The Verge

Image: Apollo / The Verge Four years ago, Polygon published a feature that asked what happened to video game pioneer Ban Tran, a Vietnamese woman credited with creating Wabbit, the first console game to feature a named playable female human character. After years of digging and numerous “Return To Sender” marked letters, the Video Game History Foundation finally found her.Today, the Video Game History Foundation is sharing the story of Van Mai neé Tran (who was mistakenly called Ban because of an accidental misspelling of her name in the credits) and her work in the video game industry. Mai recounts her time in the early ‘80s working for Games for Apollo, a short-lived video game company based in Texas. There, she worked on Wabbit, a game for the Atari VCS that... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is testing iPhones that swap the Lightning port for USB-C, according to a new Bloomberg report from Apple whisperer Mark Gurman. But you shouldn’t expect to see it in this year’s iPhone lineup, as the changeover wouldn’t happen until 2023 “at the earliest,” Gurman says. The report follows reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s tweets this week indicating Apple would swap to USB-C in the second half of 2023, which is presumably when that year’s iPhone lineup will be released.The switch would be a big one, though it’s not a complete surprise. Apple has already moved the iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Mini to USB-C. And the EU revealed a proposal in September that would require many devices, including smartphones, to include USB-C ports... Continue reading…

A winning combo between HP and AMD, the Envy x360 15 is available for its lowest price ever at Best Buy today. | Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge Our collection of deals this Friday includes a variety of sales on laptops and phones. Our first contestant today is the HP Envy x360 15, which typically goes for $1,029.99 but is on sale at Best Buy for $729.99, its lowest price ever. This 2-in-1 is definitely starting to show its age but remains an excellent value for a convertible laptop.The Envy x360 is an amazing application of AMD hardware in HP’s compact and sturdy 2-in-1 form factor. The 15-inch, 1080p touchscreen display is backed up by an AMD Ryzen 5 5700U CPU and 8GB of RAM, lending it more than enough power for most productivity applications. However, even with AMD’s integrated graphics, the Envy 15 is capable of pulling its weight in the gaming space, too.In addition to a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As the Terra crisis draws on, some of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world have begun to delist Terra’s UST stablecoin and its linked Luna token, citing a need to protect users from risk.Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, halted the trading of Luna and Terra on Thursday. The OKX exchange — one of the top 10 by volume — took the same action shortly afterward. The FTX exchange and other smaller exchanges continue to list and trade the Luna and UST tokens.The delistings come in response to a broader collapse in the economics of the Terra project. After the UST stablecoin fell well below its dollar peg on May 9th, an algorithmic process meant to balance the price at close to $1 triggered... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After Xbox Series X / S topped the US sales charts for game consoles in March based solely on how much money they brought in, things turned back to the usual during April, according to stats announced today by the NPD. The PS5 led April in dollar sales, aligning with what we saw as retailers seemed to have more of the consoles in stock last month than for most of 2022. It was followed by the Xbox platform and then Nintendo.However the Switch did lead the month in unit sales, and the NPD says it has now passed Sony’s PlayStation 4 in terms of lifetime sales in the US, making it the fourth highest-selling console ever, behind the PS2, Xbox 360, and Wii.The other notable hit continues to be Elden Ring, which sold enough games in April to... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Yesterday the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided in favor of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a lawsuit over HB 20, a bizarre law effectively banning many apps and websites from moderating posts by Texas residents. The court granted Paxton a stay on an earlier ruling to block the law, letting HB 20 go into effect immediately while the rest of the case proceeds. The decision was handed down without explanation. But court-watchers weren’t necessarily surprised because it followed an equally bizarre hearing earlier this week — one that should alarm almost anyone who runs a website. And without intervention from another court, it’s going to put social networks that operate in Texas at legal risk.HB 20, to recap a little, bans social... Continue reading…

