The Verge

Image: Disney Disney has shared an impressive trailer for Star Wars: Visions, its anime anthology series premiering September 22nd on Disney Plus. The trailer oozes style and flair, and it looks like the series will tell some thrilling new stories in the Star Wars universe.Visions will feature nine animated shorts from seven anime studios. Disney also revealed the English dub voice cast, which features some big names including Alison Brie, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Harbour, Neil Patrick Harris, Lucy Liu, and Temuera Morrison (who is reprising his role as Boba Fett). You can see more of the cast here on the official Star Wars website. And Disney says that you’ll be able to watch the series both with the English dub cast and the original Japanese... Continue reading…

Image: WinFuture After first surfacing last month in an FCC filing (which Bose quickly withdrew), the company’s upcoming QuietComfort 45 headphones have now been leaked more extensively courtesy of WinFuture. Set to be priced at $329, the QC45s certainly look the part of a successor to the popular QC35s. The overall design is very similar, with some modern refinements like a USB-C port thrown in.According to WinFuture, the QC45s will offer active noise cancellation, an Aware Mode for piping in outside noise, and be tuned with Bose’s signature Active EQ. Battery life is expected to be up to 24 hours of continuous playback. A quick 15-minute charge will give the headphones 2.5 hours of listening time. Multipoint pairing to two devices at the same time... Continue reading…

After an online-only event this year, the CTA is still planning to put on CES 2022 as a hybrid event with in-person and digital components. Today the CTA announced that if you’re planning on showing up in Las Vegas, then you will need to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19.

Taliban fighters patrol a road in Kabul | Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images Social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are coming under new scrutiny for the way they treat Taliban accounts, as the militant Islamist group emerges as the dominant power in Afghanistan in the wake of the US withdrawal. While none of the platforms have publicly changed their policies on the group, moderation practices have come under close scrutiny, and many are shifting resources to ensure the policies are appropriately enforced.A particular question raised by The Washington Post is whether the group will be allowed to wrest control of the official Facebook and Twitter accounts for the government of Afghanistan. While the Taliban has seized effective control over the government, granting access to official accounts... Continue reading…

Google joins Apple and Samsung by ditching the in-box charger. | Image: Google Google is the latest manufacturer to bid farewell to the in-box charging brick, saying it expects the Pixel 5A will be the last phone to include one. That means the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro won’t include one when they arrive this fall.The company says that most people already have a USB-C charging brick, so there’s no longer a need to include one with its phones. Apple and Samsung made similar arguments when they announced they would no longer be offering an in-box charger. That may be true, but it’s likely that the cost savings of not including a charger played a big role in those decisions. Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Google says it expects the Pixel 5A to be the last phone to include the charger. T... Continue reading…

The Google Pixel 5A features a 6.34-inch display and IP67 water-resistance rating. | Image: Google Google has officially revealed the Pixel 5A 5G, a phone it kind of announced in April to contradict rumors that it had been canceled. It comes with a short list of updated features compared to its 4A 5G predecessor, including a slightly bigger screen, a much bigger battery, and an IP67 rating for water resistance.Few though they may be, these are some important tweaks to an already good midrange phone, and the best part is that the price has gotten smaller: in the US it will cost $449, which is $50 less than the Pixel 4A 5G’s introductory price. The 5A goes on sale in the US and Japan on August 26th. Image: Google The 5A supports wired charging only, and Google says it’s the last Pixel phone that will ship with... Continue reading…

Smart updates and a lower price Continue reading…

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Microsoft is hiring Manik Gupta, the former head of product at Uber, in a renewed effort to boost Microsoft’s consumer apps. Gupta will be responsible for Microsoft Teams consumer, Skype, and GroupMe, and he will report directly to Jeff Teper, Microsoft’s head of Microsoft 365 collaboration.Gupta spent four years at Uber running the various teams that contribute to the Uber app, and he also oversaw product management for Google Maps for seven years. While Gupta has a lot of experience in maps, that’s not why he’s joining Microsoft. The software giant appears to be keen to tap into his wealth of experience in consumer-focused apps.“Manik’s experience... will be invaluable to us building world-class consumer experiences across all of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is announcing some new features for search to make it easier to find what you’re looking for amid the huge amount of content on the platform.One helpful update is that YouTube will show video chapters right in search results, which should make it easier to jump to the exact part of a video that might be most helpful to you. Instead of having to tap into a video and scroll through the chapters just to find exactly the information that you’re looking for, you’ll be able to see the chapters from a search so you can navigate to certain spots in a video more easily. YouTube is also adding video previews to search results on mobile, meaning you can see a short clip of a video before you tap into it.Video previews are coming to... Continue reading…

