The Verge

Typically $150, Amazon and Walmart are both taking $20 off the recently-released earbuds. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The Beats name carries quite a bit of clout, which is perhaps the reason Apple is able to sell headphones and earbuds that fall under the Beats umbrella for a premium, regardless of their performance. The Beat Studio Buds are a great case in point. The fitness-focused earbuds lack wireless charging and suffer from lackluster noise cancellation, however, they typically command a higher price than some of the like-minded competition.Thankfully, they’re currently on sale at Amazon and Walmart for $20 off, the first discount the colorful earbuds have received since making their debut in June. Noted flaws aside, the Beats Studio Buds still tout a comfortable, stem-less design and satisfying sound for the price, along with USB-C charging and... Continue reading…

Photo: Sean O’Kane / The Verge Starship Technologies is expanding its footprint, deploying dozens of its pint-sized six-wheeled delivery robots on college campuses this fall.Starship is adding four new schools to its operational domain: University of Illinois Chicago; University of Kentucky; University of Nevada, Reno; and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Daytona Beach, Florida, campus. The company, which originated in Estonia but is now based in San Francisco, also has robots in George Mason University, Northern Arizona University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Purdue University.Currently, the company operates on 20 college campuses in 15 states with a global fleet that totals 1,000 robots. This expansion would add 85 more robots to that fleet. Starship... Continue reading…

Twitter has announced the results of an open competition to find algorithmic bias in its photo-cropping system. The company disabled automatic photo-cropping in March after experiments by Twitter users last year suggested it favored white faces over Black faces. It then launched an algorithmic bug bounty to try and analyze the problem more closely.The competition has confirmed these earlier findings. The top-placed entry showed that Twitter’s cropping algorithm favors faces that are “slim, young, of light or warm skin color and smooth skin texture, and with stereotypically feminine facial traits.” The second and third-placed entries showed that the system was biased against people with white or grey hair, suggesting age discrimination,... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Samsung has announced the Exynos W920, a new processor designed for smartwatches and other wearables. The company says it’s the world’s first wearable-specific chip to be built on a 5nm process, helping improve performance and efficiency.The Exynos 920 has two Cortex-A55 cores and a Mali-G68 GPU. (For context, Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon 888 has four Cortex-A55 cores that are used for low-power tasks.) Samsung is claiming 20 percent better CPU performance and ten times better GPU performance than its previous wearable chip. The W920 also includes a Cortex-M55 processor that’s dedicated to driving an always-on display, further reducing power consumption.We likely won’t have to wait too long to see this chip used in a commercial... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, a noted superfan of Bitcoin, claimed on Monday that the cryptocurrency will eventually unite the world. Yes, really.On Monday afternoon, an amendment to the Senate’s infrastructure package that would have expanded the government’s involvement in cryptocurrency was blocked. Shortly after that, Dorsey tweeted that “#Bitcoin will unite a deeply divided country. (and eventually: world).”

Countach LP 5000 S | Image: Remi Dargegen / Lamborghini The official announcement that “the new Lamborghini Countach is coming” aims directly at anyone who had a picture of the iconic sports car on their wall as a kid. With a body covered in angles and show-stopping gull-wing doors, it was the perfect dream car for anyone who didn’t have a driver’s license or plans to back out of a parking space. Image: Lamborghini Lamborghini Countach teaser And now the Countach is back, or at least it will be at some point in the future. On its website and in a teaser video, Lamborghini says “the future is our legacy” — whatever that means. While we’re not anticipating a full EV from Lamborghini until after 2025, Roadshow points out leaks revealing that this revived model will... Continue reading…

