The Verge

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Looking back at a decade without Jobs — Apple’s biggest decade ever Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft revealed a colorful new custom Xbox Series X / S controller to celebrate Forza Horizon 5 during its Gamescom 2021 Xbox stream. Much of the controller is a translucent yellow, but it also features blue and pink as accent colors, with “paint splotches” splashed across the front, pink buttons with blue letters, and the blue and pink control sticks. The controller also has black grips that look to have a rubberized texture, which will differ from the bumpier texture used on other Series X controllers.The new controller costs $74.99, which is a $15 increase from the $59.99 price of standard controllers, but it also comes with some exclusive Forza Horizon 5 DLC. You can preorder it from Microsoft’s online store now, and it will be... Continue reading…

Microsoft had a good showing at this year’s iteration of E3, and the company returned to show off its upcoming slate of games at Gamescom 2021. There were the usual suspects — like Forza and Flight Simulator — along with a few surprises like cloud streaming coming to Xbox consoles. (Curiously, Halo Infinite did not make an appearance.) And the company continues to put a big focus on its Game Pass subscription service.If you weren’t able to check out the nearly 90-minute-long event live, here are the best trailers and biggest announcements you missed.xCloud coming to Xbox consoles this holidayMicrosoft revealed that it’s bringing its cloud gaming service xCloud to both the Xbox One and Series X / S this holiday season, which will let... Continue reading…

Microsoft has revealed the next major additions coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator later this year, including the Volocopter VoloCity air taxi; updated maps for the Germany, Austria, and Switzerland regions; and a competitive online multiplayer racing mode.First up is a new series of “Local Legends” planes that are being added to Flight Simulator, which will offer planes that are famous in a specific region that might not be as well known. The goal is to have these planes roll out alongside Flight Simulator’s world updates, so the first Local Legend plane will coincide with the upcoming World Update VI (featuring Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and offer a hyper-realistic re-creation of the Junkers JU-52. The world update will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft its bringing its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service to Xbox One and Xbox Series S / X consoles this holiday. The integration of xCloud will let Xbox owners simply click play on an Xbox Game Pass game and stream it immediately, allowing players to try games before they commit to the often hourslong process of downloading big titles.More than 100 Xbox Game Pass titles will be available as part of this initial xCloud integration, and Xbox players will be able to try games as they wait for them to download fully. This xCloud integration also lets Xbox players jump into multiplayer games as soon as friends send an invite, avoiding having to wait for the install to complete. Image: Microsoft xCloud... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In August 2020, Google decided to add a tab for its Meet videoconferencing platform to Gmail. Not a big deal for the desktop version — although you can still choose to get rid of it if you don’t intend to use Meet at all — but it could be a real issue for the mobile app, because it expanded the bottom margin of the app and gave you approximately three fewer lines to work with. So we provided directions for how to get rid of the Meet tab on your phone.Now Google has added the ability to access its Chat and Rooms features directly from Gmail. As a result, many people are finding that the tabs are back at the bottom of their mobile screens, once again taking up precious space. Gmail with the Chat and Rooms tabs. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok announced it’s piloting a new in-app shopping experience on Tuesday as part of its ongoing partnership with Shopify (via The New York Times). TikTok Shopping allows select merchants from the US, Canada, and the UK to use a new shopping tab and product links to sell products from Shopify storefronts.The shopping tab is basically a dedicated section of a TikTok profile with a scrollable list of products that you can click through to be taken directly to a merchant’s Shopify storefront. Product links offer similar integrations by allowing merchants to link directly to a product from a TikTok post. In its current form, this isn’t really a full-blown monetization option for creators. The new shopping features require a TikTok for... Continue reading…

Apple Maps’ built-in ratings and photos system is rolling out to the US and Canada, letting users add their own information to points of interest on the map (via MacRumors). The system uses a thumbs up / thumbs down rating, and currently exists alongside Apple Maps’ existing integrations like Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Foursquare.According to Apple, the feature started rolling out in the US and Canada on Monday, so there aren’t many places that have ratings yet. However, an Apple spokesperson told The Verge that the feature launched with iOS 14 and has been available in other countries like Japan or Australia for some time. That makes it possible to see how they show up by looking at point of interest cards abroad, where we can see the... Continue reading…