The Pixel Watch, Google’s first smartwatch. | Image: Google This year’s Google I/O keynote was filled with hardware announcements, which is unusual considering it’s typically a software and services-focused affair. Of these, the most exciting was the news that Google plans to return to the Android tablet market next year and that it’s also releasing its first smartwatch — the Pixel Watch — later in 2022.Google gave a couple of different reasons for its change of heart. But the most interesting of these was a comment from Google’s VP of product management Sameer Samat, who talked about the benefits a tablet device could have for the Pixel ecosystem more generally. “I think consumer expectations have changed as well over time,” Samat said. “Phone is certainly super important, but it’s also... Continue reading…

The studio behind the breakout hit Genshin Impact is back with a new game — and you can watch the first trailer right now. Called Zenless Zone Zero, the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic city called New Eridu, which has been subject to an event known as “the sub-hollow disaster.” Based on the trailer, it appears to be an action-heavy RPG with some killer music and character designs, where players will fight plenty of monsters while looking very cool.Zenless is notable in particular because it comes from Mihoyo, the Chinese studio best-known for the global smash hit Genshin Impact, which first launched in 2020 and is available across PC, mobile, and PlayStation. The two games look like they share much in common — including an... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge One of the best things about the Playdate, Panic’s quirky gaming handheld, is how it only really does one very specific thing: play video games. It’s not bogged down by other apps or features, so when you’re playing something like Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure, it’s easy to stay focused on the game. It’s refreshing to have a device so single-mindedly focused on fun — which is why I found the idea of using the little yellow console as a personal organizer so intriguing. For the past week, I’ve been doing just that, and while it’s definitely not an option for everyone, much like the Playdate itself, it manages to be both simple and straightforward.First, a few notes for context. One, it’s important to know that I have yet to find a... Continue reading…

The Peloton rower’s handle. I was not kidding when I said they were teasing the machine. | Screenshot: Peloton Peloton’s annual Homecoming event is for the fans. It’s where the fitness tech company teases new products, as well as drops new features and content. It’s also a chance for fans to take live classes taught by their favorite instructors and attend special panel discussions. This year, the big tease is that Peloton officially confirmed a connected rower is coming.Peloton’s reveal is more of a teaser and official confirmation than anything else. We don’t know the specs or when it’ll launch — just that it’s “coming soon.” In terms of design, the rower itself appears to have a similar vibe to the Peloton Tread — sleek, with a minimalist profile and a display to watch classes on. Rumors about the rower have been floating around since 2018,... Continue reading…

Of all the movies I watched at the Sundance Film Festival this year, the one that stuck with me the most is Resurrection. That’s mostly because of just how intense and unsettling the film is — and now you can get a taste of that via the first teaser trailer.Resurrection stars Rebecca Hall as a woman whose well-ordered life is upended after a former partner (Tim Roth) unexpectedly appears. In some ways, it’s a standard thriller, with pressure steadily mounting on Hall’s character until it’s almost too much to take. But what has stuck with me all this time is just how messed up the movie actually gets, particularly its horrifying finale. It’s the kind of thing that sticks with you long after the credits roll. It helps that Hall and Roth... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter shares plummeted Friday after new doubts about whether Elon Musk’s planned $44 billion acquisition of the platform would go through. The share price dropped more than 10 percent at market open, trading as much as 14 points below the nominal acquisition price of $54.20 a share.The proximate cause of the drop was a series of confusing statements from Musk, who tweeted that the deal was “temporarily on hold” pending an investigation into the total number of bot accounts on the platform. Twitter had claimed in a filing that bots compose less than 5 percent of daily active users on the platform, although many believe the real figure is higher.Musk later clarified that he was “still committed to the acquisition,” but uncertainty... Continue reading…

Of course it’s simulated. | Image: Google At the end of its I/O presentation on Wednesday, Google pulled out a “one more thing”-type surprise. In a short video, Google showed off a pair of augmented reality glasses that have one purpose — displaying audible language translations right in front of your eyeballs. In the video, Google product manager Max Spear called the capability of this prototype “subtitles for the world,” and we see family members communicating for the first time.Now hold on just a second. Like many people, we’ve used Google Translate before and largely think of it as a very impressive tool that happens to make a lot of embarrassing misfires. While we might trust it to get us directions to the bus, that’s nowhere near the same thing as trusting it to correctly... Continue reading…

