The Verge

Scroll’s ad-free subscription web service is shutting down as an independent entity in “approximately” 30 days, the company announced in an email to subscribers. The service — which was purchased by Twitter earlier this year — will instead be rolled into the burgeoning Twitter Blue premium subscription as “Ad-Free Articles.”In its current form, Scroll is a $5-per-month service that offers ad-free browsing to hundreds of websites, including The Atlantic, BuzzFeed News, G/O Media, USA Today, and Vox Media — which, full disclosure, includes The Verge. It works by using a combination of third-party cookies and browser extensions to stop websites from showing ads to paid subscribers.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images Facebook has chosen to respond to whistleblower Frances Haugen in the most cowardly way possible: by hiding Mark Zuckerberg, the man ultimately responsible for Facebook’s decisions, and beginning the process of trying to smear and discredit Haugen.This is some Big Tobacco bullshit — precisely what sleazeball PR guru John Scanlon was hired to do when Jeffrey Wigand blew the whistle on tobacco company Brown and Williamson. Scanlon’s task was to change “the story of B&W to a narrative about Wigand’s personality.”Of course, that strategy “backfired completely,” Vanity Fair reported in 2004. It probably won’t work here, either. One senator, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, has already called Haugen “a 21st-century American hero,” adding that... Continue reading…

Bloomberry is a limited edition ice cream at Mikey Likes It. | Image: Mikey Likes It Ice Cream Microsoft has teamed up with Mikey Likes It Ice Cream in New York City to give away free frozen dessert today. The collaboration marks the release of Windows 11 and part of what would normally, before the pandemic, include a Windows launch party in New York City. The “Bloomberry” (not to be confused with Bloomberg) ice cream looks like a frozen mix of the default Bloom Windows 11 wallpaper.The blueberry flavored ice cream is free at Mikey Likes It locations in the East Village and Harlem until stocks freeze up. We’re not sure if there are any entry requirements to getting this Windows 11 ice cream, like having to enable TPM 2.0 at the door, so please get in touch if you have to turn Secure Boot on to get your free ice cream. Please also... Continue reading…

Windows 11 may not be exactly revolutionary, but there are some features that are just plain useful, and snap layouts are one of them. Replacing the drag-and-drop snap assist feature of Windows 10, snap layouts let you arrange your apps quickly and neatly on your desktop, making it much simpler to see all and use all at once. (Certainly, it’s a lot better than the constant Alt-Tab switching between apps that many of us are used to.)Here’s how you set it up:

Image: Yubico Yubico has announced a new line of security keys that lets you unlock accounts with a fingerprint. With older YubiKeys, logging in requires putting in a PIN and then tapping the key, but the new version can authenticate with just the tap (though the option to put in a PIN is still available if you’re wearing gloves or your fingers are wet). The convenience does come at a premium — the USB-A version of the YubiKey Bio costs $80, and the USB-C version costs $85.The YubiKey Bio series acts like a regular security key, so it can help you either log on to services without having to deal with passwords or act as a second factor in addition to something like a password or authentication code from your phone. Either use style can help you... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Monday, Facebook was completely knocked offline, taking Instagram and WhatsApp (not to mention a few other websites) down with it. Many have been quick to say that the incident had to do with BGP, or Border Gateway Protocol, citing sources from inside Facebook, traffic analysis, and the gut instinct that “it’s always DNS or BGP.” Facebook is back up and has since released an explanation detailing how BGP was just a part of its woes (and saying that it more or less worked as intended), but this all raises the question:What is BGP?At a very basic level, BGP is one of the systems that the internet uses to get your traffic to where it needs to go as quickly as possible. Because there are tons of different internet service providers,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The massive outage that took down Facebook, its associated services (Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, Messenger), its platform for businesses, and the company’s own internal network all started with routine maintenance.According to infrastructure vice president Santosh Janardhan, a command issued during maintenance inadvertently caused a shutdown of the backbone that connects all of Facebook’s data centers, everywhere in the world.That by itself is bad enough, but as we’ve already explained, the reason you couldn’t use Facebook is that the DNS and BGP routing information pointing to its servers suddenly disappeared. According to Janardhan, that problem was a secondary issue, as Facebook’s DNS servers noted the loss of connection to the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Just as Facebook’s Antigone Davis was live on CNBC defending the company over a whistleblower’s accusations and its handling of research data suggesting Instagram is harmful to teens, its entire network of services suddenly went offline.The outage started just before noon ET and took nearly six hours before it was resolved. This is the worst outage for Facebook since a 2019 incident took its site offline for more than 24 hours, as the downtime hit hardest on the small businesses and creators who rely on these services for their income.Facebook issued an explanation for the outage on Monday evening, saying that it was due to a configuration issue. On Tuesday afternoon, Facebook engineers offered more detail, explaining that the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple employees raising concerns that misleading data was used to support new health products were dismissed or met with hostility, Insider reported. In addition, a lack of structure within the health group, along with other organizational problems, is slowing and frustrating the company’s ambitions to push into healthcare, current and former Apple employees told Insider.Some concerns focused on clinics Apple set up to both provide healthcare to employees and develop ways to integrate data collected from Apple devices into care. One doctor involved with the project, Will Poe, said in a resignation letter to CEO Tim Cook that he was concerned that members of the team were giving misleading and too-rosy information to Chief Operating... Continue reading…