Bungie has officially taken the wraps off of the next major expansion for Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, which will continue the story of the sci-fi space series and see players finally face off against Savathûn, the titular Witch Queen.Savathûn (the sister of Oryx, the main villain in the original game’s Taken King expansion) is a foe that’s been teased for over seven years, with her machinations behind many of Destiny’s previous major events (including the corruption of the Dreaming City). The addition of the Witch Queen marks the first time that players will be able to face off against her in person, though. And, as the trailer has revealed, she won’t be alone: Savathûn has managed to harness the player’s own powers of Light to empower... Continue reading…

Military personnel on an inflatable boat ship past a destroyed house on the Ahr river in Rech, Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany, on July 21, 2021, after devastating floods hit the region. | Photo by CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP via Getty Images Climate change raised the risk of deadly floods that swept through Western Europe in July, new research confirms. As people around the world continue burning fossil fuels and pumping out greenhouse gas emissions, the threat of similar disasters grows.Already, single-day rainfall events in the affected region are between 3 to 19 percent more intense than they would be without human-caused climate change. Global warming also makes extreme rainfall events like the one that triggered mid-July floods in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg between 1.2 and nine times more likely to occur in the region.At least 220 people died in Germany and Belgium because of swollen rivers and floods that raged through entire towns, knocking... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Somehow, it is 2021 and Hulu is only just now adding HDR support — to some of its original shows and movies.The addition was quietly added to Hulu’s support page this week, noting that customers can now “stream select Hulu originals in high-dynamic range (HDR), HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision on select devices.” A new HDR badge will appear on content that supports it.HDR content with Hulu will be available on the usual streaming suspects to start: HDR-compatible Roku models, Fire TV hardware that supports HDR, Apple TV 4K, HDR-compatible Chromecasts, and Vizio TVs with HDR. Notably missing are mobile devices or consoles, although presumably Hulu will continue to expand HDR support over time.The actual list of shows and movies that... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge You can now buy the Oculus Quest 2 again following a nearly monthlong pause in sales to outfit the headsets with new silicone covers.Facebook halted sales because the foam part of the facial interface that shipped with the original Quest 2 headsets caused skin irritation for some users. So on July 27th, the company announced it would stop selling the Quest 2 until August 24th and that it was participating in a joint voluntary recall with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) over the issue. The CPSC said that it received about 5,716 reports of incidents of skin irritation and “approximately 45 reports of consumers that required medical attention.”If you’re a current Quest 2 owner, you can request a free silicone mask to... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Waymo is going to start shuttling a wider group of passengers around in its autonomous vehicles in San Francisco, California — though they’ll have to sign nondisclosure agreements, and there still will be a human safety driver behind the wheel.It’s the second city where the company has expanded its nascent autonomous vehicle offering, as the Google sibling has been performing fully driverless rides rides without a safety driver in parts of Phoenix, Arizona for more than a year now. Waymo is one of a handful of companies trying to get a commercial service off the ground built around autonomous vehicles, like Argo AI (which is backed by Ford and Volkswagen) and Cruise (which is backed by General Motors).Waymo has been testing... Continue reading…

Peloton Tread | Image: Peloton In May, after a series of accidents linked to multiple injuries and one death, Peloton announced recalls for its Tread Plus treadmill and a redesigned version of the Peloton Tread. The more serious incidents involved the Tread Plus, which remains on the shelf. However, the new Tread has since received tweaks to keep the screen from loosening and falling off. Now Peloton says the $2,495 Tread will go on sale across the US, Canada, and the UK starting on August 30th.Unlike the 32-inch screen on the treadmill we reviewed in 2019, this cheaper Tread has a 23.8-inch HD touchscreen with built-in speakers so you can interact with your trainer during a workout and track progress when you’re done. It also has a smaller footprint at 68 inches by... Continue reading…

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge OnlyFans founder and CEO Tim Stokely says banks were behind the online fundraising platform’s recent ban on sexually explicit content. “The change in policy, we had no choice — the short answer is banks,” Stokely told the Financial Times in an interview published today.Stokely named three major banks that refused service because of “reputational risk” associated with the UK-based OnlyFans’ sexual material: Bank of New York Mellon, Metro Bank, an JPMorgan Chase. He said BNY Mellon specifically had “flagged and rejected” every wire transaction involving OnlyFans, threatening its ability to pay creators.Last week, Bloomberg reported more generally that “banking partners and payment providers” had pressured OnlyFans — a platform previously... Continue reading…