Roku is putting much of its massive Quibi content haul to work beginning Friday.On August 13th, nearly two dozen Roku Originals will debut on the Roku Channel. Many have not previously premiered elsewhere, including a Josh Groban-hosted series called Eye Candy that’s based on the Japanese show Sokkuri Sweets, cleaning competition show Squeaky Clean, the second season of pay-it-forward series Thanks a Million, and 10-part docuseries What Happens in Hollywood about power dynamics in the entertainment industry.Additionally, Emmy-nominated Quibi comedy the Mapleworth Murders will also debut on the service this week. The full list of 23 Roku Originals hitting the service on Friday include:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch’s suspensions are about to get a little clearer for streamers: starting on Monday, the company announced that it will include the name and date of the content that violated platform rules when it issues a ban.It’s not quite a clear and simple explanation of what precisely a streamer might have done to get a suspension — Twitch doesn’t seem to be willing to provide that level of detail on any violations of its policies — but it could potentially help streamers figure out what they did wrong and what to avoid in the future.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s been a rocky couple of weeks for Peacock. NBC positioned its streaming service as the place to go if you wanted to stream the Olympics without a cable subscription — something that should have been an easy win for the upstart platform. Instead, Peacock’s coverage was wonky and confusing, and the service hasn’t given viewers much of a reason to stick around after the Games. With its biggest draw behind it and little in the way of internet-breaking titles headed to the platform anytime soon, it’s unclear what comes next for NBCUniversal’s biggest streaming bet.Peacock had 54 million sign-ups and 20 million-plus active accounts as of the end of July, just over a year after launch, parent company Comcast said during its second-quarter... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google announced updates to its Titan security key lineup on Monday, simplifying it by removing a product and bringing NFC to all its keys. The company will now offer two options: one has a USB-A connector, one has USB-C, and both have NFC for connecting to “most mobile devices.” The USB-A key will cost $30, and the USB-C key will cost $35 when they go on sale on August 10th.One of the biggest changes in Google’s new lineup is an updated USB-C key, which has added NFC support. Google’s previous USB-C option, made in collaboration with Yubico, didn’t support the wireless standard. Now, the choice between USB-C and A is easy, as there aren’t features that one has that the other doesn’t. It’s simply a matter of what ports your computer... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix The next season of the hit anime JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure will premiere exclusively on Netflix in December, the company announced on Monday. The premiere month announcement arrives alongside a new trailer for the season, which is officially titled JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Stone Ocean.The season follows a woman named Jolyne Cujoh, who is sentenced to 15 years at a maximum security prison for a crime she claims she is innocent of. I won’t try to summarize everything else that happens in the wild-looking trailer — I’ve never seen the show or read the manga myself, so I just can’t do it justice.Stone Ocean is the latest in Netflix’s growing anime slate. Sailor Moon’s latest movie hit the streaming service in June, and that same month, the... Continue reading…

Sony officially owns AT&T’s Crunchyroll.Sony’s deal to acquire Crunchyroll was first announced in December 2020 and sees Crunchyroll join Funimation, Sony’s existing anime streaming property, under one roof. The ultimate goal of the unification of the two anime properties under a single roof is to develop “a unified anime subscription experience as soon as possible,” said Tony Vinciquerra, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, in a statement.The deal is priced at $1.175 billion, and AT&T — which had been reported by The Information to be shopping the service around for $1.5 billion — will use the funds to help pay down the debt it amassed from its spending on streaming. In a radical shift away from its streaming strategy,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The company bans surveys that include diversity data Continue reading…

36 SpaceBee smallsats launch to space aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in January 2021, during SpaceX’s Transporter-1 mission with 107 other satellites on board. | Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images Elon Musk’s SpaceX is acquiring the small-satellite data provider Swarm Technologies, scooping up the startup’s roughly 30 employees and its network of 120 tiny satellites. The deal, struck last month, is extremely rare for SpaceX, which normally manufactures its rocket and satellite hardware in-house or hires subcontractors.Swarm revealed the acquisition plans in an August 6th filing with the Federal Communications Commission that requested approval to shift ownership of its satellite and antenna licenses to SpaceX. The merger agreement, in which Swarm will become a direct and wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX, was inked on July 16th, the filing said.SpaceX benefits from “access to the intellectual property and expertise developed by... Continue reading…