Battery-powered options are great, but prepare to make compromises Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple is commemorating its co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs’ death with a new short film and a personal statement from the visionary tech executive’s family. Jobs passed away 10 years ago on October 5th, 2011, after a difficult battle with pancreatic cancer.The short film — which has currently taken over Apple’s landing page — commemorates Jobs’ life in photos, videos, and some of his most iconic quotes, from “the computer is a bicycle for the mind” to the introductions of the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone.Apple also published a statement from Jobs’ family, shared below:

Photo by ACMA2020/Getty Images for ACM Weeks before Virginia’s gubernatorial election, the campaign for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe is reaching out to an unexpected constituency: Taylor Swift fans.On Tuesday, the McAulliffe campaign launched a series of Facebook, Instagram, and Google search ads highlighting his opponent Glenn Youngkin’s role in the controversial purchase of Taylor Swift’s master recordings in 2019. The buyout of Swift’s masters has been a point of bitter contention for the singer and her fans and could be an unexpected liability in the upcoming race.Last year, Youngkin — the Republican nominee for Virginia governor — retired as co-CEO of the private equity firm The Carlyle Group before launching his 2021 gubernatorial bid. At Carlyle, Youngkin... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro Facebook is adding co-streaming to Facebook Gaming, a useful feature the Twitch competitor has lacked since it launched in 2018. Additionally, while Twitch’s version of a co-streaming feature — “Squad Stream” — requires you to be a Twitch Partner, Facebook is making co-streaming available to everyone.“With co-streaming, we aim to increase discoverability for creators, encourage collaboration between creators and elevate the overall viewing experience,” Facebook explains. In short, streaming the same game alongside someone else is mutually beneficial. Actually starting a stream involves tagging up to three other creators during stream setup or after you’re live. If the other creators tag you back, then your audience is launched into a... Continue reading…