The Frame camouflages itself as wall art when you’re not using it as a TV. | Samsung The Frame, Samsung’s HDR-compatible QLED that pulls double duty as wall art, is one of the more unique TV designs that didn’t die in the concept phase or on the showroom floor of CES. Designed to look like a framed and matted photograph, the 120Hz screen hides in plain sight when switched to an Art Mode that displays still imagery instead of a black void when turned off. It’s a stunner of a TV in many ways and, for a limited time, Best Buy and Amazon are offering the 55-inch model for $200 off, the second-lowest price we’ve seen this year on the high-tech piece of home decor. It’s the perfect way to convince your friends you’re a person of culture and refinement while still being a techie nerd who loves large screens.If you use the... Continue reading…

Photo by David Lee/Riot Games/Riot Games Inc. via Getty Images The 2021 League of Legends’ World Championship, the end-of-year tournament for arguably the biggest esport in the world, has been moved from China to a currently undisclosed location in Europe, Riot Games announced. The move happens just weeks before the competition is set to begin.In a video, John Needham, global head of esports at Riot, said that travel restrictions and COVID protocols made it a challenge to hold the event in China. The move was first reported Monday by Upcomer.“After considering all potential options, we concluded that moving Worlds to Europe provided the best opportunity for the most teams and their best players to compete,” Needham explained. “We’re not ready to announce where in Europe Worlds will be held this... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Some of the biggest Gamescom 2021 announcements are likely to happen during the Xbox stream. The stream will be a 90-minute blast that, according to Microsoft, will focus on “previously announced games” from its internal Xbox Studios and outside partners, as well as new titles coming to Xbox Game Pass. It’s possible that we’ll hear more about Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, and more. I’m personally crossing my fingers for more Elden Ring news.The stream will be presented in 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second, according to the Xbox blog, so don’t fret if things aren’t looking their best during the debut. Though, if you’d rather wait until a higher-res video is available, a 4K / 60 frames per second video will be released... Continue reading…

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole The hidden costs behind your favorite apps, games, and more Continue reading…

Spotify Spotify is broadening the number of people who can offer subscription podcasts and have their shows play on its service. Today, the company announced that all US-based podcasters can use Anchor, its podcast creation and distribution platform, to sell subscriptions for exclusive episodes that’ll be available both through a private RSS feed and within the Spotify app, which doesn’t otherwise support private shows over RSS.Along with the expanded rollout, Spotify says it’s also adding more pricing options — 20 up from three — and is giving podcasters the ability to download their paying subscribers’ email addresses. This means they can stay in better touch with the group and also take that list elsewhere if they ever leave Anchor.... Continue reading…

Movies Anywhere is best known as the service that syncs together purchased movies across different retailers (so that you can, say, watch movies you bought on iTunes through Google Play, or vice versa). But the service also has a fairly robust app of its own, which is getting a new machine learning-powered list feature to automatically generate lists that sort your library based on what movies you like.The feature, aptly named “My Lists,” offers two options: automatically generated lists — like gathering all the Star Wars movies together or creating a list of the romantic comedies you own — and standard user-created lists. Users will be able to edit the automatic playlists (to add or remove movies that they feel fit the collection), and... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Building a career on pushing buttons and seeing what happens Continue reading…

One of the first things you might notice when you get Android 12 on your phone is that a standout Android feature is no longer where you expect it.I’m talking about the device control panel Google added into the operating system with last year’s Android 11 release. The panel offers a handy set of commands that lets you access and adjust any smart lights and other connected gadgets set up in your home.On Pixel phones, at least, that panel used to come up when you’d press and hold your phone’s power button. With Android 12, though, it’s no longer part of the power button menu. But don’t despair: it isn’t gone entirely. It just takes an extra step and a teensy bit of preparation to reach it.Reposition your Android 12 device control panel... Continue reading…

After it leaked over the weekend, Sony Pictures has released the first official teaser trailer for the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third Spider-Man movie to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.I will just say up front that if you consider the basic premise of No Way Home to be a spoiler, you probably shouldn’t watch this trailer. There are already reveals in it that big Spider-Man and Marvel fans might want to save for the theater, though I’m not sure how practical that’ll be in the lead-up to release.