Netflix is tripling down on its reality TV programming by renewing its most popular shows and opening up casting for future programming to anyone over the age of 18 in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, or Ireland, the company announced Monday.Anyone interested who meets that criteria can submit a one-minute video on Netflix’s new dedicated reality TV site. The application can be used for multiple shows on Netflix’s current slate, from baking competitions like Nailed It! to saucier romantic options like Love is Blind. (Netflix also offers the option to apply to all of its shows at once if you prefer a more “spaghetti meets wall” approach.) Image: Netflix Netflix will let you apply for shows across a broad spectrum... Continue reading…

Photo by Robert Reiners/Getty Images Riot Games announced Saturday that the final two matches of the League of Legends US Championship Series (LCS), which are slated for later this month, will no longer be held with fans at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, “due to the rise of COVID-19 cases in the United States.” The matches will instead be held at the LCS Arena in Los Angeles. Current ticket holders will be issued full refunds.“We scheduled the LCS Championship as a road show with fans and made the decision to move forward based on the very promising roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine in the Spring,” Riot Games said in its announcement, adding that it had been monitoring the recent uptick in cases. “Given the current state of affairs, we cannot in good... Continue reading…

Several record labels are suing an ISP for copyright infringement | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A group of major record labels has filed a new lawsuit against Charter Communications alleging that the company has failed to address its subscribers’ copyright infringement of musical works. And it’s not the first time the labels have sued Charter for its subscribers’ alleged behavior.In a complaint filed in US District Court in Colorado July 26th, Universal Music, EMI, Sony Music, and Warner Music, along with several subsidiaries, claim that Charter, which provides internet services as Spectrum, “has insisted on doing nothing despite receiving thousands of notices that detailed the illegal activity of its subscribers, despite its clear legal obligation to address the widespread, illegal downloading of copyrighted works on its Internet... Continue reading…

Much more utility than your average controller Continue reading…

Vaccine misinformation appears rampant on a social media site for doctors | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A social media site for doctors is seeing “hundreds of comments”— many with false claims and conspiracy theories— on posts about the COVID-19 vaccine and the pandemic, according to a new report from CNBC. Doximity is limited to healthcare professionals in the US— it verifies members before they can join— and no one who posts to the site is anonymous.Doximity also doesn’t allow users to post articles or stories; instead it posts items from medical and science publications and mainstream news articles. Each user has a feed of aggregated content that is customized for them, based on the user’s preferences including area of medical practice.But Doximity members can comment on articles, which is where the misinformation and conspiracy... Continue reading…

Twitter has hired a grievance officer in India | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has appointed two new executives in India in an attempt to comply with the country’s new information technology laws, a company lawyer told the Delhi High court at a Friday hearing. First reported by Bloomberg, one of the new executives is a chief compliance officer who will also serve as grievance officer, and the other is a nodal officer, both required by the country’s Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code which took effect in May.Twitter made the appointments a week after the Indian government found the social media platform’s efforts to comply with the new rules were insufficient. Under the rules, social media companies are required to remove content within 36 hours of receiving a legal order. The country... Continue reading…

Nomad It’s time for another roundup of this week’s best deals. You may have already seen some of these if you’ve been keeping up with our deals coverage every day, but I’m sure there are some surprises in here. Before that, though, check out our newly-published Back to School gift guide. The beginning of August marks when many people who attend school realize how little time they actually have to prepare for the school year ahead. If that describes you or someone you know, I hope that our guide helps you. Otherwise, carry on to see what we’ve brought you this weekend.Get a Nomad case for your MacBook or iPad for half offNomad is offering Verge readers an exclusive discount on some of its polyurethane (PU) leather cases and sleeves for the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify still hasn’t added AirPlay 2 support to its iOS app — but despite the delay, it’s still “working to make [it] a reality,” the company tells The Verge. Some doubt was cast on AirPlay 2 inclusion when MacRumors spotted a forum post where a Spotify forum moderator claimed that “audio driver compatibility issues” might mean the feature wouldn’t be added for the foreseeable future. Spotify now claims that’s wrong.The Verge received the following statement from Spotify regarding AirPlay 2:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is working on a new night mode for Xbox consoles. The software giant has started testing this night mode with Xbox Insiders in the Alpha Skip-Ahead ring today, and it allows Xbox owners to dim their screens, controller LED brightness, and even the Xbox power button.The night mode has a lot of customization, including different dimming levels and an optional blue light filter. Microsoft is also allowing Xbox owners to dim the LED brightness on their controllers in this night mode and dim the Xbox power button light or turn it off. You can also set an Xbox to switch to the system dark mode and disable HDR when the night mode is enabled. The Xbox night mode lets you dim a controller LED brightness. This Xbox... Continue reading…