She had been contracted to sell phones on Samsung.com. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On April 14th, The Verge published a story about how Samsung’s “Experts,” who answer customer chats at Samsung.com, were being pushed by both Samsung and staffing agency Ibbu to do some customer support for free. While we spoke to a dozen experts during our reporting, only one was willing to be named in the story: Jennifer Larson.The day after our story was published, Larson received an email saying that she was being temporarily suspended and that she’d get an update in a week. Over four weeks later, Ibbu told her she’d been fired.The email to Larson read, in part:

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Elon Musk says his deal to buy Twitter is “temporarily on hold” after the social network reported that false or spam accounts comprised less than 5 percent of its 226 million monetizable daily active users. The Tesla CEO, who offered to buy twitter for $44 billion, tweeted a link to a May 2nd Reuters report on Twitter’s filing, saying he wants to see the company’s calculations.“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted. However, in a follow-up tweet, he added that he’s “still committed to [the] acquisition,” suggesting that it’ll proceed after Twitter provides satisfactory information on its numbers.

Starlink’s coverage map as of May 2022. | Image: SpaceX SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink is now available in 32 countries around the world, the company has announced. Impressively, Elon Musk’s space company says it’ll ship “immediately,” contrary to earlier issues that caused customers to wait months to receive their dishes.Starlink shared a screenshot on Twitter showing the service’s availability map, which shows the service as “available” across most of Europe and North America, as well as parts of South America, Australia, and New Zealand. Much of the rest of the world, including the entire continent of Africa, is shown as “Coming Soon” with availability expected at various points in 2023.

Take Me Out Broadway Opening Night. | Photo by Bruce Glikas/Getty Images Earlier this week, someone posted cell phone videos of Tony-nominated actor Jesse L. Williams and co-star Michael Oberholtzer that were taken during a nude scene from the play they’re in, Take Me Out. Deadline reports that Second Stage Theater, where the play is performed on Broadway, had taken steps to keep cellphones out of audience members’ hands during the play, requiring the use of Yondr pouches that are supposed to lock cellphones away when someone is in a restricted area.It’s unknown whether someone unlocked the pouch (there are many videos online claiming to show how to open the bags without the patented magnet designed to open and close them) or simply smuggled a device in.

Managers have reportedly told employees that outside unions don’t know Apple or its culture. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has been coaching retail store managers on how to try and talk employees out of unionizing, according to Vice. The report says the company has sent around a document full of talking points like “an outside union that doesn’t know Apple” or its culture, or “most union contracts give preference based on seniority.” The document also encourages store leaders to “touch base” with employees about potential union activity.This comes at a time when there are union drives at several Apple retail stores — two have officially petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold union elections, and another is looking to do so. It’s been pretty clear that Apple would try to fight these efforts; the company hired anti-union lawyers, and at... Continue reading…

In case you haven’t noticed, chipmakers are in the middle of an upscaling revolution. AMD, Intel, and Nvidia are all out to prove that algorithms can trump native rendering performance. Why spend precious GPU cycles on native 4K when you can actually get a sharper, more detailed image by upscaling smaller pictures instead?It’s an argument that’s never quite convinced me, I’ll admit. But AMD’s new FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0, arriving for the first time today in an update for Deathloop, may have the potential to change that on PC. The new game patch also includes some key accessibility options — more on that later.PC Gamer now says FSR 2.0 “really looks better than native 4K,” and Hardware Unboxed has a phenomenal video showing off... Continue reading…

