The Verge

What exactly the glasses will look like or how they will function is unclear. Facebook’s next hardware launch will be its long-awaited Ray-Ban ‘smart glasses,’ CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed on an earnings call this week. When exactly the glasses will arrive is unclear. We least heard they were launching some time in 2021, but the pandemic has changed a lot of companies’ plans, and Zuckerberg did not comment on a time frame.“Looking ahead here, the next product release will be the launch of our first smart glasses from Ray-Ban in partnership with EssilorLuxottica,” said the Facebook CEO. “The glasses have their iconic form factor, and they let you do some pretty neat things.”We don’t know what those “neat things” are, though Facebook has previously confirmed that the glasses will not have an integrated display... Continue reading…

Looking back a year later at Intel’s worst summer, and how it’s been fighting its way back since Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony’s PS5 system software beta program is starting to roll out today, and it include access to the long-awaited M.2 SSD slot. The first PS5 beta is available for select users in the US, Canada, Japan, UK, Germany, and France. The beta includes some new UX enhancements and customizations, but the biggest addition is M.2 SSD expansion support.Sony notes you’ll need an M.2 SSD that’s PCIe Gen4 and has read speeds of 5,500MB/s or faster. That’s largely what we were expecting, and it means a variety of Gen4 drives will be supported — including Samsung’s 980 Pro, Western Digital’s SN850s, and many other modern M.2 SSDs.You may need to consider the cooling requirements for using an M.2 SSD in a PS5, though. “Using an M.2 SSD with your PS5... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge “Sugar dating” apps will not be allowed on the Android Play Store from September 1st, Google has announced as part of a series of policy changes for the platform. The change, which was first reported by Android Police, specifically prohibits apps relating to “compensated sexual relationships.” Other changes coming to the platform include a new crackdown on inactive developer accounts, Google says.Traditionally, sugar dating relationships involve older, wealthier individuals dating and showering younger partners with gifts. As Android Police notes, there’s no shortage of apps on the Play Store designed around setting up “sugar daddy” relationships. None of them explicitly say that older men are expected to compensate younger women for... Continue reading…

The Beoplay EQ are available in gold (pictured) and black. | Image: Bang and Olufsen Bang & Olufsen’s Beoplay EQ are the Danish audio brand’s first pair of noise-canceling true wireless headphones. Two microphones on each earbud handle noise cancellation duties alongside an extra mic for making calls, for a total of six across the two earbuds. They’re releasing globally on August 19th in black and gold.At $399 (£359 / €399), the Beoplay EQ are around $50 more expensive than B&O’s non-noise-canceling Beoplay E8 earbuds were at launch. They don’t feature the third-generation E8’s formidable battery life, which tops out at 35 hours of total charge from the earbuds and case combined. Instead, the Beoplay EQ can run for around 20 hours when used with the charging case. Battery life from the earbuds themselves is about the... Continue reading…