Photo by Ronny Hartmann / AFP via Getty Images Amazon informed US warehouse employees on Friday that it is once again requiring them to wear masks to work in response to the spread of the more contagious COVID-19 delta variant (via CNBC and Bloomberg). The company says it offers access to vaccines to over half a million of its employees, but it will require employees to mask up, regardless of their vaccination status.Amazon confirmed the mask mandate in an email statement to The Verge:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge More and more, I find myself wondering why we built a world in which so much civic discourse takes place inside a handful of giant digital shopping malls.So let’s talk about Facebook’s decision to disable the pages and personal accounts associated with the Ad Observatory project at New York University, which took data that had been volunteered by willing Facebook users and analyzed it in an effort to better understand the 2020 election and other subjects in the public interest.In one corner, you have academic researchers working to understand the platform’s effects on our democracy. In the other, you have a company battered by nearly two decades of privacy scandals and regulatory fines, forever terrified that a Cambridge Analytica... Continue reading…

Image: Razer Razer announced today that its lit-like-a-gaming-PC N95 mask has a new name and a beta program set up ahead of the planned fourth quarter launch. The futuristic-looking Project Hazel has been christened the Razer Zephyr, and you can sign up to be a beta tester right now on Razer’s site.Razer has not provided any additional information on the timing of the Zephyr’s release or when beta testers can expect to receive their masks. Based on the video Razer shared alongside its announcement, beta testers might get a different mask design from what’s been shared up until this point.The Zephyr seems a tad wider and rounder than Razer’s original Project Hazel, and there’s a grille at the bottom of the mask that’s a lot more visible than... Continue reading…

Image: FCC The Federal Communications Commission has launched a new map designed to show consumers what kind of cellular coverage they can expect in a given area from AT&T, T-Mobile, US Cellular, and Verizon. It’s been a long time coming, and it doesn’t address home internet availability, but it looks like an improvement over the agency’s woefully inadequate and inaccurate past attempts to show gaps in the nation’s broadband coverage.As Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel pointed out on Twitter, it shouldn’t have taken this long for this map to be available. The law requiring that these maps be made, known as the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act, was signed in March 2020, and the lack of details about broadband... Continue reading…

