The Verge

Image: Dr. Dre / Rockstar Games Six Dr. Dre tracks that made their first appearance in GTA Online’s The Contract update from last year are now available on music streaming services including Apple Music and Spotify, Rockstar Games has announced. As well as Dre himself, the tracks include appearances from guest artists like Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Anderson .Paak, Busta Rhymes, Nipsey Hussle, and Ty Dolla $ign.GTA is part of a growing list of games that have debuted new music. Guns n’ Roses premiered the song “Shackler’s Revenge” in Rock Band 2 in 2008, and Weezer included four unreleased songs from its Black Album in a custom map in Fortnite in 2019. But Dre’s collaboration with GTA Online was a little more interesting. The rapper actually appeared in the game itself,... Continue reading…

Image: evleaks (Twitter) The Galaxy S22 has leaked extensively, but there’s only so much you can tell from renders. For example, it turns out that Samsung has created a “new material” to use in the product — one made from the plastic in discarded fishing nets.Samsung says it’ll soon “incorporate repurposed ocean-bound plastics” across its whole product lineup, and the first example will be the Galaxy devices introduced at the Unpacked event this Wednesday, February 9th. It’s not yet clear to what extent the material will be used or in which parts of the products; Samsung isn’t explicit about how it fits into any of the devices’ construction.Citing a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations that says 640,000 tons of fishing nets... Continue reading…

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images Spotify CEO Daniel Ek addressed staff in a late night memo addressing Joe Rogan’s use of the n-word and the mysterious removal of 70 podcast episodes earlier this week. The total number of deleted Joe Rogan Experience episodes is now 113, according to the website jremissing.com.“Not only are some of Joe Rogan’s comments incredibly hurtful — I want to make clear that they do not represent the values of this company,” Ek writes in the memo, which The Verge obtained. “I know this situation leaves many of you feeling drained, frustrated and unheard.”He goes on to say Spotify spoke with Rogan and his team about “some of the content in his show, including his history of using some racially insensitive language.” Following these chats “and... Continue reading…

Sifu was released today for anyone who preordered the deluxe edition of the kung-fu action-adventure, but those who bought it on PlayStation experienced some trouble downloading it (via TheGamer). While PlayStation says it has since resolved the issue, it looks like there are still some players having problems accessing the game.

Image by WinFuture After getting a glimpse at Oppo’s upcoming flagship phone in January (which is said to be called the Find X5 Pro), a new leak from WinFuture gives us a pretty solid picture of what to expect, both in terms of design and technical specifications.As mentioned by the previous leak, WinFuture indicates the Find X5 Pro comes with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. Alongside the top-of-the-line CPU could be a Qualcomm Adreno 730 graphics chip, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of internal storage. The device is also rumored to have a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 3216 x 1440px and a refresh rate of 120Hz. WinFuture also found that the phone may come with a 5,000mAH battery pack, in addition to having 80W fast-charging capabilities. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is exploring a new way to send DMs on iOS, and it involves letting users slide into your inbox through a link on your tweets, bypassing the DM button on your profile. The platform says this will make it easier to “start a conversation” from your timeline — but you can probably see how this can go very, very wrong.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’re looking to buy a new phone at Verizon, you now only have two options: buy the device outright, or pay monthly installments for three years. As reported by Droid Life (via Android Police), Verizon appears to have gotten rid of its 24- and 30-month contracts for all devices — including phones, hot spots, and smartwatches — and has instead extended it to 36 months.Unless you can pay off the entire device, you’re locked into the three-year planVerizon’s payment program FAQ page explains that there isn’t any interest attached to the 36-month plan, and you can choose to pay off the phone in full whenever you want. What you can’t do, however, is pay more than your set monthly installment — so unless you can pay off the entire... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Just after Spotify removed around 70 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast without offering an explanation, Rogan posted a video on Instagram apologizing for saying the N-word on his show in the past (via New York Times). In his apology, Rogan specifically addresses a clip compilation, which was shared by singer India Arie, that shows Rogan saying the N-word repeatedly during podcast episodes over several years.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The makers behind the Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) are no longer a mystery — a BuzzFeed News report reveals them as Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, two men from Florida. Solano is a 32-year-old writer and editor behind the pseudonym Gargamel, while the 35-year-old Aronow goes by Gordon Goner.