Tom Hiddleston in The Essex Serpent. | Image: Apple How much you enjoy The Essex Serpent, an Apple TV Plus adaptation of Sarah Perry’s 2016 novel, might depend on how much you enjoy seeing Tom Hiddleston brooding in a misty field while wearing cozy wool sweaters. For a lot of people, that will probably be enough of a hook. (It was for me.) But thankfully, the six-episode series offers a lot more than great hair blowing in the wind — it’s a tense and heartfelt exploration of grief and belief and how much those two things can mess with you. The great sweaters are just a bonus.The show primarily follows two characters. One is Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes), a recent widow and a budding natural history scholar who has quite the fixation with sea serpents. She spends her spare time researching... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta is continuing the Meta-fication of its brands by renaming Facebook Pay, its payment system available across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to Meta Pay. The change is set to happen “soon,” according to a blog post from Stephane Kasriel, Meta’s head of commerce and financial technologies, and is the latest indication that the company formerly known as Facebook is all in on the metaverse.“We’re focused on enhancing the payments experiences we already provide with Facebook Pay where we’re seeing good adoption,” Kasriel wrote. “And with this, an emphasis on quality in the countries that we are already in, rather than expanding to new countries right now.” People in businesses in 160 countries use Meta’s platforms to make... Continue reading…

Microsoft / Alex Castro / The Verge This week’s episode of Paramount Plus’ Halo TV show is incredible in the strictest definition of the term. I literally cannot believe what I have witnessed.Spoilers for Halo followAre you still here?Are you sitting down?OK.In the latest episode of Halo, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 fucks. He has sex with an undercover human Covenant spy after the two have bonded over their shared magical abilities surrounding the mysterious artifacts both the humans and Covenant have been after for most of the series. Apparently, the Master Chief is such a skilled lover that Makee, the Covenant spy, is all set to renounce her allegiance to humanity’s enemies. However, a series of misunderstandings and violent interactions with the UNSC leads... Continue reading…

EcoFlow Wave portable air conditioner | Image: EcoFlow EcoFlow is taking a detour from its usual pursuit of making big-ass batteries to launch this portable air conditioner that would give campers, RV roamers, and everyone living the van life more incentive to own a few of the aforementioned batteries. The EcoFlow Wave is a portable air conditioner it’s building that claims to have “the world’s most powerful cooling and the longest run time.”As you can see, based on the environment of the gentleman pictured above, the idea is that keeping cool isn’t just for places with permanent walls or, apparently, any walls at all. Image: EcoFlow The unit weighs 38.58 lbs by itself and 55.98 lbs with the 1,008Wh add-on battery attached. Unlike some earlier EcoFlow projects, this... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro It’s been a crushing few days for the Terra project, in a week that has been unforgiving for cryptocurrency as a whole.Over the past few days, the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin, which is meant to maintain a dollar peg, uncoupled dramatically from the $1 mark and dropped to a low of less than 30 cents on May 10th. In the latest update to the saga, the beleaguered project put its entire blockchain on halt for around two hours on Thursday, freezing user funds until the blockchain was unpaused.

This flagship has some neat ideas, but it’s lacking polish Continue reading…

Roku announced on Thursday that its Ultra streaming box will include its Voice Remote Pro, which upgrades the company’s standard remote by adding more buttons, always-on listening, and a rechargeable battery. Despite the fact that Roku is including a remote that costs $30 to purchase on its own, the Ultra will stay at its original $99.99 price point.In its press release, the company says that the bundling will begin in “mid-May,” and its website already says that the Ultra comes with the Pro remote. When my colleague Chris Welch reviewed the remote last year, he liked that he had the option of giving voice commands to his Roku without having to press a button. And while he admired the fact that it no longer required AAs, it was a bit of... Continue reading…

The camera is no longer the centerpiece of Google’s phones: Tensor is. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge One of the coolest things about the Pixel A-series was that it was an inexpensive way to get the very same class-leading camera as the main Pixel models. It’s one of the reasons I bought a Pixel 3A years ago — that, and it was in stock at Best Buy with in-store pickup. It was also one of the top reasons why the Pixel A-series was our go-to recommendation for the best budget Android phone for years. Everything else about the phone — screen, processor, battery — was fine, but the camera was excellent.That streak comes to an end in the Pixel 6A. Unlike the A-series phones that came before it, the 6A doesn’t include the same camera hardware as the Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro. There’s no headphone jack either, which stinks, too. But rather than a... Continue reading…