Scentronix When I cook, I typically just Google a recipe or try one out on the fly. But in the future, it’s possible artificial intelligence might help me concoct a meal or assist a chef as they write their next cookbook or design a menu. In today’s Vergecast AI episode, we explore the world of AI product design — how far could AI go in helping humans design smells and tastes? For that discussion, we chat with Frederik Duerinck, the founder of ScentTronix, which is part software, part hardware and attempts to make customizable perfumes based on individual people. We also talk to Michael Spranger, COO at Sony AI, about how Sony is helping chefs design recipes and maximize flavor.Finally, we take it a step further and ask whether it’s even possible... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google traditionally holds an October hardware event to reveal its new Pixel phones. This year, it already announced them — here’s the Pixel 5A and the Pixel 6. But the company clearly hasn’t said everything it wants to say publicly quite yet, because it just announced a virtual event for October 19th at 1PM ET / 10AM PT.Google:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram is finally acknowledging that IGTV, its first big push into video, didn’t pan out.Today, the company is rebranding IGTV as “Instagram TV,” and it’s getting rid of the exclusive IGTV video format. Videos posted to the main Instagram feed can now run up to 60 minutes long — a length previously reserved for IGTV videos — and you’ll no longer have to leave the main app to view them.A spokesperson for Instagram says the IGTV app, now called the Instagram TV app, will remain as a “destination for people to visit with the intent of watching video.” Image: Instagram Feed videos and IGTV videos will be consolidated into Instagram TV, which will get a single tab on profile pages. Reels will remain discrete. I... Continue reading…

Destiny 2 is finally arriving on Xbox Game Pass for PC later this month. While the looter shooter has been available on the Xbox console side of Xbox Game Pass for more than a year, PC players have been patiently waiting for it to be included on Xbox Game Pass for PC. Microsoft is now bundling Destiny 2: Beyond Light on Xbox Game Pass for PC on October 12th.Destiny 2 developer Bungie made some clear optimizations for the console version of the game on Xbox Series X last year, with support for 4K resolution at 60fps on both the Xbox Series X and PS5. The PC version launching on Xbox Game Pass for PC won’t be any different from what’s already available on Steam, but it will mean cross-play players will see a new Windows logo next to Xbox... Continue reading…

The Yakuza series is beloved for its uncanny ability to bounce between absurd humor, deep pathos, and brutal violence and making it seem like the most natural thing in the world. Lost Judgment, the sequel to 2019’s detective-focused spinoff Judgment, marks a rare misstep in that regard. In many ways it’s much improved on its predecessor and spins a more ambitious story — but it can’t quite deliver on its themes.Lost Judgment picks up after the first game with Takayuki Yagami — played in droll, deadpan fashion by Japanese megastar Takuya Kimura — returning to his work as a private detective. Yagami is hired to investigate an incident of bullying at a high school in Yokohama, but soon enough the case becomes entwined with a groping... Continue reading…

Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Congress will hear new concerns about child safety on the world’s largest social network Continue reading…

The newest Super Smash Bros. Ultimate fighter has been announced, and it is not Waluigi.Nintendo, during a livestream event, announced Sora from Kingdom Hearts will join the roster as the 82nd playable character (if we’re not counting the echo fighters).Sora joins the esteemed company of characters from across celebrated Nintendo titles and beyond, including Jin Kazuya, Sephiroth, a couple of Belmonts, and entirely too many Fire Emblem characters. In advance of the Smash livestream, the internet was alight with speculation as to who the newest character would be. Master Chief from Halo Infinite was an early favorite as was Dragonball Z’s Goku.Waluigi, however, was one of the most popular guesses as fans have been clamoring for his... Continue reading…

Fortnite is hosting its third short film festival as part of its annual “Fortnitemares” Halloween event, but with a seasonal twist: the latest Short Nite show will focus on spooky animated short films, dubbed “Shortnitemares,” because there’s nothing people love more than a good portmanteau.Shortnitemares follows up on the previous two Short Nite film festivals (held over the summer and in February), although the latest iteration is getting a bit of an upgrade: instead of airing in a nonstop loop on the combat-free Party Royale island, Shortnitemares will get a custom-made movie theater from Quantum Builds (which specializes in creating custom Fortnite maps for brand activations) that will offer individual theaters for each short to... Continue reading…

Google Nest’s first floodlight security camera is available to buy today. | Image: Google Nest Following its announcement of an all-new Nest Cam lineup this summer, Google has made the last of the four cameras it announced available in its Google Store: the Google Nest Cam wired ($99.99) and the Google Nest Cam with floodlight ($279.99). The cameras join the new Nest Cam battery, an indoor / outdoor camera, and the Nest Doorbell battery that went on sale in August.The Nest Cam wired is the budget camera in the lineup and is much smaller than the indoor / outdoor Nest Cam, which can be wired or work off its built-in battery. The indoor model dispenses with a built-in battery and isn’t weatherproofed, helping make it cheaper and smaller. It keeps the same 16:9 aspect ratio, with 1080p video at up to 30fps, plus it has a 135-degree... Continue reading…

