The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge DeepMind has created an AI system named AlphaCode that it says “writes computer programs at a competitive level.” The Alphabet subsidiary tested its system against coding challenges used in human competitions and found that its program achieved an “estimated rank” placing it within the top 54 percent of human coders. The result is a significant step forward for autonomous coding, says DeepMind, though AlphaCode’s skills are not necessarily representative of the sort of programming tasks faced by the average coder.Oriol Vinyals, principal research scientist at DeepMind, told The Verge over email that the research was still in the early stages but that the results brought the company closer to creating a flexible problem-solving AI — a... Continue reading…

The most colorful shooter in recent memory, Splatoon 2, is one of the many Nintendo Switch titles currently on sale. | Image: Nintendo The overwhelming popularity of the Nintendo Switch means there’s no shortage of games in its library. If there’s a game that's capable of working with the Switch hardware, odds are it's already available or will be soon. Thankfully, having a massive library of games also means there are regular price breaks on a variety of titles, from first-gen offerings like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, to remasters like Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1+2.If you’re looking for deals on Nintendo Switch games, we’ve rounded some of our favorites below. The Nintendo eShop is typically the best place to find deals on digital downloads, especially if you prefer the indie variety, but there are some exceptions where retailers will... Continue reading…

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd. The Book of Boba Fett — much like all of Disney’s current and future Star Wars shows — has a Luke Skywalker problem. And it’s one that no amount of expensive CGI technology can solve.Spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett, episode six aheadThe issue goes something like this: Luke is, obviously, a hugely important character to Star Wars as a franchise. Star Wars’ current plan for its future is heavily focused on Disney Plus TV shows set in the post-Return of the Jedi era, like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, set five years after Return of the Jedi, where Luke is roughly 28 years old.Mark Hamill — who is still portraying Skywalker — is 70, meaning that a vast array of de-aging technology and body doubles are needed to allow the... Continue reading…

Master of the multitask Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Money laundering through the buying and selling of NFTs is a small but growing sector of criminal activity, according to a Chainalysis report released Wednesday.The report found a small but growing portion of activity on NFT marketplaces that could be attributed to money laundering, which quantified this amount by tracking value sent to NFT marketplaces from cryptocurrency addresses known to be associated with scams, theft, malware operators, and accounts under legal sanctions. In total the amount tracked was small — around $1.4 million in Q4 2021 — but had grown significantly from the beginning of the year.“All of this activity represents a drop in the bucket compared to the $8.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency-based money... Continue reading…

The refreshed GoTo Meeting app. Yes, there’s officially a space between ‘GoTo’ and ‘Meeting’ now. | Image: GoTo LogMeIn, the company that owns remote collaboration software like GoTo Meeting and password management company LastPass is changing its name to GoTo. The rebranding comes after the company reported over $1 billion in revenue and that “GoTo” product usage is growing — including a 36 percent year-over-year sales increase of its GoTo Connect VoIP, video conferencing, and collaboration platform.With remote working spiking during the pandemic, the GoTo suite of Software as a Service (SaaS) products is a popular choice. In a statement emailed to The Verge, the company claims GoTo Meeting has 300 million participants, along with 50 million for GoTo Webinar and 5 million for GoTo Training. Image: GoTo New company, new... Continue reading…

Google explains how it keeps user-created reviews on Google Maps free of fraud and abuse in a new blog post and accompanying video. Like many platforms dealing with moderation at scale, Google says it uses a mix of automated machine learning systems as well as human operators.The details come amidst growing scrutiny of user reviews on sites like Google Maps and Yelp, where businesses have been hit with bad reviews for implementing COVID-related health and safety measures (including mask and vaccine requirements) often beyond their control. Other reviews have criticized businesses for supposedly leading them to contract COVID-19 or for not keeping to usual business hours during a global pandemic.Earlier today, Yelp reported that it... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony’s surprise acquisition of Bungie earlier this week for $3.6 billion was about a lot more than just Destiny. In an investor call today, Sony has revealed it plans to launch more than 10 new live service games by March 2026. That’s a hugely ambitious plan, and marks a major expansion for Sony’s PlayStation games beyond its traditional console exclusives.“The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise, as well as major new IP Bungie is currently developing, but also incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies Bungie has developed in the live game services space,” says Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki. “Through close collaboration between Bungie and... Continue reading…

