2030.For years, the EU has wanted to increase its leadership in the development and fabrication of semiconductor chips (it unveiled a similar funding package in 2013), but the global supply chain crisis triggered by the pandemic has sharpened the urgency of these plans.“the global shortage of chips has really slowed down our... Continue reading…

The Alfa Romeo Tonale. | Image: Alfa Romeo The Alfa Romeo Tonale SUV is the “first car on the market” to come with an NFT digital certificate, that the Italian automaker says will increase the car’s residual value.How? Well, that’s not exactly clear, but it involves recording information from the car’s electronic system to the blockchain as proof that a car has been properly serviced when it comes time to sell it.“With the customer’s consent, the NFT will record vehicle data, generating a certificate that can be used to assure the car has been properly maintained,” Alfa Romeo’s press release says. “On the pre-owned car market, NFT certification represents an additional source of credibility for owners or dealers to count on.”However, as CNBC notes, the data must be recorded... Continue reading…

Raquel Urtasun, the former chief scientist at Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, promised an “AI-centric approach” to autonomous vehicles when she founded her own company last year, Waabi. Now, she’s ready to deliver on that promise with the announcement of the company’s first product: a virtual world in which to test its autonomous vehicles called “Waabi World.”Urtasun says she doesn’t want to rely on a large fleet of vehicles driving millions of miles on public roads and gathering data in service of training AI systems to drive better and safer than humans. That’s expensive, time-consuming, and ultimately doesn’t capture the seemingly endless number of edge cases that could confuse a self-driving vehicle. Urtasun claims that... Continue reading…

Samsung’s “Tiger in the City” 3D billboard in NYC promoting its Galaxy Unpacked event. The company teased that Tigers are “known for its powerful night vision and vivid colors” | Image: Samsung Samsung is holding a Galaxy Unpacked event this Wednesday, February 9th, at 10AM ET / 7AM PT, where it is expected to reveal the latest flagship Galaxy S22 devices, which may include a proper replacement for the Galaxy Note series that we missed in 2021.The virtual event will not only go out to viewers as a livestreamed video but will also be broadcast as a metaverse experience using the Decentraland platform. The experience is called Samsung 837X and is based on the company’s real-world flagship exhibition center located on 837 Washington Street in New York City. Samsung is leaning into metaverse experiences, as it held its first Samsung 837X metaverse event last month for CES, in addition to separate interactive experiences using the Z... Continue reading…

Photo by MARIANA SUAREZ/AFP via Getty Images Elon Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink just got dealt an expensive blow — the company’s currently estimating that 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites it launched on February 3rd will be destroyed because of a geomagnetic storm.The storm caused “up to 50 percent higher drag than during previous launches,” keeping the deployed satellites from reaching their proper orbit around the Earth. And while Starlink tried to fly them “edge-on (like a sheet of paper)” to reduce that drag, it now looks like as many as 40 of them will burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere instead of reaching their destinations.SpaceX recently crossed the 2,000 satellite launch milestone, and has plans to launch 12,000 if not a great many more — so losing 40 of... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Peloton’s vice president of hardware engineering, Sam Bowen, and its commercial operations executive, Rob Barker, are leaving the company, according to a report from Bloomberg.Bowen led the development of the company’s bikes, treadmill, heart-rate monitor, as well the not-yet-released Guide device, while Barker previously served as the CEO of Precor, a company bought by Peloton that provides workout bikes to gyms and hotels. In a note on LinkedIn announcing his departure, Barker said, “After 27 years in various roles at Precor, Amer Sports and Peloton, I am moving from being a full-time executive at one company to a fitness industry small entrepreneur and advisor. I will continue to focus where my passion and heart lies: the fitness... Continue reading…

You’ll be able to watch videos faster or slower than normal. | Image: Twitter Twitter is testing video playback speed options on Android and the web, the company announced Tuesday. Finally! I am one of those sickos that cranks up the playback speed on every YouTube video and podcast to 1.5x or 2x speed, and I’ve been waiting for years for the ability to do so on Twitter.For those that are in the test, it appears that you’ll see a little gear when watching a video that you can click or tap on to access the different speed options. Based on Twitter’s announcement tweet, it looks like you can watch a video at as slow as 0.25x speed or as fast as 2x.