The new Surface Slim Pen 2. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 8 has a gorgeous 120Hz display and updated internals, but it’s really the new Surface Slim Pen 2 that has caught my attention. Microsoft has added haptics features to its stylus for the first time, thanks to a new custom chip inside. It has transformed inking on the Surface Pro 8.I thought the haptic feedback would be a gimmick until I started testing it this weekend. In the Sketchable Windows app, you can select from a variety of drawing tools, like brushes, pencils, markers, inking nibs, and even chalk. They all feel totally different now, thanks to the haptics in the Surface Slim Pen 2. Apps like Sketchable support the new Surface pen. This isn’t the buzzy haptic feedback you’re... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In May, Google announced plans to enable two-factor authentication (or two-step verification as it’s referring to the setup) by default to enable more security for many accounts. Now it’s Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and Google is once again reminding us of that plan, saying in a blog post that it will enable two-factor for 150 million more accounts by the end of this year.In 2018, Google said that only 10 percent of its active accounts were using two-factor authentication. It has been pushing, prodding, and encouraging people to enable the setting ever since. Another prong of the effort will require more than 2 million YouTube creators to turn on two-factor authentication to protect their channels from takeover. Google says it has... Continue reading…

Images provided by Spotify / Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hello again, welcome to the first week of October. I’m loving the spooky vibes and strong pumpkin energy the fall has wrought, although it was a little steamy here in NYC this past weekend. Summer’s last gasp. But I’m not complaining! I put the heat on in my car for approximately three minutes last week and was sad.Enough about my SAD, though, and more on audio. In today’s newsletter we discuss the fan reaction to Spotify’s latest exclusive move, along with Patreon looking to make its own original podcasts, and more. Off we go.Gimlet’s Heavyweight is becoming a Spotify exclusive, and the fans are madHeavyweight, one of the longest-running Gimlet Media shows, is becoming a Spotify exclusive next month, five years after it began and... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge It’s harder than it looks Continue reading…

Cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov (C), along with film director Klim Shipenko (R) and actress Yulia Peresild (L) poses for a photo ahead of the launch of the Soyuz MS-19 spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) from Kazakhstan’s Baikonur Cosmodrome, on October 05, 2021 in Moscow, Russia. | Photo by Roscosmos Press Service/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Early this morning, a trio of Russians launched to the International Space Station on a Soyuz spacecraft, but two of these fliers were no ordinary cosmonauts. Included in the crew was a Russian actress named Yulia Peresild and a film producer named Klim Shipenko, who have just docked at the station to film scenes for an upcoming movie. With their arrival, they’re the first multiperson film crew to visit the ISS.Peresild and Shipenko will stay on the station for just 12 days, filming scenes for a movie called The Challenge. The movie revolves around a Russian doctor, played by Peresild, who must travel to the space station to treat a sick cosmonaut. Producer Shipenko will be working on filming and lighting. The two flew to space along... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is back online after a six-hour outage due to DNS routing problems. The outage took down Instagram, Whatsapp, Messenger, and Oculus VR as well. For some, those services are back online now; however, after a DNS issue like this, it could take hours for everything to work properly on every network.The outage started just before noon ET on Monday. It was the most significant outage for Facebook since a 2019 incident took its site offline for more than 24 hours.On Twitter, Facebook communications exec Andy Stone said, “We’re aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologize for any inconvenience.”Inside Facebook, the... Continue reading…