The new Chrome logo side-by-side with previous variations. | Image by Elvin Hu via Twitter Chrome is changing its logo for the first time since 2014, and if you squint really hard, you might actually be able to see what’s different. Elvin Hu, a designer for Google Chrome, offers a first look at the logo’s redesign in a thread on Twitter, as well as some of the thinking behind the ever-so-subtle changes.

There’s a lot going on at the music streaming service. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Update February 5th, 1PM ET: Spotify has not addressed the missing episodes, but since this story was published, Joe Rogan posted a five-minute apology video to Instagram addressing his use of the n-word and a story from a past podcast that called “a racist thing to say.”Around 70 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast mysteriously disappeared from Spotify on Friday, as spotted by JREMissing.com, a web tool that tracks missing episodes. The show (and Spotify’s relationship to it) have faced heavy criticism over the past few weeks, but there’s no clear connection between that and the missing episodes, nor is there any immediately apparent link between the episodes that were removed.For anyone who’s taken the sanity-preserving step of muting... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Fujifilm says it’s working on a patch to fix an incompatibility issue preventing the owners of certain X series and GFX series cameras from accessing some of their files on macOS, as stated in a notice on Fujifilm’s site. According to the post, the issue only occurs when users have over 4,000 files written in-camera to a single folder on their SDXC card and then try to access these files using an internal or external card reader connected to their Mac.The issue has been around since at least May 2021Although Fujifilm says the problem occurs when “more than 4,000” files are stored in a single folder on the memory card, the exact amount seems to be 4,096, as indicated by user reports that reach as far back as at least May 2021. In each... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge For the few who don’t already know, every variety of Nintendo’s popular Switch console can get a storage upgrade by installing a microSD card. And while you’re most likely to stumble upon deals for microSD cards with 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB of storage, there’s a must-see deal happening at Amazon on the SanDisk 400GB variant. Normally $69.99 (but usually between $45 and $50), you can snag one now for just $39.99. It’s just a couple dollars shy of the best-ever price.If you’ve arrived at the opportunity to get a microSD card, I think you should get the biggest one that you can afford, as you’ll have more space for games, screenshots, and game saves well into the future. Games for the Nintendo Switch range from just a few gigabytes to in the... Continue reading…

A solid keyboard, but not quite $349 solid Continue reading…

Image: Peloton Peloton’s no-good-very-bad downfall from its pandemic peak — losing over $20 billion in value since November and becoming a dangerous subplot in prime time TV — has attracted speculation that the connected fitness company is a target to be acquired, but by whom? A Friday evening report from the Wall Street Journal tosses out Amazon as one of the “potential suitors” that may be considering a deal — just as markets closed for the weekend and only a few days before Peloton issues its Q2 2022 earnings report on February 8th. Just the suggestion caused a spike in Peloton’s stock price, sending it up 20–30 percent in after-hours trading.Peloton’s yo-yoing fortunes over the last two years have been well documented, but combine the... Continue reading…

The original estimate was $1.8 billion. The FCC received applications for $5.6 billion in reimbursements. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The estimated cost of replacing Huawei and ZTE equipment in US networks has increased substantially. On Friday, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told Congress that providers had applied to be reimbursed $5.6 billion for “ripping and replacing” equipment deemed insecure by the US government (via Light Reading). In September, 2020, the FCC estimated that the effort would cost $1.8 billion, and in December, 2020 Congress earmarked around $1.9 billion for the effort.But Rosenworcel said Friday in a statement that the FCC had received “over 181 applications from carriers who have developed plans to remove and replace equipment in their networks that pose a national security threat.” She went on to say... Continue reading…

