The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.Last week on the show, The Vergecast went through all of the announcements at Apple’s fall hardware event. This week on the show, it’s review time! Nilay and Dieter are joined by Verge managing editor Alex Cranz and senior editor Tom Warren to discuss what they learned from spending time with the iPhone 13 and the iPhone 13 Pro. A bigger battery and a smaller notch: is it worth the upgrade?The second half of the show is dedicated to another fall hardware event — this time from Microsoft. On Wednesday, we saw a few new devices under... Continue reading…

Valve promised it would work with anti-cheat software makers EAC and BattlEye to ensure some of the most popular games will run on its upcoming Steam Deck Linux-based gaming handheld, and one of those companies is now officially on board — Epic Games announced today that its Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) now supports Linux and Mac. Not only that, it’s specifically set up to work with the Proton and Wine compatibility layers that Valve’s relying on to bring Windows games to the Deck.While developers would still need to patch their games, this immediately means some of the most popular games on Steam are now theoretically within reach, including Apex Legends, Dead by Daylight, and War Thunder, which are all among the top 25 games on Steam. Other... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge The new and very good iPhone 13 Pro lineup has a thicker camera bump than previous generations (7.65mm vs. 7.4mm in the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max). It sounds negligible, but it’s enough to cause a few small issues with accessory compatibility. For instance, the iPhone 13 Pro apparently doesn’t fit perfectly onto the MagSafe Duo dual charger because of its size. And based on my colleague Sam Byford’s first-hand experience, it also doesn’t fit all that well when placed inside of the Backbone One, the best iOS controller you can currently buy.The Backbone One has a, for lack of a better word, backbone that connects each side of the controller. The iPhone 13 Pro’s camera bump causes the phone to rest unevenly while nested in the Backbone... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Researchers were caught by surprise after a short video sent a flood of new users to a survey platform Continue reading…

What’s next for Amazon’s family of Alexa-powered devices? A little bit of everything, according to a new report from Bloomberg News, which has a great overview of products the company is reportedly working on.The e-commerce giant has never been afraid of throwing products at the wall to see what sticks, and its plans certainly seem to follow this ideology. Indeed, they even include a new big-screen Echo device that can be mounted on walls. Very appropriate.Here’s what Amazon has in the hopper, according to Bloomberg:

The M1 MacBook Air, our current pick for the best laptop, is on sale for its best price to date. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge There’s no shortage of accolades for the latest MacBook Air with its vaunted M1 CPU. Our review last November simply stated that “the new MacBook Air with Apple’s M1 chip is a triumph.” And right now, both the 256GB and 512GB configurations are available at Amazon and Best Buy for $150 off, their largest discount to date. This version of the MacBook Air marks some of the most profound improvements to Apple’s hardware architecture and specs. Whisper-quiet operation, a faster processor, and extensive battery life make the 2020 Air the perfect travel companion, even for Windows die-hards.This deal must be popular, as most configurations are backordered until mid-October currently. Some are available sooner; make sure to check both... Continue reading…

All of the colors of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Mini. | Apple Apple announced a fleet of new products at its “California Streaming” event. Chief among them — you guessed it — was the iPhone 13. This one is coming in various sizes and colors, but with smaller notches, the new A15 Bionic chipset, and with redesigned and improved cameras located around the back. Going from smallest to largest, Apple will soon release the iPhone 13 Mini, iPhone 13, iPhone 13 Pro, and finally the iPhone 13 Pro Max. With the Pro and Pro Max, you’ll be able to get the first iPhone to ship with 1TB of storage, along with 120Hz refresh rate displays.If you’re looking forward to ordering any of the four iPhone 13 models, the good news is you no longer need to preorder and wait around. If you haven’t already ordered one,... Continue reading…

Jawbone is best known for its fitness trackers, but the recent lawsuits focus on noise-isolation tech used in its earphones. Wearables company Jawbone is long-dead — it went out of business in 2017 — but its patents live on, and someone is using them to sue Apple and Google.As first reported by Bloomberg News, an entity named Jawbone Innovations LLC filed lawsuits against the two tech giants this week in federal court in Waco, Texas. The suits allege that Apple and Google infringed eight patents previously belonging to Jawbone and focused around noise-isolation algorithms originally developed for DARPA.The suit against Apple names the infringing devices as “all versions and variants of Apple iPhone, iPad, AirPods Pro, and HomePod products,” while the suit against Google is similarly broad, naming “all versions and variants of Google smartphones [...] tablets... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’re an Apple Music user and recently bought a new iPhone 13 model, new ninth-generation iPad, or a sixth-generation iPad Mini, there’s an important update to download to avoid an annoying bug. A new Apple support document says a bug affecting those devices restored from a backup can prevent users from accessing the Apple Music catalog, Apple Music settings, or using the services’s Sync Library feature. My colleague Chris Welch reports that he ran into this bug on iOS 15.Thankfully, the fix is very simple, according to Apple. Just head into the “General” section of the “Settings” app, select the “Software Update” option and hit “Install Now,” to get the update. MacRumors notes that its release notes don’t explicitly mention the... Continue reading…

