The Verge

The Ford F-100 Eluminator. | Becca Farsace This 1978 Ford F-100 “Eluminator” pickup truck is the oldest vehicle I’ve ever driven, and also perhaps the newest. That’s because, despite its vintage exterior, everything inside, from the drivetrain to the dash, is less than one year old. Oh, and it’s fully electric.Turns out what I’m really driving is a 2021 Ford Mustang Mach-E GT Performance Edition, but you couldn’t tell from its gloriously restored 44-year-old truck shell from the outside. It’s a beautifully done restomod with fresh gray and copper accents, an F-100 Custom badge, and slick retro wheels.A hopeful display of support for smaller shops and tinkerersFord Performance, the automaker’s motorsports division, designed and commissioned the F-100 Eluminator and was built by... Continue reading…

Tables can now be more nicely formatted, and easily set up with rich text. | Image: Google Google has announced new dropdown and table tools for Google Docs, as it attempts to evolve its word processing software into more of a collaborative productivity tool. The search giant calls small modular features like these “smart chips,” and they’re part of the “smart canvas” initiative it launched last year. The features are rolling out over the course of this month across all Google Account tiers.The dropdown tool lets you insert a small dropdown menu into a Google Doc, with a list of customizable options to choose from. Meanwhile, there are also new table template options that can be used to quickly add nicely formatted tables into a document. It looks like a huge improvement from Google Docs’ current barebones table creation... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Stories and lessons from his new book, Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making Continue reading…

Hello, audiophiles!I am very excited to bring you my first public edition of Hot Pod. Following the trail blazed by Nick and Ashley, I’ll be in your inbox every Tuesday with scoops, news, analysis, and japes (quality of the latter not guaranteed). And, the closest I will ever get to being in a makeover montage, today I also get to introduce a fresh new look for Hot Pod courtesy of the ace design teams at The Verge and Vox Media. Readers will notice that we have an updated logo and layout with some hotter colors to accompany the Hot Pod name.So, what’s my deal? Like everyone else in modern media, I hopped around a bit before landing at The Verge. I have done stints at MSNBC, Paramount Plus, and, most relevant to you, covering media and... Continue reading…

Spotify’s Roblox debut consists of a series of interactive islands with rotating themes. | Image: Spotify Spotify has launched its own digital space on Roblox, called Spotify Island, allowing players to make music, play games, and interact with virtual artists, the company announced in a press release. Although it’s called Spotify Island, it’s more like a virtual archipelago — players can hop between other interactive music-themed islands that change throughout the year.Spotify calls its digital island an “audio oasis,” which features distinct Spotify branding, from the vibrant green color of the landscape to the heart-shaped “Like” icons scattered around the island that players can collect and exchange for virtual merchandise. The more hearts users collect, the higher they climb on the game’s leaderboard.

The Doctor Strange sequel is a bloated comic book event in movie form Continue reading…

Dish Network has recruited Samsung to help make its cloud-based 5G a reality. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Dish Network owes us a 5G network — that was the linchpin of the deal that allowed T-Mobile to buy Sprint, bringing our wireless carrier options down to three. With Dish’s first deadline fast approaching, the company has announced a new partner: Samsung. The company joins Dish as a vendor while it attempts to build a 5G network from scratch.Dish isn’t building just any old 5G network, either. It’s basing the network on a newer, cloud-based technology called O-RAN (Open Radio Access Network) that relies on off-the-shelf (rather than proprietary) hardware. Samsung is supplying vRAN (Virtualized Radio Acc... you get it) software and radio units to help make the whole thing work.Dish promised the FCC it would cover 20 percent of the... Continue reading…

The new Wyze Room Sensor costs $24.99 and detects temperature, humidity, and motion. | Image: Wyze The long-awaited Wyze Room Sensor launches today. Originally promised in 2021, this is a small, wireless device that pairs with the smart home company’s Smart Wi-Fi Thermostat, which launched in December 2020. Designed to optimize comfort in your home and help manage hot and cold spots, the Wyze Room Sensor detects temperature, humidity, and motion. The sensor only works when paired with the thermostat using the Wyze app, so it can’t be used as a standalone temperature monitor.Each sensor costs $24.99 plus shipping, or $69.99 plus shipping for a three-pack. They can be bought in a bundle with the Wyze Smart Wi-Fi Thermostat ($70.99) for $145.96 (plus shipping).Room sensors are a popular add-on to smart thermostats to give you greater... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (or ACM) has rejected Apple’s proposed App Store changes that would let dating app developers use third-party payment systems, according to 9to5Mac and the Coalition for App Fairness. The Dutch regulator ordered the change in December and has been going back and forth with the company over how it should be implemented — and charging Apple millions in fines along the way. Now, Apple could face further penalties.According to a journalist’s tweet translated by 9to5Mac (and now available in full, below, in English), the regulator says Apple’s most recent proposal for letting developers use third-party payment systems is an “improvement” over its previous ideas, but it’s still “not... Continue reading…