An employee wearing a protective face mask inspects Sapphire Technology Ltd. AMD graphics processing units (GPU) at the Evobits crypto farm in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2021. The world’s second-most-valuable cryptocurrency, Ethereum, rallied 75 percent this year, outpacing its larger rival Bitcoin. | Photo by Akos Stiller / Bloomberg via Getty Images The Securities and Exchange Commission issued its first charges against the decentralized finance industry Friday, accusing two people of illegally selling over $30 million of securities in unregistered offerings.The SEC’s Friday order found that two executives from the Blockchain Credit Partners company used the Ethereum blockchain to sell cryptocurrencies to investors while misleading them about the company’s profitability. Specifically, investors purchased cryptocurrencies using digital assets like ether. The company then promised to pay investors over 6 percent in interest and that the funds would go toward physical investments like car loans to create additional income. The SEC determined that these “real-world” investments... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon Amazon is updating its Halo fitness band today with the ability to share live heart rate information with third-party devices and fitness apps over BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy). The company is currently partnered with NordicTrack for its iFit service, along with Openfit and CLMBR.Live heart rate has been available to view since launch in the Live tab of the Halo app, but connecting it to display in other apps and devices is just as easy. Amazon says you can turn on heart rate sharing by going to the Halo app’s Settings, selecting Heart Rate Sharing, switching it to on, and then following the on-screen prompts to share your heart rate with the other app or device. Image: Amazon Halo live heart rate data overlaid in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Update August 5th, 3:06 PM ET: The Xbox Series X appears to be out of stock, however, as we mention below, Walmart often rolls out new stock in 10-minute intervals.Microsoft’s $500 Xbox Series X is available online for delivery through Walmart. It’s also offering both the PS5 disc-based console and the digital version. The pricier and more powerful Series X that has a disc drive and 1TB of storage has been almost as tough to find as the PlayStation 5, so this restock is very welcome news.If this is your first time jumping into the ring, there are a few bits of advice that might lead to success for you. Don’t leave the site if the console appears to sell out immediately. Walmart usually releases stock in 10-minute intervals, with the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you haven’t been able to secure a PlayStation 5, you might be in luck. Walmart has opened orders for the PS5 (online only); this includes the $500 disc-based version of the console as well as the $400 digital disc-less version. Remember, it’s usually the first who gets the worm, but not always. If you miss out on the first wave at Walmart, the retailer usually releases more in 10-minute intervals, with the next being at 3:10PM, 3:20PM, and so forth until it runs out of stock.Also, if you don’t get lucky at first, persist! Sometimes, the “add to cart” button will pop up intermittently, so just be patient and watch closely. It’ll only help your chances of securing a console if you sign in to your Walmart account and ensure that all of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon’s corporate workers won't be returning to its offices until January 2022, the company has confirmed to The Verge. This marks a delay of around four months, as the company’s previous plan called for employees to return on a hybrid basis starting on September 7th, 2021.Amazon released updated return-to-office procedures for its employees in June, and it tells The Verge that wearing masks will be optional for fully vaccinated employees but required for everyone else. The company’s news post about the return to office guidance stated that employees could expect a hybrid work model, with the standard being three days in the office and two remote.Many of Amazon’s workers have been working on-site throughout the pandemicThe news of... Continue reading…

Image: Marvel Studios This summer’s biggest Hollywood attraction is a multimillion-dollar battle between two of the industry’s best-known players: Scarlett Johansson and Disney. Johansson sued Disney last week over its day-and-date release of her Marvel superhero film Black Widow, which put the movie on Disney Plus the same day it hit theaters, potentially depriving her of a huge box-office-infused paycheck. The aftermath has been chaotic, but it’s more importantly illuminated the myriad ways that streaming has forever changed the way we experience movies and the implications for the creatives and talent who make them.Movie contracts have traditionally been negotiated around box office results, with sizable bonuses tied to how well a film performed. This... Continue reading…

The new OneNote visual refresh. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is planning to unify its OneNote and OneNote for Windows 10 apps into a single OneNote app. The software maker is taking all the improvements in its UWP OneNote for Windows 10 app and bringing them over to the traditional OneNote desktop app instead.These improvements will appear in a series of updates over the next 12 months to the traditional OneNote desktop app that installs as part of Office. The updates include a visual refresh and “key existing features currently unique to OneNote for Windows 10.” It’s not clear which features from OneNote for Windows 10 will make their way over to the OneNote desktop app, but Microsoft says “we are working to ensure that all the most loved features will continue to be a part of... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple plans to scan photos stored on iPhones and iCloud for child abuse imagery, according the Financial Times. The new system could help law enforcement in criminal investigations but may open the door to increased legal and government demands for user data.The system, called neuralMatch, will “proactively alert a team of human reviewers if it believes illegal imagery is detected, who would then contact law enforcement if the material can be verified,” the Financial Times said. neuralMatch, which was trained using 200,000 images from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, will roll out first in the US. Photos will be hashed and compared with a database of known images of child sexual abuse.The system will be used first... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Over a month after the recall, people who rely on ventilators, CPAPs, and BiPAPs are unsure what to do Continue reading…

