The Verge

Images: Mercedes-Benz Just months after Mercedes-Benz launched its first true compact electric SUV, the EQA, the German automaker now has a slightly larger and more capable companion: the EQB. Revealed in full today at the 2021 IAA Mobility show in Germany, the company will start building the EQA in Hungary and China this month, and it will start selling the SUV in the US in 2022.Mercedes-Benz trotted out the EQB alongside a few other new electric vehicles that it’s adding to its stable. There’s the EQE sedan, which is a more attainable version of its flagship executive electric, the EQS. Mercedes-Benz also rolled out AMG and Maybach versions of the EQS. There’s even now going to be an electric version of the G-Wagen — though that’s not coming for a while,... Continue reading…

Daimler AG Mercedes-Benz said recently that it was going all-electric by 2030, which naturally got race fans excited about the possibilities of an electric high-performance car from the automaker’s AMG sub-brand. Today, we’re getting our first look at the upcoming AMG EQS, a wickedly fast sport sedan with a 0-60 mph time of 3.4 seconds and a top speed of 155 mph. It made its public debut at the 2021 IAA Mobility show in Germany.The AMG EQS is the first battery-electric production car from the automaker’s in-house performance subsidiary. As such, there’s a lot riding on Mercedes getting everything exactly right if it wants to satisfy its loyal customers while also luring new ones away from Tesla.first battery-electric production car from the... Continue reading…

A patent filing from Dyson showing a robot that can climb and clean stairs | UK Intellectual Property Office Premium vacuum company Dyson has patented designs for robots that look like they could climb and clean stairs, and open drawers, new filings show. It’s not clear whether the designs are for forthcoming products or ideas that are on hold, but Bloomberg reports that Dyson’s robotic unit has been working on a robot to interact with other home appliances. Whether it’s the robot hand or the stair-climbing robot, or another product entirely also isn’t clear at this point.The patents published in the UK on September 1st show the two designs; a “robotic device with tri-star wheels and actuated arm” that would be able to climb steps and clean them (a stair-climbing vacuum sounds like an excellent idea), and a “robot hand” which is shown in... Continue reading…

Scan a QR code on a compatible product to add to Home Depot’s Hubspace | Home Depot Home Depot has launched a smart home app meant to be an all-in-one for smart appliances and accessories the big box store sells, but it’s debatable why anyone would need it when Google Home and Amazon’s Alexa already exist.Called Hubspace, the free app is available in Android and iOS app stores, and “enables light bulbs, smart plugs and ceiling fans to be controlled from anywhere,” according to a press release from Home Depot. It’s compatible with Google Home and Amazon Alexa devices, and works with a short list of products that Home Depot sells, from its proprietary brands such as Hampton Bay and EcoSmart. “There’s no need for a hub or extra equipment, and the platform already works with more than 20 products,” the press release... Continue reading…

Facebook is apologizing for applying a “primates” label to a video of Black men | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is apologizing for an incident where its AI mislabeled a video of Black men with a “primates” label, calling it an “unacceptable error” that it was examining to prevent it from happening again. As reported by the New York Times, users who watched a June 27th video posted by the UK tabloid Daily Mail received an auto-prompt asking whether they wanted to “keep seeing videos about Primates.”Facebook disabled the entire topic recommendation feature as soon as it realized what was happening, a spokesperson said in an email to The Verge on Saturday.“This was clearly an unacceptable error,” the spokesperson said. The company is investigating the cause to prevent the behavior from happening again, the spokesperson added. “As we have... Continue reading…

PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, more commonly known as PUBG (or Game for Peace in China) is already one of the most successful and influential games ever made just four years after release. Its director Brendan Greene, a former DJ and web designer from Ireland, is credited with launching the entire battle royale genre, directly inspiring what you now know as Fortnite, CoD: Warzone, Apex Legends and more.But this past week, he announced that he’d left the Korean company whose work on his battle royale vision propelled him to fame to build a studio all his own — and late Thursday, he revealed what to expect from his next project.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Lyft and Uber are committing to pay legal fees for any driver on their respective platforms who get sued under Texas’ controversial anti-abortion law.The new law, which was signed this week by Texas governor Greg Abbott, bans abortions of fetuses after six weeks (which is before many women even know they are pregnant) and offers no exceptions for rape or incest. The law also empowers private citizens across the country to sue anyone for “aiding and abetting” abortions past the six-week mark, including clinics, anyone who pays for the abortion, or even people who drive someone to the procedure.the law allows people to sue those “aiding and abetting” abortions past six weeks“This is an attack on women’s access to healthcare and on... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Nintendo may be finally ready to bring its storied handheld gaming library to the Nintendo Switch — Game Boy and Game Boy Color titles will soon join the 100-plus NES and SNES games that it offers via its Switch Online subscription service, according to rumors from the “Nate the Hate” podcast, corroborated by Nintendo Life on Tuesday and now again on Friday by Eurogamer. It’s not every day we see a Nintendo rumor that strong.There’s no word on which titles might arrive, and I wouldn’t necessarily expect your favorites to be among them, particularly to start. Nintendo has curated its NES and SNES libraries for Switch very slowly, some of them are pretty deep cuts, and many titles like Earthbound, Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG are... Continue reading…

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge Should an artificially intelligent machine be able to patent its own inventions? For a US federal judge, the larger implications of that question were irrelevant. In April 2020, the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) ruled that only “natural persons” could be credited as the inventor of a patent, and a US court decided Thursday that yes, that’s what the law technically says (via Bloomberg).Not every country agrees with that direction. South Africa and Australia decided to go the other direction, granting one patent and reinstating a second patent application filed by AI researcher Steven Thaler, whose AI system DABUS reportedly came up with a flashing light and a new type of food container. Thaler is the one who sued the US in this... Continue reading…

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge A new peer-reviewed study from researchers at New York University and the Université Grenoble Alpes in France will show that misinformation got six times as much engagement on Facebook as real news, The Washington Post reports.The study looked at posts from the Facebook pages of more than 2,500 news publishers between August 2020 and January 2021. Researchers found that the pages that post more misinformation regularly got more likes, shares, and comments. This increased engagement was seen across the political spectrum, but the study found that “publishers on the right have a much higher propensity to share misleading information than publishers in other political categories,” according to The Washington Post.The researchers will... Continue reading…

Images: BMW Motorrad BMW’s Motorrad division has been pumping out some wild concepts over the last few years as the larger company turns its attention towards electric vehicles. It’s latest is also the to date, but still looks extremely cool: the CE 02 mini-bike.Debuted this week ahead of the IAA Mobility conference in Germany, the CE 02 is a tiny two-wheeler that borrows some of the futuristic vibes BMW has been honing for its larger concept bikes — including the CE 04, which is actually going into production. Clad in silver and black and “technoid typography,” the minimalist design looks like it came right off the set of a sci-fi movie.The CE 02 has an 11kW belt-drive motor, which can help the bike reach a top speed of around 90 kilometers per hour... Continue reading…

A rogue Commerce Dept. unit will be shut down, the agency said | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US Commerce Department said Friday that it will eliminate an internal security division after an investigation found it had overstepped its authority when it launched criminal investigations into Commerce employees and US citizens. The Investigations and Threat Management Service division had no “adequate legal authority” to conduct criminal investigations, according to an internal investigation by the Commerce Department’s Office of General Counsel.The investigators recommended that the ITMS unit be eliminated within 90 days, and that its security duties be folded into other Commerce divisions. The Commerce Department said in a statement it would accept the report’s recommendations.“Our most important priority is creating an... Continue reading…

The LTE-ready Apple Watch Series 6 is available at Amazon for its lowest price to date. | Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Apple Watch Series 7 may arrive as soon as this month, but if you’re looking for a sizable discount on what is currently the latest model, you’ll love today’s deal. The red 40mm, cellular Apple Watch Series 6 is filled with slick features and is on sale at Amazon today for $359 instead of $499, an all-time low for this particular model.Apple’s newest wearable boasts built-in sleep tracking and an always-on display, as well as sensors that can quickly measure blood oxygen levels. There is also an abundance of third-party apps designed to attract a variety of activities — even biking. The Series 6 is powered by Apple’s new in-house A13 chip and S6 processor; it also charges faster than other models — gaining a full charge takes about... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Labor Day in the US is a great opportunity to get deals on many types of tech products. Of course, we’re covering all of the best discounts across categories in our detailed guide to the best Labor Day sales, but we’ve made this post just to focus on the many 4K TV deals happening this weekend. There are deals on value-focused models that make it easy to get started right away with streaming TV and movie content, as well as TVs that have high-end features and a higher cost.The best Labor Day deals on affordable 4K TVsTCL is usually known for TVs that come with Roku TV hardware built-in, but has started more recently to put out models that run on Android TV. Not to be confused with the even newer Google TV-equipped models that have a... Continue reading…