The game first released last year on PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Games Store. | Image: Remedy Entertainment Alan Wake Remastered is coming to Nintendo Switch this fall, developer Remedy Entertainment announced Thursday. The game was first released for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC (via the Epic Games Store) last year. The Switch version runs “natively on the hardware,” according to a press email sent to The Verge, unlike Remedy’s cloud-streamed Switch port of Control.Remedy shared a few other Alan Wake series updates as well. When the studio announced Alan Wake 2 in December, Remedy creative director Sam Lake indicated we might hear more about the game this summer. But in a video published Thursday, he said we’re going to have to wait longer to see more of the game.“Everything [with Alan Wake 2’s development] is going really well,” Lake said. “A... Continue reading…

Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images Denis Villeneuve’s first Dune film is a sweeping epic that introduces a new take on Paul Atreides at the beginning of his path to becoming a legend, but the movie’s careful to keep a number of details and characters from Frank Herbert’s original novel shrouded in secret. It was obvious that Villeneuve was holding some things back to surprise audiences with in Legendary’s second Dune movie, and the latest bit of casting news suggests that the director knows what he’s doing.Deadline reports that Christopher Walken has signed on to Dune: Part II to portray the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV who is initially responsible for sending Paul Atreides’ father Leto to the planet Arrakis. In Herbert’s novel, House Harkonnen and the emperor are both... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Coinbase users are reporting difficulty withdrawing funds, heightening fears amid a widespread crash in cryptocurrency prices.The company confirmed the issues in a tweet on Thursday. “We are aware that some customers are having issues trading and accessing accounts on Coinbase and Coinbase Pro,” the company said. “Your funds are safe, and we are actively working on the issue. We’ll provide an update here soon.”Shortly afterward, the company indicated the situation might be resolving: “We’re seeing recovery after implementing a fix, but our teams are continuing to monitor the situation.”

Image: EA Motive In a day filled with news of disappointing but not wholly unexpected postponements, it seems like the Dead Space remake is coming along nicely enough for the developers to commit to a release date. Today, in a developer livestream, the team at EA’s Motive Studio announced the remake to 2008’s survival horror smash hit will launch January 27th while also showing off the work put into giving the game a fresh coat of bloody paint.Though the livestream was plagued by several technical hiccups, it was primarily focused on the art of the Dead Space remake. The developer team outlined three pillars that underpin the game’s uniquely horrifying look and feel:

Get three months of Xbox Game Pass for free by redeeming this offer through Hulu. It's getting increasingly difficult to recommend Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription to anyone without also sounding like an absolute shill. The latest promotion to offer an accessible introduction to this awesome service comes courtesy of Hulu. Current Hulu subscribers will be able to get a free three-month subscription to PC Game Pass and can redeem this offer through July 23rd. Note that this promotion is valid only for PC Game Pass, not Game Pass Ultimate, and may only be redeemed by new Game Pass subscribers.Normally, PC Game Pass costs $9.99 a month, but there’s no obligation to continue your subscription after the promotional period expires, so this is a great chance to try out not just AAA titles but also maybe some indie hits... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Thursday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced a number of big shakeups within the company in an email to staff, including firing consumer product leader Kayvon Beykpour and head of revenue product Bruce Falck. The company is pausing most hiring and pulling back on spending in most areas, though it’s not currently planning any layoffs.It’s a strange, uneasy moment inside Twitter, as the company prepares for Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition to close later this fall. It’s not entirely clear why Agrawal made these changes now, though, or how they relate to Musk’s acquisition. Twitter’s new head of product is Jay Sullivan, an ex-Facebook director who joined in November. The company is now beginning its search for a new head of revenue... Continue reading…