Imagine if you were really into a video game series, but no one released a controller that let you play it properly for 14 years. Unfortunately, that’s exactly the situation that fans of Densha de Go! found themselves in until recently. Taito’s quirky train-driving franchise has been around since the mid-‘90s across countless systems and devices, but it just isn’t the same if you can’t slam the brakes with a giant lever as you pull into the station 17 seconds late.This month, though, a company called Zuiki came to the rescue with the release of an officially licensed Densha de Go! controller for the Nintendo Switch. It works with the latest version of the game, Hashirou Yamanote-sen, and it marks the first console controller to be... Continue reading…

Boston Dynamics has published a pair of new videos showcasing its bipedal Atlas robot. The first is typical Boston Dynamics flash, with two Atlas units demonstrating an extremely impressive gymnastics routine. They flip, they vault, they nearly fall over but not quite — it’s brilliant. The second video, though, offers an unusually transparent assessment of Atlas’ capabilities, as the company’s engineers explain what goes into creating these routines.As Boston Dynamics has said before, Atlas is essentially a research project: a cutting-edge machine that helps the company’s engineers work out better control and perception systems. “At a practical level it’s a platform for us to do R&D on,” says Benjamin Stephens, control lead for Atlas,... Continue reading…

This dizzyingly gorgeous gamepad is a costly investment. | Scuf Scuf has introduced two pricey controllers, the $170 Instinct and the $200 Instinct Pro. They’re made for Xbox, and to that end, they feel like Microsoft’s official controller in fit and finish. I mean that quite literally because they have the same dimensions as the newer Xbox wireless controller that ships with the Series X and S consoles.The similarities go all the way down to the main board, which Scuf told The Verge is, in fact, the same as Microsoft’s. This means that Scuf’s new controllers will use Microsoft’s dynamic latency input protocol to nip lag in the bud, and they will get all of the firmware updates and improvements as the official Xbox controllers. These are the first wireless controllers made by a third party that... Continue reading…

Zendure’s latest “portable” charger is the SuperBase Pro 2000, a hulking power station equipped with a 2,096Wh battery that’s designed to get you through everything from a camping trip to a blackout. Weighing in at 46.5 pounds (21.2kg), it’s only portable in the technical sense of the word — you’re much more likely to use its built-in handle to wheel it around like a rollable suitcase. It’s launching on Indiegogo with an early bird price starting at $1,299.We’ve generally liked Zendure’s more portable chargers designed for smaller devices like phones and laptops, and this isn’t the first time it’s offered a beefier power station for more power-hungry electronics (competitors Aukey and Anker sell similar units). But what sets the... Continue reading…

Fortnite: Imposters is a new, limited-time game mode that’s rolling out today, one that might sound a bit familiar to anyone who’s played Among Us (one of the other incredible popular online games right now).Imposters puts players into two teams. One team, with up to eight agents, has a goal of maintaining the headquarters of one of Fortnite’s secretive factions (the Imagined Order) by accomplishing various tasks. The other is a team of two imposters (Epic apparently couldn’t be bothered to change the name) whose goal is to take out all the agents. At any point, if players find an eliminated player (or see something too suspicious), they can call a meeting, where players can discuss the events of the game and vote off... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is introducing an option to fully disable Night Mode on an iPhone camera in iOS 15. While you’ve always been able to turn off Night Mode for a particular shot, the iPhone camera will also re-enable it the next time it detects it needs to be used. In iOS 15, you can now toggle whether the camera remembers Night Mode has been turned off.Night Mode is often a useful way to capture great photos in low light, but occasionally there are times when an iPhone enables this mode and you end up with a photo that’s worse with Night Mode enabled. If you’re someone who prefers to have full control over their iPhone camera, 9to5Mac notes that you can effectively disable Night Mode in iOS 15:

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Argo AI CEO Bryan Salesky on a new partnership with Lyft and setting realistic expectations for self-driving cars Continue reading…

I always think this guy looks like Ed Helms. | Image: CD Projekt Red If you’ve ever said to yourself “I think I’ll wait to buy Cyberpunk 2077 until it’s like $10 or so,” then today is your day to act on that. Best Buy has knocked the price down for the much-anticipated RPG that promptly landed a little flat on its face when it released late last year due to myriad performance issues. Many of those issues have been resolved and developer CD Projekt Red has been steadily updating the game, though the game still might not be what some were hoping for. Read our review.The game is available on disc at Best Buy for the Xbox One and PS4, though both can be played on newer consoles like the Xbox Series X or PS5, if you have one. The developer hasn’t yet officially released a proper next-gen patch, but you’ll... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Roku is adding more than a dozen new channels to the Live TV Channel Guide on the Roku Channel, its free streaming service.Roku’s live and linear live TV hub includes more than 200 free channels to surf. The newest slate of channels arriving on its live guide includes CBC, AccuWeather Now, FilmRise True Crime, Haunt TV, and IGN. On Wednesday, the platform will also add a dedicated channel for The Wiggles to mark the second anniversary of its Kids & Family experience, which launched in 2019. The full list of channels coming to the service is as follows:

Selecting objects from a flat background is easier with the Magic Wand. | Image: Adobe Adobe has announced it’s updating Photoshop on iPad today with a classic desktop tool missing from the original launch of the app — the Magic Wand. Some of the intelligent selection features from Magic Wand have been introduced to the iPad app in the past, but now Adobe is adding the tool itself, making it easier to select, adjust, or remove specific elements of a larger project with a tap.The Magic Wand tool on iPad should be familiar to anyone who’s used it on desktop. The tool makes it easy to extract objects from a flat background, select oddly shaped areas, or select a specific colored section of a project to then transform in the usual Photoshop ways.The Magic Wand makes selecting things easierAdobe is also introducing a new... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge A lack of protected bike lanes and a sharp increase in cyclist injuries could hamper the Big Apple’s rollout of e-scooters Continue reading…

OFTV includes original content including the “Unlocked” interview series. OnlyFans is a juggernaut of NSFW content, but its abundance of nudity has stopped the platform launching as an app on Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store. Now, though, the company is pushing a new app available on iOS and Android called OFTV. It features many regular OnlyFans creators but the content is strictly safe-for-work.The app has been in development for a while and launched back in January, but OnlyFans is only now promoting it, according to a report from Bloomberg. It’s part of the company’s attempt to move beyond adult content and position itself as a neutral platform like Patreon, allowing entertainers, musicians, and creators to monetize their relationships with fans.“There’s no adult content on OFTV”“OFTV provides... Continue reading…

Gigabyte is offering a return and exchange service for two of its power supply units (PSUs), following complaints that the products were “exploding” or failing. PSU reviewer Aristeidis Bitziopoulos and Gamers Nexus both found that Gigabyte’s GP-P850GM and GP-P750GM models could fail catastrophically, with some sparking and others arriving dead out of the box. These models had been the subject of many negative reviews on Newegg, and were previously part of a forced bundle with RTX 30-series cards.After spending months testing the two PSUs, Gamers Nexus found a surprisingly high rate of failures. Out of the PSUs that Gamers Nexus sourced from YouTube viewers or purchased, 50 percent of the GP-P750GM failed. Gamers Nexus even managed to... Continue reading…

A card with an EMV chip and contactless, but not magnetic stripe. | Image: Mastercard Mastercard is phasing out the use of magnetic stripes on its credit and debit cards over the next decade, as the industry moves towards more secure or convenient alternatives like chips and contactless payments, the company has announced. It says it will be the first payments network to phase out the technology, which dates back to the 1960s.Mastercard says the transition will start in 2024, when the stripe will no longer be required on new cards in regions like Europe where chip cards are already widely used. In the US, where the adoption of chip payments has been slower, the transition will start in 2027. From 2029, no new Mastercard debit or credit cards will come with a magnetic stripe, and they’ll be gone completely by 2033.The... Continue reading…

