The Verge

Square Enix A tracklist of ’80s mega-hits isn’t the only thing Guardians has going for it Continue reading…

Samsung is bringing its One UI 4 mobile interface design to its Galaxy Book series of Windows laptops. The new design changes will appear inside Samsung’s Windows apps like Samsung Notes, Samsung Gallery, and Samsung Settings. The changes are designed to match the mobile interface that Samsung’s bringing to its latest Android phones, to make it easier to switch between the two.The main Samsung Settings app has been overhauled to better fit the design changes in Windows 11, with new app icons, menu layouts, and more. Samsung’s Notes app also has a new menu layout, updated icons, and refreshed folders. Image: Samsung The new One UI 4 changes in Samsung’s Notes app for Windows. Image:... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Uber is acquiring 50,000 Tesla vehicles to rent to its drivers as part of an ambitious plan to electrify its fleet in the US by 2030. The ride-hailing company is working with rental car company Hertz, which announced yesterday that it had ordered 100,000 Teslas.The move comes as car companies and transportation providers around the world are coming under regulatory pressure to phase out gas-powered vehicles in favor of those that produce zero emissions. California, the largest auto market in the US, set in place rules for ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft, requiring that 90 percent of their fleets be electric by 2030.Uber has long offered discounts on car rentals to drivers who don’t own their own vehicle, with Uber and Hertz... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A 10-month investigation following the closure of the dark web’s largest illegal marketplace, DarkMarket, has resulted in the arrest of 150 suspected drug vendors and buyers.DarkMarket was taken offline earlier this year as part of an international operation. The site boasted some 500,000 users and facilitated around 320,000 transactions, reports the EU’s law enforcement agency, Europol, with clientele buying and selling everything from malware and stolen credit card information, to weapons and drugs. When German authorities arrested the site’s alleged operator in January this year, they also seized valuable evidence of transactions which led to this week’s arrest of key players.According to the US Department of Justice and Europol,... Continue reading…

The Google Play Store running on Windows 11. A developer and design student has managed to get the Google Play Store working on Windows 11. Google’s Android app store is fully functional within Windows 11 using this method, allowing you to install a game or app and run it alongside traditional Windows apps.Microsoft started testing Windows 11 Android app support last week, but the official implementation is limited to the Amazon Appstore and less than 50 apps during the preview phase. Getting the Google Play Store installed opens Windows 11 up to every Android app or game you’d want to use.ADeltaX, an Italian UX design student, has successfully installed the Google Play Store on Windows 11, and detailed all the steps required to get it working. If you’re not familiar with Linux... Continue reading…

An infographic released by the company. | Image: Spotify Spotify now has 172 million paid subscribers and 381 million monthly active users, the company announced today in its latest earnings release. That’s up from 165 million paid subscribers and 365 million monthly active users last quarter, with both figures up 19 percent year-over-year. Those are in line with what Spotify was expecting this quarter.The growth means that Spotify continues to be the biggest music streaming service in the world. Although competitors Amazon Music and Apple Music don’t regularly release subscriber numbers, figures compiled by Music Ally put their subscriber counts at around 55 million and 60 million respectively. By the end of the year, Spotify expects to have in excess of 400 million monthly active users, and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has launched a new safety feature that lets under-18s request the removal of images of themselves from the company’s search results. The feature was originally announced in August (along with new restrictions of ad targeting of minors) but is now widely available.Anyone can start the removal process from this help page. Applicants will need to supply the URLs of images they want removed from search results, the search terms that surface those images, the name and age of the minor, and the name and relationship of the individual that might be acting on their behalf — a parent or guardian, for example.Google will make exceptions for “cases of compelling public interest or newsworthiness”As ever with these sorts of removal... Continue reading…

The Windows 11 store running on Windows 10. | Image: Rudy Huyn (Twitter) Microsoft is close to releasing Windows 11’s new Microsoft Store for Windows 10 users. The software maker has now released this new app store to Windows 10 testers in the Release Preview ring, alongside a final version of the upcoming Windows 10 November 2021 Update.The updated Store is identical to the one found on Windows 11, offering greater access to win32 apps, a more modern design, and all of the new apps that have made their way into Microsoft’s store recently. This new Microsoft Store is also more open that before, allowing third-party stores like the Epic Games Store to be listed.

