The Verge

Image: Valve Valve just announced the Steam Deck, its long-rumored Switch-like handheld gaming device. It will begin shipping in December and reservations open July 16th at 1PM ET. It starts at $399, and you can buy it in $529 and $649 models as well.The device has an AMD APU containing a quad-core Zen 2 CPU with eight threads and eight compute units’ worth of AMD RDNA 2 graphics, alongside 16GB of LPDDR5 RAM. There are three different storage tiers: 64GB eMMC storage for $399, 256GB NVMe SSD storage for $529, and 512GB of high-speed NVME SSD storage for $649, according to Valve. You can also expand the available storage using the high-speed microSD card slot. Image: Valve The Steam Deck. The Steam Deck has a huge number... Continue reading…

A walkway at the Tidal Basin leads to a flooded sidewalk from the rising high tide on July 2nd, 2019, in Washington, DC. The Tidal Basin’s crumbling seawall and sidewalks are routinely under water due to the rising sea levels high tides and threatening some Cherry Blossom Trees. | Photo by Mark Wilson / Getty Images High tide flooding hit record levels in the US last year and is only expected to get worse, according to a new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Coastal communities experienced twice as many days with high tide flooding last year than they did 20 years ago. Records were either matched or broken in 14 places across the Southeast Atlantic and Gulf coastlines.Nationally, coastal communities were hit with a median of four days of high tide flooding in the past year — although some places suffered through more than quadruple that number. NOAA’s outlook for the rest of the year until April 2022 rises to three to seven days of flooding. But because of sea-level rise tied to climate change, the long-term... Continue reading…

googleglass,glassenterprise,google glass enterprise Google Meet videoconferencing is adding fuller support for Google Glass, the company’s frequently overlooked augmented reality headset. Yesterday, Google announced an open beta of “Meet on Glass” for the Glass Enterprise Edition 2. Users with Google Workspace can sign up to test the service following a closed beta announced last year.As The Verge’s Sean Hollister laid out last year, Meet on Glass works differently from normal online videoconferencing. When a Google Glass wearer connects, other participants get a first-person view from the headset camera. Google pitches it as a collaborative remote troubleshooting tool for the business-focused Glass Enterprise Edition, replacing less hands-free options like capturing a video with your... Continue reading…

Facebook is adding emoji with sound to Facebook Messenger. The name for them, of course, is Soundmojis.To access Soundmojis, tap the emoji button while you’re in a Messenger conversation, tap on the sound icon on the far right, and then scroll through the list of available options. Just tap on an emoji to preview the accompanying sound and then hit the “send” button to drop it into your conversation.There are expected sound effects and some surprising onesSome of the sounds are expected: the goat emoji utters a bleat, while the clapping hands emoji plays an applause sound effect, for example. But some are musical, such as the hourglass, which plays Drake’s “you only live once, that’s the motto” lyric, and the sun, which plays a clip... Continue reading…

Crossclip’s interface. | Image: Streamlabs Logitech-owned Streamlabs, maker of the popular livestreaming app Streamlabs OBS, is releasing a new tool today called Crossclip that lets you take your favorite Twitch clips and turn them into social videos formatted for platforms like TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram.The tool is free for anyone to use on the Crossclip website. It has some smart features that let you quickly generate a shareable video that highlights both the streamer and the game they’re playing. A video for TikTok, for example, might show the streamer on top and their game cropped beneath them in a vertical format.I’ve been playing around with Crossclip for a couple of days, and I’ve found it really easy to use. It could be a very useful tool that lets streamers... Continue reading…

Climb The Giant Man Obby. Creators are putting their own spin on the virtual realm Continue reading…

Photo by Matthew Busch for The Washington Post via Getty Images The Tennessee Department of Health is suspending outreach for all types of childhood and adolescent vaccinations, the Tennessean reported this week. Along with stopping COVID-19 vaccine events at schools, the department will no longer do outreach for the HPV vaccine, isn’t planning for flu shot clinics at schools, and is taking the department’s logo off of back-to-school vaccination information sheets. The shift in policy came after Republican lawmakers in the state got upset that the department was promoting COVID-19 shots for teenagers.It’s a strong signal that the politicization and backlash around the COVID-19 shots, driven by conservative politicians and right-wing commentators, is spilling over to other types of vaccinations. It’s... Continue reading…