Image: Adult Swim A brief new promo for Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty features Christopher Lloyd playing the titular Rick Sanchez, scratching an itch that has persisted for many fans since the show’s genesis as a Back to the Future spoof.In the 14-second clip, we see Lloyd hop out of a portal and into his garage alongside Jaeden Martell (Knives Out, It), playing a pretty convincing Morty. Lloyd then does his best riff on Han Solo’s famous line from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, with a signature Rick Sanchez belch added for good measure: “Morty, we’re home.”

Image by Karl Poyzer How a director of photography learned to create without physical limits Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge WhatsApp has added the ability for users to migrate their chat history when switching from iOS to Samsung Android devices, the company said in a blog post. Samsung announced the feature was coming during its August Unpacked event, and addresses one of the more frustrating features — or lack of— of WhatsApp on mobile devices. Previously, if users selected WhatsApp’s cloud backup feature, then iOS chat histories were stored in iCloud, while Android’s histories backed up to Google Drive, making it almost impossible to transfer chats between phones that weren’t running the same operating system. Image: WhatsApp There are a few caveats WhatsApp outlines in its blog post:

Damage in the city of Pointe-Aux-Chenes, near montegut, Louisiana on August 30, 2021 after Hurricane Ida made landfall. | Photo by MARK FELIX/AFP via Getty Images The forecast for the future is a deluge of disasters Continue reading…

Small launch company Firefly’s Alpha rocket exploded mid-flight Thursday night, minutes after a clean liftoff during its first attempt to reach space. The rocket was terminated, Space Force officials said, as it began tipping sideways off course just after reaching supersonic speeds. Firefly said it’s working with regulators to investigate the cause of the failure.Alpha, a two-stage rocket standing ten stories tall, lifted off from the Vandenberg Space Force base in California at 9:59PM ET on Thursday, aiming to send a payload of tiny private satellites to space at no charge to the owners. The launch was risky — it was Firefly’s first ever mission, so a failure wasn’t a big surprise. Two and a half minutes after liftoff, the rocket fell... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where we discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.This week on The Vergecast, Verge executive editor Dieter Bohn chats with managing editor Alex Cranz, and news editor Chaim Gartenberg to explain the changing Apple App Store policies for iPhone app developers.Among the changes: Apple will now let developers of “reader” apps directly link their customers to their own sign-up website, where they could potentially bypass the 30 percent cut from Apple. The crew discuss what this and the other proposed changes means for Apple’s relationship with users and app developers.Second half of the show, the topic moves to... Continue reading…

Ever since Fortnite’s current season debuted in June, there has been the promise of a massive conflict with a group of aliens. Now developer Epic is finally teasing that big event in the form of “Operation: Sky Fire.” The live event will be taking place on September 12th at 4PM ET, and Epic says that players will “join a strike team and sneak aboard the Mothership to deliver IO’s final message to the invading aliens.” It will also be a one-time only thing: if you miss it, you’ll have to catch up on YouTube. As always, Epic is recommending players log in early to get a spot.The kinds of live events have long been a highlight of the Fortnite experience, dating back to the original rocket launch in 2018. Since then players have witnessed e... Continue reading…

Apple delays controversial child protection features | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple is delaying its child protection features announced last month, including a controversial feature that would scan users’ photos for child sexual abuse material (CSAM), following intense criticism that the changes could diminish user privacy. The changes had been scheduled to roll out later this year.“Last month we announced plans for features intended to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material,” Apple said in a statement to The Verge. “Based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers and others, we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge One of the new features in Android 12 is the ability to automatically fit your phone’s color palette to that of your wallpaper. If you’ve been able to upgrade to Android 12, you may want to give it a try, especially if you’re into styling and colors.I tried it out on a Pixel 3 using Android 12 beta, and the results were interesting. When I used the sample wallpapers supplied by Google and enabled the “themed icons” feature (which is supposed to let your icons match the style of your wallpaper), I was treated to a new background color which appeared on the search field at the bottom of the screen, the Quick Tiles (the buttons you get when you swipe down from the top), and other elements.I was not all that impressed by the “themed... Continue reading…