Alex Castro / The Verge All right, listen. This is not for those of you with Dewey Decimal mental filing systems or expertly curated music playlists that easily identify the music contained therein. But hear me out: we need music browser tabs in our music player apps.I can’t, unfortunately, take credit for this proposed — and tremendously useful! — addition to our music player interfaces. It was actually The Verge’s deputy editor Dan Seifert who first tweeted the idea, which I enthusiastically threw my support behind. We’re not the only two nerds who think this would be a handy feature, either. Wearables reviewer Victoria Song chimed in that she, too, would like a tabs-like feature in her music players. (A good and correct opinion.)

iPhone SE (2020) | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman is typically a reliable source for Apple rumors, so we’re listening when he says the company is targeting March 8th for a spring event to show off a new low-cost iPhone SE with 5G, as well as a refreshed iPad Air that adds a new CPU and 5G for cellular-equipped models.Rumors of an update for the iPhone SE have been around since before the iPhone 13 launched, and now Bloomberg says we should expect to see a faster chip and improved cameras inside a shell that’s similar to the existing model that has a 4.7-inch screen. The current iPhone SE was introduced in 2020, and its $399 price is the same now as it was on launch day, so an A15 CPU and 5G could make it a much better value. There’s no word on the fate of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Thursday evening, blockchain platform OpenSea launched a new system that will help users clear out unclaimed sale offers, set to roll out over the next two weeks. In an announcement post, CEO Devin Finzer described the changes as made to “ensure old, inactive listings expire.”The move comes after a bug that allowed attackers to exploit old contracts to buy tokens for hundreds of thousands of dollars below market price. In one particularly attention-getting case in January, a Bored Ape Yacht Club token was purchased for less than $2,000 and resold immediately for over $192,000.The bug was a result of how OpenSea’s platform interacts with the Ethereum blockchain, often saving gas fees by listing offers locally rather than coding them... Continue reading…

Alexa in the Jaguar I-Pace. | Image: Jaguar Land Rover Jaguar Land Rover announced a software update this week that offers deep Alexa integration for newer vehicle models (via Bloomberg).The update is available to over 200,000 Jaguar and Land Rover vehicles outfitted with the company’s Pivi Pro 3.0 or later infotainment system via an over-the-air update. This comes after Amazon’s efforts early last year to open up some of Alexa’s AI to allow car manufacturers to better integrate Alexa into their vehicles.Competition is already hot for Amazon in the automotive spaceAlexa in Jaguars and Land Rovers will be usable without the need of a smartphone and will be able to assist drivers hands-free with playing music, navigating to various points of interest, and everything else Alexa is capable... Continue reading…

A screengrab of the livestream during the Crew-2 landing, showing the one lagging parachute | Image: NASA NASA and SpaceX say they are looking into a recurring issue with lagging parachutes on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule — critical features the spacecraft needs to land when it returns from orbit. However, the two spaceflight partners are downplaying the seriousness of the problem, claiming that the parachutes are still behaving safely despite the behavior.The parachute issue cropped up during the two most recent landings of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule. During each of those descents to Earth, one of the four main parachutes on the spacecraft was slower to fully inflate than the other three. The lagging parachute was clearly visible during a livestream of a November landing, in which the Crew Dragon carried four astronauts home from the... Continue reading…