The new Starlink Premium dish. | Image: SpaceX SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink is getting a pricey new high-performance tier called Starlink Premium. Announced by SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the new service includes a larger high performance antenna and advertises speeds of between 150 and 500Mbps (20 to 40ms latency), up from the 50 to 250Mbps (20 to 40ms latency) promised by its regular service. Premium also claims roughly double the upload speeds at 20 to 40Mbps, compared to 10 to 20Mbps for the standard tier.This increase in performance doesn’t come cheap. While the base Starlink service costs $499 for the hardware and $99 a month, Starlink Premium will cost $2,500 for the antenna, and $500 a month. Deliveries are due to start in the second quarter of this year.... Continue reading…

Polestar, the electric automaker jointly owned by Volvo and Geely, likes one-offs. There was the more powerful version of its electric fastback Polestar 2 sedan made for the Goodwood Festival of Speed. And now there’s the Arctic Circle, a high-riding, studded winter-tire-sporting, icy blast of winter racing prowess from the company’s Swedish engineers (who know how to design a vehicle for snow riding).The one-off was designed by Polestar chief chassis engineer – and trophy winning rally driver – Joakim Rydholm, who said he took on the challenge in order to improve the accuracy of the Polestar 2’s handling. “With such low levels of grip, we can feel and analyze the dynamics at a much slower pace than on tarmac, which means we can really... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony shipped just 3.9 million PlayStation 5 consoles in its all-important holiday quarter, a slight bump over the previous quarter’s figure of 3.3 million, demonstrating how the electronics giant is still struggling to meet demand during the ongoing global supply chain crunch. 17.3 million units in total have been shipped as of December 31st, nearly three million fewer than the PlayStation 4 had managed at the equivalent point after its release. The PS4, however, was easily found on store shelves during its first year on sale, whereas we don’t yet have a good measure of true demand for the PS5.The gaming division’s revenue was down 8 percent year on year to 813.3 billion yen (~$7.09 billion), but operating profit rose 12.1 percent to... Continue reading…

After seven years in development, Albert Marin and his small team have completed their exhaustive reworking of Resident Evil 4’s graphics on PC. Compared to some other projects where developers upscale or otherwise modernize the visuals for a new generation or platform of hardware, this team pored over every image asset, using funds donated by fans of the project to improve upon Capcom’s PC port of the game.In some cases where old textures just didn’t look all that good at a higher resolution, the team remade many of them from scratch using photos or AI, while striving to remain faithful to the aesthetic of the original game. When I interviewed Albert Marin in early 2021, the team had amassed over 4,500 Photoshop files and had put in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro (modified Corin Faife) / The Verge Okay, so here’s the deal.We’re a month into 2022 and the NFT market is still scorching hot. Already this year we’ve had Coachella NFTs, Lamborghini NFTs, NFT profile pics on Twitter, NFT teasers from YouTube and Meta, and the usual raft of ill-advised NFT projects that were announced and then quickly canceled. The NFT projects keep on rolling.It’s pronounced “neft”As a security reporter, I tweeted that I get DM’d about NFT scams more quickly than I can write about them, a state of affairs that (sadly) looks like it’ll keep rolling too. Apparently this year I’m going to be writing “NFT” a lot, you’re going to be reading “NFT” a lot, and before we all get completely sick of it let’s get something straight:It’s pronounced “neft.”L... Continue reading…

The new fullscreen UI makes it easier to like a video or add it a playlist. YouTube is rolling out a new interface for its mobile app’s full-screen player, which should make it easier to like or dislike a video (privately, of course), view comments, and share what you’re watching. The old version hid most of those features behind a swipe-up gesture on the “more videos” section, where the new version puts them front and center, relegating related videos to a button in the corner.The change only shows up when you’re watching in full screen — the app looks largely the same when you’re watching a video in portrait mode. Doing so, however, used to come with the upside of having easy access to the share button and other controls. Now, you’re getting that when watching in landscape view as well. W... Continue reading…