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Disney Plus is experimenting with live streams, dedicating its first to Academy Award nominations.“We performed a test for live streaming capabilities on Disney+ in the U.S. with this morning’s Academy Award nominations,” the company told The Verge in a statement. “We are pleased with the results and will continue to test as part of our ongoing and iterative approach to deliver the best user experiences to consumers.”This was Disney’s first live test and was accessible by all Disney Plus subscribers in the US, company spokesperson Kristie Adler told The Verge. The company did not have any further details to share about livestreaming in the future. The news of Disney’s first livestreaming event was previously reported by TechCrunch.W... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Things are a lot less rosy for Peloton these days. Once a pandemic darling, the connected fitness company has seen its stock price plunge in recent months. TV shows have turned its bike into a deadly punchline, and there’s been no shortage of rumors speculating which company should buy Peloton to save it from impending doom.Then today, Peloton kicked off its Q2 earnings call with a flurry of news: the company has a new CEO. It’s eliminating 2,800 jobs globally, scaling back marketing, and putting the kibosh on its North American manufacturing ambitions. Altogether, it’s a grim picture that raises questions about whether Peloton can find a way out of this mess.As a fitness tech reviewer, Peloton’s business woes are bewildering because... Continue reading…

It’s always a flower shop - Nilay Patel | Image: Apple Apple just announced plans to roll out Tap to Pay on iPhone, allowing businesses to use mobile devices as a payment terminal for contactless payments. A Bloomberg report from 2020 noted Apple’s acquisition of a startup, Mobeewave, focused on building this technology, and a rumor from the same outlet in January revealed it was getting close to a rollout. Now, Apple has confirmed the feature, which will take payments from “contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets.”What does this mean for Square and its dongles?Tap to Pay on iPhone isn’t ready for you to use today but the supporting API has arrived today in the iOS 15.4 beta 2, potentially enabling the feature on iPhone XS and later models. There are older iPhones... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok is updating its community guidelines and rolling out new features that the company says will support the well-being of its users. Some of the policy changes crack down on content the company has previously come under fire for, including videos that critics say glorify eating disorders and dangerous viral challenges.The company announced today it would begin removing videos that promote disordered eating symptoms like short-term fasting and overexercising. Content promoting eating disorders is already banned on the platform, but news reports have repeatedly shown users are exposed to videos featuring unhealthy eating habits. During an October congressional hearing, senators pressed TikTok representatives on further protecting... Continue reading…

The Pixel 3 and 3 XL offered great cameras and improved displays. | Photo by James Bareham / The Verge This month’s security update is the last for Google’s Pixel 3 and 3 XL, as noted by 9to5google. That’s actually one more update than the company promised — official support was only guaranteed through October last year. Yet with one last OS update to Android 12 and this final security patch, Google has finally retired the devices.The Pixel 3 marked a high point in the Pixel series’ early evolution. Google righted the wrongs of the Pixel 2’s display problems and continued to impress with its camera capabilities. Funny-looking notch on the XL aside, they were great-looking devices that did their class-leading cameras real justice.For a couple of generations after the 3, Google couldn’t quite keep the momentum going, as it missed on... Continue reading…