A Galaxy Note Light Continue reading…

A cross-play widget will appear in the bottom right of the screen when the test is available. | Image: EA FIFA 22 will see a test of cross-play functionality in the “near future” between players on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Google’s cloud-gaming service Stadia, EA has announced. Cross-play will be limited to Online Seasons and Online Friendlies game modes, the developer says, letting you play against friends on other platforms, or climb Online Seasons Divisions against a cross-platform playerbase.EA says it’s limiting cross-play to these two modes in an attempt to limit the chance of the feature “introducing new issues into the game.” Cross-play can be enabled or disabled from a menu available in the bottom-right corner of the game’s main menu, and there’s also the option to opt in or out of it in the Matchmaking Options menu.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is shutting down its podcast platform less than a year after it launched. Creators will be unable to upload new shows to the service as of this week, and the platform will close altogether on June 3rd, reports Bloomberg News. Facebook confirmed the closure of the platform to The Verge but not the specific date.The move is part of a broader re-evaluation of Facebook’s audio products. The company is also shuttering the site’s Soundbites and Audio hubs, and integrating its live-streaming Live Audio Rooms feature (essentially a clone of once-buzzy audio app Clubhouse) into its broader Facebook Live suite.Facebook spokesperson Adelaide Coronado told The Verge that the changes would “simplify” the company’s audio offerings.“... Continue reading…

Four lightsabers from the franchise will be available. | Image: Epic Games Various lightsabers from the Star Wars franchise are returning to Fortnite for two weeks starting today, Epic Games has announced. These include the lightsabers wielded by Luke Skywalker, Kylo Ren, Obi-Wan, and Mac Windu. The iconic weapons previously appeared in Fortnite in a 2019 event that coincided with the release of Rise of Skywalker. Their return is designed to coincide with May the 4th, aka Star Wars day.Lightsabers are just part of the Star Wars-ification coming to Fortnite over the next couple of weeks. Players will be able to go through Stormtrooper training to earn an Empire Banner, and the E-11 Blaster Rifle is also returning to the island. Previously available Star Wars-themed outfits, which include versions of Rey and... Continue reading…

Image: LiveWire LiveWire, the all-electric motorcycle brand that originated as a division of Harley-Davidson, is teasing the launch of an all new bike next week called the Del Mar. Electrek notes that it’s set to be a middleweight motorcycle, making it a more approachable alternative to last year’s LiveWire One. As well as announcing the date, LiveWire has also released a short teaser trailer, which appears to show the rear of the upcoming bike at the 0:06 mark.The Del Mar is expected to be a more accessible motorcycle in the company’s lineup, priced below the $21,999 LiveWire One. Motorcycle.com reports that the Del Mar will be built around LiveWire’s Arrow platform, which includes a battery pack, electronics, and motor, in a single unit that the... Continue reading…

Last month we took a deep dive into Mark Zuckerberg’s grand metaverse plan, and some of the hardware Meta is working on to deliver it, in the form of Project Nazare augmented reality glasses. Now The Information reports on a roadmap for virtual reality hardware that runs through 2024 with four headsets on the schedule, starting with the previously-teased Project Cambria VR headset we expect to see later this year.According to its sources, The Information says that Meta plans to release Project Cambria, which is a higher-end device than its current Quest hardware and known internally by the name Arcata, in September, followed by an updated version, currently codenamed Funston, following in 2024.The sources also indicate that the first... Continue reading…