Image by Microsoft Microsoft Lists is now available as a free preview to users with personal Microsoft accounts — but only for the first 200,000 people who sign up to try it. Lists, which is a sort of task management meets to-do list app, has only been available to business and enterprise users up until now. Image by Microsoft Gallery view in Microsoft Lists. Microsoft says the preview is built off “the core of Microsoft Lists,” and comes with some new features, including tabbed views and the ability to add images in-line. The preview isn’t a feature-complete version of Lists, unfortunately, as Microsoft mentions that it’s missing some functionalities of the standard app (although it’s not clear exactly what). It’s also not... Continue reading…

MetaWorms | Image: Team17 Yesterday, Team17, the developer and publisher of many beloved indie games, announced a “MetaWorms” project tied to its series of Worms games that stretches over 23 years and has sold over 75 million copies. Team17 said the generative NFTs would be “giving fans the chance to own a unique piece of video game memorabilia.” 24 hours later, Team17 now says it “is today announcing an end to the MetaWorms NFT project. We have listened to our Teamsters, development partners, and our games’ communities, and the concerns they’ve expressed, and have therefore taken the decision to step back from the NFT space.”How did things change so much, so quickly? As we’ve seen in the response to the announcement of NFTs for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, Ubisoft’s G... Continue reading…

Netflix has announced that it’s adding two new titles to its small but steadily growing lineup of mobile games — including Riot’s newest League of Legends spinoff. Starting today, users can play Dungeon Dwarves and Hextech Mayhem on Android and iOS devices for free with a Netflix subscription.Dungeon Dwarves, developed by Hyper Hippo, is an idle dungeon crawler that continues to play if the app isn’t active. You control a party of five dwarves who beat down walls and monsters to reclaim their underground home bit by bit. They continue their dungeon dive even if you aren’t actively playing the game, rewarding you with the loot and weapons they found whenever you return.The more notable of the two releases is Hextech Mayhem, a rhythm... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google parent company Alphabet hit a new record for annual revenue in 2021, showing no ill effects from the lingering coronavirus pandemic or ongoing issues with the global supply chain. For full-year 2021, the company saw a 41 percent year-over-year jump in revenue to $257 billion. The company reported revenue of $75.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021, up 32 percent from the year earlier.“Q4 saw ongoing strong growth in our advertising business, which helped millions of businesses thrive and find new customers, a quarterly sales record for our Pixel phones despite supply constraints, and our Cloud business continuing to grow strongly,” Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement accompanying the earnings release.... Continue reading…

Joby even has an accessory that lets you get two-axis movement. | Image: Joby Joby, the company behind the bendy GorillaPod tripods, has come out with two new gadgets aimed at content creators who shoot with their phones but still want to get some professional-looking shots. The $90 Spin and $130 Swing (hardware to mount your phone to them is sold separately, but some creators may already have what they need) are designed to act as small, relatively inexpensive devices that you can use to mimic the movements that a motion-control head or slider can produce without the need for a trained operator or heavy mounting equipment. Oh, and they charge with USB-C, which is always a plus.For those unfamiliar with the video production process, adding motion to your shots can be a bit of a bear to deal with — you have to... Continue reading…