President Joe Biden plans to host a meeting on Wednesday to discuss how companies are improving cybersecurity after the waves of recent security breaches and ransomware attacks, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy will be attending, according to Bloomberg. Google, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, and the energy firm Southern Company have also been invited, and Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning is also set to attend, Bloomberg reports.While it’s not clear exactly what the president and any attendees plan to discuss, there will surely be a lot to talk about given incidents like the massive Solarwinds hack, the Kaseya ransomware attack, or the Colonial Pipeline shutdown resulting from a cyberattack.Apple,... Continue reading…

Spotify’s Wear OS app. | Image: Spotify Support for offline playback in Spotify’s Wear OS app is rolling now, the company confirmed to The Verge. As spotted by Android Central, some users on Reddit report that they are already able to use the feature, so if you’ve been waiting for it, you might want to check and see if it’s already rolled out to you.There’s a couple caveats to offline playback on Wear OS, though: according to a Spotify blog, your watch will need to be on Wear OS 2.0 or newer to be able to use the feature, and only Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to download and albums and playlists for offline listening. Both paid and free users can download podcasts for offline playback, though.Spotify revealed on August 11th that its Wear OS would be getting... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is testing adding voice and video calls to the main Facebook app, Bloomberg reports. The features are currently part of the standalone Messenger app, which Facebook originally spun out of its big blue main app in 2011 and officially removed in 2014.Voice and video calls are two of several Messenger features that Facebook has introduced in its other products like Portal video cameras and Oculus virtual reality headsets. The company hasn’t shared if it plans to bring other parts of Messenger back into the fold, but Messenger’s director of product management did tell Bloomberg that “you’re going to start to see quite a bit more of this over time.”Messenger features in everything might make Facebook a harder knot to untangleF... Continue reading…

Disney Disney has filed a motion to have Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit against the company moved to private arbitration, the latest in the ongoing saga of her complaint against the company over Black Widow’s streaming release.Disney’s lawyers filed the motion Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court on the grounds that Periwinkle Entertainment, which negotiated her deal, agreed that any claims related to her role in the Marvel film would be handled in confidential arbitration. But the motion also took several swipes at Johansson’s complaint that argued Marvel, compelled by its parent company Disney, breached an agreement when Black Widow debuted on Disney Plus through Premier Access the same day that it premiered in theaters. The Hollywood Reporter... Continue reading…

Image: @_snoopytech_ on Twitter A leaked video seems to show off the rumored Fitbit Charge 5, just over a week after we saw renders of it hit the internet. The video shows off some of the features of the new wearable, including daily readiness and stress management scores, as well as ECG capabilities. The leaker also reveals that the device will cost $179.The $179 price tag is $50 more than a Charge 4 costs now, but the new version features a color screen instead of a monochromatic one, and adds support for ECGs. Like the Charge 4, the Charge 5 will also have built-in GPS, according to the video.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Oculus has begun rolling out a set of new software features for Quest and Quest 2 virtual reality headsets. The v32 update introduces some small, but important tweaks to the in-headset user experience, as well as to the Oculus Move health tracking app. The feature that most piqued my attention is an option to automatically sync saved photos and videos captured within VR to the Oculus mobile app for iOS and Android.In an earlier update, Oculus let you upload files from a headset through the Browser app within VR, an improvement over the original method of plugging the headset into a PC. But this update goes a step further in removing friction for viewing or sharing content, as it lets you do it without a headset on. To sync items from... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google announced changes to how it calculates and displays app ratings on the Play Store on Monday that could make them more useful and relevant to users and developers (via 9to5Google). In place of one rating for an entire app, which can come in a variety of forms and levels of relative goodness depending on the device, Google plans to break things down with specific ratings for the country your device is registered in and specific ratings for the form factor of the device you’re using to browse the Play Store.There are some clear-cut reasons why this change might be helpful. First, not every app offers the same features or functionality everywhere because of national laws, and one universal law — Android fragmentation. If I’m a... Continue reading…

Graphic by James Bareham / The Verge Pressure from payment processors is leaving OnlyFans creators with nowhere to turn Continue reading…