Images: Aston Martin Two years after Aston Martin debuted the striking but clumsily titled AM-RB 003 concept, the final production version has arrived with a much simpler name: Valhalla.The automaker revealed the hybrid supercar on Thursday ahead of this weekend’s British Grand Prix, where Aston Martin will compete as a manufacturer for the first time in over 60 years. Aston Martin returned to F1 this year with a team that’s co-sponsored by Cognizant, the professional services firm at the center of Casey Newton’s multipart investigation into Facebook’s content moderation problem. In 2020, the company was taken over by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, the de facto villain from the third season of Netflix’s Drive to Survive series.Stroll walked away... Continue reading…

Don’t kill me, please. | Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge SoftBank’s Pepper robot is dead, and The Wall Street Journal is dancing upon its grave with a thorough account of how the “emotional robot” failed to live up to the hype. Expectations were so inflated back in 2014 that the first batch of 1,000 robots sold out in a minute, despite being priced close to $2,000.The entire article is well worth a read as a reminder that tech is hard, and predicting its impact on society is even harder.Although SoftBank certainly overhyped Pepper, saying its launch would be remembered “100, 200, or 300 years” into the future, humans are also to blame for getting sucked in by the bot’s doe-eyed demeanor, despite The Verge’s article titled “I met an emotional robot and felt nothing.”The WSJ report does... Continue reading…

Microsoft announced its new Windows 365 service yesterday, but the company said it wouldn’t discuss pricing options until the Cloud PCs launch on August 2nd. Now, Microsoft has inadvertently revealed one pricing option, allowing businesses to use a virtual Windows PC in the cloud for $31 per user, per month.The pricing option was revealed during a Microsoft Inspire session yesterday, as the company demonstrated how businesses can sign up to the service. For the $31 monthly subscription, Microsoft offers two CPUs, 4GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. This is part of the Windows 365 Business option, designed for businesses with fewer than 300 overall users.“This is pricing for just one SKU. Microsoft will have many more options, both in... Continue reading…

The fourth passenger set to ride with Jeff Bezos on his space company’s suborbital rocket next Tuesday is a Dutch teen named Oliver Daemen, Blue Origin revealed Thursday. Daemen, the son of a Dutch private equity executive, will fill in for the winner of last month’s $28 million auction, who remains anonymous and “has chosen to fly on a future New Shepard mission due to scheduling conflicts,” a brief news release said.Blue Origin’s launch, scheduled for July 20th, marks the company’s first crewed mission to the edge of space. Four people will launch aboard the company’s suborbital New Shepard rocket from a remote desert site in Van Horn, Texas, for a few minutes in microgravity. Blue Origin founder Bezos, his brother Mark, aviation icon... Continue reading…

Photo by Caroline Brehman-Pool / Getty Images On Thursday, the surgeon general published a new report calling on social media platforms to make new investments in combating online coronavirus misinformation.The report calls for an all of society push to address vaccine and coronavirus misinformation, including sweeping policy recommendations for companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy specifically calls on companies to redesign their algorithms to “avoid amplifying misinformation.” He also suggests that they build more “friction” into sharing functions that urge users to rethink whether to share a post containing false information.Murthy also recommends that platforms put out “clear consequences for accounts that repeatedly violate platform... Continue reading…

