The Verge

Photo by Erik Romanenko\TASS via Getty Images Cryptocurrency miners in Kazakhstan are facing widespread electricity shortages amid a surge in mining, as reported by the Financial Times. Kazakhstan has been grappling with an overloaded energy grid as miners flock in from China, which cracked down on crypto earlier this year and banned crypto-based transactions in September.Over 87,849 “power-intensive” mining rigs have made their way from China to KazakhstanAccording to the Financial Times, Kazakhstan’s demand for electricity has risen about eight percent since the beginning of 2021, a sharp increase from the one or two percent annual growth that the country typically experiences. The Financial Times’ research also estimates that over 87,849 “power-intensive” mining rigs have made... Continue reading…

The best deals on PC accessories If you’re looking to expand your armory of gaming peripherals, you’ve come to the right place. Several retailers have a wide variety of gaming peripherals available at a deep discount, some of which are seeing their lowest prices ever. This list isn’t about price breaks on gaming PCs or componentry, but if it's something you can connect, attach, or plug into your computer, you’ll find it here.There are a ton of mice, keyboards, and headsets on sale, as well as monitors, speakers, and a handful of other accessories you can save on. And if you’re in the market for a new machine, be sure to take a look at our guides to the best Black Friday weekend laptop deals and best gaming deals you can still get.Keyboard deals

Microsoft-owned GitHub is down, affecting thousands or potentially millions of developers that rely on its many services. GitHub started experiencing issues at around 3:45PM ET, with Git operations, API requests, GitHub actions, packages, pages, and pull requests all affected.“We’re investigating errors affecting most GitHub services,” says an incident update on the GitHub status page. “We’re actively investigating and will provide an update as soon as possible.” The status page lists problems with Git operations, API requests, webhooks, pull requests, GitHub actions, GitHub packages, and GitHub pages. Codespaces still seems to be operational, though.GitHub is now home to more than 73 million developers that rely on the service for... Continue reading…

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge India has instructed the public not to preorder Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite-based internet service, according to a report from Reuters. As the report notes, the Indian government says that the company needs to obtain a license to operate in the country before it starts deploying its services.

The OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9 are on sale at Best Buy. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Several retailers started early with Black Friday deals in advance of the hectic, no-holds-barred weekend that kicks off right after Thanksgiving. Best Buy is one of a few — aside from Amazon, Walmart, and Target — that got things started particularly early this year. If you’ve been paying attention to our Black Friday / Cyber Monday coverage, you’ve likely noticed dozens of deals peppered in, but that’s just a sampling. There’s more where that came from.Before we get into it, we’ve included some resources below that should make your Cyber Monday shopping experience a little better. And to make things more fun, you can also enter our sweepstakes for a chance to win a mystery bag filled with stuff from The Verge’s tech closet.Headphones... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Update November 27th, 2:20PM ET: Amazon has sold out of PlayStation 5 consoles. We’ll be sure to keep you up to date when we hear of another round of restocks.Sony’s latest gaming console, the PS5, is one of many gaming gadgets that are hard to find in stock right now due to mostly online-only sales. If you are trying to get your hands on one, Amazon has restocked PS5 consoles right now, while supplies last (these links will help you add it directly to your cart — Disc, Digital). The consoles are only available for Amazon Prime subscribers, continuing a trend of retailers restricting access to consoles for paying subscribers only. If you can’t add it to your cart, keep trying, occasionally the sites restock over a period of a few... Continue reading…

Photo by Oliver Berg/picture alliance via Getty Images Owlet has stopped selling its lineup of smart baby monitoring socks, which are supposed to track a baby’s vital signs and sleep patterns, after receiving a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). First reported by Deseret News, the FDA’s letter states that Owlet’s Smart Socks are considered medical devices, as they provide heart rate and oxygen level notifications, and that the company has been selling them without the proper “marketing approval, clearance, or authorization” from the FDA.The FDA didn’t “identify any safety concerns about the Smart Sock”Owlet has since pulled its family of Smart Socks, as well as any bundles that include the device from its site. “The Owlet Sock family of products is currently... Continue reading…