Netflix has finally added the option for users to manually delete shows and movies from their “Continue Watching” row. That means you can finally get rid of the half-finished documentaries that you gave up on or binge-watched TV shows that you never quite got around to finishing that haunt the row of Netflix’s user interface.The new feature is already out on Netflix’s web, mobile, and TV apps. To remove a show or movie, all you have to do is select the offending card in the row and scroll down to the new “Remove from Continue Watching” option to clear it. Clicking a second time will quickly undo the removal, in the event you accidentally remove that octopus documentary that you’ve been really, truly meaning to get around to watching... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Ford will spend as much as $20 billion to reorganize its business for the electric future, according to Bloomberg. The automaker is also mulling whether to spin off some of its EV business as a special acquisition company (SPAC) in order to attract more investment. Ford has previously stated that it would spend $30 billion on electric and autonomous vehicle development by 2025.Ford is reportedly putting former Apple and Tesla executive Doug Field in charge of the reorganization, which will include converting its factories from gas-powered to electric vehicle production and hiring more engineers. (General Motors, which is reporting its fourth-quarter earnings Tuesday evening, recently announced an initiative to hire 8,000 people to help... Continue reading…

Android Auto’s new UI, codenamed “Coolwalk,” seen in leaked image. | Image by u/RegionRat91 via Reddit More images of Android Auto’s next major redesign have been leaked, and it looks like Google has been taking some notes from Apple CarPlay (via XDA Developers). As seen in images from AndroidWorld and Reddit user u/RegionRat91, the redesign, codenamed “Coolwalk,” could come with several practical changes. Image by AndroidWorld The new UI may show the map side-by-side with other panels. For one, the redesign eliminates the status bar, which contains your phone’s battery life, cell reception, and time and instead places it in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Meanwhile, on the left side is a home screen button that appears to open up retractable widgets when long-pressed. Similar to CarPlay, the new UI may... Continue reading…

Wordle is the pandemic game we didn’t know we needed, so there’s understandably some fear that its brand-new owner, The New York Times, might eventually ruin it somehow.But as technologist Aaron Rieke brilliantly explains in a Twitter thread, there’s little chance of that — because Wordle is a webpage, and webpages can be saved. You could download a complete copy of the game right now that contains all the answers, cycles to the proper new puzzle each day, and still comes with the same “Share” button so you can share those all-important little squares with fellow players.

Google’s VPN is available for Premium subscribers. | Image: Google The VPN service that’s included with a Google One Premium subscription is finally available on iPhones after Google’s promise in October 2020 that it would come to iOS. While a Google-run VPN has been available on the platform for months via the Google Fi cell service, today’s update means that anyone who pays for 2TB or more of Google One storage should now also get a VPN for their phone.The VPN is available to people in 18 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, and Mexico. iPhone users may be familiar with the idea of an upgraded storage plan that also comes with a way to keep your IP and internet traffic private — Apple includes its Private Relay service in all of its paid iCloud plans.Google’s VPN doesn’t let Americans watch... Continue reading…

Image: Coachella Coachella is selling lifetime festival passes for the first time — but you have to buy an NFT to get one. The music festival today launched an NFT marketplace built by FTX US, with three collections of NFTs going on sale on February 4th.The company will auction the Coachella Keys Collection, a group of 10 NFTs that allow holders lifetime tickets to the festival. Owners of the token will get passes to Coachella every year, plus “access to Coachella-produced virtual experiences forever.” NFT purchases also include special perks at the 2022 festival like front row access and a celebrity chef dinner.That the festival is dipping into the NFT craze is perhaps unsurprising — in November, Coachella parent company AEG renamed the Staples... Continue reading…

Solar panels sit on the roof of Google headquarters in Mountain View. | Photo by Kimberly White/Corbis via Getty Images Tech companies drove a surge in corporate purchases of clean energy last year, according to a new analysis by BloombergNEF.Overall, corporations bought a record 31.1 GW of clean energy in 2021, equivalent to more than 10 percent of all new renewable energy capacity added worldwide that year. Over half of the power purchase agreements for clean energy made by corporations were signed by tech giants, including Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google.Agreements with utilities or developers to purchase enough clean power to match annual electricity use are one strategy that companies use to claim they are running their operations on 100 percent clean energy. In reality, that clean energy usually isn’t flowing directly into corporate offices... Continue reading…