The Epic Games Store is taking a bit step towards further competing with more established PC game stores like Steam next week with a proper achievement system (called, of course, “Epic Achievements”).To start, Epic Achievements will only be available on a few games, including Rocket League, Hades, Pillars of Eternity, Kena, Zombie Army 4, and Alan Wake Remastered. Achievements will be broken up into four levels: Bronze (which award 5-45 XP), Silver (50-95 XP), Gold (100-200 XP), and Platinum (which is awarded upon achieving 1000 XP in a game and awards players with an additional 250 XP on their profiles). Games that are updated to support Epic Achievements will now show those achievements on the game’s page in the store,... Continue reading…

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge T-Mobile and Google have announced they’re offering an “exclusive” plan with 500GB of Google One cloud storage for T-Mobile customers starting October 12th. The plan will cost $5 per month, the latest addition in an ongoing partnership between the search giant and the mobile carrier.Google offers Google One plans in a variety of sizes but, up until this point, didn’t have a 500GB tier, jumping from 200GB for $2.99 per month straight to 2TB for $9.99 per month. Anyone with a Google account gets 15GB for free, but T-Mobile’s offer could work as a nice middle ground if you’ve started to store more of your files in Google Drive and Google Photos. T-Mobile also says the plan can be shared with up to five other people, whether or not they... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A prolonged, global outage of Facebook’s apps has the company’s engineers scrambling to fix the issue at one of its data centers in California, according to two people familiar with the situation.The outage, which began around 11:40AM ET on Monday, has brought down all of Facebook’s apps — including Instagram and WhatsApp — globally, affecting billions of users and millions of advertisers. Inside Facebook, the outage has also broken nearly all of the internal systems employees use to communicate and work.Several employees told The Verge they’ve resorted to talking through their work-provided Outlook email accounts since Facebook mainly runs on an internal version of the social network that is currently not accessible. While employees... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Windows 11 is now available and will be rolling out to millions of PCs worldwide. But, as with any new OS rollout, it’s not going to happen overnight, and many Windows users will be waiting for a while until that magic upgrade notice appears. Don’t want to wait? You don’t have to — you can, with just a little effort, download and install the new version of Windows right now.Keep in mind, though, that unlike previous versions of Windows, you may not be invited to install Windows 11 if your machine isn’t considered up to its standard. That doesn’t mean that you can’t install the new OS — Microsoft has said if you have an older machine, you will be able to access Windows 11, but you’ll have to download an ISO file of Windows 11 and install... Continue reading…

Acer Acer has refreshed its Nitro 5 lineup of entry-level gaming laptops for the second half of 2021, and its new 17.3-inch model launching in mid-October seems particularly impressive given its $1,199.99 price. Its 1080p display has a 144Hz refresh rate, and it comes equipped with an 11th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia’s RTX 3050 Ti graphics chip. (Acer hasn’t specified the CPU model or what the maximum graphics power of the GPU will be.) Other specs include 16GB of DDR4 RAM and a 1TB SSD. That sounds like a solid gaming laptop to me, so long as you’re not expecting too much out of it.If you want something smaller, Acer also has a 15.6-inch version coming in mid-October for $769.99. It also has a 144Hz refresh rate screen, but as... Continue reading…

I don’t know what else to call it: the Windows 11 upgrade situation is a confusing mess. Depending on when your PC was built, which components you chose, and how it was configured, there’s a decent chance Microsoft will try to scare you away from installing the free upgrade, which is available a day early today. Millions of people will likely be told their systems are incompatible, and Microsoft is reserving the right to withhold security updates if you install on older systems.But as far as we can tell, Windows 11 is largely Windows 10 with a fresh coat of paint, and there’s a strong chance your Windows 10 computer will run Windows 11 just fine. Do we recommend it? Not necessarily, but this article might help you figure out whether... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s free Windows 11 upgrade from Windows 10 is now rolling out. Microsoft is starting to offer the free upgrade to new devices that are still shipping with Windows 10, before making the OS available to other eligible existing hardware.Not every existing PC running Windows 10 will be able to upgrade to Windows 11, though. Windows 11 will require Intel 8th Gen Coffee Lake or Zen 2 CPUs and up, TPM 2.0 (Trusted Platform Module) support, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of storage. That leaves millions of PCs unable to officially upgrade to Windows 11, although there will be unsupported workarounds if you really want Windows 11.Microsoft is also gradually rolling out Windows 11, so the free upgrade won’t be offered to all existing PCs that... Continue reading…