Heather Morgan, who was arrested along with her husband, performed under the name “Razzlekhan.” | Image: Razzlekhan The Department of Justice has finally found almost all of the billions worth of Bitcoin stolen during the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex — in the hands of a published Forbes and Inc. writer and rapper, who calls herself the “Crocodile of Wall Street,” and her startup founder husband.The DOJ says it seized about $3.6 billion worth of the cryptocurrency, allegedly held by Heather Morgan and her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein. The couple is accused of trying to cover their tracks by laundering the stolen funds through “a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions.” It’s the department’s “largest financial seizure ever,” according to a Tuesday press release.The DOJ doesn’t explicitly say they stole the billions in cryptocurrency —... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony announced that it will begin rolling out its second PS5 software beta on Wednesday, bringing changes including party chat updates, new UI settings, and a preview of a voice command feature.According to Sony’s blog about the beta, your PS5 can listen for the “Hey PlayStation!” voice command to let you find and open games, apps, and settings as well as control playback during a show or a song. If you don’t want to use it, Sony says you can turn the feature off in settings. The voice command feature will be available first in English for beta users with accounts registered in the US and the UK. Image: Sony Here are the settings for the upcoming voice commands feature. Sony is also making some changes to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Remember Fleets, Twitter’s disappearing tweets feature that was shut down just eight and a half months after it launched for everyone? No? Well, Twitter is pretending it doesn’t either — at least according to a tweet from the official @Twitter account on Tuesday:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Within a few days last week, the World Wildlife Fund hyped up and then quietly canceled plans to raise money for conservation efforts by minting its own NFTs. The UK chapter of WWF unleashed a firestorm on itself by releasing “Tokens for Nature depicting 13 endangered species. The tokens look like glass cubes encasing each animal: a giant panda, Javan rhino, and Galápagos penguin, to name a few. And they really pissed off other environmentalists.“My initial response [to World Wildlife Fund’s NFTs] was they must be joking … They’re supposed to be all for sustainable innovations, and they’re getting involved with one of the least sustainable things on the planet,” says digital currency economist Alex de Vries, who has been outspoken about... Continue reading…

Qualcomm has announced its latest automotive partner: none other than Ferrari, with whom it’ll be entering into a “strategic technology collaboration” that will (eventually) see Qualcomm’s automative technology make its way into future Ferrari cars.As part of the deal, Ferarri plans to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Digital Chassis suite in the future, although there are frustratingly few specifics as to which Snapdragon technologies Ferrari plans to use or which vehicles they’ll be integrated into. The Snapdragon Digital Chassis branding serves as Qualcomm’s overarching brand for its automotive solutions, including Snapdragon Ride (for automated and assistive driver technologies), Snapdragon Cockpit (for in-car experiences and SoCs), and... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google can’t seem to catch a break with software updates for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, the first phones that are powered by the company’s own Tensor chip. After having to pull an earlier update that caused a rash of bugs and connectivity issues for early buyers of the phones, Google tried to get back on track by taking its time with the January update. That seemed to go okay, and yesterday, the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro both received the February software release (with more bug fixes in tow) right alongside older models, and it looked like everything was getting back to normal.Not quite.Yet again, there are initial reports of problems with the February update that are specifically affecting the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro and leaving other Pixels... Continue reading…

The new benefits go into place in April. | Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images Apple is increasing its time off benefits for full- and part-time retail employees, according to a new Bloomberg report and information separately shared by a source to The Verge.The company will introduce the following new benefits starting April 4th, Bloomberg reports:

No cannabis ads in the Super Bowl | Photo by Peerapon Boonyakiat/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images If a brand wants to reach — or offend — a large swath of Americans all at once, there are few better venues than a Super Bowl ad. There are plenty of brands advertising this year that wouldn’t have been allowed in the big game just a few years ago, such as hard liquor or sports betting apps. This year’s ad lineup even includes ads for cryptocurrencies, a product still far from the American mainstream despite what your laser-eyed Twitter followers may tell you.But one so-called “lifestyle” product — cannabis — is once again shut out from the Super Bowl this year, even though it’s legal in a majority of US states, and public support for legal weed has never been higher. Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level in the US, however,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nudging users toward security works.That’s the top-line finding four months into Google’s initiative to enroll users in two-factor authentication by default, detailed in a blog post to coincide with Safer Internet Day on February 8th.In October 2021, the company announced plans to turn on two-factor authentication by default for 150 million Google users who were not currently using the service and to require 2 million YouTube creators to use it. In the latest post, Google says it observed a 50 percent decrease in accounts being compromised among that test user group.The strategy shows the power of a tech giant like Google to provide security by default and fits into a years-long project to move users toward a more robust security... Continue reading…