Street Fighter meets Drag Race, now on Kickstarter Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google search results for domestic violence-related topics now show a box with contact information for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, the tech giant and the hotline announced today.Searching terms like “domestic violence” and “boyfriend hit me” in the United States generates the box, which includes the phone number for the hotline, a direct link to the online chat services, and a direct link to place a call. “This will help survivors, especially those in crisis, get the information and connection to the 24/7 support they need quickly and with less scrolling,” said Crystal Justice, chief external affairs officer at The National Domestic Violence Hotline, in a blog post. This box appears in searches for... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images Cruise, the self-driving company backed by General Motors and Honda, announced a public waitlist for its robotaxi service in San Francisco. It’s a significant step for the company that has previously been beset by delays in its quest to get paying customers into its autonomous ride-hailing vehicles.The rides will be free to start out, as Cruise has yet to be approved to accept paid rides. The company, which has previously only allowed employees to ride in its autonomous vehicles, says it has tested the waters with a few of its first non-employee customers, including GM CEO Mary Barra, as well as a few non-employees.According to Cruise:

Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have reintroduced the EARN IT Act, a bill that would undercut Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.The EARN IT Act is described as an incentive for social media services to crack down on child sexual abuse material (or CSAM) online. While the bill’s text wasn’t immediately released, a summary indicates it’s similar to a proposal that passed the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. That bill limited the typically broad protections that Section 230 grants “interactive computer services” against being sued over user-generated content, adding special conditions for material that runs afoul of CSAM laws.The original EARN IT Act’s sponsors touted endorsements from the... Continue reading…

Photo by Neil Godwin/Future via Getty Images Crisis Text Line has decided to stop sharing conversation data with spun-off AI company Loris.ai after facing scrutiny from data privacy experts. “During these past days, we have listened closely to our community’s concerns,” the 24/7 hotline service writes in a statement on its website. “We hear you. Crisis Text Line has had an open and public relationship with Loris AI. We understand that you don’t want Crisis Text Line to share any data with Loris, even though the data is handled securely, anonymized and scrubbed of personally identifiable information.” Loris.ai will delete any data it has received from Crisis Text Line.Politico recently reported how Crisis Text Line (which is not affiliated with the National Suicide Prevention... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge | Photo by Vivian Zink/NBCUniversal via Getty Images This story originally ran in Hot Pod, The Verge’s preeminent audio industry newsletter. You can subscribe here for more scoops, analysis, and reporting.Spotify didn’t discover Joe Rogan, and Joe Rogan didn’t create Spotify, but their union portends the future of a closed podcasting ecosystem. Up until September 2020, The Joe Rogan Experience was available through RSS feeds, YouTube, and podcast players. His content bubbled up every so often, but broadly, Rogan did his show, and the various distribution platforms let him do so without having to worry and monitor every episode — if it infringed on a policy, it could be removed, and so it went. This is the world in which Rogan stans and haters can find common ground.Rogan could have been... Continue reading…

Hot off the heels of Sony’s Bungie acquisition news, Bungie is in full teaser mode for Destiny 2: The Witch Queen. The latest Destiny 2 expansion launches on February 22nd, and it’s set to include a trio of new exotic weapons. Destiny 2 already has some incredibly unique weapons, but these three look like they will up the ante.First up is the Grand Overture, a slug launcher that charges full auto missiles at enemies. It appears to be similar to what the Scorn enemies use in Destiny 2 and will act like a machine gun with explosive projectiles (think Wardcliff) to wipe out hoards of Hive. Image: Bungie It looks like some type of machine gun. Where things really start to get interesting is the new Parasite... Continue reading…

Screenshot: It Takes Two Hazelight Studios, the indie developer behind the action-adventure game It Takes Two, is working with dj2 Entertainment to adapt the title for film and television, according to a report from Variety. Pat Casey and Josh Miller, the screenwriters behind the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, are set to adapt the game, although no studio or network has been attached to the project yet.“The potential is huge for a great adaption to film or television”“Creating the world and story in It Takes Two was so much fun for me and the team,” Hazelight founder Josef Fares told Variety. “Since it has a strong narrative with many crazy characters and just as crazy co-op action moments, the potential is huge for a great adaption to film or television.”Fares,... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Turning the ‘Great Resignation’ into good business Continue reading…