Engineer and YouTuber Mark Rober has created a robot that can make domino murals at lightning speed, and has shown it off with a video of it arranging 100,000 dominoes into a Super Mario Bros.-themed mural in just over 24 hours. Rober says it would take a team of seven humans a week to do the same thing.The robot, named the “Dominator,” achieves this by putting down 300 dominoes at a time — which are, of course, loaded into it by another robot. Rober says in the video that the current version of the Dominator is the culmination of years of work from him and his team, and he goes into how the device actually works, as well as showing some of the failed designs that led to the final product.If the name Mark Rober rings a bell, it may be... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Samsung Electronics has released its second-quarter earnings, reporting 20 percent higher revenue and 54 percent higher operating profit year-on-year despite its mobile division taking a hit due to component shortages. The company made an operating profit of 12.57 trillion won (~$10.97 billion) off 63.67 trillion won (~$55.56 billion) in revenue.Samsung says its mobile business suffered from the industry-wide component shortage as well as “production disruptions” in its Vietnam factories, some of which were closed after a COVID outbreak. Combined with weak seasonality resulting in less demand, revenue declined from the previous quarter, though it was still up year-on-year.The semiconductor business continues to be Samsung’s biggest... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix will require the casts and some crew on its productions in the US to be vaccinated against COVID-19, a measure that comes as the Delta variant continues to spread across the country.Deadline first reported that the streaming giant recently notified its production teams that it would require casts and crew working in “Zone A” on US productions to be vaccinated. Deadline described this classification as including both cast members and those who are in close contact with them. According to the report, Netflix plans to make few exceptions to the new vaccination policy, with exclusions including age, medical, and religious reasons.Netflix confirmed the measure to The Verge but declined to comment further.Similar measures have been... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In May, I wrote here that the child safety problem on tech platforms is worse than we knew. A disturbing study from the nonprofit organization Thorn found that the majority of American children were using apps years before they are supposed to be — and fully a quarter of them said they have had sexually explicit interactions with adults. That puts the onus on platforms to do a better job in both identifying child users of their services and to protect them from the abuse they might find there.Instagram has now made some promising moves in that direction. Yesterday, the company said that it would:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook will require its US employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 when they return to the office, the company confirmed to The Verge on Wednesday.“As our offices reopen, we will be requiring anyone coming to work at any of our US campuses to be vaccinated,” Facebook’s vice president of people Lori Goler said in a statement. “How we implement this policy will depend on local conditions and regulations. We will have a process for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons and will be evaluating our approach in other regions as the situation evolves. We continue to work with experts to ensure our return to office plans prioritize everyone’s health and safety.”Facebook expects to reopen offices in the US fully in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Workers at a Houston, Texas facility that processes repairs for Apple, Dell, and Lenovo reportedly say they are working in “sweatshop” conditions, according to a story from Insider. Workers’ toilets are reportedly unsanitary and insufficient, they say they lack air conditioning, and they claim their pay is low at CSAT Solutions, a company that acts as a repair partner for tech companies like Apple.In the report, which is worth reading in its entirety, employees also reportedly say there aren’t enough bathrooms or parking spots for the number of workers, and that they’re not allowed to use their phones while working, even in the case of family or personal emergencies. One employee told Insider that she got off work to discover that her... Continue reading…

Apple will be requiring customers and staff at most of its more than 270 US retail stores to wear masks even if they are vaccinated, according to a new Bloomberg report, bringing back a requirement that had been removed starting in June. The change goes into effect Thursday.“After carefully reviewing the latest CDC recommendations, and analyzing the health and safety data for your local area, we are updating our guidance on face masks for your store,” Apple informed workers in a memo obtained by Bloomberg. “Starting July 29, face masks will be required in store for customers and team members — even if they’re vaccinated.” Apple employees who work in its corporate offices have also been told they must wear masks inside of Apple office... Continue reading…

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. | Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images If you pay even the slightest attention to tech news, you’ve probably recently seen nonstop criticism of Facebook’s handling of COVID-19 misinformation, along with a barrage of negative headlines tied to a new book about the company called An Ugly Truth.These headlines generally paint the picture of a tech giant that is on the outs with users, advertisers, lawmakers, and its Silicon Valley peers. But as the world’s largest social network showed Wednesday, the reality of how its business is performing couldn’t be more opposite.Facebook said its revenue grew 56 percent in the second quarter to $29 billion, meaning it grew faster during the period than Apple or Microsoft. More impressively, its profit grew an astounding 101 percent to... Continue reading…

Photography by Zoe Schiffer / The Verge ‘Until these demands are met, we won’t stop fighting’ Continue reading…