Photo by Genna Martin/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images On Thursday, after a month of confusion, delays, and canceled flights related to Verizon and AT&T’s rollout of 5G C-Band networks, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure held a hearing to “discuss the impact that deployment of 5G technologies has on the aviation industry.”Anyone tuning in hoping for bombshell revelations would’ve been disappointed. While some of the testimony was enlightening, giving insight into how certain segments of the industry viewed the events, the main takeaway was that we have a long way to go before C-Band and aviation will be able to co-exist happily.“We recognize that the existing process for spectrum allocation didn’t serve anyone well”“The process” that led to this situation, where... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Since the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, sewage systems in cities around the United States have helped track the spread of the coronavirus in real time. Now, those tracking projects will have public visibility through a tool on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s COVID-19 data tracking website, the agency announced Friday.The tool pulls in data from National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS), which the CDC launched in September 2020. That network includes data from more than 400 sites in the US.Wastewater gives officials a way to track the spread of the coronavirus because the virus can be detected in the feces of residents before they are prompted to get tested. But, unlike testing data, wastewater... Continue reading…

A charging cable is pictured plugged into a Volvo electric vehicle (EV), parked in a parking bay reserved for electric vehicles, in London on November 18, 2020. | Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images Electric and hybrid vehicles drove emissions from new cars in the UK down to a record low in 2021, according to new data from a local industry group. But more investments in charging stations and public transport are needed for the UK to meet its goal of cutting emissions by 78 percent by 2035.Average emissions for new cars fell by more than 11 percent to about 120 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer driven last year, according to UK trade association Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). That means drivers turning to EVs are helping to shrink emissions from the UK’s biggest source of pollution. Transportation — mostly on roads — pumps out more than a quarter of the UK’s annual greenhouse gas emissions.The UK’s biggest... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge One year after Google revealed it now saw Google Stadia cloud gaming idea as a mere “technology platform for industry partners” rather than a true rival to Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, Business Insider is reporting that some Stadia gamers’ fears have come true: the entire Stadia project has been demoted within Google, and its new priority is to power experiences from companies including Peloton, Bungie, and Capcom rather than attracting more games to Stadia itself.In fact, Peloton bike owners might have already experienced the fruits of those labors — BI reports that Peloton’s very first video game, Lanebreak, was actually powered by Google’s cloud gaming technology, now dubbed Google Stream. (That’s one way to put a game inside your... Continue reading…

US Capitol 5 (Verge Stock) In a Friday session, the US House of Representatives passed the America COMPETES Act on a 222-210 vote. Colloquially described as a “China competition” bill, the COMPETES Act would provide new subsidies to the US semiconductor manufacturing industry, along with other measures aimed at stimulating the economy.Votes fell roughly along party lines, with only a single House Democrat opposing the measure and only a single Republican voting in support.$39 billion in direct subsidies for new fabrication facilitiesThe COMPETES Act provides $52 billion of federal money to boost US semiconductor manufacturing, with $39 billion going to direct subsidies for new fabrication facilities. Many facilities eligible for this funding are already under... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge The way we talk about cars and driving is changing — faster than most people can really keep up. Which is why we need to be periodically reminded that just because a car brakes by itself, makes automatic lane changes, or even lets you take your hands off the wheel doesn’t make it an autonomous vehicle.Case in point: New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo recently wrote about his experiences driving the 2021 Cadillac Escalade with Super Cruise. And while Manjoo has done a lot to advance ideas around car-free living and public transportation, he, unfortunately, fell into the common trap of conflating advanced driver-assist features with autonomous vehicles.He’s not alone, either. YouTube’s favorite auto reviewer Doug DeMuro has... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s Alex Kipman with the HoloLens 2. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft claims “HoloLens is doing great” after a report earlier this week revealed HoloLens 3 may have been canceled. Business Insider reported on Wednesday that Microsoft has scrapped plans for HoloLens 3 in recent months and that it could be “the end of the road” for the headset. Microsoft has reportedly agreed to partner with Samsung on a new mixed reality device, a move that has apparently “inflamed divisions” that exist in Microsoft’s mixed reality teams.The software giant has been working on a custom HoloLens headset for the US Army in a contract that could be worth up to $21.88 billion over 10 years. The headset is supposed to use augmented reality and machine learning to enable a “life-like mixed reality training environment,”... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The US Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday the creation of a new body, the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB), to investigate major cybersecurity events.The 15-person board will be comprised of a mixture of senior officials from agencies like the NSA, FBI and CISA, and governmental departments including the Department of Defense and Department of Justice, along with private sector executives from companies including Google, Microsoft, and Verizon.“The Biden-Harris administration has taken bold steps to meaningfully improve our cybersecurity resilience,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas. “At the president’s direction, DHS is establishing the Cyber Safety Review Board to thoroughly assess past... Continue reading…