PREMIUM SILICONE! | Image: Elago Apple’s new Siri Remote arrived without a built-in locator chip, so Elago has created the next best thing: the R5 silicone case with a slot for Apple’s new AirTag tracker. According to Elago, it features a “THICK LAYER OF PREMIUM SILICONE,” which is so dense it can only be expressed in caps.The $14.99 price doesn’t include the cost of the $29 AirTag, but it does promise to put an end to lost Siri remotes, especially if you own an iPhone fitted with UWB to enable precision tracking. It costs a lot more than comparable AirTag cases available on AliExpress that list for just a few dollars, but well, this one can be found on Amazon for whatever that’s worth. Alternatively, you could always just 3D-print your own case if you’re in more of a... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo Preorders for Nintendo’s new OLED Switch model will start today, July 15th, at 3PM ET / 12PM PT, the company announced today. The console is set to be released on October 8th for $350, a $50 price increase over the standard Switch model. Nintendo isn’t offering any specific details, directing customers to check with stores directly for how they’ll be handling preorders.The Verge will have a complete guide to preordering an OLED Switch soon, so check back later today to find out how Best Buy, Amazon, Walmart, and more are handling preorders for the popular new console.

Lyft is bringing back shared rides | Lyft Lyft will once again allow passengers to share their rides with strangers starting next week after suspending the service over a year ago in response to the pandemic, the company announced today. Shared rides will be available in Philadelphia, Chicago, and Denver starting on Monday, July 19th, followed by additional markets “in the coming months.” It’s good news for anyone who wants a cheaper or more environmentally friendly way of making a journey in a private hire car.Although shared rides are returning, they’re doing so with some social distancing restrictions. Drivers and passengers will still be required to wear masks at all times, and eating or drinking is banned during journeys. Shared rides will also be limited to two riders... Continue reading…

Getty Images Chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has reiterated that it expects chip shortages to continue into next year, Bloomberg reports. The warning came as the company reported its latest financial results, which saw its net sales rise almost 20 percent to NT$372 billion (around $13.3 billion) compared to the same quarter the previous year. However, automakers should see the shortage gradually easing this quarter.As the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, a lot of attention has been paid to TSMC amid the global chip shortage, which has impacted the manufacturing of everything from cars to game consoles. TSMC is a leading manufacturer of semiconductors and is responsible for producing the majority of... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The pandemic nearly killed those Instagram-ready pop-up experiences. Places like Color Factory and Museum of Ice Cream laid off employees as the world shut down, and they tried, seemingly unsuccessfully, to re-create their photogenic experiences online. But now, they’re back, raising money, and opening new locations.Color Factory tells The Verge it recently closed a $10 million fundraising round from private equity and angel investors, which it’ll use to expand and hire people who help build the sites. Today, it’s additionally announcing its next location: Chicago. It’ll be opening a Color Factory in the Willis Tower, a major sightseeing destination that brings in nearly 2 million visitors a year on its own. The idea is clearly for... Continue reading…

Microsoft is bringing its infamous Clippy character back to life as an emoji in Office. After a successful campaign to get some Twitter and Instagram likes, Clippy will now replace the paperclip emoji that exists across Windows, Office, Microsoft Teams, and other Microsoft 365 products. It’s part of a bigger update that will see 1,800 emoji in Microsoft 365 updated with 3D designs and the company’s Fluent Design language.Clippy is the star of the show, with 3D emoji that have been redesigned to add a lot more personality. “I grew up using Clippy, and it just seemed like a fun little Easter egg,” says Claire Anderson, Microsoft’s official “Emoji-ologist,” in an interview with The Verge. “We just all imagined that delight when you put the... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge An Ugly Truth tracks the last five years of Facebook scandals Continue reading…

Photo by Ned Dishman/NBAE via Getty Images Candace Parker has become the first WNBA player to appear on the cover of an NBA 2K game. The Chicago Sky forward, a six-time WNBA All-Star, two-time WNBA MVP, and 2016 WNBA Finals MVP, is featured on the cover of the WNBA 25th Anniversary Special Edition of NBA 2K22, which will be released on September 10th.“I grew up a video game fanatic, that’s what I did, to the point where my brothers would give me the fake controller when I was younger where I think I was playing and I wasn’t,” Parker tells ESPN. “All I wanted to do was just be like them. As a kid growing up, you dream of having your own shoe and dream of being in a video game. Those are an athlete as a kid’s dreams. To be able to experience that, I don’t take it lightly.”