After months of testing, Microsoft is releasing the final version of Windows 11 to its Release Preview channel today. It’s the final step before it’s released more broadly to existing devices on October 5th. If you don’t want to wait until October 5th, you can switch to the Release Preview in Windows 10 today and get the free Windows 11 upgrade early.Here’s how to upgrade to Windows 11 early:

Tab groups can be given a name and an identifying color. | Screenshot: The Verge Microsoft Edge’s new tab grouping feature arrived this month with version 93 of the browser. It was officially detailed alongside a grab bag of new tools for September, which include new shopping and vacation planning options. Tab groups have existed in Edge for a few months as an optional feature you could manually enable in the browser’s settings, but now they’re rolling out to all users.To use the tab grouping feature, hold down Ctrl and left click all the tabs you want to group together, then right click and select “Add tabs to new group.” Tab groups can be given names and distinct colors for easy identification, and minimized to reduce clutter. Image: Microsoft Grouped tabs can be minimized to reduce... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is rolling out a new Xbox dashboard that includes an updated version of the Edge browser. After six months of testing, the Chromium version of Edge is now available to all existing Xbox One and Xbox Series S / X consoles, and the new capabilities allow Xbox owners to stream Google Stadia games, access Discord on the web, and lots more.The Xbox version of Edge looks almost identical to the version available on PC or Mac. It even includes features like vertical tabs and Collections. Like Edge on PC and mobile, the Xbox version also syncs all your settings, favorites, tabs, and web history. The only feature it’s really missing is extensions, and the ability to switch into developer mode to alter User Agent strings or access a... Continue reading…

Apple’s 2021 MacBook Pro with an M1 chip. | Photo by Alexander Kramer for The Verge The latest macOS Monterey beta contains clues about the resolution of Apple’s rumored 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, MacRumors reports. The seventh beta of the upcoming operating system contains references to “3456 x 2234 Retina” and “3024 x 1964 Retina,” which are two resolutions not supported in any of Apple’s current Macs.MacRumors theorizes that the two new resolutions correspond to Apple’s much rumored 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pros, which are widely expected to launch this year with new designs and a new Arm-based Apple processor called the M1X. For reference, the current 16-inch MacBook Pro has a resolution of 3072 x 1920, while the current 13-inch MacBook Pro’s display sits at 2560 x 1600. If the new resolutions are accurate, both... Continue reading…

Image via Jasper Ellens DJI may be about to upend the world of aerial photography yet again — by introducing a drone with drastically improved battery life and two cameras instead of one. DroneDJ and leaker Jasper Ellens are both independently reporting that the Mavic 3 Pro is real, coming this November, and it sounds like it’ll have some significant improvements over the three-year-old Mavic 2 Pro and even the Mavic Air 2S introduced earlier this year.While DJI’s standard-sized drones have typically topped out at just half an hour in the air before requiring a battery swap or recharge, DroneDJ’s source says we’re now looking at up to 46 minutes of flight time. And that’s despite the additional hardware on board: an entire second camera (with its own sensor... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Update 8:55PM ET, September 23rd: Walmart is going to try again at 9PM ET, good luck! If you don’t get through at first, then try again. Walmart usually restocks in waves every ten minutes or so until systems are sold out.Update 12:25PM ET, September 23rd: Walmart’s console restock didn’t get off to a good start. Pages weren’t loading for most people, it seems, and the retailer updated its site with a header saying “Console event to be rescheduled”. We’ll update this post again once we know when the event will happen.Walmart is hosting a big console restock event today, September 23rd, at 12PM ET / 9AM PT. It’s going to have the PS5 consoles, along with the standard Xbox Series X and the limited edition Halo Infinite-themed Series X.... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Verge editors discuss the debut episodes of Apple TV Plus’ new series Continue reading…