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Assuming you managed to order a Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro, then you should know that once the phone is in your possession, you’ll need a little extra time to get everything set up and working. That’s because, as a post on the Google support forums points out (via 9to5Google), there is a software update to install.The post indicates you’ll need it to get all of the features, although it’s unclear what would be missing if you simply started using the phone without it other than the November security update. According to Google, the build number is the same for both phones, and it should display SD1A.210817.036 or SD1A.210817.036.A8 for Verizon customers. If your phone arrives early, then the update might not available at first.According to... Continue reading…

The family office took Elizabeth Holmes at her word Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service is still coming up with new ways to attract gamers, and it’s finally trying one that we’ve suggested for years: free time-limited trials of entire games, so you can see whether it’s for you. As 9to5Google reports, you can now hop on over to Stadia, sign in with your Google account, and be playing a 30-minute free trial of Hello Engineer just by following this link and scrolling down to the “Free trial” button you see below.A Stadia rep tells The Verge this is an experiment Google’s running over the next couple of months, and it’ll come to other select titles in the weeks to come. It won’t always be 30-minute sessions, and you may not see the same games as everyone else, though. Google... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google announced that WhatsApp’s chat history migration feature to bring your messages from iPhones to Android is now available on “all Pixel phones” and that it’ll “become available on new smartphones that launch with Android 12.” The feature was already available for Samsung phones but will make the experience of switching from iOS to Android easier, as you won’t have to give up your messaging history.The process should be relatively simple, as long as you’ve got WhatsApp up to date on both your iPhone and Android phone, and you’ve got a USB-C to Lightning cable handy. Google says that while setting up your Android phone, you’ll be prompted to scan a QR code with your iPhone, which will let you start the transfer process. ... Continue reading…

Pikmin Bloom, the next game from Pokémon Go creator Niantic, is starting its global rollout today. The developer says that the app — which is billed as a joint project with Nintendo — “will be available on the App Store and Google Play over the coming days.” The rollout will start with Australia and Singapore before gradually hitting the rest of the world.The new Pikmin was first announced in March as part of a new collaboration between Niantic and Nintendo. Like Pokémon Go, the game is designed to get people outdoors and walking. In Pikmin Bloom, players can collect the titular plant creatures by gathering and planting seeds; in order for them to grow, you have to walk a certain distance, sort of like hatching an egg in Pokémon Go.... Continue reading…

There’s something strangely satisfying about leaving a trail of colorful flowers in your wake as you explore a neighborhood. It’s also one of the main hooks of Pikmin Bloom, the next release from the creator of Pokémon Go, and another app designed to get you moving in the real world. I’ve been able to play the game for the past few days, and while it’s less of a game than Pokémon Go, it definitely adds some magic and fun to a daily walk.Pikmin Bloom is starting its gradual rollout today, and it’s part of a new partnership between Nintendo and Niantic. The game is billed as a collaboration between Nintendo and Niantic’s Tokyo studio, and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto even appears in the launch trailer. Pikmin isn’t necessarily the most... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AT&T’s new 5G Plus expansion gives T-Mobile the perfect “I told you so” moment. AT&T currently offers two “flavors” of 5G: 5G Plus over the high-band mmWave spectrum and regular 5G, which is comparable to 4G LTE. Now, a blog post details AT&T’s plan to roll the mid-band spectrum it owns into 5G Plus, conflating its fastest but hard-to-find 5G with a new variant that has a better chance of both range and speed — the kind of 5G that T-Mobile has been focused on from the beginning.Former T-Mobile CEO John Legere slammed AT&T for not having a mid-band spectrum in 2019, stating that 5G needs a low-band, mid-band, and high-band spectrum to work efficiently. This is because that high-band mmWave 5G offers the fastest speeds over shorter... Continue reading…