Rocket Lab previously tested catching a dummy booster after dropping it from a second helicopter | Image: Rocket Lab Update May 2nd, 7:50PM ET: Shortly after launch, Rocket Lab’s Electron fell back to Earth and deployed its parachutes as planned. It then came into view of the company’s helicopter, which then successfully caught the rocket for a few brief moments. However, the helicopter pilot noticed “different load characteristics” that Rocket Lab had not experienced during previous testing.“At his discretion, the pilot offloaded the stage for a successful splashdown, where it has been recovered by our vessel for transport back to our factory,” Murielle Baker, a communications representative for Rocket Lab, said during the launch livestream. “The stage is in great condition though, and we look forward to assessing it in detail when it’s back here in... Continue reading…

Up to 580 buff horses. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Ford just started shipping its electric F-150 Lightning on April 26th, but it already has a surprise for soon-to-be owners: all versions of the truck will have higher horsepower than it originally announced, and the standard range model will have an even higher payload capacity, according to a press release from the company. While that’s good news for anyone who’s already got a pre-order, it could end up increasing the FOMO for those who don’t, and can’t get one — Ford stopped taking pre-orders for the truck in December, and is currently figuring out how to reach its goal of producing 150,000 Lightnings per year.When Ford announced its electric pickup in May 2021, the company estimated the standard battery pack version would make 426... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge In March, Google announced it was voluntarily recalling 1.7 million Fitbit Ionic smartwatches following reports of 78 burns. Now, a recently filed lawsuit says the recall didn’t go far enough, claiming that the same defect affects all of Google’s Fitbit devices.According to the court documents, all Fitbit smartwatches and fitness trackers share the same defect — a tendency to overheat, thereby causing burns or creating fire hazards. The complaint also accuses Fitbit of trying to deflect blame onto “consumer hygiene” when incidents are reported, and that the recall doesn’t adequately compensate Ionic owners.“Reasonable consumers,” the complaint reads, “purchase the Products to burn calories — not their skin — and to safely pursue a... Continue reading…

Some of the equipment had built-in GPS trackers. | Photo by Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images Russian troops stole almost $5 million worth of farm equipment from a John Deere dealer in the occupied city of Melitopol, Ukraine, only to discover that the machines have been shut down remotely, making them inoperable, according to a report from CNN. Some of the equipment, which comes with a remote locking feature and a built-in GPS, was tracked over 700 miles away in the Zakhan Yurt village of Chechnya.A source close to the situation told CNN that Russian troops gradually began taking machinery away from the dealer following their occupation of Melitopol in March. It reportedly started with two combine harvesters worth $300,000 each, a tractor, and a seeder, until troops hauled away all 27 pieces of equipment. Some of the equipment... Continue reading…

Twitter’s edit button has been a joke for longer than I can remember, but it’s finally officially becoming a reality — and Jane Manchun Wong, who makes it her mission to find hidden features in companies’ code, has just given us our first real glimpse at what it might look like.As you’d expect, the editing part is pretty simple: you press a button called “Edit Tweet” in the drop-down context menu, and then you can edit a tweet. Currently, it looks like you’ll get 30 minutes after you publish a tweet to hit that button; it’ll open a window with your entire original content laid out in front of you, and you can publish whatever you like — delete the whole thing and start over if you want. It’s not just for typos.

A Volkswagen employee wires the battery on a line for the VW ID.3 during a press tour of Volkswagen’s Transparent Factory. | Photo by Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images The Department of Energy (DOE) opened up billions of dollars in funding today to build up domestic supply chains for batteries. Batteries will be crucial in the Biden administration’s plans to transition the nation to electric vehicles and clean energy.The DOE says in its announcement that it will give $3.1 billion to companies to boost “the creation of new, retrofitted, and expanded commercial facilities” to process materials, make batteries, and recycle them at the end of their lives. Another $60 million in grants from the DOE will fund efforts to find second uses for old EV batteries. The money comes from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that passed last year.The bigger picture: the Biden administration has set pretty big goals... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Michael Mignano, co-founder of Anchor and Spotify’s podcasting tech chief for the past three years, submitted his resignation last week, the company confirmed Monday. He will depart at the end of June.The shakeup follows two other high-profile departures in Spotify’s podcasting business. Last month, news broke that head of studios and video Courtney Holt, who cut blockbuster deals with Joe Rogan and the Obamas, will be leaving the company. Also in April, Gimlet Media director Lydia Polgreen announced her departure for The New York Times.Mignano co-founded DIY podcast distributor Anchor in 2015. Spotify snapped up the company in 2019 for more than $150 million and brought Mignano in as its top podcast tech czar, overseeing the company’s... Continue reading…