A24 Though the future of writer / director Kogonada’s After Yang is a lush, calm, near-utopia, human life finds a way to engineer its own tragedy in the movie’s first trailer.Set in a future where it’s become commonplace for people to buy sophisticated androids to take care of their organic children, After Yang tells the story of Jake (Colin Farrell), his wife Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), their adopted daughter Mika (Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja), and Yang, their “son” charged with watching over his younger sister. Despite all of the time that Yang’s spent with the family acting as both a caregiver and a general assistant, when he begins to malfunction, there’s some disagreement as to what they should do, seemingly because Jake and Kyra aren’t... Continue reading…

The Sonos Move can be used indoors via Wi-Fi, or connected to your devices over Bluetooth. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Sonos deals can be hard to come by, but right now, you can save a lot of money if you don’t mind buying products refurbished. Sonos is currently discounting a range of its items, including the latest generation of the Sonos One, which at $149 is $70 cheaper than its $218 retail cost when purchased new. If you want a Sonos speaker that you can use at home or portably as a powerful Bluetooth and Wi-Fi-enabled speaker, check out the Move, which costs $319 through Sonos’ refurb store (usually $399).Other highlights include the first-generation Sonos Beam soundbar. Originally $399, it’s selling for $259 instead. While it lacks the second-gen Beam’s support for Dolby Atmos, it’s still a competent soundbar that is otherwise similar to the... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The Super Bowl LVI matchup is now set, and with the big Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Rams face-off less than two weeks away, TV makers are slashing prices on many of their 2021 models in hopes of clearing out stock. Super Bowl season is often among the best times to land an unbeatable deal on the big-screen TV you’ve been eyeing for months.Whether you’re shopping at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, or elsewhere, you might not see savings quite like this until the holiday season rolls around. And with consumers generally moving towards bigger and bigger screens, we’ve highlighted some 75-inch models below — but there are also deals to be had on smaller sizes.1. LG C1The best OLED to buy right nowIt’s hard to find a better all-around... Continue reading…

Corsair’s MP600 Pro LPX can fit into the PS5, or into PC motherboards that support the M.2 2280-sized form factor. | Corsair Corsair has launched a new line of PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 SSDs made with PS5 compatibility in mind. The MP600 Pro LPX is now available in four capacities: 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and a big 4TB drive. Each of these drives comes with an elegant heatsink pre-installed, making it easy to know that it’ll have thermal protection, whether you put it in a PS5 or your PC.The other key details come down to price and speed, and in both categories, Corsair is aiming to deliver a better value than Samsung does with the slightly slower, slightly pricier 980 Pro that also comes with its own heatsink. You can get Corsair’s 500GB model for $99.99, and the 1TB model isn’t too much more at $169.99. The 2TB SSD is $339.99, and the price gets a little wild with the 4TB... Continue reading…

Image: Bungie And huge virtual worlds on multiple platforms Continue reading…

Photo by Chukrut Budrul/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Tesla is disabling a self-driving feature in nearly 54,000 vehicles that can prompt cars to autonomously perform a “rolling stop” — a maneuver in which the vehicle moves slowly through a stop sign without coming to a full stop.As per a safety recall notice issued by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the consequence of this feature is that “failing to stop at a stop sign can increase the risk of a crash.”The change will be made as an over-the-air software update to Model S, X, 3, and Y vehicles using the beta version of Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” driver-assist feature, release 2020.40.4.10 or newer. (Referring to such software as “self-driving” has become somewhat controversial in the car industry, with... Continue reading…

Images of Sonos’ rumored headphones from a patent application. | Image: German Patent and Trademark Office Sonos has acquired the Bluetooth audio startup T2 Software, Protocol reports, adding fuel to rumors that Sonos is developing its own headphones. T2 had been working on implementations of the new Bluetooth LE Audio standard and LC3 codec, which delivers better audio quality at lower bitrates for improved headphone battery life.A recent LinkedIn post from Sonos VP of global marketing and communications Pete Pedersen suggests that a Sonos headphone launch may be imminent. He said the company was looking for a marketing agency to help it launch “a new category” of product, “targeting a new audience/consumer segment.”A spokesperson for Sonos confirmed the acquisition to Protocol. “Occasionally, we will acquire teams, talent, and/or... Continue reading…