Photo: iFixit The Playdate is one of the most interesting pieces of new gaming hardware in years, with a fun, colorful design that evokes old handhelds like the Game Boy and a unique crank for interacting with games.And thanks to the good folks at iFixit (to whom Panic sent a Playdate specifically for disassembly purposes), we’ve now gotten a good look inside at the upcoming handheld — and how that crank actually works.Most of the internal pieces more or less track with what you’d expect from a diminutive console: a 2.74Wh battery (about a quarter of the size of an iPhone 12), an LCD display, and an easily replaced headphone jack. Photo: iFixit But the star of the show is, of course, the crank, which uses a Hall effect sensor.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The hacker that stole around $600 million worth of crypto coins from Poly Network has now finished returning them after starting the process nearly two weeks ago (via CNBC). Poly Network says in a blog post that it’s now beginning the process of returning the stolen assets, which include Ethereum, Binance tokens, and Dogecoin, to their rightful owners. Poly Network says that there’s still work for it to do — it’s working on getting approximately $33 million worth of assets unfrozen and is continuing to restore the functionality of its Poly Bridge service, which lets users transfer crypto between blockchains.After the attack, the hacker said that he’d stolen the funds to keep them safe, saying that putting the coins in a “trusted... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As the Michigan governor’s race heats up, a handful of candidates are turning to TikTok to build followings ahead of the 2022 election. Two Republicans have already found sizable audiences, but they’re also testing TikTok’s limits on misinformation, espousing possible 2020 election fraud and spreading false vaccine information on the platform.Garrett Soldano and Ryan Kelley are both running in Michigan’s Republican primary for governor, hoping to replace current Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Soldano, a chiropractor from Kalamazoo County, is one of the leading fundraisers, raising more than all other candidates combined, according to Michigan Live last month.Both candidates have built large followings on TikTok, Soldano and Kelley boasting... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple employee organizing took another step this morning with the launch of a website called AppleToo. The goal is to collect stories from workers at all levels of the organization who’ve experienced harassment or discrimination.“For too long, Apple has evaded public scrutiny,” the website reads. “The truth is that for many Apple workers ... the culture of secrecy creates an opaque, intimidating fortress. When we press for accountability and redress to the persistent injustices we witness or experience in our workplace, we are faced with a pattern of isolation, degradation, and gaslighting. No more. We’ve exhausted all internal avenues. We’ve talked with our leadership. We’ve gone to the People team. We’ve escalated through Business... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix If there’s one thing that ties the many iterations of The Witcher together — whether it’s the original books, the hit games, or more recently the live-action show — it’s Geralt of Rivia. The lovably miserable monster hunter is the core of the series in a way that’s rare for fantasy, which often follows stories bigger than just one person. But that’s also what makes Nightmare of the Wolf, an anime spinoff on Netflix, so interesting. It’s a prequel that shifts back in time to focus on Geralt’s mentor Vesemir, who can feel like the polar opposite of his protege: charming, playful, and with a voracious appetite for the finer things in life.It’s a refreshing twist that also does a good job of exploring some of the mysteries at the heart of T... Continue reading…

Instagram The swipe-up will be no more. Instagram is planning to retire the feature, which allows people to visit external webpages by swiping up, starting August 30th, according to a notification viewed by The Verge and confirmed by Instagram. Instead of the swipe-up link, Instagram says people will be able to use link stickers, which are exactly as they sound: tappable stickers in stories that take people to external websites.The company says it’s retiring the swipe up — a feature that’s spawned its own category of GIFs and a phrase that’s now part of the lexicon — to “streamline the stories creation experience” and offer more “creative control,” given that uses can format the look of stickers and not the swipe up.This update builds on a... Continue reading…

Google’s upcoming Android 12 update has plenty of eye-catching features, but don’t let yourself be fooled: sometimes, it’s the smaller, less obvious elements that are most deserving of your attention.That’s certainly the case with the software’s new auto-rotate system. With Android 12, Google has introduced a smarter way to control when your screen switches between its vertical and horizontal orientations. And while the improvement isn’t getting all that much time in the spotlight, you’d better believe it has the potential to make your life a whole lot easier.In short, instead of relying solely on your phone’s accelerometer to figure out which way you’re holding the device and then rotate your screen accordingly, Android 12 allows your... Continue reading…

A woman protects her head from the sun during a heatwave in Athens on July 29, 2021. | Photo by LOUISA GOULIAMAKI/AFP via Getty Images During a summer of punishing heat, Greek officials and researchers are thinking about naming individual heatwaves to help keep people safe when temperatures soar. It’s part of a bigger push internationally to create a system for naming and ranking heatwaves, similar to the process for major storms.“They’re a silent killer”“Heatwaves cause a lot of deaths; they don’t make noise and they may not be visible but they’re a silent killer,” Kostas Lagouvardos, research director at the National Observatory of Athens, recently told The Observer, a Sunday paper published by Guardian Media Group. “We believe people will be more prepared to face an upcoming weather event when the event has a name.”Extreme heat kills 5 million people a year around... Continue reading…