In preparation for the busy holiday season, the latest Nintendo Direct was filled with what fans can expect on the Switch in the near future. We already knew about some of the big titles — including new Metroid and Mario Party games — but there were a handful of surprises, including a new Kirby game, an expansion of Switch Online, and a star-studded cast for the Super Mario animated movie. If you missed the event, here’s all the big news.The Super Mario movie has a date — and a castIt’s been a long time since we’ve heard about the Super Mario movie, which is being made in collaboration with Minions studio Illumination, but Nintendo had a lot to say about it. The film will be out on December 21st, 2022, and will feature quite the cast,... Continue reading…

Nintendo Let’s go boys! At long last, there is finally a new Bayonetta 3 trailer. Revealed during a primetime Nintendo Direct showcase, the new Bayonetta 3 trailer puts an end to four years of near radio silence on Platinum Games’ leggy, fashionable, witch.Bayonetta first debuted back in 2009 as a sexy, raunchy beat ‘em up to rival Capcom’s Devil May Cry. In 2012, Platinum Games announced the sequel, Bayonetta 2, would release exclusively on Nintendo’s Wii U.We got an initial glimpse of Bayonetta 3 way back during 2017’s Game Awards. The clip was little more than a 50-second teaser featuring a wounded Bayonetta and a fractured logo. In the years since a dearth of updates sparked rampant speculation about the game’s status. On several... Continue reading…

Chris Pratt is Mario. | Image: Nintendo Nintendo and Illumination’s upcoming Mario movie just got a big update during today’s Nintendo Direct presentation: it’ll hit theaters on December 21st, 2022, with Chris Pratt set to voice Mario.The upcoming film will also feature a ridiculously star-studded cast of voice actors, including Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Seth Rogan as Donkey Kong, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, and Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong. Charles Martinet, who’s voiced Mario in Nintendo’s games for over three decades, will also appear in the film for “surprise cameos.” Also set to appear in the film are Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek and Sebastian Maniscalco as Spike. ... Continue reading…

The upcoming Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis controllers for Switch. | Image: Nintendo Nintendo is adding a new membership tier to Nintendo Switch Online that lets you play Nintendo 64 games and Sega Genesis games. The new tier, called Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack, will be officially released in late October.Nintendo didn’t share pricing, and promised it will share more news ahead of the official launch date. But the company did share the games you’ll be able to play when it launches, which include some of the biggest hits across both of the classic consoles.Here’s the launch lineup of N64 games:

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic may be getting an exciting new remake for the PlayStation 5 and PC sometime in the future, but for fans looking to revisit the original, the classic RPG is making its way to the Nintendo Switch on November 11th, Nintendo announced today.The original Knights of the Old Republic was first released for the Xbox in 2003, but it’s since been ported to a variety of other platforms, including PC, macOS, and even iOS and Android phones. It’s also the latest in a series of classic Star Wars games that have made their way to the Switch in recent years, including Star Wars Episode 1: Racer, Star Wars: Republic Commando, and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy.Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic... Continue reading…

One of the bigger surprises of Nintendo’s latest Direct was a brand-new Kirby game — one that throws the cute pink ball into a post-apocalyptic world.It’s called Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and it looks to be a 3D exploration title about a world that’s been largely abandoned. Nintendo describes is as “a mysterious world full of abandoned structures from a past civilization.” It certainly looks less bright and cheerful compared to his previous adventures, though Kirby still has the ability to absorb other’s powers and wear cute outfits, and is fighting some familiar foes along the way.News of the game actually leaked out a bit earlier in the day. When it debuts, the game will join a growing list of Kirby titles on the Switch including... Continue reading…

Image: Apple The Apple Watch Series 7 has a new 60.5GHz module that works with a secret, corresponding dock, according to FCC filings (via MacRumors). The new wireless data transfer feature is designed to pair with a corresponding dock that Apple will use for currently unknown internal purposes. When the Series 7 watch is placed on that pad, it’ll activate the module — customers won’t actually be able to use it.Now, this is technically nothing new for the Apple Watch, which has included a hidden physical diagnostic port since its inception. Without actually seeing an Apple Watch Series 7 in person (and checking to see if Apple is removing the physical port), it’s hard to say whether this is some new, nascent Apple technology or just a more... Continue reading…

Photograph by Philip Montgomery On Thursday, New York’s city council passed a package of six bills establishing new rights and protections for delivery workers, making it the first major city to address the intense working conditions associated with food delivery. Mayor DeBlasio has previously expressed support for the provisions and is expected to sign them into law without delay.Passage of the bills was first reported by The City, a local non-profit newsroom.A Verge feature earlier this month detailed the intense conditions faced by delivery drivers who serve apps like Grubhub and Uber Eats. Wage theft is common, as is physical assault, and pay can fluctuate wildly. Because of the gig work model, there is little security against on-the-job injuries or earnings... Continue reading…