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is adding support for AirPlay 2 and HomeKit to two of its Fire TV Edition TVs in a free update, the company announced on Wednesday. Both the 2020 Toshiba 4K UHD Smart Fire TV with Dolby Vision and the 2020 Insignia 4K UHD Smart TV will receive the features, before they arrive on Amazon’s less expensive Fire TV sticks and set-top boxes.On these specific TV sets, AirPlay 2 should function the same on Apple’s own Apple TV, allowing you to send audio and video from your phone, tablet, or computer to the big screen and control playback from your device. Integrating with HomeKit, Apple’s smart home ecosystem, requires a little extra legwork: you’ll have to enable HomeKit in your TV’s settings under Display & Sounds > AirPlay & HomeKit... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A report this spring from The Information said that Netflix was seeking an executive to lead its push into gaming, with an eye toward offering an Apple Arcade or Xbox Game Pass-like subscription bundle. Now, as first reported by Bloomberg, the streaming company has hired Mike Verdu as its vice president of game development reporting to COO Greg Peters. A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the hire to The Verge.According to Bloomberg, Netflix could offer games right next to its other streaming content “within the next year” listed as a new genre just like documentaries or anything else, without charging extra for the experience.Verdu is a former exec who has experience with mobile gaming companies like Zynga, ran EA Mobile for a year, and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft’s Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) reported on Tuesday that SolarWinds software was attacked with a zero-day exploit by a group of hackers it calls “DEV-0322.” The hackers were focused on SolarWinds’ Serv-U FTP software, with the presumed goal of accessing the company’s clients in the US defense industry.The zero-day attack was first spotted in a routine Microsoft 365 Defender scan. The software noticed an “anomalous malicious process” that Microsoft explains in more detail in its blog, but it seems the hackers were attempting to make themselves Serv-U administrators, among other suspicious activity.Update Serv-U as soon as possibleSolarWinds reported the zero-day exploit on Friday, July 9th, explaining that all of the... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge The OnePlus 9 Pro went on sale on April 2nd, but to date, the $969 base model, which comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, hasn’t been available to actually buy in North America. The company had told Android Police on April 3rd that the base version was still on the way, but now, according to a new statement given to Android Police, it actually won’t make its way to the US or Canada due to “unforeseen supply constraints.”Here’s the full statement, from Android Police:

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge General Motors said Wednesday that two recent Bolt EV fires happened in vehicles that had already received the fix meant to prevent the battery pack from igniting, raising new questions about the recall announced last year. In the meantime, the automaker is warning owners of 2017-2019 model year Bolts not to charge the electric cars overnight, and to park them outside in case they catch fire.The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued the same warning to owners late Wednesday, too. The safety agency said is still investigating the problem, that it’s looking into the two new fires, and said owners can enter their VIN number here to check to see if their Bolt is included in the recall.GM recalled nearly 69,000 Bolt EVs in... Continue reading…

Image: Plex Plex, the popular build-your-own streaming service, has added 15 new channels to its ad-supported streaming offering for free TV.All of the new channels available on Plex’s free Live TV feed arrive on the service today, and most will be available globally (though a spokesperson told The Verge that some are available in Latin America or the US only). Plex originally launched the free TV feature last year as a collection of pre-programmed, continuous channels rather than traditional over-the-air streams. So it’s not quite live TV, but it does offer a similar linear experience if you’re just looking to throw something on.Of these new channels, some notable additions include MMA TV, USA Today, USA Today Sportswire, and the Tribeca Channel.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Until now, using WhatsApp web on your desktop or any other device has required having a phone that’s powered on and connected, but a new beta test is trying out support for multiple devices without needing a phone in the mix. In a June interview, WhatsApp head Will Cathcart and his boss, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, commented on the technical challenge of maintaining end-to-end encryption. With a blog post today, Cathcart explains more about what has been done behind the scenes to maintain security. Image: Facebook WhatsApp’s message architecture. As the image comparing the legacy and new systems (above) tries to explain, previously, a user’s phone managed the key determining their identity and ability to... Continue reading…