Photo by Emil Lippe/Getty Images This week’s freezing temperatures and winter storms in Texas led to far fewer power outages than a similar freeze last year. But worryingly, a handful of Texas counties with high rates of power outages also have high numbers of people who need power for medical devices, according to a new analysis by the data group CrisisReady.Losing electricity in bitter cold is always dangerous, but it’s particularly scary for people who rely on it to keep medical devices like ventilators running. The new analysis pulled federal data on Medicare beneficiaries to identify counties with high numbers of people using electricity-dependent medical equipment. It found that six such counties had more than 1 percent of the population out of power at one... Continue reading…

The Les Mills BODYCOMBAT VR app. | Image: Les Mills Popular fitness club Les Mills is punching and kicking its way into the metaverse with a new VR game, BODYCOMBAT VR. The $29.99 game is an extension of an existing workout series that combines shadowboxing with martial arts and is available on the Meta Quest platform.The game was developed by VR studio Odder Labs and is led by Les Mills BODYCOMBAT directors Rachael Newsham and Dan Cohen. According to Les Mills’ press release, the game incorporates classic boxing moves like jabs, hooks, and uppercuts, as well as squats and slips to dodge walls. Other moves include grabbing targets to slam into a user’s knee. Levels are set against “intergalactic deserts and neo-city skylines” and set to curated playlists. Players earn points for both... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where we discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.This week on the show, The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Alex Cranz, Ashley Carman, and Alex Heath discuss Meta’s rough week: Facebook reported its first-ever quarterly decline of daily users globally, along with lower-than-expected ad growth that sent its stock plunging roughly 20 percent. The crew discusses the takeaways from Meta’s earnings report and the company’s struggle to keep younger users on its platforms.The crew also discusses Spotify’s response to the Joe Rogan controversy. This week, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek defended the company’s choice to work with Rogan and tried... Continue reading…

Image: EA In 2019, Respawn Entertainment surprised gamers by following up its Titanfall games with something slightly different, instead opting for a take on the (then) new and growing free-to-play battle royale genre with Apex Legends.You know what happened next. After a healthy dose of promoted live streams, the game quickly carved out a unique space and grew rapidly in popularity, racking up 25 million registered players in one week and crossing the 100 million mark in time for its second birthday. Now, Apex Legends is turning three, and in a conversation with The Verge, game director Steven Ferreira said that this year, players should expect to see the title do things that are completely unlike what we’ve seen so far while still keeping the... Continue reading…

Meta is adding a “personal boundary” system to its Horizon virtual reality experiences, aiming to stop harassment in VR. The new feature is being turned on by default in the Horizon Worlds creation platform and the Horizon Venues live event service. It creates an invisible virtual barrier around avatars, preventing other people from getting too close — although you can apparently still stretch your arm out to give someone a fist-bump or high five.The boundary system builds on an existing feature that could make users’ hands disappear if they got too close to another avatar. As described by Meta, it gives everyone a two-foot radius of virtual personal space, creating the equivalent of four virtual feet between avatars. Meta spokesperson... Continue reading…

GTA5’s Michael De Santa. | Image: Rockstar Games A new entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is in active development, Rockstar Games has confirmed. “We are pleased to confirm that active development for the next entry in the Grand Theft Auto series is well underway,” the company wrote in a post on its website. In the more immediate future, GTAV and Grand Theft Auto Online will release on PS5 and Xbox Series X and S on March 15th.The popularity — and profitability — of GTAV’s online component has meant that there’s been an unusually long wait for a sequel. The game originally released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in 2013, over eight years ago. In contrast, GTAV released a little over five years after 2008’s GTAIV. “With the unprecedented longevity of GTAV, we know many of you have been... Continue reading…