Image: Clubhouse After the feature was leaked last week, Clubhouse is officially launching a new way to invite people to audio chats called “Wave.” The company announced the news at a surprise town hall on Thursday and is enabling the feature today for all users on iOS and Android.With Wave, you can invite friends to a live audio room just by tapping a waving hand emoji. Once they receive their invitation, they can choose to join your call and immediately get added to an audio room. The company’s blog explains in a bit more detail:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill Wednesday that would block Amazon and other companies from punishing warehouse workers who fail to meet certain performance metrics for taking rest or meal breaks. The California Senate approved the measure earlier this month.The law allows warehouse workers to challenge performance goals that many say discourage them from taking bathroom breaks or other rest breaks throughout the work day. The bill was written in response to high rates of reported injuries at Amazon warehouses where performance quotas are algorithmically enforced.“The bill is the first attempt to create transparency and protections”The law does not explicitly name Amazon in its text, but both Republican and Democratic... Continue reading…

A Google Duo call with the UI in Spanish. | Image: Google Google is expanding Spanish language support for its Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max devices in the US. Perhaps the biggest change is that the entire UI for the Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max has been translated into Spanish. That means things like visual answers to your queries and control panels now appear in Spanish, Google tells The Verge. Image: Google The Nest Hub’s UI in Spanish. Google has added a handful of new commands that might be useful around the house. One lets you add items to a shopping list — Google gives the example command, “Hey Google, agrega huevos a mi lista de compras” (which translates to “Hey Google, add eggs to my shopping list”). Another lets you call friends and family on Google Duo by saying... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Okay, I know this might be partially my fault. When I reviewed Microsoft’s 13.5-inch Surface Book 3 last year, I complained that the design was dated. I complained that my biggest nitpicks about the Surface Book 2 (which I’ve owned for years, by the way) hadn’t been fixed. Microsoft still hadn’t figured out how to do anything new or fun with the detachable, I lamented. “This form factor might be a dead end.”I love the Surface Book and am a staunch defender of the line. I couldn’t see myself using anything else as my primary driver. I hoped — prayed — that my words would result in Microsoft releasing a slimmer, sleeker, better Surface Book 4. I hoped they’d spur Microsoft into pushing the full-sized detachable workstation, a form factor... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft announced a new Surface Duo 2 this week that’s shipping with Android 11, and now the company is committing to release the OS update for original devices this year. “We remain committed to providing updates to Surface Duo, and we’re working to bring Android 11 to existing customers before the end of this year,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge.That’s not a firm release date, but then we’ve never had one for Android 11 on the Surface Duo. Previous reports suggested it would land in the summer, but as we move closer to fall and there was no mention at Microsoft’s Surface event, it’s clearly taking longer than expected. Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge The Surface Duo 2 has larger... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google is adding a new button to Google Calendar events on mobile and the web that will immediately open a chat with meeting attendees. Google launched its rebranded version of Hangouts Chat to customers earlier this year and has slowly added more features to the main Gmail landing page, including its Zoom-like Google Meet video chat.The new Chat button appears next to the attendee list in a Calendar event. Previously, Google only offered the ability to email attendees about a meeting, but since the company has closely integrated Chats and Gmail — seemingly to popularize Chats — this new addition makes sense. You can start a chat before, during, or after the meeting with attendees, and the feature will be toggled on by default. ... Continue reading…

People will be able to mark their NFTs as legitimate on Twitter. | Twitter Twitter is turning on the ability to ask for tips in Bitcoin through its app, making it the first major social network to encourage use of the cryptocurrency as a method of payment. The company also plans to let users connect their crypto wallets and authenticate the ownership of NFTs they tweet with a special badge.Twitter has been testing tipping for a few months now, but the company hasn’t made tips widely available until Thursday, when the feature is rolling out globally on iOS with Android to follow. Besides Bitcoin, Twitter will let users connect nine traditional payment providers, including Venmo and Cash App, to their profiles to accept tips. Twitter isn’t processing the payments itself.The Bitcoin tips are facilitated by... Continue reading…