Facebook’s prototype brain-computer interface headset. | Image: Facebook Reality Labs A Facebook-backed initiative aiming to let people type by thinking has concluded with new findings published today.Project Steno was a multi-year collaboration between Facebook and the University of California San Francisco’s Chang Lab, aiming to create a system that translates brain activity into words. A new research paper, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, shows potential for implementing the technology for people with speech impairments.But alongside the research, Facebook made clear it is backing off the idea of a commercial head-mounted brain-reading device, and building out wrist-worn interfaces instead. The new research has no clear applicability for a mass-market tech product, and in a press release, Facebook... Continue reading…

YouTube now supports creating clips from live streams. | Image: YouTube YouTube is adding a trio of new features for live-streaming today that are all standbys for streamers on Twitch. Streamers will now be able to limit their chats to subscribers only, they’ll be able to create polls inside of their chats, and they and their viewers will now be able to create clips from popular gaming streams.These features have been around for a while on Twitch, and they’re all important tools to let streamers engage with their community. Limiting chats to subscribers only can help as a moderation tool by weeding out people who are just popping by, and it gives streamers another tool to encourage their viewers to start paying. And polls are useful for engaging with the often-chaotic chatrooms, giving streamers a simple... Continue reading…

Apple has released its third developer betas for the upcoming iOS 15 and macOS Monterey, and they bring some much-needed fixes to Safari — namely, undoing some of the more controversial changes introduced in the earlier betas. For macOS, that means a normal tab bar that goes back to the previous design, while iOS is getting a more consistent design when it comes to the URL bar.iOS 15 is still sticking with its new tab view and the moved URL bar on the bottom of the display, but the latest beta docked it there permanently, instead of bouncing it to the top of the screen when you selected it. Apple’s also added a new refresh option to the pop-over menu when you tap and hold the URL bar. Together, the changes help make the new design a... Continue reading…

Wata Games, the company that graded the recent record-breaking copies of The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario 64, has been acquired by Collectors Universe, which grades coins, trading cards, and other collectibles and memorabilia. The purchase signals video games’ growing prominence in the world of collectibles, which has seen significant interest recently due to the skyrocketing value of things like Pokémon cards.“Collectibles across categories, including trading cards and sports memorabilia, are now firmly considered an alternative investment class by both hobbyists and investors,” said Nat Turner, executive chair of Collectors Universe, in a press release. “With those categories seeing a stratospheric rise recently, we’ve identified... Continue reading…

How Half-Life and Deus Ex laid the foundation for a Wikipedia-style murder mystery game Continue reading…

Microsoft is threatening to bring back its annoying loveable Clippy character. The software giant claims it will replace the paperclip emoji in Microsoft Office with Clippy if the tweet below gets 20,000 likes. The tweet has already surpassed that number, so it seems Clippy could be about to return as a more innocent emoji — but Microsoft is being coy about what might happen next.Born in Office 97, Clippy originally appeared as an assistant to offer help and tips for using Microsoft Office. You either loved or hated its Groucho eyebrows and persistence, and Microsoft eventually killed off Clippy in Office XP in 2001.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon toyed with yet another way of ingratiating itself into the lives of you and your family through an Alexa-enabled wearable for kids, Bloomberg reports. The device was considered for Amazon’s 2020 product roadmap, according to documents Bloomberg viewed, and it would have added to the company’s growing stable of kid-focused tech products.The $99 wearable, codenamed “Seeker,” would reportedly feature GPS, voice activation (presumably for some kind of Alexa features), and be targeted for children ages four to 12. The finer details of the physical design of the device seem like they were still up in the air. Bloomberg writes the wearable could have come as a clip, keychain, or wristband. The goal seemed to be delivering exclusive A... Continue reading…