Photo by STR/JIJI PRESS/AFP via Getty Images Yahoo Japan has announced that most of its online services will cease to be accessible in the European Economic Area and the UK as of April 6th. The company’s email, credit card, and ebook services will continue to be available, but everything else is going dark.The given reason is the cost of complying with European regulations, which would include GDPR. In a statement, Yahoo Japan says it would be difficult to provide continuous service for customers in the EEA and UK, and went further in telling Japanese publication IT Media that it would be “impossible” to meet the cost of compliance and respond to the related laws.Yahoo Japan is an entirely separate entity to the American former web giant now owned by the Apollo private equity... Continue reading…

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images After multiple rebrands, congressional hearings, and several high-profile staff departures, the Meta-backed cryptocurrency known as Diem is calling it quits.The association behind Diem confirmed Monday that it sold its assets for around $200 million to Silvergate, a crypto-focused bank it was working with last year to launch a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar. The decision to sell was made after it “became clear from our dialogue with federal regulators that the project could not move ahead,” Diem CEO Stuart Levey said in a press release. (It’s already known that the U.S. Federal Reserve was a key opponent to Diem launching.)The sale of Diem’s assets marks the end of an effort that, in retrospect, was doomed from the start.The... Continue reading…

Sony’s deal for Bungie caps what’s been a huge month for gaming acquisitions. | Photo by STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images Sony just announced its intent to acquire Destiny maker Bungie for $3.6 billion, capping what’s been an absolutely massive month for gaming acquisitions. Take-Two kicked things off with its deal to buy Zynga for $12.7 billion, which at the time may have counted as the biggest deal in the video game industry, but Microsoft significantly one-upped that just a week later with its $68.7 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard. The total value of all three acquisitions, assuming they all go through, is a staggering $85 billion.With Bungie, Sony will house the talent behind the hugely popular Destiny 2, and it seems likely the company will use Bungie’s expertise to help create similarly expansive and long-running live service titles. Sony is... Continue reading…

Hopefully this only works in park | Image: Tesla Tesla last week released its latest distraction product: a set of karaoke microphones dubbed TeslaMic for use in its vehicles (via Electrek) and works with accompanied in-car software. The accessory, which is only available in China for now, was released alongside a Chinese New Year software update that includes a companion karaoke app called Leishi KTV.The TeslaMic was available on the Chinese Tesla online shop for 1,199 CNY ($188.48 USD). We say “was” because it apparently sold out within an hour, and the listing does not currently load anymore. There are accounts of people already scalping the product for more than it’s worth:

Discord is finally rolling out the ability to connect your PlayStation Network account to the chat app, following an announcement last May that it and Sony would “bring the Discord and PlayStation experiences closer together on console and mobile.” Right now, the integration is pretty limited, both in terms of what it can do and seemingly who has access to it, but it’s likely the first step for things to come later. Outside of its partnership with Sony, Discord is also working on an interesting account management feature that we’d love to see make it to everyone.Linking your accounts will let your Discord friends see what game you’re currently playing on your PlayStation, and you have the option of adding your PSN ID to your Discord... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge In some more bad news for Peloton, rival Echelon Fitness has persuaded the US Patent and Trademark Office that two of Peloton’s patents related to streaming and on-demand classes aren’t actually patentable. The decision was made last week by the USPTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board as they were found to be “obvious inventions,” according to Bloomberg Law. While it may not be the biggest blow Peloton has faced in recent months, it does raise questions about the company’s tendency to be heavy-handed with patent lawsuits.To back things up, all this came about after Peloton sued Echelon in 2019 for getting a “free ride” off its technology and thereby flooding the market with cheaper copycat imitators. If you’ve ever considered buying a... Continue reading…