News Corp says it was the target of a hack | Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images News Corp, the media company that owns The Wall Street Journal, said in a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that it was the victim of a cyberattack last month. Its security consultant Mandiant, which is investigating the hack, believes the attackers “are likely involved in espionage activities to collect intelligence to benefit China’s interests,” Mandiant vice president of incident response David Wong said in an email to The Verge.According to the SEC filing, the company discovered in January that one of its cloud-based systems was the target of “persistent cyberattack activity.” A preliminary analysis found that “foreign government involvement may be associated with this activity, and that data was... Continue reading…

Free video recordings and package detection almost make up for a dull design Continue reading…

Image: Roku We’ve arrived at the end of another week, folks. And while today may be unapologetically February, we can always brighten things up a bit with some deals.If you’re in need of a new streaming device as we approach the Super Bowl or even this weekend’s NFL Pro Bowl, Roku’s Streambar Pro is a nice all-in-one solution as a soundbar and 4K-capable streaming device — and it’s currently on sale. You can pick one up for $149.99 ($30 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. The Streambar Pro runs Roku’s popular and straightforward user interface, and you can even expand it later by adding wireless speakers and a subwoofer to go full-on surround sound.If you don’t need such a large soundbar or expansive system to grow into, the smaller Roku Streambar is... Continue reading…

Image: Coachella Today, let’s talk about the very different reactions that two different types of fandoms are having to blockchain-based products — and whether that tells us anything about what average people might actually want out of crypto.The fandoms are gaming and music. And while you’re always going out on a limb when you try to draw conclusions about such large, diverse groups, I can’t help but feel like I’m seeing a trend in the way they have responded so far to efforts from industry to sell them various blockchain-related things.Start with the gamers. Outside those working on play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity, hostility toward crypto in the gaming community tends to be overwhelming. One of the most popular recurring stories over the past... Continue reading…

Sheila Francisco as Leonor Reyes. The elderly heroine of writer / director Martika Ramirez Escobar’s Leonor Will Never Die may not be the image that comes to mind when you think of an auteur filmmaker whose imagination is filled with an untold number of fantasies all yearning to be turned into blockbuster features. But the movie wants you to ask yourself: why not? Why can’t a retired lola from Manilla who’s perpetually late paying her electricity bill also be one of the most brilliant action directors of her era and someone who can only process existential crises by turning them into films within her mind?Throughout Leonor Will Never Die, Leonor (Sheila Francisco) herself rarely stops to ponder these questions because of how essential filmmaking continues to be to her... Continue reading…

These earbuds are onto something, but the execution isn’t there yet Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple plans to charge developers of dating apps a 27 percent commission on any in-app purchases made via alternative payment systems in the Netherlands, the company has announced. The change comes in response to an order from Dutch competition regulator, the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM), which has demanded that Apple allow dating app developers — and only dating app developers — to use alternatives to Apple’s in-app payment system in the country. Twenty-seven percent represents only a 3 percent reduction compared to the 30 percent commission Apple typically charges for developers using its own payment system.The announcement follows Google’s proposal to reduce its commission by 4 percent for developers using alternative... Continue reading…

The feature lets your remove unwanted objects or people from images. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales The Google Pixel 6’s magic eraser feature, which lets you remove unwanted people or objects from your photos, appears to have been broken by a recent update, PhoneArena reports. Multiple users across Reddit and Twitter are reporting that attempting to use it causes the Google Photos app to crash, leaving them unable to use a feature that’s been heavily marketed in the promotion of Google’s latest flagship smartphone.The issue is the latest in a series of bugs to have hit the Pixel 6. Back in December, Google was forced to halt the rollout of an update after owners complained that it was causing network connection problems for their devices. Android 12 has been an unusually rocky update for many devices, but Google’s Pixel lineup seems... Continue reading…