The company is partnering with Boingo to deploy 5G Plus in parts of US airports. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AT&T has announced a partnership with Boingo Wireless to bring its fast mmWave 5G — which it calls 5G Plus — to more US airports, with a goal of seven by the end of the year and 25 by the end of 2022. That’s counting its first deployment in Tampa International Airport earlier this year. There’s a little bit of a catch, though; travelers will only find 5G Plus in certain areas of the airport, like major gates and concessions areas. Still, it’s one place where range-limited but powerful mmWave might actually make sense. When else do you need to download an entire movie while you wait for your latte?Boingo is known for providing Wi-Fi to air travelers, but what AT&T is deploying isn’t 5G-branded Wi-Fi. Any AT&T subscriber with the right... Continue reading…

Photo: Marvel Studios Stay up to date with the trickster god Continue reading…

Photo: Marvel Studios The most standalone MCU series yet Continue reading…

Twitter just rolled out Fleets to everyone in November. | Twitter Say goodbye to Fleets, the row of fullscreen tweets at the top of the Twitter timeline that expire after 24 hours. The ephemeral tweet format is shutting down due to low usage after launching widely just eight months ago.Starting on August 3rd, users will instead just see active Spaces — Twitter’s live audio chat rooms — at the top of their timelines. And the composer for traditional tweets will be updated with more camera editing features from Fleets, like text-formatting and GIF stickers over photos.“We haven’t seen an increase in the number of new people joining the conversation with Fleets like we hoped.”Twitter’s decision to axe Fleets is not just an admission that the feature didn’t work, but that the company still hasn’t... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook plans to pay out $1 billion to creators over the next year and a half as part of an effort to court content makers to its many services. The money will be awarded to creators who use Facebook products in different ways: on Facebook, creators can get a cash bonus for running ads on their videos or reaching certain tipping milestones during livestreams; on Instagram, creators can get paid for enabling ads on their IGTV videos, getting tipped in livestreams, or creating popular videos on Reels.The money is available to creators on an invitation-only basis for now, and new options for making money will be announced later. Facebook indicated it would expand availability to more creators later in the year, launching a “dedicated... Continue reading…

Backchannel, Clubhouse’s messaging feature | Image: Clubhouse Now, you can slide into people’s Clubhouse DMs. The social audio company is launching its direct messaging feature, Backchannel, today for all users on both iOS and Android. For now, users can chat one-on-one, in groups, and send links. They cannot yet send images or videos, but a spokesperson says that functionality is coming, along with a “few other features.” There will also be an optional secondary inbox where message requests will live.The functionality is designed to help moderators chat among themselves during an active room; let people connect after an event; and broadly, foster text conversations that otherwise would have to take place in a separate app. We can’t say this development is much of a surprise, though: Clubhouse a... Continue reading…

Google is releasing the latest beta for Android 12 right on schedule. Beta 3 for Android 12 continues adding features, including scrolling screenshots, faster on-device universal search for apps, improved auto-rotate, and more. Google says this version of Android 12 has the “Android 12 APIs and the official SDK,” which means there shouldn’t be major feature changes in the upcoming betas. That should mean Android 12 is still on track for a fall release.The most interesting new feature in Android 12 Beta 3 is “better, faster auto-rotate.” Google is now using the front-facing camera and face detection to determine what orientation you’re trying to hold the phone (instead of just depending on the accelerometer).“This is especially helpful... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is working to make browsing more secure by soon offering an HTTPS-first option, which will try to upgrade page loads to HTTPS, the company announced on Wednesday. If you flip this option on, the browser will also show a full-page warning when you try to load up a site that doesn’t support HTTPS. The company is also announcing that it’s “re-examining” the lock icon in the URL bar and plans to experiment with a change to how that looks.HTTPS is a more secure version of HTTP (yes, the “S” stands for “secure”), and many of the websites you visit every day likely already support it. Since HTTPS encrypts your traffic, it’s a helpful privacy tool for when you’re using public Wi-Fi or to keep your ISP from snooping on the contents of... Continue reading…