Black Friday has been happening through all of November, but now it’s really here because it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving in the US. If you’re enjoying some much-needed rest with friends and family, we want you to keep doing that. But if you have some downtime, it won’t be wasted by checking out our curated list of the best Black Friday deals below.Whether you’re on your phone or a computer, we’ve organized it to be easy to navigate. At the top of the post is where we’ll put the latest deals we’ve found, including Lightning Deals that will likely sell out quickly. That way, you won’t need to scroll a bunch and wonder what’s new versus what isn’t, or miss out on a stellar deal. And if you want to see retailer- or category-specific... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Years after its failed Steam Machines, Valve is slowly but surely improving the state of Linux gaming. The company’s upcoming Steam Deck handheld runs atop Linux, and its Proton compatibility layer lets it — and other computers — play Windows games as well. Now, Valve has officially added support for Nvidia’s DLSS machine learning temporal upscaling technique to Proton, potentially bringing big FPS boosts and less flicker in games that support the technology.As Phoronix reports (via Tom’s Hardware), Proton 6.3-8 is the first stable release to include support for DLSS, after the feature previously hit experimental builds in October, though it appears you’ll still need to set PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 and dxgi.nvapiHack = False to turn it... Continue reading…

You could set Car View to activate when connected to your car via Bluetooth. | Image: Mitchell Clark / The Verge Spotify says it’s retiring its Car View feature, which was introduced at the beginning of 2019 as a way to make the app less distracting and easier to control while driving (via 9to5Google). It’s currently unclear if the feature is going away on all platforms or just Android, and while some users won’t miss it, many others are unhappy it’s being removed without a reasonable replacement.Confirmation of the change actually came back in October, when a Spotify moderator responded to a post on its community forum asking why the feature was missing. The moderator wrote:

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Good gaming GPUs are still selling for ridiculous sums on eBay, because they’re practically impossible to find at retail — particularly for anything close to their MSRP. But if you’re willing to buy an entire prebuilt gaming PC instead, there are four specific Black Friday deals I think are worthy of bringing to your attention.RTX 3080You can get this true 4K graphics card in one specific configuration of the HP Omen 30L (GT13-1380z) for just $1,611, paired with an AMD Ryzen 5600X and, admittedly, a paltry 8GB of RAM and a very small 256GB SSD that you’ll probably want to upgrade later.You won’t see that GPU or that price when you first click the link; you’ll need to add the $40 premium for the case with the 800W power supply first,... Continue reading…

Illustration by The Verge The best deals for the day of Black Friday, as we find them Continue reading…

The Samsung Galaxy A03 Core has a 6.5-inch display. | Photo by Samsung Samsung has quietly added two new devices to its entry-level A-series lineup: the Galaxy A03 and Galaxy A03 Core. And while both devices don’t yet have a set price, we can predict that they’ll both be pretty affordable, considering how Samsung prices the rest of its A-series devices. Photo by Samsung The Samsung Galaxy A03 has a dual rear camera with a 48MP main sensor. An infographic posted on Samsung’s site outlines the A03’s specs (via 9to5Google). The device comes with a dual rear camera with a 48MP main sensor and a 2MP depth sensor, which helps the camera focus on the main subject of the photo rather than giving you a different ultrawide or zoomed in perspective. Meanwhile, the front of the device comes... Continue reading…

Today through November 30th (next Tuesday), some of our favorite virtual shopkeepers are having a “Nook Friday” sale in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (via Eurogamer). If you’ve been drawn back in by the game’s recent update, it could be a chance to save 30 percent on items for your island or on in-game gifts — I’m currently trying to decide whether my wife would rather have a virtual train set, or a real-life air fryer.In the spirit of the holidays, you could also pick up some virtual presents for friends, particularly if Timmy and Tommy stock items you know would fit perfectly in their kitchen (a room they may actually use now thanks to the new cooking mechanic). You can check out our sister site Polygon’s full guide to mailing gifts... Continue reading…