With official Food and Drug Administration approval, the Pfizer / BioNTech mRNA COVID-19 vaccine can now be marketed as Comirnaty in the US, great news for general vaccine acceptance, sure, but also anyone who loves to fixate on bizarre drug names.Comirnaty is apparently supposed to be a portmanteau of several words — community, immunity, COVID-19, and mRNA — Fierce Pharma writes. The branding was produced for Pfizer-BioNTech by the Brand Institute — “The World’s #1 Naming Company” — and while it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, it is at least shorter than most drug names.On the other hand, it’s not nearly as metal as Spikevax, the European brand name of the Moderna vaccine and another Brand Institute project. Spikevax directly... Continue reading…

Vanessa Hudgens in The Princess Switch. | Image: Netflix Netflix has released a lot of information about its movie lineup through the end of the year, including details of its holiday slate of films. If you love cheesy holiday movies, it seems like Netflix will have you covered this year.Fans of the ridiculous The Princess Switch movies starring Vanessa Hudgens will be pleased to know that there’s a third one set to release in November. There’s also A Castle for Christmas, a romcom about a woman who wants to buy a castle in Scotland, which is also scheduled for November.There are a number of non-holiday movies on the way this fall and winter, too, and we’ve listed out the full schedule below. Note that movies will hit theaters shortly before they come to Netflix, and we’ve noted when that’s... Continue reading…

Image: Ample Battery swapping has long been a dream solution for the infrastructure problem standing in the way of wide electric vehicle adoption. Tesla famously tried but then abandoned the idea half a decade ago. But now a startup called Ample has raised $160 million to try to make it work — first for commercial vehicles, then maybe passenger cars and SUVs.Given the approach Ample founders John de Souza and Khaled Hassounah are taking, they’ll need every one of those dollars, and then some.The goal with Ample is to convince automakers to make versions of their electric vehicles that have a sort of adapter plate instead of a full battery pack, while everything else stays the same. Then Ample plugs a bunch of battery modules into that adapter. The... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An early analysis of the informal Apple pay equity survey shows a six percent wage gap between the salaries of men and women, according to software engineer Cher Scarlett. It’s similar to the gender wage gap in San Francisco, which hovers around five percent, but disappointing for a company that claims people of all genders “earn the same when engaging in similar work with comparable experience and performance.”The results are not scientific — employees opted into the survey and only 2,000 people responded (out of the 147,000 employees Apple estimated in 2020) — but they point to why some employees are suspicious of the company’s claim that it fixed its pay equity problem.“We know pay equity was a problem in the past and Apple did... Continue reading…

Simu Liu takes on a whole lot of bad guys on a bus. | Courtesy of Marvel Studios I’m ready for Shang-Chi to meet Thor Continue reading…

Photo by LMPC via Getty Images After prodding Nike with a Lil Nas X collaboration for “Satan Shoes” and memorializing iconic failed startups as toys, the internet collective MSCHF is aiming bigger and further out with its next drop. Image: MSCHF MSCHF “Famous Mouse” token

Photo: Apple T-Mobile has announced a new promotional perk for its customers: starting on August 25th, both new and existing subscribers to its Magenta and Magenta Max plans can get a year’s subscription to Apple TV Plus.The deal applies to virtually any of T-Mobile’s post-paid customers that it classifies as part of those plans, including its Magenta 55 Plus, Magenta Military, Magenta First Responders, Sprint Unlimited Plus, Sprint Premium, and T-Mobile for Business plans. Better yet, the deal isn’t just for newcomers to T-Mobile; it seems that anyone subscribing to those plans can get the free year of Apple TV Plus.Customers under T-Mobile’s Magenta, Magenta Max, and T-Mobile for Business can find the offer listed under their rate plan details... Continue reading…

Photo by Hugh R Hastings/Getty Images Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit, a satellite-launching spinoff of the billionaire founder’s space tourism firm, is going public through a merger with a shell company, the firm announced on Monday. The company will be valued at $3.2 billion and includes an investment from Boeing.Virgin Orbit plans to merge with the special purpose acquisition company (also known as a SPAC), NextGen Acquisition Corp. II around the end of 2021. It will be listed on NASDAQ under the ticker “VORB.” The deal will bring Virgin Orbit $483 million in new capital — $383 million stored in NextGen and $100 million from another round of funding. Investors in that round include Boeing, Virgin said, but it’s unclear how much they pitched in.The $483 million will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole The Verge presents a second edition of Making It Work, a special issue about how small businesses and creators have found clever and creative ways to adapt to the current climate and get paid. Whether it’s taking farmers markets online, becoming a tour guide on TikTok, or moving bike part sales from Amazon to the real world, these are stories about how the internet has enabled scrappy underdogs and thoughtful problem-solving. Continue reading…