The murder trial leaned on data from a Fitbit One. This week, a Connecticut jury convicted Richard Dabate of murder in the killing of his wife, Connie Dabate, after a five-week-long trial that hinged — in part — on data from her Fitbit. Richard said a man dressed in camouflage broke into their home in 2015 and shot Connie. But Connie wore a Fitbit, and data from the device showed movement for around an hour after Richard said the break-in happened.To make the case that the Fitbit data helped show Richard killed Connie, prosecutors called on Keith Diaz, an exercise physiologist and professor at Columbia University Medical Center. Diaz has done studies validating the accuracy of Fitbits and testified about their precision.Diaz often testifies as an expert witness in criminal trials. He... Continue reading…

Mark Zuckerberg demoing the Project Cambria headset, which has been blurred out to hide its appearance. | Image: Meta Mark Zuckerberg just shared a short demo video showcasing some of the capabilities of Meta’s upcoming high-end virtual reality headset, Project Cambria. While keeping the device itself cloaked, Meta highlights the upcoming headset’s ability to do high-resolution, full-color passthrough so that wearers can interact with virtual objects overlaid onto their real-life environments.The mixed reality experience is built using Meta’s Presence Platform, which was introduced last fall. Current Quest headsets are only capable of displaying passthrough content in shades of gray, but Project Cambria will have much higher resolution image sensors to make the real world look better inside the headset.Meta also posted this two-and-a-half-minute... Continue reading…

Sony’s latest noise-canceling headphones have a fresh look and iterative improvements Continue reading…

It doesn’t come as a surprise after recent leaks, but today, Sony announced its latest flagship noise-canceling headphones, the WH-1000XM5. They cost $399.99, an increase from the prior 1000XM4s, and will go on sale May 20th.Sony says it has cranked up its already-fantastic noise cancellation to new highs by adding a second processor to the new headphones. The improvements are most noticeable in “mid- to high-frequency noise,” according to the company’s press release. That includes things like everyday city street noise and human voices.The 1000XM5s have a design that’s quite different from their recent predecessors. Sony has gone for a sleeker look, switching to a stem-style slider and moving the microphones (there are now eight of... Continue reading…

Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge Rivian is recalling some of its R1T electric pickup trucks over faulty airbag systems, according to a notice filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The vehicle’s sensors in the front seat may not deactivate the airbag when a child occupies the front passenger seat, necessitating the recall.The recall covers 502 R1T trucks from the 2022 model year that were produced September 21st, 2021, through April 12th, 2022. It is the first recall issued by the buzzy electric vehicle company.The recall covers 502 R1T trucksIn a recall report submitted to NHTSA this week, Rivian says the “Occupant Classification System (OCS) may not deactivate the air bag when a child or child seat occupies the front passenger... Continue reading…

There’s a reason why KakaoTalk is one of the featured apps on highlighting Wear OS’ expanded reach.. | Screenshot: The Verge During yesterday's Google I/O keynote, there was a moment that stood out to me that may have been lost on a lot of folks. While giving examples of new apps featured on Wear OS 3, Google took the time to call out KakaoTalk. I won’t lie. I stood up, pointed my finger at my computer monitor, and screeched some version of “AHA! I was right!”If you already know what KakaoTalk is, you likely are Korean, Korean-American, have a ton of Korean friends, love K-pop and K-dramas, or have lived / are living in Korea. You can see where I’m going here. KakaoTalk is the number one messaging app in Korea. The easiest way I can describe it is that KakaoTalk is Korea’s version of WeChat or WhatsApp. According to Statista, more than 47 million South... Continue reading…

Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images for Vanity Fair Spotify has lost a number of top executives in the past month, but Bill Simmons is sticking around, with a plum new job, to boot. The sports talk personality is being elevated into a new role overseeing Spotify’s global sports strategy, the company announced this morning.Spotify has been building up its sports presence for the past few years, first purchasing Simmons’ sports media empire The Ringer for nearly $200 million in 2020. In 2021, the company bought sports-oriented live audio app Locker Room (now branded Spotify Live) for more than $67 million. Outside of the talk space, Spotify inked a deal in March with FC Barcelona for branded shirts for the 2022–2023 season.Sports (soccer in particular) are big for Spotify CEO Daniel Ek.... Continue reading…