Venus, Earth’s hellish doppleganger. | NASA/JPL-Caltech A new study adds to a growing pile of evidence that Venus may be volcanically active — a finding that, if true, would help explain how volcanoes impact planetary evolution and habitability across the cosmos. The research, which focuses on strange signals coming from a Venusian volcano called Idunn Mons, is fueling excitement about future missions to Earth’s nearest neighbor that will settle the matter once and for all.It’s long been known that Venus is covered in some seriously surreal volcanoes. But it is impossible to tell from Earth whether they are still oozing lava today, because Venus’s thick and hazy atmosphere obscures whatever may be happening on the ground.Now, using archival observations from old orbiter missions and the... Continue reading…

Black Friday is here Black Friday is upon us, officially kicking off today, November 26th. If you’re new to these parts, we’ve seen significant discounts happening on some of this year’s most popular pieces of tech. I suggest that you check back in tomorrow morning for potentially even better deals, but it’s sensible to want to get some of your shopping started right now. Many of the participating retailers have price-matching policies that guarantee you’ll get the lowest price.Below we’ve compiled some of the best early Black Friday deals available so far, along with some information about upcoming Black Friday sales so you can prepare and score a great deal before it sells out.Latest deal highlights:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple and Google have each been fined €10 million (around $11.3 million) by Italy’s competition authority for not properly obtaining a user’s consent before using their data for commercial purposes, the AGCM has announced. Both are accused of not correctly informing users when their data will be used in this way, preventing customers from being able to give their informed consent.In a statement, Google said it disagrees with the ruling and plans to appeal. “We give people simple controls to manage their information and limit the use of personal data, and we work hard to be fully compliant with the consumer protection rules,” a spokesperson said. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Google plans to appeal the fineT... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s first AR headset will be released in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to a research note from analyst Ming-chi Kuo seen by MacRumors and 9to5Mac. Kuo predicted back in March that the headset would be released sometime next year, and is now also providing more technical information on the device.The headset will have two processors, according to Kuo, one with “the same level of computing power as M1” and one lower-end chip to handle input from the various sensors. For example, Kuo says that the headset has “at least 6-8 optical modules to simultaneously provide continuous video see-through AR services.” The headset is also said to have two 4K OLED microdisplays from Sony.Kuo cites the headset’s “Mac-level (PC-level)... Continue reading…

This is what your headset will look like with these discounted modifications. The Oculus Quest 2 is an all-around solid piece of hardware, and it’s a very popular holiday gift since there are some great deals happening now. But anyone who already owns one can tell you that the company’s straps leave a lot to be desired. The cloth strap included in the box isn’t supportive, and while the $50 Elite Strap addresses that, it’s quite fragile. Mine broke within a year of normal use, and surfing Oculus’ Reddit page will show you that some people’s straps meet a similar fate.A popular and crafty modification that you can make to your headset is to attach HTC’s Deluxe Audio strap (originally made for the Vive) with a set of third-party adapters to make it fit perfectly with your Oculus headset. Once it’s all set up, you... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The The all-new Kindle Paperwhite is already a great buy at its regular price of $139.99. It has a great 6.8-inch display, USB-C charging, and a battery that can last for months — our reviewer calls it “the ultimate Kindle.” If you’ve been eyeing this device, now is a great time to buy it. It’s available on Amazon right now for $104.99, $35 and 25 percent off its original price of $139.99. Other retailers, including Best Buy and Staples, are offering the same price.Note that this is the ad-supported model — the ad-free version is currently $124.99 ($35 off its original price of $159.99). If you don’t want ads (or to pay the $20 premium for the ad-free model), a savvy move is to get the Kindle Paperwhite Kids for $114.99, which is $45 off... Continue reading…

Image: Evercade The original Evercade was an extremely niche device. It posited a future where dedicated video game handhelds not only thrived, but even still used cartridges. In a world where there are so many ways to play retro games — subscription services, compilations, emulation — it offered something very different. It didn’t make sense for everyone, but it did its job very well. Now the family has grown with the Evercade VS. If the original was a modern take on the Game Boy, this is its NES counterpart. It’s still niche and aimed at a very specific audience — and still does its job very well.At its most basic, the Evercade VS is a home console version of the original device. It’s a white plastic box that supports up to four controllers, includes... Continue reading…