Conceited and DJ Diamond Kuts. | Paramount Plus Yo! MTV Raps played an instrumental role in turning rap music into one of the most influential art forms of the 20th century and shaping the trajectory of the music industry in ways that are still being felt today. There’s no way another show could recapture the magic that turned the original Yo! MTV Raps into a cultural phenomenon, but Paramount Plus is going to give it a shot with an all-new revival built around some of the biggest names currently in the game.Today, Paramount Plus announced the upcoming premiere of its new incarnation Yo! MTV Raps, a “comprehensive deep dive into the current state of hip hop” hosted by DJ Diamond Kuts and rapper Conceited. Like the original show, the new Yo! MTV Raps will feature a variety of segments... Continue reading…

It’s been almost a year since we told you how next-gen USB-C cables would nearly double the amount of power they can carry to 240W, enough to let you ditch the proprietary power brick for all but the beefiest gaming laptops. Now, we’re seeing the first signs of life: the first USB-C 2.1 cables have broken cover with up to 240W of power and up to 40Gbps of data. They’re from a Dutch manufacturer named Club3D (via Tom’s Hardware) that doesn’t sell cables on its website, and they don’t yet seem to be in stock at retailers yet either.Not that you’d necessarily want to buy one yet, of course! There aren’t any gadgets designed to use 240W of USB-C power yet, nor are there any 240W USB-C chargers, so these cables aren’t going to offer you... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge For multiple lines of Android phones, the shift to Android 12 has been a rough one, including withdrawn updates and occasional bugs. Still, the number of issues we’ve seen for Google’s flagship Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro devices alone has been surprising. Today, Google announced the May 2022 update for Pixel devices is starting to roll out. It fixes a problem people noticed on the Pixel 6 phones after the March update, where the vibration for notifications was suddenly much weaker.Two fixes apply to all Pixel devices from the Pixel 3a through the 6, resolving issues that could cause the display to wake up without interaction and a problem that could crash the launcher, but one line is only for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro:

The election for the facility was held last week. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon workers at the LDJ5 facility in Staten Island, New York, have voted against organizing with the Amazon Labor Union at a count of 618 nos to 380 yeses. The facility has around 1,600 workers in total and began its election last week.It’s been a long road to the election at LDJ5. In October 2021, the ALU petitioned the National Labor Relations Board (or NLRB) to hold an election at four Staten Island facilities, including the sorting center. However, to make sure it had a sufficient showing of interest, the union refiled its petition to only include the JFK8 facility. In February, the ALU filed a new petition to hold an election for LDJ5, which was approved in March. The ALU pulled off a historic victory the next month, when workers... Continue reading…

It’s been a while coming. | Image: Roku Roku users can now play songs and videos from Apple Music on their TVs, streaming players, or Roku soundbars. Roku announced on Monday that the “app will be available to download later today.”It’s taken a while for Apple’s music service to make it to one of the most popular smart TV platforms. It was ported to Amazon’s Fire TV in 2019 and has since made it to at least one game console: the PS5 (though it doesn’t seem to be supported on Xbox or Switch). In my opinion, though, streaming music services make a lot of sense on TVs. If someone has a nice set of speakers, odds are they’re connected to the TV, and having album art displayed on such a large screen is a treat for most of us who usually only see it in thumbnail form.It may be... Continue reading…

Apple Pay recently expanded to let merchants receive payments on their iPhone. | Image: Apple Apple has been hit with an antitrust accusation by the European Union over its exclusion of rivals from its Apple Pay mobile payment system. The EU sent Apple a formal “Statement of Objections” with the preliminary view that Apple has abused its dominant position in mobile wallets on iOS.“The Commission takes issue with the decision by Apple to prevent mobile wallets app developers, from accessing the necessary hardware and software (‘NFC input’) on its devices, to the benefit of its own solution, Apple Pay,” reads the decision. “Today’s Statement of Objections takes issue only with the access to NFC input by third-party developers of mobile wallets for payments in stores.”According to the EU, Apple’s exclusionary behavior “leads to... Continue reading…

eBay is expanding its authentication services to include single graded trading cards over $2,000, the company announced today. The company is partnering with third-party trading card authentication and grading service Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) for the expanded service.eBay’s Authenticity Guarantee already includes sneakers sold for over $100, watches sold for over $2,000, and handbags sold for over $500. In January, eBay announced it was launching authentication services for ungraded trading cards purchased on the platform for over $750.Grading a trading card involves sending it off to a third-party service that inspects the card’s condition and assigns it a rating. Graded cards often fetch more money because they’ve been... Continue reading…