On Wednesday, bipartisan Senate negotiators reached a deal on an infrastructure package after weeks of tense discussion. The package includes billions in new funding, including more money to connect every household to high-speed broadband, according to the White House.The Senate’s infrastructure package is expected to be around $1.2 trillion over the next eight years with around $559 billion in new spending. The White House sent out a press release Wednesday outlining what’s included in the bill, focusing on “hard” infrastructure issues like roads, bridges, EV charging, public transit, and high-speed broadband. Specifically, the package includes a $65 billion “investment ensuring every American has access to reliable high-speed... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google announced it’s adding new caller ID, missed call, and SMS message features to Google Voice on Wednesday. The otherwise minor update is notable because Google Voice has fallen to the wayside while Google focused on other messaging boondoggles.From the missed calls or voicemail sections of the mobile Google Voice app, you can now learn why you might have missed a call (for example, Do Not Disturb was on), and receive directions on how to make sure that doesn’t happen again (turning Do Not Disturb off). Google is also making it easier to redial dropped calls and switch to your mobile network if your Wi-Fi connection was the reason your call failed. Image: Google Google Voice can tell you why you missed a... Continue reading…

As employees walk out of Activision Blizzard today over allegations of “constant sexual harassment” and workplace discrimination — and how poorly they felt the company responded — Kotaku has released a report backing up allegations that a fired developer kept a hotel suite named after alleged rapist Bill Cosby.In case you’re catching up, the state of California sued Blizzard for gender discrimination last week. The allegations include claims specifically naming Alex Afrasiabi, the former senior creative director of World of Warcraft. The suit says that on top of sexually harassing women, Afrasiabi had a hotel room during BlizzCon 2013 nicknamed the “Cosby Suite” — and it suggested that other employees knew about it.Neither Kotaku’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Robinhood is scheduled to price its stock today before trading begins tomorrow, and yesterday, it disclosed a new investigation: the finance industry’s self-regulator is checking to see whether founders Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt should be registered with them. Currently, the co-founders aren’t.Is this a big deal? Maybe, I don’t know. I don’t work at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), an organization you may remember from the historic fine it leveled against Robinhood — $70 million — for, among other things, the outages that took place in March 2020. (About $12 million went to the people who were harmed, and the rest went to FINRA because that’s Wall Street, baby.) I am somewhat less concerned with FINRA’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Tesla CEO Elon Musk has, for years, talked about opening up his company’s vast Supercharger network to other electric vehicles. But earlier this month, Musk tweeted that Tesla plans to do this “later this year,” and this week, he finally offered some details about how it might work.It will be “real simple,” Musk claimed on an investor call Monday. Owners of other EVs will be able to charge at a Supercharger station by using the Tesla app — which, right now, is geared toward people who’ve purchased the company’s products. That’s about all Tesla will have to do to make this possible in Europe and China, where there are standardized charging cable connectors, Musk said. (Tesla has already committed to opening up the network in Norway.)B... Continue reading…

United Airlines announced a new option for passengers to preorder food, snacks, and beverages online up to five days before their scheduled flight. Orders can be made either on United’s website or through the airline’s mobile app. United claims that it is the “first and only” carrier to allow economy customers this option.Previously, only premium customers on certain eligible flights could preorder their food and drinks. Now, United is extending the option to all ticket-holders. To start out, only passengers on flights from Chicago to Honolulu; Orange County, CA; Sacramento, CA; and San Diego will be eligible to preorder food and drinks. But by early fall, United says it will extend the option to passengers of all flights over 1,500... Continue reading…

Photo by Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Images Test-launching its astronaut capsule a second time, Boeing needs a success now more than ever Continue reading…

Image: IGN Valve president Gabe Newell has given a rare interview to IGN, where he talks about why the company’s upcoming Steam Deck handheld exists and the philosophy the company had when designing it. The interview is worth a watch to see Newell and developer Pierre-Loup Griffais discuss the motivation behind creating an “open” device (with Newell mentioning that you could hook up an Oculus Quest to it if you wanted), along with what discussions inside Valve led to the system’s development. IGN also has a write-up summarizing the interview if you’d rather read than watch.Newell also discusses the obvious comparison between the Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch, saying Valve has chosen different trade-offs when creating its portable gaming... Continue reading…