GEOFFREY SHORT/NETFLIX The official trailer for Netflix’s live-action Cowboy Bebop series is finally here. Released during a live countdown event featuring appearances from stars John Cho, Daniella Pineda, and Mustafa Shakir, the trailer is another peek into what we can expect from the highly anticipated adaptation of the legendary anime series.The trailer starts with John Cho as Spike Spiegel standing on the deck of the eponymous Bebop as we hear him talking to his old friend Anna about what he’s up to these days. We’re treated to scenes of Spike’s old life as a mobster, his new partner Jet, and a moody shot of a reflection in a puddle that should send Bebop fans into a frenzy.The Cowboy Bebop trailer features the same highly-stylized action Netflix... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The streaming giant kept Cuties from appearing in some search results and recommendations after backlash to the poster Continue reading…

Textures and environments are outputting inconsistently in the Switch version of Ocarina of Time Monday evening, Nintendo released its latest features bundled into the Nintendo Switch Online subscription: Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games via an “Expansion Pack.”As soon as players got a chance to throw down another $30 on top of their $20 / year sub, they immediately took to Twitter to share their disdain of the less-than-ideal emulation quality.A particularly fascinating set of images posted to Twitter by speedrunner ZFG1 comparing the Water Temple on N64, Wii Virtual Console, and Switch was a hot topic today. The Switch version was noticeably lacking fog, revealing terrible-looking textures that represent water.I launched Mario 64, StarFox 64, and Zelda: Ocarina of Time for a quick test. Input speed for Mario 64 and StarFox 64... Continue reading…

Image: WinFuture Rumors have swirled around DJI’s unreleased Mavic 3 drone, but it’s now thoroughly leaked ahead of its expected November launch, with images, spec sheets, and more. The leaks come to us from TechnikNews, WinFuture, and DroneXL’s Jasper Ellens. They show what the drone looks like from almost every angle and detail the three different Mavic 3 bundles that will be available (as well as the differences between them).Previous rumors indicated the Mavic 3 will have better battery life than its predecessor and USB-C charging, plus two cameras (one “main” wide-angle shooter with a Four Thirds sensor and one with a telephoto lens). Today's leaks suggest the drone will ship in both DJI’s standard “fly more” bundle and a new “Cine” bundle. As with... Continue reading…

Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images Snap, TikTok, and YouTube set out with one important goal for Tuesday’s Senate hearing on child safety: to convince lawmakers that they are nothing like Facebook. While lawmakers were encouraged by the companies’ transparency, their humble approach hasn’t dissuaded lawmakers from pursuing new legislation.While YouTube’s parent company Google has testified before, it was the first time representatives from Snap and TikTok testified before Congress, and they came prepared to differentiate themselves from the social media giant at the center of yet another series of scandals. It was Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s leaks that led senators to pursue these hearings. The Facebook Papers loomed over the event, reinforcing Snap and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft posted the first quarter of its 2022 financial results today, reporting revenue of $45.3 billion and a net income of $20.5 billion (GAAP). Revenue is up 22 percent, and net income has increased by 48 percent. Microsoft has seen strong revenue performance in its cloud, server, and Office businesses this quarter.Microsoft might have just launched Windows 11 earlier this month, but in the months ahead of this new version of Windows, PC sales have started to decline in the US due to supply issues.That doesn’t seem to have impacted Microsoft’s Windows revenues, though. Windows OEM revenue has increased by 10 percent this quarter, despite what Microsoft calls “continued PC demand impacted by supply chain constraints.” ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has done it again — raking in more money than ever before for the second quarter in a row as the COVID-19 pandemic continues on. Alphabet’s Q3 2021 earnings show an all-time record revenue of $65.1 billion and record profits for the fifth quarter in a row at $18.9 billion.As we mentioned last quarter, the growth we’re seeing in 2021 is unusually large: a huge leap over 2020.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales Apple hit Intel hard with its first M1 chips, offering a rare step-change improvement in performance with its 2020 MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. Less than a year later, it’s already starting to compete with the best GPUs from AMD and Nvidia as well. The new MacBook Pros with M1 Pro and M1 Max offer a first glimpse at how well Apple’s M1 chips can scale to provide raw performance that rivals the discrete graphics cards we typically find inside Windows-powered laptops.Nvidia has been trying to woo many of Apple’s professional and creative customers with its Studio laptops, but Apple has not only managed to fix the mistakes it made with its MacBook port selection and keyboard, but it’s also scaled up its M1 chips to meet the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The pandemic canceled BlizzCon 2021, and it appears that a planned online event next year from Blizzard will also be a scratch. An uncredited blog post says, “We’ve decided to take a step back and pause on planning the previously announced BlizzConline event scheduled for early next year.”It didn’t specifically cite a reason, but after revelations surfaced about a company culture rife with sexual harassment and discrimination, the last several months have seen an employee walkout, the departure of president J. Allan Brack, and several competing investigations.Most recently, Blizzard renamed the cowboy hero in Overwatch to Cole Cassidy. The employee the character got his name from was one of several high-profile departures following... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Samsung has announced that it’s jumping into the cloud gaming arena with an offering for its Tizen smart TV platform. The news came during its Samsung Developer Conference keynote, and the company didn’t provide any more details about what games would be available, what other platforms it would be available on, if any, or when it will launch. Cloud gaming is an area that many of its big tech competitors are getting into, but it’s also an area Samsung has dabbled in before.In the early 2010s, Samsung worked with a game streaming company called Gaikai to bring an early version of cloud gaming to its high-end TVs. The pitch was basically the same as it is these days — Samsung Cloud Gaming would let you play games with only a TV, internet... Continue reading…

Dune is officially getting a sequel, with Warner Bros. and Legendary announcing that Dune: Part Two will continue the story (and, presumably, adapt the rest of the original novel) that began in the recently released film.The sequel is set to hit theaters in October 2023, Deadline reports, with director Denis Villeneuve returning for Part Two. Core cast members like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, and Javier Bardem will presumably return to reprise their roles as well, although there’s no official word on casting yet.It was all but guaranteed that Dune would be getting a sequel: the film literally starts with a “Dune: Part One” title card and very obviously tees up a second... Continue reading…

Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images Fully vaccinated international travelers will now be allowed to travel to the United States with proof of vaccination, the CDC announced on Monday. The order will go into effect on November 8th and applies to non-US citizens who are not immigrants, with an exemption for children under 18.The order will require fully vaccinated travelers with FDA-approved and World Health Organization emergency use listed vaccines to have a negative test taken three days before their travel date. Travelers who are not fully vaccinated, including US citizens and permanent residents, will now require a test within one day of their US travel date. This rule exempts children under two and accommodates people who have a documented recovery from COVID-19 in... Continue reading…

The infamous iPod Sock is getting a successor of sorts from accessory company Native Union, in the form of the “AirPods Beanies” — a cozy knit case where you can put your AirPods’ existing case for an added layer of protection.For those of you who are a bit lost right now, a quick piece of history. Of all the products that Apple has made over the years, the iPod Sock definitely is one of them: a set of six colorful, two-tone knit sleeves that were designed to fit Apple’s various iPods for both style and protection. A bizarre piece of Apple’s history on par with the recent $20 screen cleaning cloth, the iPod Socks sold for the rather expensive (for socks) price of $29 for a pack of six. Image: Apple The original... Continue reading…