Wildfires in the West can lead to power outages. There are around 20 federally qualified health centers in the areas touched by the Lava, Tennant, and Salt fires, which started in Northern California at the end of June. The centers are part of the state’s healthcare safety net and offer primary care to low-income patients in the area. Despite the fire risk to the facilities, none of those 20 centers had backup generators, says Andrew Schroeder, who runs analytics programs at the humanitarian aid organization Direct Relief.That’s key information for officials and aid groups: if the power went out because of the fires, those centers might not be able to keep medications and vaccines refrigerated or turn on computer systems with patient medical records. But before May, that’s not... Continue reading…

Image: Razer Razer’s largest laptop is getting big upgrades. The new mid-2021 refresh of the Blade 17 will add newer CPUs, higher-powered GPUs, and an updated webcam.The new Blade 17, which drops the “Pro” designation of earlier models, catches the larger laptop up to the Blade 15 Advanced released earlier this year. It now comes equipped with the same Intel 11th Gen H-Series processors, with a choice of the Core i7 11800H (2.3GHz base clock, 4.6GHz boost clock), or the top-tier Core i9 11900H (2.5GHz base, 4.9GHz boost), which isn’t available on Razer’s smaller models.The laptop also features GPUs from Nvidia’s latest RTX lineup, including the 3060, 3070, and the 3080, with up to 16GB of video memory. Crucially, Razer has increased the Blade 17’s... Continue reading…

Solar panels that were installed on four buildings on the Microsoft Corp. campus in Mountain View, California, Wednesday, April 25, 2007. | Photo by Tony Avelar/Bloomberg via Getty Images With a new strategy for how it purchases renewable energy, Microsoft hopes to push electricity grids to get clean. The tech giant is now focused on making a local impact in the places where it operates.Since 2012, the company has purchased enough renewable energy to match how much juice it uses to power its operations globally. But Microsoft isn’t actually running on renewables 100 percent of the time. All of those clean energy purchases don’t necessarily connect to the same electricity grids that the company is plugged into.Clean energy purchases don’t necessarily connect to the same electricity grids that the company is plugged intoThat could change if Microsoft is successful in its new goal. By 2030, it wants to make sure that... Continue reading…

Microsoft is putting Windows in the cloud. Windows 365 is a new service that will let businesses access Cloud PCs from anywhere, streaming a version of Windows 10 or Windows 11 in a web browser. While virtualization and remote access to PCs has existed for more than a decade, Microsoft is betting on Windows 365 to offer Cloud PCs to businesses just as they shift toward a mix of office and remote work.Windows 365 will work on any modern web browser or through Microsoft’s Remote Desktop app, allowing users to access their Cloud PC from a variety of devices. “Windows 365 provides an instant-on boot experience,” according to Wangui McKelvey, a general manager for Microsoft 365. This instant access lets workers stream their Windows session... Continue reading…

Photo by Saul Loeb-Pool/Getty Images Facebook has asked recently confirmed Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan to recuse herself from the agency’s antitrust fight against Facebook, claiming her previous criticism of the company disqualifies her from fairly judging its conduct.The Wall Street Journal first reported on Facebook’s petition, which was filed with the FTC today. In the petition, Facebook attorneys write that “Chair Khan has consistently and very publicly concluded that Facebook is guilty of violating the antitrust laws. She has built her career, in large part, by singling out Facebook as a professed antitrust violator.” Facebook cites Khan’s previous anti-monopoly work at the nonprofit Open Markets Institute, her contribution to a congressional antitrust... Continue reading…

The urban heat island effect can be deadly Continue reading…

Loki’s signature gadget, reviewed Continue reading…

Netflix Kids will now have its own top 10 row. | Image: Netflix Netflix is launching two new tools this week that should help make finding age-appropriate content a little easier to discover within the kids version of its streaming service.Today, Netflix is introducing a new Top 10 row for age-restricted profiles, borrowing one of the most useful tools for discovery from the adult version of the service. Netflix’s existing top 10 tool works by surfacing the most popular titles on the service, often new and original titles, which can make finding something to stream a lot less of a headache. Launching in 93 countries, the row will be updated daily and will feature both shows and movies with the regional equivalent of a PG and below rating. Additionally, titles that make the cut will display a “Top... Continue reading…