Photo: Glen Wilson / Netflix The Guilty was always going to be a challenging project. The movie, which is a remake of a Danish film from 2018, follows a 911 dispatcher in Los Angeles, who receives a troubling call that appears to be from a woman who has been abducted. The result is a tense thriller, but one you see almost none of — the entire movie is centered on LAPD officer Joe Baylor, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, as he fields phone calls in an office over the course of a single evening. Because of this, the movie hinges on Gyllenhaal’s performance, as he slowly unravels while the story twists and turns in disturbing ways.But it became even more challenging thanks to pandemic-related restrictions on filming. While the actors were on set, director Antoine Fuqua, who... Continue reading…

I’ve been waiting years for Microsoft to make a gaming laptop, and the new Surface Laptop Studio still misses the mark. Whether it would be an Xbox laptop or a Surface one, Microsoft has never really come close to building something truly designed for gaming on the go. The Surface Book, Surface Pro, and Surface Laptop all serve different creator types, but none really cater to gamers.It feels like a missed opportunity, particularly when Microsoft calls Windows 11 “the best Windows ever for gaming,” and the market for gaming laptops has become increasingly lucrative in recent years. Barely a month goes by without a thin and cool gaming laptop being announced, and the line separating laptops from gaming laptops is increasingly blurring... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix Streaming’s reigning king announced one of its biggest IP acquisitions to date this week with its purchase of the rights to Roald Dahl’s catalog of work. The deal, following regulatory approval, will give Netflix access to a universe of beloved children’s stories to mine and position the company to better compete with kid-friendly competitors like Disney Plus.The acquisition of the trove of intellectual property follows a previous partnership between Netflix and the Roald Dahl Story Company announced in 2018 to adapt some of the late author’s iconic titles. With access to the full library of Dahl stories — which include children’s classics like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, and Matilda, among... Continue reading…

When you first install Windows 11, you will probably see a new icon on your Taskbar — or, at least, it will be new if you haven’t been using Microsoft’s Teams collaboration app lately. If you float your cursor across the icon, which looks like a camera inside of a cartoon speech balloon, it will say “Chat.” Click on it, and you’ll be invited to “Meet and chat with friends and family” using Microsoft Teams.If you’re already using Teams, or you’re okay with switching to it, you’re fine. After that, when you click on the Chat icon, you’ll be able to chat with friends, family, and colleagues using a pop-up box.So what if you’re not interested in using Microsoft Teams?There are several things you can do if you find the push to Teams... Continue reading…

Motional, the autonomous vehicle company that is a joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, is growing its presence in Las Vegas as it gears up to launch a commercial robotaxi service in 2023.The company is tripling the size of its closed-course testing facility, doubling its operations center, and hiring over 100 new employees. The larger testing facility will allow for “four times” the volume of testing, including new “high-stress situations,” such as high speeds, complex urban maneuvers, different lighting conditions, and light to heavy rain — all of which have been known to flummox autonomous vehicles.The vehicle that will be put through this new, rigorous battery of tests will be the Hyundai Ioniq 5The vehicle that will be put... Continue reading…

Photo by Stephen J. Cohen/Getty Images This week marks the release of Sable, a beautiful indie title that looks like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild mixed with a comic from Jean “Moebius” Giraud. It’s not just the game’s art that’s striking, though; the whole experience is accompanied by an excellent original soundtrack composed by Michelle Zauner, the frontwoman for the indie rock band Japanese Breakfast.Ahead of Sable’s launch on Thursday and the release of the official soundtrack on Friday, I got the opportunity to talk to Zauner about composing the music for the game. It has a completely different sound than what you might be used to from her other work, so I wanted to know what it was like to make the music and where she got her inspiration. There was a lot to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge How the company found itself in its biggest crisis since Cambridge Analytica Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The way that Facebook controls its News Feed is often controversial and largely opaque to the outside world.Now the social network is attempting to shine more light on the content it surpresses but doesn't remove entirely. On Thursday, Facebook published its “Content Distribution Guidelines” detailing the roughly three-dozen types of posts it demotes for various reasons in the News Feed, like clickbait and posts by repeat policy offenders. That process, which relies heavily on machine learning technology to automatically detect problematic content, effectively throttles the reach of offending posts and comments without the author knowing.There’s still plenty that the guidelines, which Facebook has mostly confirmed in various reports... Continue reading…

Getty She pricked his finger, and he fell under her spell Continue reading…

Amazon’s Go convenience stores are cashier-less. | Image: Amazon Amazon’s rumored department store experiment could take a similarly high-tech approach to selling clothes as the company took with groceries, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal. Amazon was previously reported to be considering opening department stores in California and Ohio, a natural expansion of the company’s push into physical retail, and those department stores will reportedly feature its own clothing brands too.Like Amazon’s cashier-less Go stores, The Journal seems to suggest Amazon-branded department stores will focus on customer convenience, using several possible tech solutions. In one idea, customers “scan QR codes of items they want to try on by using a smartphone app,” before sales associates gather and... Continue reading…

Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The Food and Drug Administration cleared a third dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people some vulnerable groups — the first booster in the United States’ vaccination efforts.The agency signed off on boosters for people 65 years of age and older, those who are at high risk of severe disease, health care workers, and other people at high risk of exposure to COVID-19 at work.The decision comes a month after the Biden administration announced that booster shots would be available to people in the US starting in September. At the time, scientists and public health experts criticized the administration for pushing boosters before there was clear evidence that they were necessary and before either the FDA or CDC signed off... Continue reading…

None of these tablets come with keyboards or stylii. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is listening. The Surface Duo 2 ditches its predecessor’s last-gen specs, the Surface Laptop Studio does away with the Surface Book’s gimmicky detachable screen, and the Surface Pro 8 might be the one we’ve been waiting for, with an enhanced keyboard, stylus, high-refresh rate screen and Thunderbolt ports (finally!). But there’s one place where Microsoft is stubbornly carrying on: making you pay substantially more than the quoted sticker price to use these computers as advertised — because none of them include a stylus or keyboard.While Microsoft touted the $1,099-and-up Surface Pro 8 as “a powerful laptop with the flexibility of a tablet,” it’s not a laptop at all when you take it out of the box. It’s a touchscreen tablet,... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Twitter is planning to make some changes that could prevent tweets from disappearing while you are reading them, the company said on its support account Wednesday.Here’s what you might have run into. If you were looking at a tweet on your timeline, and at the same time someone else you follow replied to it, or the original tweeter threaded it, the app would suddenly refresh, while the tweet disappeared from view. That’s obviously not ideal, so Twitter plans to make changes over the next two months to fix the problem.

The Nokia G50 has a triple rear camera system. | Image: Nokia Nokia has a new midrange phone coming to the US and a number of global markets. The new G50 costs $299 and has all the ingredients to be competitive as a midrange phone, with a 6.82-inch HD+ display, big battery, audio jack and 18W fast charger.This G-series phone is similar to the Nokia X20 that was announced back in April 2021, but the G50 has a bigger screen and battery and comes in a version specifically designed for the North American market (AT&T and T-Mobile). Unsurprisingly, it supports the slower 5G Sub 6, which means this phone will work on T-Mobile’s 5G network, but not on Verizon’s mmWave network, and will only get 4G reception on AT&T.Like other 5G phones in the $300 range, the Nokia G50 is powered by the modest Snapdragon... Continue reading…

Incoming CTO Andrew Bosworth wearing Facebook’s new smart glasses with Ray-Ban. | Photo: Facebook / Andrew Bosworth Facebook is serious about being a long-term player in hardware. On Wednesday, the company promoted Andrew Bosworth, the current head of its hardware division that makes Oculus and other consumer devices, to the role of chief technology officer, replacing outgoing CTO Mike Schroepfer when he becomes a senior fellow next year.In his new role, Bosworth, who goes by Boz, will continue to lead the hardware group, called Facebook Reality Labs, while also assuming responsibility for Facebook’s broader software engineering organization and artificial intelligence efforts. He’ll report directly to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has taken a keen interest in developing AR glasses and the metaverse.Facebook is still a relative newcomer to selling... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As part of this week’s launch of iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8, Apple also introduced StoreKit 2, a set of APIs for in-app purchases and subscriptions. The new Swift-based tools could help developers better track and support the purchases their users make instead of relying on third-party solutions like RevenueCat.The kit introduces new APIs to “determine product entitlements and eligibility for offers, quickly get a user’s history of in-app purchases, find out the latest status of a subscription with one simple check,” and most importantly, offer a way for users to manage subscriptions and request refunds in-app. Apple is also updating the App Store server API and App Store server notifications so developers can know when a user’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Health apps have to tell their users about any data breaches or risk a hefty fine, the Federal Trade Commission clarified in a policy statement last week. The rule that requires that transparency is a decade old, but it hasn’t been enforced before. The new guidance serves as a warning to the many companies elbowing into the health app space: the FTC is taking issues around health data privacy seriously — even if it won’t be able to tackle all the privacy gaps on its own.The FTC’s Health Breach Notification Rule covers all organizations that aren’t subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which covers things like doctors and insurance companies. HIPAA requires those groups to disclose any time they have... Continue reading…