T-Mobile is offering customers who switch from an MVNO a discount on an unlimited Metro plan with 5G. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile is introducing a new prepaid promotion with incentives for customers on other prepaid MVNOs to switch to Metro by T-Mobile, including waiving switching fees, a discount on an unlimited plan with 5G, and a trade-in offer for a new 5G phone. In other words, it’s doing exactly what it told regulators it wouldn’t do when it acquired Sprint a year ago.The US wireless market is lousy with 5G phone trade-in offers and 5G plan upgrades these days, but this one stands out in its direct pitch to lure Boost Mobile customers to T-Mobile’s prepaid brand — the same customers it was ordered to sell to Dish network with the intention of setting the company up as a fourth wireless carrier to replace Sprint. It’s also what Dish warned might be... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google will require that employees be vaccinated before they’re allowed to return to the company’s offices, CEO Sundar Pichai announced today in a letter obtained by The New York Times.The announcement marks Google as one of the first major technology companies to require that employees be vaccinated before they return to work. The news comes as part of a new wave of vaccination requirements this week, spurred by the Biden administration reportedly planning to announce a requirement for federal workers to either be vaccinated or face frequent testing for COVID-19 sometime on Thursday.Google’s vaccination requirement will reportedly apply to workers at US offices “in the coming weeks” and to other regions “in the coming months,” per... Continue reading…

Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images The Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine’s protection against severe cases of the disease holds steady after six months, according to new data released by the companies. But its ability to protect people from developing any symptoms of the disease dropped over time, the analysis showed.The data could add to the debate around if and when people may need booster doses of the vaccines, which the Biden administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other experts have been deliberating on for the past few months. The issue became more pressing when cases of COVID-19 in the United States started to surge as the Delta variant spread.Overall, the vaccine was 91 percent effective against symptomatic COVID-19 over six months. It... Continue reading…

Would you pay $10 for the privilege of strapping rocket boosters to James Bond’s iconic Aston Martin DB5 automobile and using it to score spectacular gravity-defying goals with a giant ball? Rocket League is officially making that possible from Thursday, July 29th through August 4th.Epic Games developer Psyonix says it’s signed a multiyear deal with MGM and Aston Martin to bring 007 to the vehicular sporting game — starting, of course, with the ‘60s classic made famous by Goldfinger but still stealing scenes as recently as Skyfall and the upcoming No Time to Die.Will I buy it, though? Nah — because aside from the teaser atop this post, there doesn’t seem to be much Bond about Rocket League’s version other than the DB5’s historic... Continue reading…

The Oppo Watch 2 has launched in China, featuring the same Apple Watch-style design as the original Oppo Watch but with improved internal hardware. That includes Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 4100 platform and a promise of up to 16 days of battery life from a single charge while using a low-power mode (via 9to5Google).As was the case for the Chinese model of the original Oppo Watch, the Oppo Watch 2 runs Oppo’s Android-based ColorOS, not Google’s WearOS. Last year’s model was eventually released outside of China with WearOS and access to the Google Play Store, but Oppo has yet to announce any plans for a broader release at this time. It’s also possible that the company is waiting for Google and Samsung’s upcoming WearOS 3.0 collaboration... Continue reading…

Image: Blizzard California’s suit alleges a toxic culture, discrimination, and retaliation Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images In a new letter, Activision Blizzard employees said that CEO Bobby Kotick’s note addressing allegations of sexual harassment and workplace discrimination at the company “fails to address critical elements at the heart of employee concerns.” Last week, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a huge lawsuit against the company bringing the allegations to light.Staff slammed the company’s initial response to the lawsuit, and in Wednesday’s response, the employees said they are pleased to see that they have “convinced leadership to change the tone of their communications.” But employees point out that Kotick’s letter does not address some key areas of concern, including ending forced arbitration for all employees... Continue reading…

Google rolled out Google Meet, a revamped version of its video chatting program Hangouts Meet, in April 2020, and made the app available to anyone with a Google account. You can start or join a Meet videoconference right from your Gmail inbox, using the buttons that Google has placed on the left-hand side of the page.But what if you don’t intend to use Meet, or even if you just don’t want it to be there all the time? No worries — you can hide the buttons. (Note: if you’re on a corporate Google Workspace account, you may not be able to change this, depending on your administrator’s settings.)Here’s how to hide Google Meet in Gmail’s desktop app. (You can hide it in your Android or iOS app as well.)