Astro Astro’s latest set of products are a bit outside of its usual lane. Instead of releasing a new gaming headset or controller, it has worked with reputable bag and accessory brand Timbuk2 during the pandemic to make a backpack and a sling bag with Astro’s name printed on it.Astro’s focus on gaming means that, unsurprisingly, each bag has been made to carry your gaming essentials. As such, they’re built with sections dedicated to storing — and, crucially, protecting — things like headphones, controllers, and laptops.The smaller sling bag, called the CS03, costs $79.99 and seems tailor-made for Switch owners looking for protection and utility from a bag. Lifting the bag’s magnetically sealed front flap reveals a pocket to store keys or... Continue reading…

The California Public Utilities Commission is displeased with T-Mobile. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge According to a ruling published on Friday, T-Mobile made false and misleading statements in testimony to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) about its plans for Sprint’s legacy CDMA network. The company will have the opportunity to explain why it shouldn’t face sanctions for violating the commission’s rules.The decision comes after a long back-and-forth that started with a petition from Dish Network in April asking the Commission to modify its decision on the Sprint acquisition. Dish claimed that T-Mobile made statements under oath that indicated the company would shut down Sprint’s 3G CDMA network in a three-year timeframe. When T-Mobile announced it would decommission the network on January 1st, 2022, Dish cried foul... Continue reading…

Intake towers for water to enter to generate electricity and provide hydroelectric power stand during low water levels due the western drought on July 19, 2021 at the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River at the Nevada and Arizona state border. | Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images For the first time ever, there’s an official water shortage at the largest water reservoir in the US. Today, the US Bureau of Reclamation declared a water shortage at Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead, which 25 million people across the Western US and Mexico rely on for water. It’s the first time this kind of declaration had been made on the Colorado River, the main source of water for Lake Mead, CNN and E&E News report.The declaration will trigger mandatory cuts to water use starting January 1, 2023. California, Arizona, and Nevada all tap water from Lake Mead. Based on federal guidelines for shortages brokered in 2019, Arizona will lose 18 percent of its annual apportionment of water from Lake Mead, and Nevada will lose seven percent of their... Continue reading…

The recently-announced Galaxy Buds 2. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge People always look at me weirdly when I say that I use Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Live with my iPhone 12 Pro. But it’s a pairing that makes sense for me: First, I need something that sits entirely within my ear, without a stem that’s going to risk being knocked about by a bike helmet’s strap. Second, they work with Samsung’s companion Galaxy Buds app on iOS, so I can still access their advanced features. And third? I just love that they’re shaped like little kidney beans.But if you were to try the same thing with Samsung’s newer Galaxy Buds Pro or Galaxy Buds 2 you’ll find Samsung’s iOS earbud companion app hasn’t been updated to support them. Samsung wants you to buy a Samsung phone, so it appears to be locking you out of numerous little... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing issued a statement saying Riot Games has failed to inform its employees of their right to speak to the government about instances of harassment and discrimination.In a press release, the DFEH — the body also suing Activision Blizzard for discrimination and harassment — stated that it has asked the courts, “to compel Riot Games Inc.’s compliance with the Court’s June 4, 2021 order requiring the company to send a notice to its workers about their rights to speak with DFEH.”In 2018, an extensive investigation by Kotaku revealed Riot Games fostered an environment in which female employees were harassed, belittled, and passed up for promotion. In November of that year, one current and... Continue reading…

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge OLED has been commonplace in high-end TVs for quite a while, but it’s still making its way into the laptop mainstream. That’s good news for shoppers looking for a more vibrant multimedia experience. OLED panels have unbeatable contrast ratios, combining the blackest possible blacks with the whitest possible whites. They bring entertainment to a new level, and they can lend a hand with creative photo and video work, too.Not too long ago, OLED laptops were a luxury purchase. But smaller mainstream OLED devices are becoming more common each year. Whether you’re a die-hard OLED enthusiast or you’re just looking for a way to upgrade your movie-watching experience, you now have two excellent 13-inch OLED machines to choose from: the Dell XPS... Continue reading…

