The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is laying off some Tudum editorial staff just months after launching the website that publishes news, interviews, and other fan content. Tudum falls under the company’s marketing division and includes people working on entertainment, news, lifestyle, and culture content.Most of the 10-person Tudum culture and trends team was let go, according to one person with knowledge of the situation. They said the staff was given no prior warning of the layoffs, and other workers found out their colleagues were laid off via Twitter. Many of the writers were experienced journalists that Netflix lured from other outlets, the person says. The person also claims news of layoffs on other teams is forthcoming. If you have knowledge of additional... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon made a boatload of money during the first quarter of 2022. But investors, having grown used to Amazon’s rocket-like trajectory during the pandemic, haven’t quite adapted to the fact that it’s no longer accelerating quite so fast.Despite notching $116.4 billion in sales from January through March of this year — up nearly 8 billion year over year — Amazon’s stock took a dive in after-hours trading, falling by about 10 percent before stabilizing a bit higher.The problem wasn’t that Amazon had underperformed in Q1, but that Amazon projected a slower Q2 than analysts had hoped for. Analysts wanted to see Amazon projecting $125.5 billion in sales, according to CNBC, but instead, the company only expects sales to come in from $116... Continue reading…

Square Enix In a candid Twitter thread, celebrated video game developer Yuji Naka revealed details about a lawsuit he filed against Square Enix and his struggle to make the ambitious but ultimately atrocious Balan Wonderworld a better game.In the thread, written in Japanese and translated by The Verge, Naka wrote that he was removed as the producer of Balan Wonderworld six months before its release and that he sued Square Enix shortly thereafter.“Improving a game until the very end is what being a game creator is, and it’s strange to make it impossible to do that,” Naka wrote. “I asked my lawyer to try to negotiate even just commenting on the production until the end, but I filed suit because I was refused.”“Improving a game until the very end... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Even as it deals with continued supply constraints and consumers wary of inflation, Apple today reported the best March quarter in its history. The company tallied $97.3 billion in revenue in Q2, up 9 percent over the year-ago quarter. That amounted to a profit of $25 billion, with earnings per share of $1.52.Apple set March quarter revenue records for its iPhone, Mac, and Wearables / Home / Accessories divisions. Apple’s various services grew to a new high of 825 million subscribers. And the Mac continues to surge. “The last seven Mac quarters have now been the top seven quarters ever in the history of the Mac,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC. But the second quarter saw a slowdown in iPad sales, which were down slightly year over year.... Continue reading…

A report finds evidence that Amazon and third parties use voice data from Alexa-enabled devices to serve targeted ads. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge A report released last week contends that Amazon uses voice data from its Echo devices to serve targeted ads on its own platforms and the web. The report, produced by researchers affiliated with the University of Washington, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and Northeastern University, said the ways Amazon does this is inconsistent with its privacy policies.Titled, “Your Echos are Heard: Tracking, Profiling, and Ad Targeting in the Amazon Smart Speaker Ecosystem,” the report concludes that Amazon and third parties (including advertising and tracking services) collect data from your interactions with Alexa through Echo smart speakers and share it with as many as 41 advertising partners. That data is then used to “infer user interests” and “serve... Continue reading…

The Bethesda game launcher is no more. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Bethesda.net game launcher is giving up the ghost as of May 11th, so Bethesda is allowing anyone who has purchased games on their exclusive platform to migrate their purchases to Steam. The launcher and your library will remain accessible after May 11th, but Bethesda has recommended that users begin the process as soon as possible.In the process of migrating your games, Bethesda has noted that your entire game library and wallet will be accompanied by all of your saved games — meaning that you shouldn’t have to worry about losing your 500-plus-hour playthrough of Fallout 76. However, we’d recommend backing up those files wherever applicable before you start the process.Bethesda.net logins will still be a thing, however, and your... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon Prime Day, the company’s annual shopping holiday that targets subscribers to its premium shipping / entertainment package, will take place in July this year. The manufactured holiday for discount shopping has moved around a bit after Amazon delayed it to October for 2020 and then moved it back up to June for 2021.Amazon announced the information in its Q1 2022 earnings report and hasn’t shared any other details about what to expect or the exact dates.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Last month, Ukraine Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov accused DJI of helping Russia to kill Ukrainian civilians in an unusual way — by allowing Russia to freely use a drone-tracking system called DJI AeroScope to target the exact location of Ukrainian drone pilots and, allegedly, kill them with mortar strikes and missiles.So we wrote an in-depth explainer on what DJI AeroScope actually is, how it works, what it was designed for, and what, if anything, DJI could actually do to prevent people from getting killed using its tech. But a hacker pointed out that DJI wasn’t being truthful with us on at least one point — and the company is now admitting it. The AeroScope signals broadcast by every modern DJI drone aren’t actually encrypted,... Continue reading…