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google announced that Gmail would natively support email scheduling in April 2019, and the feature became available in desktop and mobile about a month later.Previously, you’d have to use a third-party add-on to do this sort of basic scheduling. Thankfully, Gmail’s feature is perfectly easy to use, and it has a range of applications for scheduling work and personal messages. Maybe you’re trying to talk to someone in a different time zone, nag someone about an event, or you just want to remind your future self about something. If so, schedule an email.To schedule a message via Gmail in a desktop web browser, follow these steps:

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is the kind of engrossing murder mystery that’s perfect for a long vacation — it just happens to be a video game. As a prequel of sorts, Chronicles takes place long before the original Ace Attorney trilogy, with new characters and a much more grounded tone, but with the same absorbing investigative gameplay and shock story twists that make it hard to put down. It’s the best of the franchise in one lengthy package.The game — which is actually a collection of two titles that previously launched in Japan — follows a budding defense attorney named Ryunosuke Naruhodo during the late 19th century in Japan. Things immediately get off to a rough start. In the first case, Naruhodo is forced to defend himself in... Continue reading…

The section gives a summary of data collected, and security practices. | Image: Google Google has revealed an in-progress design for the Play Store’s upcoming safety section, which will provide information about an app’s data collection, privacy, and security practices. Announced in May, developers will be able to start declaring their safety info in October until a deadline of April next year. The safety section is currently due to start appearing in app descriptions in the first quarter of 2022.Although Google says the design is subject to change, screenshots released today show the safety section sitting above a listing’s existing Ratings & reviews section. It offers a summary of an app’s data privacy features, including the types of data collected and whether data is encrypted. There’s also a “See details” option to... Continue reading…

GameStop and Arden Cove are two of the brands piloting the feature. | Image: Twitter Twitter is piloting a new feature that allows businesses to add a shopping section to the top of their profiles, the company has announced. The Shop Module launches in the US today and offers a carousel of products for visitors to browse. Tapping a product will link to a listing with the option of making a purchase without ever leaving Twitter. The pilot is currently limited to iOS devices for people who use the service in English, Twitter says.“People talk about products on Twitter everyday, so we’re excited about how this early exploration of the Shop Module can build a bridge between people talking about and discovering products on Twitter to actually purchasing them,” Twitter says. The pilot is only available with a small number of... Continue reading…

People wait to buy ice cream from a vender on the National Mall as the DC area experiences a heatwave on June 30, 2021, in Washington, DC. - Climate change is causing record-setting temperatures to become more frequent. Globally, the decade to 2019 was the hottest recorded, and the five hottest years have all occurred within the last five years. | Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images During a summer of deadly heatwaves, Democratic senators are pressing for a bigger federal response to the danger posed by extreme heat. Senators Ed Markey (D-MA), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) reintroduced the Preventing Heat Illness and Deaths Act today. Representative Charlie Crist (D-FL) will introduce similar legislation in the US House of Representatives. They are pushing for its measures to be included in either the bipartisan infrastructure or budget reconciliation package that Democrats are scrambling to advance.“We’ve heard that extreme heat is among the White House priorities in the climate space, and I am fighting to include provisions of my bill,” Markey said in an email to The Verge.“We’ve heard that... Continue reading…

Snap More than 250 million people use Snapchat’s built-in map to see where their friends are in the world. The map interface was recently upgraded to a main tab inside the app, and today, Snap is adding a new feature that’ll surface popular places it thinks you may want to visit. Snap Map users will also start seeing lists of places, such as bars or restaurants, they’ve either tagged in past posts or favorited to check out.The “Popular” tab at the bottom center of the Snap Map will show recommendations for places to go based on factors like your current location, friend activity on the map, and the kind of places you’ve saved as favorites. “This new algorithm in our Popular Tab sets Snap Map apart as a highly personalized discovery platform,... Continue reading…