The 2nd generation Google Nest Hub introduced sleep tracking in 2021. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge In the leadup to Google I/O, Google has been sprinkling small updates here and there that indicate its big wearables push is well underway. The latest is a new Google support page for an integration that will enable Google Fit and Fitbit users to view their activity metrics on the Nest Hub.The page, which was first spotted by 9to5Google, offers simple step-by-step instructions on how to link Google Fit or Fitbit accounts to the display via Google Assistant. One thing that’s unclear is whether this applies to all Nest Hub displays or just the second-generation device. The latter introduced sleep tracking last year, thanks to Google’s Soli sensor technology. While the feature had its quirks, we found it to be convenient and reliable in o... Continue reading…

An aerial photo of a warehouse next to homes in Bloomington, California. | Photo by Wes Reel for The Verge California’s Inland Empire, a sprawling region just east of Los Angeles that was once known for orange groves and grape vineyards, is now ground zero of America’s warehouse boom. The rise of online shopping has triggered a dramatic change in the landscape here and across the country — every $1 billion in online sales drums up demand for 1.25 million square feet of warehouse space.Now, there’s an estimated 1 billion square feet of warehouses in the Inland Empire alone, according to a new analysis by the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability at Pitzer College. That’s nearly 37 square miles of warehouses.The austere concrete boxes are relatively new transplants to the region, as an animated map released by... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has banned the accounts of two conservative figures — MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell and Dr. Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko — shortly after both rejoined the platform. Lindell, who was banned in 2021, rejoined Twitter over the weekend and was re-banned a few hours later. Zelenko, who was banned in 2020, also opened an account this weekend.Twitter confirmed to The Verge this morning that it had been permanently suspended. According to the company, the accounts were suspended for violating platform rules against evading bans.Twitter’s decision comes as billionaire Elon Musk plans to take control of the company and implement looser content restrictions. Musk has publicly criticized Twitter’s head of moderation for supporting what he dubbed a... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge This weekend, a report from Good E-Reader seemed to suggest something truly wild. After 15 years, Amazon was going to finally bow to competition and support the ePub ebook format used by the wide majority of online bookstores, publishers, and competing services. But it turns out Amazon isn’t going to natively support the ePub format. Instead, per an update to Send to Kindle documentation, the Amazon Kindle will soon support using the Send to Kindle function to convert ePub files into an Amazon-specific digital book file format.We were so close! And it’s wild because we’ve been this close, and also this far, since the Kindle and the ePub file format both launched back in 2007. Sony, Barnes & Noble, and other e-reader makers were quick to... Continue reading…

Spirit’s deal with Frontier will make the combined airline the fifth largest in the US. | Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Spirit Airline’s board of directors has rejected JetBlue’s bid to acquire the airline and will proceed with its existing merger agreement with Frontier, one of its ultra-low-cost competitors, Spirit announced in a press release. A deal with JetBlue has “a low probability of receiving antitrust clearance” and poses “an unacceptable level of closing risk” to its shareholders, Spirit notes.After Frontier first announced its plans to buy Spirit in a cash and stock deal valued at $2.9 billion in February, JetBlue followed up with an all-cash offer of $3.6 billion last month. The airline even offered to throw in a $200 million breakup payout in case antitrust issues prevented the deal from going through. Despite all this, Spirit still... Continue reading…

Nike’s Go FlyEase sneakers feature a bistable hinge that allows you to put them on hands-free. | Image: Nike Nike’s Go Flyease sneakers are back in stock. Normally, sneaker restocks are something you don’t expect anyone other than hypebeasts to get excited about, but it’s a bit different with Nike’s hands-free shoes. While praised for its accessible design, the $120 Go FlyEase has also been notoriously hard to find for the people who would benefit from them the most.The Go FlyEase made a splash when it was first introduced thanks to its bistable hinge. The design allows the shoe to switch between an “open” and “closed” position, making it possible for someone to simply step into the shoe without having to use their hands. The issue was Nike didn’t handle the launch well. A combination of limited availability and hype led to resale sites... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In the latest phase of big plans for growth, Peacock’s collaborating with Universal Pictures to produce original movies from LeBron James, John Woo, and Will Packer.Along with reclaiming some of NBC’s most valuable shows from other platforms and having the exclusive rights to stream NBCUniversal’s movies immediately after their theatrical releases, Peacock’s big plan also includes producing a number of original films. In a press release about its upcoming projects, Peacock president Kelly Campbell emphasized that the service sees itself as a place people come to looking specifically for films, and it’s moving to meet customers’ desires.“We know people join Peacock to watch movies, so we are constantly adding more to serve fans,”... Continue reading…