As Thanksgiving approaches, many people will have the opportunity to relax, unwind, and log the kind of gaming hours only possible during an extended holiday weekend. Halo Infinite’s multiplayer will likely be a highly popular choice, almost guaranteeing servers will be crammed with players the way Los Angeles’ 405 freeway is crammed with travelers every Thanksgiving season. So, in the event you just can’t connect to a game of capture the flag, or if you have no interest in the multiplayer at all, here are the best non-Halo Infinite games we’re playing to make it through the holiday. — Ash Parrish Andrew — Final Fantasy VII: The First SoldierIt turns out the thing that finally pulled me away from Fortnite was a game... Continue reading…

Few gadgets are more hated than the alarm clock, a device whose primary purpose is to rudely rip you from the pleasant world of sleep into the cold, harsh, unforgiving reality that we live in every day — and whose level of functionality is directly proportional to how goddamn annoying the beeping sound it can make is.But within virtually all alarm clocks is also a crucial reprieve: the snooze button, a temporary salve for the alarm’s cruel clarion call, a stay of execution for the day you will inevitably have to face. It is the phrase “just a few more minutes” rendered in plastic.The alarm clock here is a Sharp SPC028B, bought from a Walmart somewhere in Pennsylvania ahead of my time as a sleepaway camp counselor over a decade ago.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify is testing a new TikTok-style video feed in its beta iOS app that shows fullscreen video clips as songs are played, TechCrunch reports. The feature was first spotted by Chris Messina, who posted a video of the feed in action. When available, the video feed is accessible from a new fourth tab in the navigation bar labelled “Discover.” Individual tracks can then be liked as you scroll through the feed, and there’s also a three dot menu icon to bring up options for each song.Spotify confirmed the test in a statement provided to TechCrunch, but declined to comment on if or when it might see a wider rollout. “At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve our user experience,” a spokesperson said. “Some of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Pinterest has settled a lawsuit brought against it by shareholders who claimed that the company’s workplace discrimination against women and racial minorities hurt its reputation, according to NBC News. The company reportedly agreed to spend $50 million on improving its diversity and equity, and will let former employees talk about racial or gender discrimination they experienced, even if they were bound by a non-disclosure agreement. Other financial details of the settlement weren’t disclosed.The lawsuit was filed against the company’s executives in November 2020, with shareholder claiming that the company was acting irresponsibly by doing nothing to address “widespread claims of race and gender discrimination.” The complaint also... Continue reading…

Image: Elsonic, via Nojima Online Another day, another interesting gadget making the rounds on the internet — this one is a very tall (aspect ratio-wise anyway) portable monitor with an 8.8-inch display running at a resolution of 420 by 1920. It’s called the Elsonic EK-MD088, and while its size, shape, and built-in stand make it intriguing, it also raises the question: what would you even use such a narrow monitor for? And are there better ways to spend your 14,800 yen (around $130 US dollars)?Gizmodo points out the most obvious use case for such a tall screen: it seems tailor-made for endlessly scrolling through Twitter or Instagram, keeping the gloom of the internet ever-present off to the side of your work. Honestly, that seems like a great way to destroy your brain... Continue reading…

Blizzard says that the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks that were overwhelming its servers with coordinated traffic are over, and that you should be able to log into Battle.net again. During the almost hour-long Wednesday evening attack, you may have experienced serious issues trying to get onto the online service underpinning Overwatch, Call of Duty: Warzone, Hearthstone, Diablo’s online features and more.