The first Halo Infinite multiplayer technical preview will start tomorrow, July 29th. The beta will run until Sunday August 1st, offering a short chance for those invited to test Halo Infinite’s multiplayer aspects. It’s the first of many technical previews for Halo Infinite, as Microsoft prepares to launch the free multiplayer game mode later this year.The first preview will include testing gameplay against AI bots, with a bot arena to “gather feedback on Bot behavior and online performance,” according to 343 Industries. This arena will include the slayer mode across three maps, and a variety of challenges throughout the weekend. “The Bots still have their quirks, which is why we’re flighting them, but they certainly aren’t pushovers.... Continue reading…

Nintendo has announced that Dr. Mario World, a mobile take on the puzzle game series, will go out of service on November 1st, with sales of its in-app “diamond” currency ending today. The game was launched a little over two years ago, and is the first of Nintendo’s mobile games to be shut down, unless you count the Mii-themed social network Miitomo.According to data from SensorTower collected around six months after its launch, Dr. Mario World was by far the worst performing Nintendo smartphone game in terms of revenue performance. That includes Super Mario Run, whose disappointing sales prompted Nintendo to pursue freemium models in the first place. Fire Emblem Heroes remains the company’s biggest mobile hit by a huge distance,... Continue reading…

Photo by J. Emilio Flores/Corbis via Getty Images The evening before a proposed employee walkout at Activision Blizzard, one that at least part of the company is now actively encouraging by providing paid time off, company CEO Bobby Kotick has issued a letter to all employees — and investors, and the public — who are watching the company struggle with allegations of sexual harassment and workplace discrimination.At last count, nearly one-third of the company’s employees signed an open letter condemning Activision Blizzard’s initial response to those allegations, and Kotick’s letter addresses that head-on: “Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf,” he writes.Kotick says a law firm, WilmerHale, will immediately review... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple is expanding which devices can use one of its previously M1-chip exclusive features in the fourth macOS Monterey beta. Live Text, the company’s new image scanning and text identifying feature, now runs on “all Mac computers that support macOS Monterey,” according to new documentation Apple released. As tech video creator Rene Ritchie notes, that should mean Intel-based Macs. One user claims to have gotten it to work on a Mac Pro from 2008.Live Text digitizes the text found in photos, allowing for smart features like making information like phone numbers and addresses searchable and interactive in Apple Photos and the Camera app. The new feature was one of several macOS Monterey highlights that Apple limited to its newer MacBook... Continue reading…

A screenshot from World of Warcraft. | Image: Activision Blizzard The World of Warcraft team has vowed to remove “references that are not appropriate for our world” in “the coming days” following California’s major sexual harassment and workplace discrimination lawsuit filed against World of Warcraft developer Activision Blizzard last week.The World of Warcraft team’s statement Tuesday didn’t specify what “references” they would remove. But it seems possible that NPCs and items named for former World of Warcraft senior creative director Alex Afrasiabi may be taken out of the game — although Afrasiabi seemingly left Blizzard in June 2020, his stamp on the game remains, as Kotaku reported Thursday.Afrasiabi was singled out in the lawsuit for his horrible behavior, which the Department of Fair... Continue reading…

Photo: Blizzard On Wednesday, Activision Blizzard employees will walk out of work to protest the company’s response to a giant sexual harassment and workplace discrimination lawsuit filed by the state of California. Now Blizzard, the studio at the center of many of those specific allegations, is giving the protest its blessing. Blizzard leadership emailed studio employees today to let them know they won’t face repercussions for attending — and in fact, that they can have paid time off for the duration.The Verge obtained a copy of the email, which we aren’t sharing here to avoid potentially identifying sources. After over 20 percent of Google employees walked out of work in 2018 to protest that company’s mishandling of sexual harassment revelations... Continue reading…