Apple Chief Design Officer Jonathan Ive (L) poses for pictures with CEO Tim Cook during a launch event on September 12, 2018, in Cupertino, California | Photo by Noah Berger / AFP via Getty Images When Apple announced the Apple Watch in 2014, it did so at De Anza in Cupertino, a few miles down the road from its then-headquarters on Infinite Loop. It’s sort of a sacred site for Apple, the place Steve Jobs debuted both the original Macintosh in 1984 and the iMac in 1998. And on the 30th anniversary of the Macintosh, for the first potentially game-changing product since the death of Steve Jobs, Apple — and Jony Ive, Apple’s chief designer and Jobs’ longtime collaborator — wanted to pull out all the stops.Well, not all the stops, it turns out. And the fight over the event logistics and the $25 million price tag Ive asked for to pull it off was reportedly one of the moments that led Ive to eventually leave the company. That’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today I learned about a secret cache of Twitter DMs that’s hidden behind a privacy setting. For some people, this means uncovering a trove of important messages that they’ve missed out on, but if you’re like me, the discovery of a “hidden” inbox wasn’t all that exciting. In either case, it’s still worth checking to see if you might have any messages Twitter blocked you from viewing.As you might already know, Twitter has a few privacy settings for DMs. To adjust them, hit the DM icon on Twitter and select the settings cog in the top-right corner of the screen. There are a couple of settings you would’ve needed to have enabled to create a secret inbox in the first place, however.First, you needed to have the “Allow message requests from... Continue reading…

Today, Sony announced the full pricing and availability details for its 2022 Bravia XR lineup of TVs. The range is led by the flagship 8K Mini LED series — this is Sony’s first year making Mini LED sets — but also includes 4K Mini LED, QD-OLED, and more traditional OLED and LCD sets.Nobody expects giant-sized 8K televisions to sell for a reasonable price, and Sony’s Master Series Z95K Mini LED models come in at $6,999.99 for the 75-inch size and a penny shy of $10,000 for the 85-inch set. The Z95K series will be available to preorder this summer, but among Sony’s latest TVs, I don’t see many consumers giving them serious consideration.Next up are Sony’s first QD-OLED TVs, which utilize new panels from Samsung Display. Samsung... Continue reading…

Image: Telegram Telegram appears to be testing another way for the super popular messaging app to start bringing in revenue. Beta testers for Telegram’s iOS app noticed something new in version 8.7.2, as first spotted by Android Police: a new set of stickers and reaction emoji that you can only unlock “by subscribing to Telegram Premium.”Telegram Premium, of course, doesn’t exist yet. (And Telegram didn’t respond to The Verge’s request for comment.) But right now, users with access to Telegram’s TestFlight builds and its Test Server are able to send each other exploding-heart and flying-ghost reactions, a sticker in which that cute blobby yellow duck is just unbearably sad, and a few other new things. And it appears that, ultimately, even the... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge There’s a veritable spoil of deals happening today, and I’m excited to share some of them with you. The most impressive (and unexpected) deal is on Apple’s 2021 iPad Mini, which received a design overhaul similar to the iPad Air. Normally $499.99 for the 64GB Wi-Fi version, you can get it for just $399.99 today at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. That beats the best-ever price by nearly $50. Given that it’s such an aggressive, out-of-nowhere deal, this one might see some color options sell out quickly. And if you’re interested in more storage, the 256GB configuration is $100 off, too, costing $549.99 instead of $649.99.The 2021 iPad Mini features an 8.3-inch display and is powered by the A15 Bionic chipset. One of the big advantages that... Continue reading…

Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Square Enix is selling off its three major Western game studios along with the associated video game properties — which includes big names like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Thief. The studios and properties are set to be acquired by Embracer Group for an estimated $300 million; following regulatory approvals, the acquisition is set to be finalized between July and September of this year.In total, Embracer is acquiring Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal, which amounts to “1,100 employees across three studios and eight global locations.” In terms of game properties, the company will be the steward of brands including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, and Legacy of Kain, “along with continued sales and operations of the... Continue reading…