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images A US Senate committee says manufacturer Seagate likely violated government sanctions by shipping hard drives to Chinese manufacturer Huawei.The Republican minority staff of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation released a report alleging Seagate ignored August 2020 restrictions on shipping semiconductor components to Huawei — a category the report alleges “likely includes hard disk drives.” The report orders Seagate to stop shipments to Huawei and urges the US Commerce Department to “prioritize” enforcement of the sanctions, which the Trump administration implemented after claiming Huawei posed a national security threat.Seagate said in 2020 that the sanctions shouldn’t disrupt its shipmentsHuawei has used... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge General Motors will start making Chevy Bolts again on November 1st, after shutting down production in late August following a global recall of the electric vehicle due to battery fire risk. The production restart at the company’s Orion assembly plant in Michigan will last for at least two weeks, as Reuters reports, though GM isn’t saying what will happen after that.The production restart will come just a few weeks after GM announced that battery supplier LG agreed to foot the $2 billion bill for the recall. And it comes at a time when global supply chain shortages have most of the auto industry dealing with way more customer demand than it can handle — which has also been driving more people than usual to buy EVs.GM recalled all... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales It is morning. The birds are chirping, a coffee percolator is bubbling, keyboards are clacking, and an Apple startup chime is ringing. The Verge’s Dieter Bohn, Nilay Patel, and Monica Chin are also walking into the recording studio to chat about the new iteration of Apple’s MacBook Pros.And that is what you can listen to today. On Tuesdays for the remainder of the year, The Verge’s flagship podcast The Vergecast will be featuring additional new episodes, with each focused on a specific topic usually discussed on our regular Friday shows.On a typical Vergecast, you may hear a bit about the behind-the-scenes activity that goes along with reviewing something like the iPhone or a VR headset. Today’s show dedicates a morning to pulling... Continue reading…

The Microsoft Modern Webcam features HDR and a modest design that looks subtle atop a monitor. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge We may still be living day to day with supply constraints, chip shortages, and shipping delays, but we’re thankfully past the time of scalped prices for webcams as folks quickly shifted to working from home and Zoom-everything. Now there are even some great deals on a pair of webcams ripped right from our guide to the best webcams: the Microsoft Modern Webcam and the Logitech C920S Pro HD Webcam.Microsoft’s Modern Webcam is seeing the bigger discount, with a $28 discount direct from the Microsoft Store knocking the price to just $42, down from its usual $70. This is the lowest price around for this small webcam, which features a built-in privacy shade that easily slides over the lens. The Modern Webcam is perfect for any Windows 10 or... Continue reading…

Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call President Joe Biden named acting Federal Communications Commissioner Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to officially head the agency on Tuesday, propping her up as the administration’s leader to tackle broadband expansion and net neutrality. Biden also nominated progressive advocate Gigi Sohn as the third Democrat for the bench.The decision comes late into Biden’s term, beating out both former presidents Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon who nominated their FCC chairs well into September of their first years. If confirmed by the Senate before December, the FCC’s 2-2 deadlock would end and provide Democrats with a majority to push forward Biden’s telecom agenda. But it’s unclear if senators plan to move on Rosenworcel and Sohn’s confirmations... Continue reading…

Getty Images/iStockphoto Qualcomm is announcing a pile of new Snapdragon chips today across its mid- and entry-level product lineups: the Snapdragon 778 Plus, 695, 680, and 480 Plus, offering more options to device manufacturers when it comes to picking the best processor for a phone — and, in theory, more choice for customers when they’re looking to buy one.The most notable new chip is the Snapdragon 695, which replaces the Snapdragon 690 in Qualcomm’s lineup. Unlike the old model, the Snapdragon 695 will support both mmWave and sub-6GHz versions of 5G, which should help improve data speeds even on cheaper phones (which have thus far tended to skip out on offering mmWave support). There’s also a considerable boost in performance: Qualcomm promises a... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft is about to compete even more directly with Chromebooks. The software giant is reportedly preparing to launch a new low-cost Surface Laptop aimed at education markets, specifically K-12, alongside a new edition of Windows 11 named Windows 11 SE.Windows Central reports that the upcoming Surface Laptop could also be named Surface Laptop SE and will likely include an 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) display, with Intel’s N4120 Celeron processor and up to 8GB of RAM. This budget laptop is designed for K-12 students and to be as low cost as possible, with a single USB-A and USB-C port.While Microsoft has used the SE moniker for Windows versions before (hello Windows 98 SE), Windows 11 SE won’t be a second edition of Windows 11. Instead,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is making it harder for kids’ videos that it deems “low quality” to qualify for monetization (via Engadget). The platform outlined its updated policies in a post on the YouTube Blog, noting that channels with “made for kids” content will need to abide by a stricter set of guidelines if they want to stay in the YouTube Partnership Program (YPP).Its policies are meant to discourage kids’ content creators from pushing out videos that it describes as “heavily commercial or promotional” or if it encourages “negative behavior or attitudes.” If a channel violates these guidelines, YouTube may suspend them from YPP. Meanwhile, any individual videos that break the rules will lose advertisers.“If a channel is found to have a strong focus... Continue reading…