Windows 11 is now officially available to download. While Microsoft is launching Windows 11-powered hardware worldwide on October 5th, the company has made the OS update available early for eligible devices in New Zealand and beyond. If you’ve purchased a Windows 10 machine recently, that means you should be able to upgrade to Windows 11 right now.For everyone else, the rollout of Windows 11 will be gradual. Microsoft says existing Windows 10 devices that are eligible for the Windows 11 upgrade will start to be able to upgrade today, but it will be mostly new hardware that will receive the upgrade immediately. Microsoft says, “We expect all eligible Windows 10 devices to be offered the upgrade to Windows 11 by mid-2022.”You can check... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s new OS is a work in progress Continue reading…

When something like Facebook drops off the internet, there are massive knock-on effects. For example, a website that’s meant to tell you if services are down, called Is It Down Right Now, is struggling mightily under the load of people trying to see Instagram’s status. Cloudflare, a company that runs a DNS service (DNS acts like a map for your web browser when it’s trying to find a website and is also the likely culprit when it comes to major outages), reports that it’s had to mobilize extra resources to keep up with the traffic of people trying to load Facebook (or Instagram or WhatsApp) over and over.If you need to check if other sites are down, you do still have options. There’s the venerable DownDetector, as well as Down for... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Now that OnePlus is a sub-brand of the Oppo family, the two companies not only merged their R&D departments in early 2021, but they are also consolidating code for their two Android-based operating systems. While OxygenOS 12 will be used on global OnePlus phones, ColorOS 12 will only be on China-only Oppo and OnePlus phones.Alongside the release of Android 12 to AOSP today, OnePlus is releasing the first open beta of OxygenOS 12 to the OnePlus 9 and OnePlus 9 Pro now, while those with older models will have to wait for a later update. Once this version is deemed stable, it is likely a full version will be released within a month, according to XDA Developers.New LookThe new and improved OxygenOS 12 is colorful and minimalist like “J... Continue reading…

People resting in a lawn on a hot summer day, at Rajpath near Vijay Chowk, on June 30, 2021 in New Delhi, India. As the monsoon continued to play truant, heatwave in Delhi NCR turned severe recording the highest maximum temperature of the season at 43.5 degree Celsius. | Photo by Sanjeev Verma/Hindustan Times via Getty Images Exposure to dangerous levels of heat and humidity in cities across the world has exploded over the past three decades, according to new research. In a study of more than 13,000 cities, the number of people exposed to extremely hot and humid days in a given year (measured in “person-days”) tripled between 1983 and 2016.Extreme heat is already a leading weather-related killerIt’s a symptom of two trends colliding: urban population growth and rising global average temperatures. Cities often reach higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas because they’re typically designed in a way that traps heat. So when people flock to urban centers, they’re also flocking to places where they could be at greater risk of heat-related illness and... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appears to be getting just as much schadenfreude out of today’s global Facebook outage as anyone. The microblogging chief is tweeting through Facebook’s DNS issues by dunking on the company amid its latest round of scrutiny from The Wall Street Journal, 60 Minutes, and lawmakers.WhatsApp trying to be cute on Twitter? Dorsey is there to remind you of the drama over WhatsApp’s privacy policy. Twitter users suggesting Facebook’s domain name is somehow for sale? Dorsey wants a piece of the action — and to push Kanye West’s new album for some reason (to be clear, it does not appear that Facebook’s domain name is actually for sale, and Dorsey almost certainly knows this as well). And... Continue reading…