T Mobile data breach | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Following a weekend report that its servers had been breached, T-Mobile said Monday that unauthorized access to some of its data occurred, but it had not yet determined whether personal customer data was involved.“We are confident that the entry point used to gain access has been closed, and we are continuing our deep technical review of the situation across our systems to identify the nature of any data that was illegally accessed,” the company said in a news release. “This investigation will take some time but we are working with the highest degree of urgency. Until we have completed this assessment we cannot confirm the reported number of records affected or the validity of statements made by others.”Motherboard reported on Sunday... Continue reading…

If you sync your iCloud Passwords with Windows, Apple’s new, dedicated iCloud Passwords app is going to give you some much-needed new abilities. The app, which comes with the iCloud for Windows 12.5 update, lets you search through your saved passwords, update them, add new ones, and delete login info you no longer want.Apple’s documentation explains how to manage your iCloud Passwords using the new app, but it’s relatively straightforward. You can access the app from the Start menu, and make any changes to your passwords that you need. Those changes will then be synced to your Apple devices. iCloud Passwords running on Windows 10 (note that all data included in screenshots is example data). Apple rolled out some... Continue reading…

Image: Activision Activision has officially announced Call of Duty: Vanguard, the next title in the hugely popular series, with a short teaser video on Monday. While the video doesn’t reveal a lot — it consists mostly of footage of four different locales that each feature a mysterious face — it seems that the game will take place during World War II, likely on the four fronts of the war.Details are light right now, but more will be revealed about Call of Duty: Vanguard at an event inside Call of Duty: Warzone, the series’ take on a free-to-play battle royale shooter, on August 19th at 1:30PM ET.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Nearly 2 million terrorist watchlist records, including “no-fly” list indicators, were purportedly exposed online. The list was indexed across multiple search engines on July 19th, but the Department of Homeland Security did not remove it until three weeks later, as first reported by Bleeping Computer Monday.Security Discovery researcher Volodymyr “Bob” Diachenko discovered the watchlist, which appears to be the product of the Terrorist Screening Center, last month. The files were indexed by multiple search engines in an easily readable format. Records included information like full names, citizenship status, date of birth, passport numbers, and no-fly indicators. No password or separate authentication was necessary to access it,... Continue reading…

Image: Bluesky Bluesky, the Twitter-funded effort to create a decentralized social network standard, has finally found a project lead — the creator of Happening, Jay Graber. Bluesky and Graber have also begun hiring for the project’s first developers, meaning the slowly gestating project might finally become a bit less “blue sky” and a bit more real.Besides experience leading the work on Happening’s event organizing features, Graber worked on Zcash, a cryptocurrency created by the Electric Coin Company that uses zero-knowledge cryptography to secure transactions. Graber was also one of the authors of a report Bluesky published in January detailing its research into decentralized web systems.

Tinder is adding ID Verification option for all users | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tinder said on Monday that it will make its ID Verification feature available to all members around the world “in the coming quarters,” according to a news release. The feature will allow users to verify their identities by uploading documentation; in Japan, where the feature has been live since 2019, a passport or license is typically used, but that may vary from place to place.The company said it will take into consideration recommendations from experts and input from Tinder members about which documents would be used in each country as well as local regulations and laws while it rolls out the feature. Tinder says it will use the feedback to ensure the process is inclusive and “privacy-friendly.”Rory Kozoll, head of trust and safety... Continue reading…

Peloton Peloton is ready to address at least one of its treadmill recalls. Regular Tread owners can now get their equipment fixed, which will involve a technician coming to users’ homes. They can schedule the visit starting this month. The company recalled both the Tread Plus, its more expensive first treadmill, and the Tread, its newer, cheaper device, in May after reports of multiple injuries and at least one death on the Tread Plus. There were 18 incidents of the regular Tread’s touchscreen falling and causing minor cuts and bruises in the UK and Canada.Peloton and the Consumer Product Safety Commission haven’t said exactly what was wrong with the Tread — only that the touchscreen could loosen — or how it’s being fixed. Only 1,050 units of... Continue reading…