A working Apple AirPower prototype unit. | Image: Giulio Zompetti Apple’s AirPower wireless charger was supposed to arrive with the unique ability to charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods all at the same time. Unfortunately, Apple canceled AirPower in March 2019, citing difficulties in bringing the product to life. Since then, we’ve seen a teardown of AirPower, some AirPower clones, and Apple’s MagSafe battery packs. Now, an Apple prototype collector has obtained a working AirPower unit for the first time.Speaking to The Verge, Giulio Zompetti, a 28-year-old from Italy, says he has been able to purchase a prototype AirPower unit from Chinese e-waste sources. “The unit lacks all of its exterior housing, and shows this beautiful and heavy stainless steel chassis,” says Zompetti. I... Continue reading…

In April, AMD announced versions of its Ryzen 5000 desktop CPUs with integrated graphics cards, but it only made them available for prebuilt OEM systems, promising that it would sell the chips to consumers later this year. Well, “later this year” is today, with AMD now offering its Ryzen 5000 G-Series APUs to anyone to buy, not just multimillion-dollar PC manufacturers.Right now, only two of the Ryzen 5000 G-Series chips are available to purchase on AMD’s website: the eight-core Ryzen 7 5700G for $359 and the six-core Ryzen 5 5600G for $259. Both chips, like the standard Ryzen 5000 CPUs, are built on AMD’s 7nm process with its Zen 3 architecture.A good option if you don’t need a powerful GPURight now, AMD is just selling those two... Continue reading…

Photo by Alan Markfield In Free Guy, Millie (Jodie Comer) is a game developer on the outs working to prove that publisher Antwan (a strutting Taika Waititi) illegally stole game code from her and her partner, Keys (Joe Keery) to create Free City, the most popular video game in the world. She infiltrates the game, hunting for the evidence to prove that her original idea was stolen — evidence that she thinks is hidden somewhere deep inside the game itself.And you would think that the movie is about her, right? But Free Guy seems more focused on offering up Ryan Reynolds guilelessly moseying across the screen as the titular Guy, in what feels like a version of The Lego Movie that swaps “charming, stop-motion-style Lego animation” for “video games” and throws in... Continue reading…

Moderna says a third shot of its COVID-19 may be needed against variants | Photo by Ivan Damanik/NurPhoto via Getty Images Pharmaceutical company Moderna said its COVID-19 vaccine is 93 percent effective through six months after the second dose, but as new variants of the virus emerge, people who received the vaccine may need a booster shot before winter.The company made the announcement as part of its second-quarter earnings release Thursday.“We are pleased that our Covid-19 vaccine is showing durable efficacy of 93 percent through six months, but recognize that the Delta variant is a significant new threat so we must remain vigilant,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a statement with the earnings release. Moderna president Stephen Hoge said during an earnings call that a third booster “will likely be necessary to keep us as safe as possible through... Continue reading…

Standout design, noise cancellation, and wireless charging for $99 Continue reading…

Staff label and package items in the on-site dispatch hall inside one of Britain’s largest Amazon warehouses in Dunfermline, Fife. | Photo by Jane Barlow/PA Images via Getty Images Amazon announced new efforts that might be able to prevent some overstocked and returned items from becoming trash. It launched two new programs that are intended to make it easier for third-party retailers to sell returned goods and unsold inventory.The moves come in the wake of several separate investigations into Amazon warehouses that found that many returned and unsold items were labeled for destruction. Businesses that use Amazon to sell their products pay to hold their stock in Amazon warehouses. When those goods don’t sell, or if returned items pile up, they might decide to chuck the products to save money.Amazon’s new “Grade and Resell” initiative will now give third-party sellers in the UK the option to sell stuff that’s... Continue reading…