Courtesy of Marvel Studios Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is an important film for Marvel for lots of reasons. It’s the studio’s first return to theatrical exclusive release after over a year and a half of delays due to COVID-19 (which included shifting Black Widow to Disney Plus as well as theaters). It’s the studio’s first film with an Asian lead, a long-awaited milestone that took over a decade for the company to actually accomplish. And it marks the “real” start of its Phase 4 films, advancing the future of the MCU with fresh stories post-Endgame.But Shang-Chi — and its less-than-ideal release timing, coming as theaters are seeing smaller turnouts as the delta variant continues to spike in the US — also highlights the MCU’s biggest problem: its... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Like hire more than 500 people to police an entire platform Continue reading…

Like Philips Hue, the new Philips Smart LED bulbs support millions of colors. | Image: Signify Signify, owner of the Philips Hue brand, today announced the global launch of its Philips Smart LED bulbs. The new lineup originates from Signify’s 2019 acquisition of Wiz, and carries the “Wiz Connected” logo on its blue packaging to differentiate it from Hue products. A similar collection of bulbs launched in the US at Home Depot stores at this time last year, only under a slightly tweaked “Philips WiFi LED” name.Signify assured The Verge during a press briefing that they’ve tested the multitude of Philips smart LED brands with consumers and they weren’t confused. That’s good, because Zigbee-based Philips Hue smart LED bulbs and Wi-Fi-based Philips Smart LED bulbs are not compatible. Image: Signify Some of the... Continue reading…

Noiseminded In 1982, Giallo master Dario Argento directed a slasher film called Tenebrae, or “darkness.” Tenebrae unfolds like many other Italian horror movies of the period, but in the years after, Argento told interviewers that it actually took place in a near-future where the human race has been depopulated by an unspoken tragedy. It’s a weird and arguably irrelevant addition to the film’s concrete plot — but one that recasts it as part of something bigger and stranger.I remembered this bit of trivia after finishing Nightslink, an enigmatic little game that was released in late August. Nightslink is about the nocturnal life of an anonymous man referred to as a “nightslink,” which might be a job title, a social role, or an epithet. The... Continue reading…

Image: @supergremplin Vine creator Dom Hofmann’s new project, explained Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s rumored AR/VR headset is designed to rely on another device, and may have to offload more processor-heavy tasks to a connected iPhone or Mac, according to a report from The Information. Apple is reportedly working on a custom chip for the headset, an SoC that’s intentionally missing capabilities found in Apple’s other processors.While the new chip reportedly doesn’t have Apple’s neural engine, which handles AI and machine learning, it’s reportedly designed to be better at wirelessly sending and receiving data, and compressing/decompressing video than traditional chips, which makes sense if the headset is designed to stream data from another device rather than doing the heavy processing itself.A stripped-down SoC for augmented... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Roblox is taking its first steps to introduce voice chat by opening up a feature it’s calling “Spatial Voice” to select developers in an invitation-only beta, the company announced Thursday.“With Spatial Voice, Roblox creators will begin to test developing experiences where conversations can happen in a realistic way, mirroring how we listen and respond to the world around us each day,” Roblox’s chief product officer Manuel Bronstein said in a blog post. Based on this limited description, it sounds like Spatial Voice will attempt to reflect the way voices carry in the real world and require you to be close proximity to another player to speak to them.Adding voice chat raises concerns about moderationAdding voice chat of any kind into... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is set to release Amazon-branded TVs as soon as October in the US, according to Insider. The TVs will have Alexa, screen sizes “in the range of 55 to 75 inches,” and will be designed and manufactured by third parties such as TCL, Insider reports. The company is also developing a TV designed in-house, Insider says, but it’s unclear when that might be released.Amazon already has many irons in the fire with TVs — it partners with Best Buy to sell Toshiba and Insignia TVs that run Amazon’s Fire TV software, offers an AmazonBasics-branded TV in India, and has the Amazon Fire TV Stick and Amazon Fire TV Cube, which you can hook up to your TV. But this rumored new Amazon-branded TV could indicate that the company is stepping up its... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro The launch of Super Follows marked the beginning of the end for truly free content on Twitter, and the start of whatever Patreon-infused future lays ahead for the microblogging app. Supporting creators directly with monthly payments isn’t a bad thing, but as app researcher Jane Manchun Wong spotted on Thursday, the way they currently work on iOS is a little weird — each Super Follow subscription is an individual App Store in-app purchase (via MacRumors).You can see for yourself by pulling up the App Store on an Apple device or the web. Twitter currently only lists 10 in-app subscriptions of various prices, each associated with Super Following an individual creator. Wong speculates only 10 are shown because the App Store isn’t designed... Continue reading…

Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is grounded until the Federal Aviation Administration completes and signs off on an investigation into the company’s high-profile test flight carrying Richard Branson, the agency said Thursday. During that July flight, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo veered out of its approved airspace on its descent toward land, the FAA said.The company “may not return the SpaceShipTwo vehicle to flight until the FAA approves the final mishap investigation report or determines the issues related to the mishap do not affect public safety,” an FAA spokesperson said on Thursday. SpaceShipTwo, a winged suborbital space tourism plane that launches to the edge of space from a carrier aircraft, landed its crew of Branson and... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman shared more details Thursday about what to expect from the rumored bigger screens coming to the next Apple Watch.Gurman has previously reported that the next watch, which he says will be called the Apple Watch Series 7, will be offered in 41mm and 45mm screen sizes. In his new article, he reiterated those sizes and added that the larger model’s screen will measure 1.9 inches diagonally, up from 1.78 inches on the bigger Series 6, and offer about 16 percent more pixels with a resolution of 396 x 484, up from 368 x 448. Both Series 7 watches will also have thinner borders around their screens, Gurman says.Apple is working on new watchfacesApple is also working on new watchfaces. One, called Modular Max, will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is planning to expand its in-house moderation team for Amazon Web Services, according to a new report from Reuters. Citing two sources, the report says Amazon is planning to develop a proactive threat monitoring capability within AWS, which will seek out prohibited content on AWS servers and remove it before it’s reported by users.Reached for comment, Amazon did not confirm or deny the accuracy of the report, but said it does not plan to pre-review content before it is posted on the platform. “As AWS continues to expand, this team (like most teams in AWS) will continue to grow,” a representative said in a statement.“Companies need to proactively monitor what’s on their platforms”The company has long maintained an Acceptable Use... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Streamers took a day off Twitch on September 1st to bring attention to the persistent hate raids that have plagued the platform in the past weeks. While skeptics panned the idea, suggesting that the walkout participants weren’t influential enough to effect significant traffic changes, according to data compiled by Gamesight, a gaming analytics company, Twitch did see a drop in viewership. Gamesight.io In this graph shared with The Verge, Gamesight measured the number of active channels (meaning the number of live channels) and hours watched every day for the last nine days at noon Pacific Time. According to Gamesight’s data, the number of active channels and viewer hours at 12PM PT on September 1st was at its... Continue reading…

I want to preface this post by saying I will never pretend to understand why corporations do some of the things they do. I was simply minding my own business, looking for information on BMW’s new concept scooter on the German automaker’s press site, when... well, here, look:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has announced that it has 50 million users subscribed to or trying YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, which is a marked increase from the 30 million subscribers it reported in December 2020. This seems to mark a continued trend in people looking to make the jump from the free versions of YouTube and YouTube Music, even as more services are competing in the space.Google doesn’t break down that 50 million number any further, so we don’t really know how many people are subscribed to YouTube Music or Premium and how many are using the services’ free one-month trial. However, its blog post spends a lot of time talking about music, hailing YouTube as the fastest-growing music-subscription service. Variety also compared Google’s numbers... Continue reading…

It hasn’t even been two months since Amazon CEO Andy Jassy took the reins from founder Jeff Bezos, but the company’s new chief executive is already facing a potential scandal. Two anonymous sources have accused Jassy of stepping in to overrule the company’s own HR department when it recommended that an executive be fired for discrimination — and Amazon didn’t initially deny it, reports Protocol. Amazon is now suggesting to The Verge that it’s not true, a day after we first published this post.The story goes that in 2019, a Black female Amazon employee accused AWS Outposts general manager Joshua Burgin of discrimination, and HR issued a report recommending he be fired. But Jassy fielded a personal request from Burgin’s boss, Charlie... Continue reading…