Yik Yak — the anonymous, local social media app that only shows posts from people in your immediate area — has returned from the grave with new ownership after shutting down four years ago.According to the app’s relaunched website, the new incarnation of Yik Yak bought the rights to redevelop the service in February 2021, with the aim of providing a local social media network that’s free from the “labels” that dominate communication on other platforms.The new app resembles the original version of Yik Yak from 2014: users can post and comment on short text posts that are only able to be viewed within a five-mile radius. Like Reddit, posts can be upvoted and downvoted, and a separate “hot” feed compiles the top post from the past 24... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft is starting to test a new 4K dashboard for the Xbox Series X today. Xbox Insiders in the Alpha and Alpha Skip-Ahead rings will get access to the increased resolution for the Xbox dashboard later today, designed to improve UI elements for 4K displays.“This change means Home, Guide, and other areas of the UI will be displayed in a higher native resolution for increased sharpness and text readability,” says Microsoft’s Xbox testing team.Until this new 4K dashboard, Xbox Series X consoles had been running dashboard UI elements at 1080p. Native 4K elements for Home, Guide, and other parts of the dashboard will greatly improve how the Xbox Series X appears on 4K TVs.It’s not yet clear whether HDR will also be supported as part... Continue reading…

OpenTable is adding a new feature that will let restaurants tag diners as “verified” for meeting entry requirements. The initial — and obvious — use of the verification feature will be for restaurants to log guests who are vaccinated for COVID-19, but the feature could also be used to do things like confirm a diner is of legal drinking age or other requirements for entry.The feature should be rolling out to restaurants later this month, and it aims to help make it easier for restaurant owners to better serve repeat customers, especially with cities like New York City starting to roll out vaccination requirements for restaurants as the delta variant continues to rise.OpenTable wants to make things easier for repeat dinersThe... Continue reading…

Walmart is looking to hire a new senior director to develop new digital currency products, possibly including cryptocurrency payments, according to a listing on the company’s job site (via Bloomberg). The move mirrors a similar interest shown by Walmart’s sworn enemy Amazon, which wants to hire someone to head up cryptocurrency products.The new Walmart senior director position will serve as the company’s “Cryptocurrency and Digital Currency Product Lead,” in charge of “developing the digital currency strategy and product roadmap.” Among other responsibilities, the listing says this new role will also be focused on “identify[ing] crypto related investment and partnerships,” suggesting Walmart might buy its way into preexisting... Continue reading…

Photo by Horst Galuschka/picture alliance via Getty Images Google Maps users will be able to find and rent Spin’s electric scooters after the Ford-owned company announced a new global integration on Tuesday.Starting Sunday, anyone who uses Google Maps will be able to see the nearest available Spin e-bike or e-scooter in real time, including how long it will take to walk to the vehicle, as well as battery range and expected arrival time.But to pay for the scooter, unlock it, and take their ride, users will be redirected to Spin’s app. Google Maps users will be able to see Spin’s availability in 84 cities, campuses, and towns in Europe and North America, the company said.“Our goal is really to make it just as convenient or even more convenient to get around with alternative transit, bikes,... Continue reading…

Public health data systems in the United States are out of date, underfunded, and can’t communicate with each other. Those issues left states unable to keep track of COVID-19 spread, and during surges, many local health departments stopped contact tracing, according to a new investigation from Politico.The deep-dive look at the gaps in public health surveillance shows breakdowns at nearly every step in the process. Labs that ran COVID-19 tests didn’t report data directly to health departments through electronic systems, instead using faxes or emails. Health departments used different systems to track different types of outbreaks and relied on programs that required laborious, manual entry. They couldn’t get information about cases... Continue reading…