Photo by Joshua Bessex/Getty Images It has been less than a year since NBA Top Shot served as an introduction for many sports fans into the world of NFTs, and now the NFL is lining up a similar arrangement. In September, the league announced a partnership with the company that runs Top Shot, Dapper Labs, and now we know the name of the service that will distribute the video highlight clips that make up the “Moments” that become NFTs: NFL All Day.This effort is separate from the Ticketmaster-powered NFTs that the NFL is tying to selected games this season (like the Lions’ annual Thanksgiving appearance on national TV), but launching the branding now doesn’t feel like a coincidence. There will be many blockchain and NFT discussions amongst family members on Thursday,... Continue reading…

One of 13 remaining copies of the Official Edition of the Constitution. | Image: Sotheby’s As of last Thursday night, ConstitutionDAO found itself in possession of around $49.8 million it wasn’t able to spend. The group’s organizers only had a mandate to spend the crowdfunded money on one thing — a rare copy of the US Constitution that they failed to win at auction — so instead of trying to get community approval to use the money toward some other goal, they instead began the process of returning the funds to backers.Returning that much money has been a tricky process, though. Backers have to manually request refunds, so even a week later, tens of millions of dollars are still sitting in ConstitutionDAO’s pockets. And because all of the money was collected in Ether, and sending funds over Ethereum incurs high transaction... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Updated 5:33PM ET, November 24th: Amazon now has an actual price cut on the 128GB model, dropping from $299.99 to $249.99. Not only can you currently get this price, but entering OCULUS50 at checkout will earn you a $50 Amazon credit.The Oculus Quest 2 standalone VR headset is a great value at its regular $299.99 price. It comes with 128GB of onboard storage, and once you log in with your Facebook account, there’s little else standing in your way of finding some amazing virtual reality experiences and games. It’s even more of an appealing holiday gift idea right now because you can get one with a $50 gift card tossed in at no extra charge through Black Friday until Saturday, November 27th. Several retailers are honoring this promotion,... Continue reading…

THE BRONX, NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES - 2015/11/20: Gold shovels surround tree to be planted at Joyce Kilmer Park. | Photo by Andy Katz/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images Trees have become a contentious piece of Democrats’ Build Back Better Act, the budget reconciliation bill that encompasses sweeping social and environmental programs. Congressional Republicans have seized on the $3 billion in the proposed nearly $2 trillion bill earmarked for planting trees, with a focus on boosting ‘tree equity’ — despite the fact that this is a strategy that experts say could reduce health disparities in cities.While opponents have called the tree equity provisions an indicator of Democrats’ “reckless spending spree” and a “waste [of] even more taxpayer dollars,” in reality, disparities in tree coverage across American cities are a huge problem that affects heat exposure, air quality and more, with serious... Continue reading…

Elf is one of 10 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade NFTs up for auction. | Image: Macy’s Macy’s department stores might be closed this Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t mean the company has run out of things to sell. The retailer is auctioning off 10 one-of-a-kind NFTs to mark the 95th year of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.Each NFT references a parade balloon from decades past, going back to a black and white toy soldier from the 1920s. Also featured is an elf character from the 2000s and a spaceman from the 1950s, who lost an arm in the 1955 parade after colliding with a lamppost (the NFT version is fully inflated). Proceeds from the auction benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation, with current bids generating tens of thousands of dollars. The auction ends on November 30th.In addition to the 10 unique NFTs, Macy’s is... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Federal Reserve, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (or FDIC), and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) have issued a joint statement announcing a plan to clarify the rules and regulations around how banks can use cryptocurrencies over the next year (via Bloomberg).The agencies say they’re focusing on setting expectations for what banks can do when it comes to holding crypto, allowing customers to obtain crypto, issuing their own stablecoins (or cryptocurrencies whose value is tied to a fiat currency like the US dollar), and taking crypto as collateral for loans and keeping it on their balance sheets. According to the letter, the goal is to make sure consumers are protected and that banks act responsibly. The... Continue reading…

Dragon Age 4 has lost its senior creative director. According to a report from Kotaku, Matt Goldman left BioWare after working at the Mass Effect, Anthem, and Knights of the Old Republic developer for four years. In an email shared with Kotaku, BioWare general manager Gary McKay wrote, “We understand that Matt’s departure has an impact on you, as well as the game’s development. Rest assured our commitment to a high-quality Dragon Age game has not wavered, and we will not ship a game that is not up to BioWare’s standards.”A BioWare spokesperson also commented on Goldman’s departure to The Verge, saying, “He leaves the next Dragon Age game in excellent hands, with the team here at the studio who will carry forward our vision for the... Continue reading…