The Adaptive-Sync-capable Asus MG279Q. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge VESA, the computer display organization behind standards like the DisplayPort interface, has a new certification program that’s designed to help customers find better variable refresh rate monitors. Unlike its previous HDR certification program, which measured things like peak brightness, the new Adaptive-Sync Display Compliance Test Specification (or Adaptive-Sync Display CTS) is designed specifically for variable refresh rate displays, looking out for glitches like flicker and dropped frames.Variable refresh rate (VRR) is a technology that allows a display to synchronize its refresh rate to the output of whatever device is plugged into it, reducing the appearance of visual artifacts, screen tearing, and frame pacing issues. When... Continue reading…

Image: Ventje Ventje is a car made for the work-from-anywhere types benefiting from the new hybrid and fully-remote workforce enabled by the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve seen one in person and the build quality is impressive. It’s a German engineered Swiss army knife of Dutch design — on wheels.Ventje starts with a new or used VW Transporter van and uses CNC precision to convert the interior into a multi-purpose space to work, lounge, cook, eat, sleep, and play. And when the weather’s good, the interior can be transformed into outdoor seating. Lift the tailgate and the surprisingly large and functional indoor kitchen becomes equally useable from the outside with drawers that open both inwards and outwards, no conversion required.The kitchen features... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As a category, mental health apps have worse privacy protections for users than most other types of apps, according to a new analysis from researchers at Mozilla. Prayer apps also had poor privacy standards, the team found.“The vast majority of mental health and prayer apps are exceptionally creepy,” Jen Caltrider, the Mozilla *Privacy Not Included guide lead, said in a statement. “They track, share, and capitalize on users’ most intimate personal thoughts and feelings, like moods, mental state, and biometric data.”In the latest iteration of the guide, the team analyzed 32 mental health and prayer apps. Of those apps, 29 were given a “privacy not included” warning label, indicating that the team had concerns about how the app managed... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the organization behind Wikipedia, has announced that it will no longer accept donations in cryptocurrency, as first reported by Web3 Is Going Just Great. In an update, the WMF says it “has decided to discontinue direct acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of donating.” It also says it will close its Bitpay account, preventing any future contributions in crypto.After a lengthy discussion with almost 400 members of the WMF community, the majority voted to do away with crypto contributions 234 to 94. Some of the main arguments concerned the environmental implications of Bitcoin, the risk of scams, as well as the fact that the WMF gets such a low amount of donations in cryptocurrency compared to other... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge I never thought I’d be writing about my baby’s Fisher-Price gamepad again, but here we go: a modder has turned the cheap tune-filled toy into a complete Xbox gamepad with everything you’d need to play Elden Ring. And incredibly, he did so without losing any of the Fisher-Price Game & Learn Controller’s built-in sound effects — meaning you can now pair your Malenia run with such classic kiddie hits as “1, 2, 3, 4, up goes your score!” and “Orange, purple, white and pink, green, red and blue, woohoo!”

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Yuga Labs, the web3 company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, disrupted the entire Ethereum blockchain as a flood of users rushed to purchase NFTs representing virtual plots of land in its upcoming metaverse project, Otherside. A total of 55,000 Otherdeeds sold at a flat price of 305 ApeCoin, or around $5,800 at the time of purchase (via CoinTelegraph), raising about $320 million in what was considered the “largest NFT mint in history.”Otherdeeds are minted in BAYC’s native ApeCoin, but still require Ethereum for gas fees. A gas fee is the cost associated with a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. Fees typically increase as the network gets more congested because it becomes more work to process a transaction.Such a large volume of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon will no longer grant up to seven days of paid time off (PTO) for workers sick with COVID-19, the company announced in an internal memo obtained by The Verge (via CNBC). Starting Monday, Amazon will offer up to five days of unpaid, excused leave, with the option for workers to use the paid sick time they’ve accrued.Amazon initially offered 14 days of PTO at the start of the pandemic, but later shaved one week off this policy in line with the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) updated guidance. The company now says workers with “confirmed” COVID-19 cases can submit a request for paid time off per its “standard sick leave policy,” regardless of vaccination status. It will also stop giving workers excused time off when waiting for... Continue reading…