Peloton laid off 2,800 people on February 8th. | Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images As Peloton announced it was firing 2,800 people Tuesday morning, its outgoing CEO outlined in a memo the “meaningful” severance package those who are losing their jobs will receive, and great news: it includes a complimentary Peloton membership for the next year. Because really, getting a shoutout from an instructor or showing up on the leaderboard during that brutal HIIT class provided by your former employer is sure to take the sting out of losing your job.The memo from John Foley (who is losing the CEO job but will stay on as executive chairman) said Peloton saw “unprecedented demand” during the pandemic, but the company’s “post-COVID demand picture looks different than anticipated,” so it is slashing thousands of jobs (which r... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google Chrome is rolling out Journeys, a feature that lets you revisit your old browsing sessions based on the subject matter you were searching for. If you type a word in the address bar that’s related to some convoluted rabbit hole you’ve been down in the past, you’ll see a “Resume your research” option that links you to the related sites you’ve visited before. Image by Google Journeys clumps together related searches from past browsing sessions. So far, it sounds like it could be a much more viable solution than digging through your search history for that one site you kind of remember visiting three weeks ago. If you were knee-deep in research about axolotls, you should see all the related pages you... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This story originally ran in Hot Pod, The Verge’s preeminent audio industry newsletter. You can subscribe here for more scoops, analysis, and reporting.Let’s pick up with the news last week that Spotify hosted an internal town hall during which CEO Daniel Ek addressed his staff around the world. I obtained the audio from that meeting, and you can read the transcript in full here. (Over the weekend, there was also a second twist in the Rogan story involving a viral video of the comedian using the n-word many times. You can read all about that here and Spotify’s response here. And then my take here. Links, we got ‘em.)Today, though, I want to focus on Ek’s message to his employees, some of whom have concerns about Spotify’s choice to... Continue reading…

CalDigit makes the biggest, best Thunderbolt docks around, and it’s finally getting on the Thunderbolt 4 train with its new TS4 dock — a $359.95 dock that offers a whopping 18 total ports to handle any accessory you can throw at it, along with 98W of passthrough power for keeping your laptop charged.Let’s just jump right into the most important thing here: the ports, which CalDigit boasts are “the most featured on any Thunderbolt dock ever.” Thunderbolt 4 support is the big headliner here, but the TS4 should work with Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, USB4, and USB-C devices, so it’ll be handy even if you have an older device, too.While the company’s old flagship TS3 Plus dock only had two Thunderbolt ports (one for connecting to your... Continue reading…

Image: Pixar Pixar provided a fresh look at its Buzz Lightyear origin story with a trailer that introduces the rest of the cast — including a robot cat. Lightyear is a sci-fi action movie about the character Buzz Lightyear, not the toy, this time voiced by Chris Evans. The new trailer features some of his space ranger compatriots — voiced by Keke Palmer, Dale Soules, and Taika Waititi — along with Sox, a creepy robotic feline played by Peter Sohn.Now, the entire premise of Lightyear is a little confusing, and in a statement, director Angus MacLane tried to clear things up. “In Toy Story there seemed to be this incredible backstory to him being a Space Ranger that’s only touched upon, and I always wanted to explore that world further,” he explains.... Continue reading…

An artistic rendering of what the MAV could look like launching from Mars | Image: NASA NASA has picked space and defense contractor Lockheed Martin to build a small rocket capable of lifting off from the surface of Mars carrying samples of the Red Planet’s rocks and other materials. The decision is a big step in a long journey to eventually bring pristine pieces of Mars back to Earth so that scientists can study them in greater detail. If successful, Lockheed Martin’s rocket could become the first to launch from another planet.The rocket that Lockheed Martin is charged with building is known as the “Mars Ascent Vehicle,” or the MAV. It’s a key part of NASA’s plan to retrieve samples of Martian dirt that are currently being gathered by the space agency’s Mars rover, Perseverance. Last year, NASA successfully landed... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In an opinion issued on Tuesday, the Oversight Board called on Facebook and Instagram to place tighter restrictions on sharing the addresses of private homes, intended as a protection against doxxing and targeted harassment.The opinion comes in response to a request issued by Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) in April 2021. Currently, Facebook prohibits the sharing of private information broadly but makes a general exception for information that is “publicly available” — defined as having been published in five separate news outlets.The board recommends crafting a tighter policy specifically for information on private residences. It urges removing the exception for publicly available information and creating a... Continue reading…