TikTok has announced a slew of new live video features coming to the popular video app platform for both creators and viewers, including scheduled “events,” picture-in-picture support for iOS and Android, and group livestreams with two users. It’s part of the company’s increased efforts to push users to create and watch live videos.A lot of the new features bring TikTok’s live platform up to par with other live video services, adding the ability for creators to schedule a stream in advance (which TikTok calls a “Live Event”) that viewers can register and receive notifications for. Creators will also be able to add countdown timers to regular TikTok videos in the form of a sticker to help promote their upcoming streams, too. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s string of record-breaking earnings reports continued on Tuesday, with the company posting a strong fiscal third quarter that saw $81.43 billion in revenue. That’s a year-over-year increase of 36 percent and a new all-time record for the June quarter. It also crushes the $73 billion figure that analysts were expecting. Apple recorded a net quarterly profit of $21.7 billion.This quarter is traditionally one of the slower periods for iPhone sales, as consumer interest begins shifting toward the next lineup of devices that Apple is expected to announce in September. But sales were still impressively up — by nearly 50 percent — compared to this time a year ago, reflecting continued momentum for Apple’s first 5G smartphones. Mobile... Continue reading…

Former eBay security manager Philip Cooke has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for his role in an intense stalking campaign against a pair of eBay critics. A Massachusetts judge issued the sentence nine months after Cooke pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit cyberstalking and conspiracy to tamper with witnesses. He’s the first of seven former eBay employees to be sentenced after the Justice Department revealed the scheme last year.In comments reported by Bloomberg, US District Judge Allison Burroughs called the case — which saw eBay employees harassing husband-and-wife publishing team Ina and David Steiner with a funeral wreath, live cockroaches, and a bloody-faced pig mask — “just nuts.”Cooke, a former police officer, admitted... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Last quarter, Google roared out of the post-pandemic-peak period with a record $17.9 billion in profit, finally joining other tech giants that had been raking it in despite (or perhaps because of) the rise of COVID-19. But Alphabet’s Q2 2021 earnings do it one better — the company just set an all-time record revenue of $61.9 billion this quarter, and record profits for the fourth quarter in a row at $18.5 billion. Some of the numbers the company’s posting today (PDF) are nearly double those it reported a year ago.Google search appears to be the big driver, shooting up over $14 billion since this time last year to $35.8 billion total (that’s nearly $4 billion higher than it did last quarter as well). YouTube advertising revenue grew... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft posted the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2021 financial results today, reporting revenue of $46.2 billion and a net income of $16.5 billion. Revenue is up 21 percent, and net income has increased by 47 percent. While cloud and Office services have boosted Microsoft’s revenues, it’s clear that the global chip shortage is taking its toll elsewhere.With the PC market experiencing its first big growth in 10 years earlier this year, there were some signs recently that laptop and PC sales could be starting to slow again amid a global chip shortage. Microsoft’s Windows results this quarter reflect that. Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge The Surface Pro 7 Plus has been on sale for six months now. Windows OEM... Continue reading…

Fast charging and elegant software offset a so-so camera Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter will be bringing on the team building Brief, an app that summarizes news, the company announced Tuesday. The Brief team, which consists of four people, will work on projects that support features like Spaces and Explore, a Twitter spokesperson tells The Verge.Twitter declined to share details on the terms of the deal, but the spokesperson said that Twitter isn’t buying the Brief business; this is more of an acquihire, as it’s only bringing in the team that worked on the app. The Brief app will be wound down on July 31st, and subscribers will see a notification starting Tuesday about the impending change.The Brief acquihire continues Twitter’s recent trend of acquisitions and talent pickups for news features. The company bought... Continue reading…

Twitter’s new banners informing users their account has been suspended or locked. | Image: Twitter Twitter is testing new notices that tell you if your account has been suspended or locked and has been put in read-only mode for violating Twitter’s rules. The notices, announced Tuesday, will show up as a banner at the top of your feed. They are in testing across a small percentage of Twitter users on iOS, Android, and the web, a Twitter spokesperson tells The Verge.The company is testing this feature after getting feedback from users that they realized they were suspended or locked and in read-only mode only after trying to tweet or follow new accounts, the Twitter spokesperson says.