Sony’s original PSVR. More and more details for Sony’s planned next-generation PlayStation virtual reality headset appear to be popping up. According to YouTube channel PSVR Without Parole with further corroboration from UploadVR, Sony held a developer summit on Tuesday where it detailed new information about the controllers and game development strategy for the sequel to the PSVR, and seemed to confirm some features that have already been reported.Among the new details, the next-gen PSVR controllers (or NGVR controllers, based on what PSVR Without Parole claims is the codename for the device) can reportedly not only detect when you’re holding the controller and touching buttons but also how far away your fingers are. The feature sounds a bit like the radar... Continue reading…

The University of Alabama will be the first school to exclusively issue mobile student IDs this fall. | ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images Apple Wallet has supported contactless student IDs since 2018, with three US universities supporting the feature at launch. The program has been gradually expanding ever since. Yesterday, the company announced that its virtual IDs will finally arrive in Canada this fall. An unspecified number of additional US universities will adopt it for the first time as well.The University of New Brunswick and Sheridan College will be the first two Canadian schools to use Apple Wallet IDs. The new US roster includes Auburn, Northern Arizona University, University of Maine, and New Mexico State University, in addition to “many more colleges across the country.” The University of Alabama, one of the program’s early adopters, will also be the first... Continue reading…

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) speaks at a press conference urging the inclusion of the Civilian Climate Corps., a climate jobs program, in the budget reconciliation bill, outside of the U.S. Capitol on July 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. Ocasio-Cortez was joined by (L-R) Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), Rep. Joe Neguse (D-CO), Joe Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and climate activists. | Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images If Democrats and progressives have their way, tens of thousands — or even millions — of Americans could soon find work planting urban trees, managing forests, and making homes more energy efficient and resilient to the ravages of climate change. They’d form a new “Civilian Climate Corps” that lawmakers and activists are hoping to fund through the budget reconciliation process.The idea has picked up significant momentumFor more than a decade, different proposals have floated around for a new civilian mobilization focused on climate adaption. Recently, the idea has picked up significant momentum. The most ambitious proposal yet was introduced by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in April. Joe Biden proposed a... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Some Facebook users stymied by the company’s seemingly impenetrable support channels have turned to an interesting — and expensive — loophole to get access to their locked accounts: buying an Oculus Quest headset, as reported by NPR. But it doesn’t appear to be a reliable way to get access, as many reports online indicate that the solution didn’t work out for them.The crux of the issue is that it’s often difficult to know if Facebook is receiving support requests when you submit them through its normal channels. From NPR:

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The 2021 New York International Auto Show has been canceled as the delta variant of COVID-19 continues to spread throughout the United States. The show was supposed to run from August 20th to August 29th at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City.The show’s organizers announced the cancellation Wednesday “with great disappointment,” according to a statement, citing the spread of the delta variant and increased safety measures such as the new proof of vaccination requirements announced by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio this week. The decision came suddenly, as just last week organizers revealed a poster for the event titled “The Future is Bright.” This year’s show was supposed to have a special focus on electric vehicles.“All... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’ve ever hit “Send” on a Gmail email and regretted it ten seconds later, you’ll know how handy — even necessary — a delayed send function can be. It could be the sudden realization that you accidentally hit “Reply all,” or a feeling that you may have sent it to the wrong contact, or that there is a misspelling somewhere in there — or, perhaps worst of all, the knowledge that you just sent off an angry missive that you probably shouldn’t have. In any of these cases, a few seconds to stop that email could keep your day from imploding.(Gmail, of course, isn’t the only email app with this ability; other apps offer it as well.)Gmail offers a standard five-second window to allow you to change your mind and unsend the email, but if you... Continue reading…

Employees at Code for America (CFA) announced today they are unionizing with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) Local 1010. Organizers say 62 people have signed authorization cards, meaning 77 percent of eligible employees have indicated their support for the effort.The national nonprofit builds tech products for government agencies, including helping county courthouses automatically clear peoples’ records once they are eligible and operating one of the biggest intake sites for California food stamp benefits.Employees say they are largely happy with the work — and are better paid than colleagues at other nonprofits. Still, they feel a union could give them more of a say in business decisions. “A union... Continue reading…