You will punch your way to a much higher heart rate. | Supernatural Supernatural, the Beat Saber-like VR app for the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 that gets you to work up a sweat by beating targets with virtual bats, has added another way to wreck a target: your fists. Boxing is the latest workout introduced on Supernatural and like the original bat-oriented “Flow” workout, it works up a sweat while being fun.Supernatural Flow is sort of like Beat Saber crossed with high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Each workout can last from seven minutes to an hour, and there’s an enthusiastic coach shouting encouragements in your ear and guiding you through the session as you dance, lunge, squat, and murder targets with your VR bats.The problem with Supernatural, at least for me, is that you can plateau. The... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge General Motors will work with its network of dealers to help spur the installation of 40,000 electric vehicle chargers in the US, the company announced today. It will also begin selling its own “Ultium” branded Level 2 chargers for home or business uses.GM said that it hopes the new project will spur the creation of EV charging stations in urban and rural underserved areas. The automaker will give each of its dealers “up to 10 Ultium Level 2 destination charging stations” to install throughout their communities, but the automaker does not plan on paying for all 40,000 chargers. Rather, it will work with its dealers and community leaders to find the appropriate financing.Unlike Tesla or Volkswagen, GM does not own its own EV charging... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hello, hello, and welcome back to the workweek. I hope everyone had a lovely weekend, and shout out to those of you who attended On The Verge. It was so nice to see people IRL and actually meet face to face. I hope we can do it again soon! Anyway, today’s a busy one with a couple scoops and analyses. Off we go.SCOOP: Amazon is building a top-secret live audio appEarlier today, I published a story about Amazon’s work on a live audio app, codenamed Project Mic. The app takes bits from Anchor and bits from Clubhouse — users can host DJ sets, like they would a radio show, and intersperse songs with talk. The idea is to reinvent radio. (I feel like I should have put a trigger warning on that sentence for some of you — sorry!)The other... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max have great cameras, some of the best you can buy in a phone. They’ve also got an exclusive new feature Apple never offered before: a macro mode that lets you take extreme close-ups — just two centimeters away! — of intricate things you can barely see with the naked eye. Your pet’s incredibly fine fur, the veins of leaves, and the sub-pixels in your computer monitor’s screen are all now within reach.But Apple doesn’t give you a macro mode button per se — it’s automatic. When you bring the phone within 10 cm of an object, it automatically switches to the ultrawide lens, which some users found jarring enough that Apple now lets you turn off auto-macro-switching in iOS 15.1.But if you do that, and then... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max have great cameras, some of the best you can buy in a phone. They’ve also got an exclusive new feature Apple never offered before: a macro mode that lets you take extreme close-ups — just two centimeters away! — of intricate things you can barely see with the naked eye. Your pet’s incredibly fine fur, the veins of leaves, and the sub-pixels in your computer monitor’s screen are all now within reach.But Apple doesn’t give you a macro mode button per se — it’s automatic. When you bring the phone within 10 cm of an object, it automatically switches to the ultrawide lens, which some users found jarring enough that Apple now lets you turn off auto-macro-switching in iOS 15.1.But if you do that, and then... Continue reading…