An excellent midrange feature set at the right price Continue reading…

A good screen and the right 5G bands, but not much else going for it Continue reading…

Despite supply problems, it seems the Spark EV shall endure. | Photo by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images General Motors has denied reports that it’s no longer providing battery replacements for the all-electric version of the Chevy Spark, according to Kevin Kelly, a spokesperson for the company. Kelly told The Verge in an email that the company is “currently experiencing a temporary disruption in the supply of new Spark EV packs,” but that it “remains committed to providing replacement packs to Spark EV owners who need them in the future.”Last week, a report from EV-Resource cited an anonymous GM district executive as saying that the company was “no longer going to supply [the Spark EV’s] battery.” While GM has denied that’s the case, EV-Resource’s report also says that the company ran out of battery packs, which squares with Kelly’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The United States, all European Union member states, and 32 non-EU countries have announced a “Declaration for the Future of the Internet” that lays out priorities for an “open, free, global, interoperable, reliable, and secure” internet. It highlights goals like affordability, net neutrality, and removing illegal content without curtailing free expression — although it offers few specifics for achieving them.The three-page declaration, also summarized by the White House and the European Commission, offers a broad vision of the net as well as a mix of more specific issues for its 61 signatories. “We are united by a belief in the potential of digital technologies to promote connectivity, democracy, peace, the rule of law, sustainable... Continue reading…

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images Standing beside a poster-sized printout of her suspended Twitter account, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced a new bill on Thursday to abolish Section 230 — the hotly debated law that protects tech companies from liability over what users post on their platforms.Titled the 21st Century FREE Speech Act, Greene’s measure serves as the House companion to a Senate version of the bill introduced by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) last year. The bill would repeal Section 230 and replace it with language requiring “reasonable, non-discriminatory access to online communications platforms” by classifying them as “common carriers.”Greene’s announcement comes days after Elon Musk won a bid to take Twitter private at $54.20 a share, with Musk... Continue reading…

This is Igloo! His birthday was yesterday, and he is very patient and kind. | Alex Cranz Elinor Karlsson has never owned a dog. But ever since she was a graduate student, she’s been studying dog genetics. (They’re good models for studying genetic diseases in humans.) Part of that work involved collecting genetic and behavioral data on thousands of dogs. And all that data meant the research team could ask a question Karlsson had been wondering for years: does a dog’s breed really say anything about how that dog acts?“Everybody was assuming that breed was predictive of behavior in dogs,” said Karlsson, now the director of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, during a press briefing. “And that had never really been asked particularly well. And we could actually do that.”The answer they... Continue reading…

Image: Pop TV Schitt’s Creek, the extremely GIF-ed comedy series, will be moving homes from Netflix to Hulu on October 3rd. Hulu announced its acquisition of the show’s US streaming rights on Thursday, saying that it will become the only place you can stream all six seasons of the show later this year.The show currently lives on Netflix, so it’s hard to see this as anything other than Disney (which owns Hulu) swiping away a show that’s been incredibly popular on a rival streaming service. Netflix has had a lot of bad news recently, and while losing Schitt’s Creek isn’t on the same level as the company’s subscriber numbers dropping for the first time in a decade, it’s not a great sign, either. The streaming service has struggled to hang onto other... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Last year, Apple added App Tracking Transparency to iOS, and the shift in the flow of data from mobile users was enough to unsettle even Facebook. Now, Google, which relies on targeted advertising for its business model, is preparing its own multi-year adjustment to mobile ad tracking and privacy.Starting today, app developers can get their first look at the new system, as the first developer preview of Privacy Sandbox on Android rolls out, following the path of similar tests in Google’s Chrome browser on the desktop.This new plan is supposed to replace Android’s existing advertising ID, which is a user-resettable ID for each device with a Privacy Sandbox of “new, more private advertising solutions.” Like Apple’s approach, it claims... Continue reading…