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images General Motors, parent company of Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick, said it was temporarily halting production at six of its North American factories as a result of the global chip shortage. It’s the latest major automaker to be affected by the tight supply of essential computer chips.Four of GM’s US-based plants will be affected: Fort Wayne, Indiana; Wentzville, Missouri; Spring Hill, Tennessee; and Lansing, Michigan. Four other factories in Mexico and Canada will also go dark for several weeks as GM works to shore up its supply of chips. The halt in production will affect GM’s most profitable vehicles, including pickup trucks and SUVs.“The situation remains complex and very fluid”“During the downtime, we will repair and ship... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple will start asking for permission to enable Personalized Ads in iOS 15, the company’s method of serving relevant ads in the App Store and Apple News by analyzing what you read, purchase, and search for on your device (via 9to5Mac). The company used to collect that information by default, but now it plans to ask for permission. Apple required other developers to seek users’ permission with the debut of App Tracking Transparency, so it seems like it’s showing that it will hold itself to a similar standard.The Personalized Ads pop-up should show up when you open the App Store if you’re running the most recent iOS 15 beta. In the pop-up, Apple writes that the ads will help you discover relevant apps, products, and services while... Continue reading…

Image: Audi Automakers love concept cars that tease a future in which very rich people ride around in autonomous vehicles that look like luxurious living spaces. The latest is Audi’s Grandsphere, a spacious electric sedan with an interior that looks like it was designed by a Kardashian.The car is designed to be adjustable based on the preferred driving style. If you want the car to drive itself, the steering wheel and pedals retract, leaving you sitting in a minimally designed living room setting with wood trim and wool textures. Instead of a screen, the car’s operating system is projected on the surface of the wood dashboard under the windshield. And when you’re ready to drive yourself, the manual controls simply appear.Grandsphere is Audi’s... Continue reading…

Jan Thijs The first trailer for The Wheel of Time TV series has arrived, giving an early look at Amazon’s upcoming adaptation of Robert Jordan’s epic 14-book fantasy series ahead of its November 19th release date on Amazon Prime Video.The trailer sets the stage for the series, establishing some of the basic tenets of Jordan’s world, with a specific focus on Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), a member of a group of female magic wielders known as the Aes Sedai, who are capable of wielding the One Power to accomplish feats like controlling the elements and healing others.The trailer also shows off a first look at The Wheel of Time’s younger cast: Madeleine Madden as Egwene al’Vere, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon,... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Twitter is planning new features to give people more privacy options, according to Bloomberg. The social network’s plans reportedly include the option to archive old tweets so they’re not visible to other users after a given period of time (like 30, 60, or 90 days or a full year). They also include possible options to limit who can see which tweets you’ve liked, to let people remove themselves from a conversation on Twitter, and to let people remove followers without outright blocking them.Bloomberg describes the new features as a suite of “social privacy” changes that are aimed at making people more comfortable engaging on Twitter. Internal research at Twitter apparently found that many users don’t even understand whether their... Continue reading…

You want me to believe this is flesh and blood? Absolutely not, but they did a great job with the fabric effects. | Image: Apple Update, September 2nd, 12:03PM ET: The “actor” Brett Goldstein has addressed the conspiracy theory that Ted Lasso’s Roy Kent is a CGI creation head-on by publishing a statement on Instagram. In it, Goldstein notes (quite accurately) that “there’s a fucking load of mad shit happening on the internet today, as usual” before reassuring viewers that he is “a completely real normal human man” who does “normal human basic things like rendering and buffering and transferring data.” Glad to have that sorted out. (The original story follows below.)

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Samsung has announced new sizes for some of its best TVs, giving more choices to consumers who want the option of either a small or massive flagship TV. Samsung has added 43-inch and 98-inch sizes to its QN90A lineup of “Neo QLED” 4K TVs and an 85-inch option for its The Frame TV. The Neo QLED TVs have Samsung’s flagship panels, which use Mini LED backlights to improve contrast and picture quality. These kinds of flagship-class panels used to be limited mostly to the 55- to 77-inch range, but they seem to be making their way to size classes that used to be reserved for budget TVs.Samsung hasn’t yet announced pricing for these TVs. At the moment, the 50-inch QN90A sells for $1,400 (with an MSRP of $1,500), and the 85-inch model can be... Continue reading…