3LAU, aka Justin Blau, performing in 2016 in New York City. | Photo by Brian Killian/Getty Images One big knock on cryptocurrencies is that they’re a technology in search of a problem. Venture capitalists want to put everything on the blockchain and generate big returns, but why not just use a database instead? To skeptics, everything else in the space looks like noise — a bunch of grifters and try-hards changing their Twitter profile pictures to pixelated punks and apes in an effort to eventually flip those NFTs to a greater fool.But even as my mentions and direct messages fill up with readers fulminating about crypto — last week, after this piece, a paid subscriber wrote to me telling me he hopes that I die! — good and useful new things keep revealing themselves. Like a video game that pays you to play it. Or a series of free NFTs... Continue reading…

Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg at CES 2019. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge As the Federal Aviation Administration continues examining whether mid-band 5G spectrum could pose a risk to aircraft safety systems, Verizon and AT&T have offered to dial back the power coming from 5G cell towers for a period of six months to ease any industry concerns. Both carriers are preparing to launch crucial upgrades to their respective 5G networks using spectrum acquired in the C-band auction. This will lead to more robust 5G connectivity and faster speeds compared to the base-level 5G experience that Verizon and AT&T currently offer today.In early November, both companies agreed to push back the rollout by an additional month to January 2022. In a letter sent to the FCC today, they made clear that they’ll be moving forward... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge If you’re a long-time Android user, you’re used to long-pressing the power button to (logically) power your phone on or off. For a while, long-pressing the button while the phone was on also enabled you to restart it, lock it down, or signal an emergency. (For a short time during Android 10, you could also use it to take screenshots.)So you may have been a little perturbed if, after you upgraded your phone to Android 12, you found that long-pressing the power button did not bring up the shut-down menu but instead activated Google Assistant. This is something that was instituted with the new version of the OS, and it’s supposed to be A Good Thing. Long-pressing the power button can bring up this menu... ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram chief Adam Mosseri will testify before Congress for the first time next month, as first reported by The New York Times on Wednesday.Mosseri’s December testimony follows months of scrutiny from Senate lawmakers concerned over how Facebook can harm the mental health of young users. Since Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen leaked internal Facebook reports to the Wall Street Journal earlier this year, senators have held a series of hearings on how products like Instagram can encourage self-injurious behaviors in teens, especially in young women.The Senate Commerce Committee’s consumer protection subcommittee held its first hearing in this series in September with Facebook global head of safety Antigone Davis. Responding to the... Continue reading…

On Wednesday, Virgin Galactic announced its first sweepstakes winner that the space tourism company is sending to space. The winner, Keisha S. (her last name is being withheld by the company), is a health coach from Antigua and Barbuda. She will be the first person from the Caribbean islands to visit space and hopes to bring her daughter, who studies astrophysics, on the spacecraft with her as her guest.“I’ve always had a lifelong love of flying and a fascination with space.”“I’ve always had a lifelong love of flying and a fascination with space,” Keisha said in a press release. “This is truly a dream come true for me.”The sweepstakes was done in partnership with Omaze, a fundraising company, and Space for Humanity, a nonprofit that... Continue reading…

Ring has built the perfect smart home hub for most people... just not for me Continue reading…

The Amazon Echo Show family of smart displays. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge From Alexa to Google, the best smart displays to buy right now Continue reading…

Roku LE, or is it SE? | Image: Roku Ever since it appeared as the original Netflix streaming box, Roku has delivered internet video via box, stick, or embedded TV software. However, for Black Friday this year, Roku is releasing its cheapest device that I can remember seeing, the $15 Roku LE Streaming Player.Buying the remote by itself costs $15It’s a 1080p-only box that does exactly what you’d expect from a Roku player, but it will only be available from Walmart.com today and in Walmart stores on the 26th. We don’t have detailed specs, but it’s the same box Roku offered last year on Black Friday for $17, which has been selling at Walmart for $30 or so ever since as the Roku SE.For Roku and Walmart, it doesn’t really matter where this box came from. Walmart gets a cheap... Continue reading…