Viktor, a character in Cyberpunk 2077. | Image: CD Projekt Red Cyberpunk 2077 will let you more easily reset your character’s perks in the upcoming 1.3 patch, according to a new blog post from developer CD Projekt Red. The new feature arrives ahead of the next-gen upgrade set to hit sometime this year and could be useful for anyone who wants to dive back into the game and switch up how their character plays.You can see the new feature in action in a video from the developer, which shows that you’ll have to pay some in-game currency to reset your perks. You can already reset your perks, but it’s quite expensive to do so — this new option seems to be much more affordable.It appears that the reset feature doesn’t let you switch up your attributes (the five main traits in the game’s skill tree that... Continue reading…

Kitfox Games Boyfriend Dungeon is getting an update, but not to its gameplay. In response to players’ concerns that the current content warning doesn’t go far enough, Kitfox Games tweeted on Saturday that it would update the message next week. The developer says that right now the warning, “inadequately describes the events of stalking and emotional manipulation that exist in the story.”

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin brought its fight against NASA’s Moon program to federal court on Monday, doubling down on accusations that the agency wrongly evaluated its lunar lander proposal. The complaint escalates a monthslong crusade by the company to win a chunk of lunar lander funds that was only given to its rival, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and comes weeks after Blue Origin’s first protest over the Moon program was squashed by a federal watchdog agency. Now in court, Blue Origin’s challenge could trigger another pause to SpaceX’s contract and a new lengthy delay to NASA’s race to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024.Blue Origin’s complaint, filed with the US Court of Federal Claims, was shrouded behind a protective order but was... Continue reading…

Intel Arc is the new branding for Intel’s GPUs. Intel is branding its upcoming consumer GPUs as Intel Arc. This new Arc brand will cover both the hardware and software powering Intel’s high-end discrete GPUs, as well as multiple hardware generations. The first of those, known previously as DG2, is expected to arrive in the form of codename “Alchemist” in Q1 2022.Intel’s Arc-based Alchemist GPUs will be available in both desktops and notebooks in early 2022, with Intel seemingly aiming to compete against both AMD and Nvidia here. While we still don’t know much about the performance of the first Alchemist GPUs, Intel published a teaser video today that showed prototype silicon powering PUBG, Psychonauts 2, Metro Exodus, and more.

Two sharks and a surfer off the coast of California. | Image: CSULB Shark Lab A quick Google search for “sharks” drums up a sampling of headlines of recent sightings. “Leopard Sharks Return to La Jolla Waters in Droves,” reads one, while another highlights a “cluster of juvenile great white sharks off Pacific Palisades coast.” There’s been a steady stream of these kinds of stories all summer: sharks swimming eerily close to unknowing swimmers nearby.Drones are actually helping researchers dispel some misguided fearsIf there seem to be more shark sightings than ever, it may be thanks to drones. Aside from driving some scary headlines, drones are actually helping researchers dispel some misguided fears: it turns out that shark encounters aren’t actually so rare. People often don’t even realize when there are... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon Amazon refreshed its Fire HD 10 tablets in late April, and it added a faster processor and more RAM to make its biggest budget-friendly model a better value. Now is a great time to buy one, as the Fire HD 10 with 32GB of storage and ads on the lock screen is $50 off its usual price, bringing it down to $100. The ad-free version is $115. And, if 32GB of storage doesn’t seem like it’ll be enough, you can purchase an affordable 256GB microSD card that can greatly expand its internal storage for things like apps, movies, and more (it supports up to a 1TB microSD card).The slightly more capable Fire HD 10 Plus is also far less expensive than usual. Normally $180, it’s $130. This upgrade won’t be for everyone, but it has more RAM (4GB... Continue reading…

The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened a probe into Tesla’s Autopilot software, citing the cars’ repeated collisions with parked emergency vehicles.The NHTSA investigation will cover Tesla Models Y, X, S, and 3 vehicles released from 2014 through 2021. The federal agency says since 2018 it has logged 11 incidents (which include 17 injuries and one fatality) in which Tesla vehicles using the company’s Autopilot features, like Traffic-Aware Cruise Control, have crashed into stationary emergency vehicles. The agency says most of these incidents took place after dark, with the software ignoring scene control measures including warning lights, flares, cones, and an illuminated arrow board.The... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge How stable are stablecoins? Continue reading…