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced plans to give an update on his company’s next-generation Starship rocket next Thursday evening. The presentation will come more than two years after Musk’s last update on the vehicle in 2019.Starship is the massive new deep-space rocket that SpaceX has been developing at the company’s test facility in Boca Chica, Texas, for the last few years. The fully reusable vehicle is designed to launch on top of a giant booster called Super Heavy, carrying people and cargo to distant destinations like the Moon and eventually Mars. So far, SpaceX has conducted a few high-altitude test flights with the vehicle but has yet to launch Starship to orbit. The company is currently awaiting approval from the Federal Aviation... Continue reading…

The company is moving beyond the Hero and the Max. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge GoPro will be expanding its camera lineup in the next year, adding two more models alongside its current Hero and Max cameras. According to Nick Woodman, the company’s founder and CEO who spoke during the company’s earnings presentation on Thursday, GoPro wants to offer more specialized cameras, while still using a lot of the same tech.GoPro used to have several models in its Hero lineup, from the White, Silver, and Black models of cameras like the Hero 3 and 7, to the rear screen-less Session cameras. Since the Hero 8’s release, though, it’s only released flagship models, opting to sell older flagships in lieu of introducing lower-spec but still current-gen cameras.GoPro isn’t going back to “good / better / best”More models doesn’t... Continue reading…

Workspace Essentials Starter is basically Workspace without Gmail. | Image: Google Google has announced a new, free tier of its Workspace suite, Workspace Essentials Starter. Basically, it lets workers use tools like Google Docs, Sheets, Chat, etc. with their co-workers without requiring them to switch over to Gmail if they’re already using something like Exchange or Zoho. While employees have long been able to replicate this use case with personal Google accounts, having an official product for it could help with security and make it easier to manage a team of people working together.According to Google’s blog post, users will be able to sign up for Essentials Starter using their existing email accounts and will then be able to invite their co-workers to work on projects with them. Google’s providing 15 GB of Drive... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Snapchat invented the Stories format of sharing pictures and videos that disappear. Now the company is indicating, along with Facebook, that the future of social media looks more like TikTok.In remarks to investors for its quarterly earnings report on Thursday, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said that less time is being spent watching Stories from friends in the app, even though the company had hoped Stories engagement would pick up as pandemic lockdowns eased and people started leaving their houses more. Instead, Snapchat users are increasingly flocking to watch videos on Spotlight, Snapchat’s TikTok rival for viewing viral videos posted by random creators, and its Discover section for premium shows.“This is a continuation of the trend we have... Continue reading…

Sony’s latest showcase event was dedicated exclusively to Ghostwire: Tokyo with an in-depth gameplay trailer — and the game sure does look creepy. The paranormal action game from Tango Gameworks, the studio behind the Evil Within series, takes place in a modern version of Tokyo full of folklore creatures. It’s described as a “reimagining” of the Japanese metropolis, just, you know, with supernatural creatures lurking around.The gameplay trailer is nearly 10 minutes long (it’s followed by an inside look at development), making it the best look we’ve had at the game so far, and it’s full of terrifying creatures and slick first-person action. It also provides a bit more detail on Ghostwire’s story, which takes place after a mystery event... Continue reading…

Nestled in today’s Activision Blizzard’s quarterly earnings report (which was curiously delivered as a press release and not a traditional call ostensibly because of its pending acquisition by Microsoft and possibly the myriad other things going on over there) is the news Blizzard is working on a new Warcraft mobile title slated for a 2022 release.According to the press release, “Blizzard is planning substantial new content for the Warcraft franchise in 2022, including [...] getting all-new mobile Warcraft content into players’ hands for the first time.” The press release doesn’t go into detail about the new game or when we can expect to hear more. For now, all we know is that it’s Warcraft, and it’ll be mobile.The news coincides... Continue reading…