Ring brings spooky ringtones to its video doorbells in time for Halloween. | Image: Ring Following in the now annual tradition of the spooky smart home, Ring has released its seasonal ding dongs. In honor of the festive season, you can turn your Ring Video Doorbell’s interior Chime’s tone to a screeching cat, a creaky door, or my personal favorite, the creepy laugh, for the month of October. There are a handful of other scary tones also, nine in total, which is eight more than Google is offering on its Nest doorbell.To up the spooky ante this year, Ring has a new trick as an extra treat: a selection of Halloween-themed Quick Replies, a free feature that lets your doorbell answer for you. Now, when a visitor presses the Ring buzzer, it can talk back to them with these additions to the standard preset responses:“Tell us... Continue reading…

Image: Blue Origin In an attempt to recreate SpaceX’s success, executives at spaceflight venture Blue Origin once praised the rival company’s “burnout” culture as a working labor strategy, with some managers arguing that Blue Origin needs to “get more” out of employees and encourage them to come in on the weekends. The grueling working strategies were summed up in a 2018 memo compiled by Blue Origin executives, a copy of which was viewed by The Verge.Parts of the memo were quoted in an alarming Lioness essay published on Thursday, which alleged a sexist and unsafe work culture at Blue Origin, founded by former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. The essay was written by Alexandra Abrams, the former head of employee communications at Blue Origin, along with 20 present... Continue reading…

There are a just a few noteworthy features in this design-focused update Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Google’s latest major Android update, Android 12, isn’t available to the general public just yet, but it’s getting closer. The company wrote on its Android Developers site that it pushed the source to Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and is “officially” releasing the update. Despite Android 12 being technically available, you won’t find it appearing as an update on your Pixel phone for the “next few weeks,” according to the post.When it does launch, it’ll come to the Pixel 3, Pixel 3A, Pixel 4, Pixel 4A, Pixel 4A 5G, Pixel 5, and Pixel 5A phones (wow, Google sure makes a lot of these now). It’s the software that you’ll see on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro when those launch later this year.According to Google, it’ll also come to... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix Netflix is officially bringing its shuffle feature to its Android mobile users.The company originally began testing the Play Something feature back in April, but it’s officially launching the feature globally on Android today. The tool — which lets Netflix choose something for you to watch — is now available on TV and Android mobile devices, but it’s not supported on iOS just yet. Netflix said that it will begin testing the shuffle function on iOS in the coming months, though.Separately, Netflix is also launching its Fast Laughs feature — which rolled out on iOS earlier this year — on Android mobile devices today in select markets, including the US, Australia, Canada, Ireland, India, Malaysia, Philippines, and the UK. The tool works... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Google has provided a budgeting feature in its Play Store that allows Android users to establish a monthly maximum they want to spend on digital content. This applies to apps, games, movies, TV shows, music, ebooks, and so on. As you get close to reaching your budget limit, you’ll see an alert that you’re nearing it — or have gone over the amount you specified.You access it like this:

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Volvo, the Swedish luxury car maker owned by China’s Geely, announced its plan for an initial public offering as it seeks to raise more cash to accelerate its transition to a fully electric car company.The announcement follows the news last week that Polestar, the electric car company that is a joint venture between Volvo and Geely, would be going public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. That deal values Polestar at roughly $20 billion, despite selling only two models — a hybrid luxury coupe and an all-electric fastback sedan. Volvo is choosing a more traditional route by proceeding with an IPO in Stockholm that could value the company at upwards of $25 billion.Volvo said it aims to raise about 25... Continue reading…

Sarah had no options left. Over five years, she’d tried every possible treatment for her severe depression, and nothing had helped. “My daily life had become so restricted and impoverished by depression that I felt tortured by each day,” the 36-year-old said.But after undergoing an experimental procedure that implanted a device into her brain, she felt her depression lift for the first time in years. “It was like my lens on the world changed,” Sarah, who is remaining anonymous because of the stigma around depression, said during a press briefing.Sarah was the patient in a proof-of-concept trial of a new approach to treating severe, treatment-resistant depression, published today in the journal Nature Medicine. The findings open up... Continue reading…