Creative Cloud Canvas is Adobe’s answer to services like Miro. | Image: Adobe Adobe is trying to make Creative Cloud’s website into more of a hub for collaborating across teams. So today, it’s announcing a few new tools headed to the platform: basic web-based versions of Photoshop and Illustrator, a new feature called Canvas that lets you make mood boards, and a feature called Spaces that lets teams arrange and synchronize assets for projects.Canvas is similar to a bunch of tools that designers already use — there’s Miro, PureRef, you could even do something like this in Figma if you wanted to — but it comes with the perk of being integrated with Adobe’s ecosystem. You can pull Cloud documents onto a canvas, and they’ll link back to the original file, letting you open them up to make changes. I... Continue reading…

The most popular Kindle gets its biggest update in nearly a decade Continue reading…

The Honor 50. | Image: Honor The Honor 50 is releasing globally with prices starting at €529, the former Huawei sub-brand announced today. The smartphone was originally announced for the Chinese market in June, but today sees the company confirm its global pricing and its early November release date. For €529 (about $615), you get 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and there’s also a €599 (about $695) model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Honor says the phone will be available in over 40 countries, but there are no immediate plans to release the phone in the US.The big news with the Honor 50 is that it’s the company’s first device to ship with Google’s apps and services since splitting from former parent company Huawei. Google pulled Huawei’s Android license... Continue reading…

Oura Oura’s Generation 3 smart ring will have a whole new slate of features, including period prediction, blood oxygen monitoring, and real-time heart rate tracking. The new ring will jump from three to seven temperature sensors and add a pulse oxygen sensor, Oura CEO Harpreet Rai told The Verge.A new, green LED light will monitor heart rate throughout the day. Starting at the end of 2021, users will also be able to record their heart rate during exercise and see information about heart rate recovery after a workout is done.The upgrades underscore the company’s focus on health, Rai says, particularly the period prediction feature. The new ring will use shifts in temperature and user feedback to predict when a user might get their period... Continue reading…

‘Prepare as NFT’ coming to Photoshop Continue reading…

The beta of Photoshop on the web. | Image: Adobe Adobe is bringing Photoshop and Illustrator to the web, letting you make changes to documents hosted in the cloud without having to download them and open up the app.It’s a fascinating step forward for these two programs, but it’s also a very small one for now: these are not fully featured versions of Photoshop and Illustrator — or anywhere close to it. You can navigate layers, leave annotations and comments, and make basic edits using tools like the eraser, spot healing brush, and selection lasso. But you’ll still have to open the app for any substantial changes.“We’re not bringing all the features on day one, but we really want to unlock all those basic edits that are just best done now in the browser with whoever you’re working... Continue reading…

An Atlas V launching at night. Project Kuiper has bought nine launches of Atlas V rockets to send its satellites into orbit. | Image: United Launch Alliance Amazon’s ambitious satellite venture, called Kuiper, is teaming up with Verizon to further expand 4G/LTE and 5G coverage to remote areas of the globe. Through the new partnership, Kuiper’s future satellites could provide connectivity to future Verizon cell towers that don’t require as much costly infrastructure to build.Kuiper is Amazon’s $10 billion initiative to launch a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit to provide broadband internet coverage to the Earth below. With satellites flying at altitudes between 366 miles and 391 miles high (or 590 kilometers and 630 kilometers up), the plan is to provide connectivity to remote and rural areas, where it is difficult to provide internet coverage through traditional fiber.... Continue reading…

Image: Palm Ventures Group, Inc After launching the Palm Phone in 2019, the reincarnated “Palm” is back again with its next new product. But it’s not another smartphone. Instead, the startup that now owns the Palm brand is jumping on the trend of true wireless earbuds. The Palm Buds Pro — yes, yet another “Pro” gadget — are available to preorder starting today for $99, though they’ll eventually rise to an MSRP of $129. For that price, you’ll be getting a set of earbuds with noise cancellation, bass-heavy 10-millimeter drivers, and IPX4 water and sweat resistance.Palm says the earbuds fit into its “lightweight product philosophy” that began with the tiny, TCL-manufactured Palm Phone, which is no longer available. As for who’s making the Palm Buds Pro, Palm Ventures... Continue reading…