Netflix The Resident Evil franchise’s Umbrella Corporation always presents itself to the public as a benevolent organization committed to creating a better future for humanity through pharmaceuticals. But the first trailer for Netflix’s upcoming live-action Resident Evil series is a reminder that every promise the Umbrella Corporation makes should also be understood as a very serious threat.Netflix’s Resident Evil from creator Andrew Dabb tells the story of how Jade Wesker (Ella Balinska) comes to be one of the last humans fighting to survive in the apocalypse after a viral cataclysm originating from Umbrella ravages the world. As the daughter of Albert Wesker (Lance Reddick), Jade has a somewhat direct connection to the event in New Raccoon... Continue reading…

Text replacement is like autocorrect that you use on purpose. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’ve spent any time typing out a message on an iPhone, you’re familiar with autocorrect and its shortcomings. We know them. We ducking hate them. But there’s a related, less well-known feature on your iPhone called text replacement that is kind of an all-purpose autocorrect. In fact, this is already enabled by default — any time you type “omw,” it will automatically change to “On my way!” before your eyes.Here’s how to set up your own shortcut phrases with text replacement:

Image: Google You can spot an Apple iPhone from 20 paces away. I bet you’d be able to tell a Samsung Galaxy from that distance, too. Yet, until last year, a Google phone didn’t have an eye-catching design language all its own.But this week, Google revealed that its most distinctive, in-your-face design element ever is here to stay. Not only did it feature on last year’s Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro — and will appear on the Pixel 6A this July as well — but Google has also already shown us an even bolder, harder-hitting version will jut right out of this fall’s Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro.I’m talking, of course, about the camera bar. Image: Google The original Pixel 6 family. Compare to the Pixel 7 family at the top of this story. ... Continue reading…

Yeedi’s $450 robot vac brings 3D obstacle detection and oscillating mopping to its low-cost line Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today let’s talk about the highest-profile conflict to date between Meta and its Oversight Board, an independent organization the company established to help it navigate the most difficult questions related to policy and content moderation.Since before the board was created, it has faced criticism that it primarily serves a public-relations function for the company formerly known as Facebook. The board relies on funding from Meta, it has a contractual relationship with it governing its use of user data, and its founding members were hand-picked by the company.Aiding in the perception that it’s mostly a PR project is the fact that to date, Meta and the board have rarely been in conflict. In the first quarter of its existence, of 18... Continue reading…

The latest Apple TV 4K is on sale today for $149.99 at Amazon. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’re an Apple fan looking for a high-end streaming device or are shopping for a good graduation gift, the latest Apple TV 4K is currently on sale in the 32GB configuration at Amazon for $149.99 ($30 off), a record low. Despite using a similar design to prior models, the 2021 edition offers significantly improved performance thanks to its A12 Bionic processor. It also offers support for Wi-Fi 6 and HDMI 2.1, and it includes a better Siri Remote that’s easier to use (and less fragile).While you can certainly buy more affordable streaming gadgets, like a Chromecast for Fire TV Stick, the Apple TV 4K offers the best overall streaming experience, especially if you’re deeply embedded in the Apple ecosystem. It boasts a combination of... Continue reading…

The first image of Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy | Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration The world has been gifted the second photograph ever taken of a supermassive black hole — and this time, it’s a black hole that’s relatively close to home. Today, scientists collaborating on the massive Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project released an image of Sagittarius A*, the gargantuan black hole spinning away at the center of our own galaxy, the Milky Way.This celestial present comes from the same project which made quite the splash back in 2019 when they released the very first image taken of a black hole. That now iconic fuzzy orange photo showcased a supermassive black hole at the heart of a mammoth galaxy called Messier 87, or M87, which is located 55 million light-years from Earth. The groundbreaking result helped scientists... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Fun gift ideas for friends, family, and even yourself Continue reading…