The Port of Long Beach in Long Beach, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. | Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images Holiday shopping and broken supply chains have made a pollution crisis worse Continue reading…

The Galaxy S21 Ultra’s four rear cameras. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Samsung has released a new camera app in beta that lets you use Pro Mode across all four of the Galaxy S21 Ultra’s rear cameras. That means it’s supported on both telephoto cameras, rather than being limited to just its main and ultrawide sensors. The new Expert RAW app has been released in the South Korean Galaxy Store, but tipster FrontTron has an APK available to download if you’d like to sideload it. It only seems to be available for the S21 Ultra for now, on devices running Android 12.The new app overcomes a limitation of the Galaxy S21 Ultra, which is that its stock camera’s Pro Mode is only available with two out of its four rear cameras (aka the 108-megapixel main camera and 12-megapixel ultrawide, but not the 10-megapixel 10x... Continue reading…

Image: Roblox Game and social platform Roblox has sued a YouTube creator it banned from the platform over harassment and sexual content, saying he amassed a “mob” that temporarily shut down its October developers conference. The Roblox Corporation filed a complaint against Benjamin Robert Simon, also known as Ruben Sim, for breaching its user contract and violating anti-hacking laws. “Defendant Simon is the leader of a ‘cybermob’ that with malice, fraud, and oppression, commits and encourages unlawful acts designed to injure Roblox and its users,” the suit claims, seeking $1.65 million in damages.Polygon initially reported the existence of the California lawsuit this morning. In it, Roblox says it banned Simon for attempting to upload a near-nude... Continue reading…

Google’s Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are big, slippery phones that can benefit from a good case | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge As wonderful as the new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are, their smooth glass backs are extremely slippery, as Dan Seifert mentioned in his review. And the official Google frosted recycled plastic cases are not great solutions, thanks to their cheap feel and still slippery finish. So, where does that leave you, the new owner of Google’s flagship phone? You can’t just leave your pristine new phone naked. That’s why we’ve rounded up some third-party cases that befit the Pixel’s unique design, whether you’re looking for a case for yourself or gifting a case to a new Pixel 6 owner. Just be aware that cases may be out of stock or slow to ship, so you’ll need a lot of luck and patience to find your ideal case this holiday season. Continue reading…

Photo by The Verge Back in February 2020, we ran an article explaining how to use the handy call screening functionality that Google had introduced for its Pixel phones. Screen Call, Google’s screening app, allows you to screen calls for numbers you don’t recognize (or people you don’t particularly want to talk to).Nearly two years later, and with Android 12, the company has added some useful features that can not only save you from having to deal with spam calls but can keep you from having to deal with the tedious and frustrating process of working through call menus. And some of them are available even if you don’t have a Pixel.How does call screening work? When you get a phone call from someone who is not in your contact list, you get a “Screen... Continue reading…

Illustration by Richard Parry Help your loved ones stay healthy and happy with gifts suitable for all budgets Continue reading…

Fortnite’s next big in-game event won’t just mark the end of the latest season — it’ll also draw chapter 2 to a close as well. Called, appropriately, “The End,” the one-time-only event will take place on December 4th at 4PM ET. Developer Epic describes it as “one last stand for the fate of the island,” suggesting that players will soon be playing on a brand-new map.Fortnite’s last chapter-ending event was arguably its most ambitious, when a black hole destroyed the battle royale’s original island, taking the game offline for several days before chapter 2 emerged. There are no hints as to what chapter 3 might look like when it debuts in early December.This season has been building towards some kind of cataclysmic event from the... Continue reading…

The Elecjet Apollo Ultra graphene battery charges five times faster than conventional power banks. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge The Elecjet Apollo Ultra power bank charges five times faster than conventional battery packs Continue reading…