Gameloft / Disney Make way for Disney Dreamlight Valley, a new Disney-inspired life-sim that feels as if Disney adults got their hands on the Animal Crossing source code. In combination with yesterday’s formal announcement, I had the opportunity to participate in a hands-off demo to see a bit of the vision the developers at Gameloft have for the game. It’ll be difficult to resist the allure of talking about a brand new Disney game entirely in Disney song lyrics, but I’ll do my best to rein in that impulse.Hey! Clear the way in the old Bazaar. Hey you, let us through, it’s a brand-new star. Oh, come be the first on your block to meet its eyeIn addition to being a life-sim game, Disney Dreamlight Valley is a Disney adult’s ultimate isekai fantasy. In it,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A huge reason behind Sonos’ success is the company’s adaptability. Whenever a new audio streaming service comes along — and as the industry evolves and pushes new formats like lossless and Dolby Atmos spatial audio — Sonos is always right there trying to support what’s new. For voice assistants, Sonos offers both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant on its smart speakers. And the company also widely supports Apple’s AirPlay 2 across its current product lineup. That’s all on top of the whole-home audio platform that Sonos has built its brand on.But to stay so nimble and adaptable, Sonos constantly needs to be looking forward and have some sense of what’s coming down the technology pike. To help with that, Sonos recently (and very quietly)... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Snap takes another stab at hardware with a selfie drone called Pixy Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As cryptocurrency thrives, Bitcoiners seethe Continue reading…

Image: Snap It’s becoming a fundamental law of the internet: where people socialize, they must also shop. Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and practically every other social network and messaging app on the planet has spent the last couple of years trying to make every pixel of your chats and pictures into a one-click purchasing possibility.Snap’s plans on this front are more ambitious than most. It’s trying to take the whole shopping experience — you see a shirt you like on a stranger, figure out what it is and where to buy it, try it on, buy it, wear it, return it because everything looks better on Ryan Reynolds than you, rinse and repeat — and funnel it through Snap’s AR camera. Through Camera Kit, most of that tech can... Continue reading…

The Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 and their inverted Orero-style wireless charging case. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge One of the best bang-for-the-buck values in the true wireless earbuds space is now even cheaper and available in the color that goes with everything. The black Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 are currently just $99.99 at Best Buy. The $50 discount on these noise-canceling earbuds makes them a no-brainer purchase if you’re an Android user looking for a great pair of earbuds on a budget. Sure, there are better-sounding options out there, like the Beats Fit Pro, but they’re twice the price. The Galaxy Buds 2 are small, affordable, and even come with a wireless charging case — something many other affordable earbuds skimp out on. Their biggest hangup may be that they don’t automatically pause when you remove them from your ear, but at this price, it... Continue reading…

Optic Gaming winning the Valorant Masters Finals in Reykjavik, Iceland. | Image: Riot Games Riot Games is making some big changes to the Valorant esports scene. The shift is due to kick off in 2023 and will include the introduction of three regional leagues representing the Americas, Europe, and Asia; previously, professional Valorant operated on a tournament structure. The changes will bring Valorant more in line with Riot’s other popular competitive game, League of Legends.It’s not clear yet which teams will participate in the new leagues, nor how they will be selected. But Riot says that “the new model will incorporate long-term partnerships with no entry fees to a select number of teams to ensure continued long-term stability for the world’s fastest-growing esport,” adding that “teams who meet the selection criteria will... Continue reading…

Image via FCC It appears Snap is working on a drone called Pixy, and the whole thing just leaked with a huge amount of details, including photos and a seemingly unfinished user manual, published by the FCC. It’s small: rulers in the photos indicate the drone is roughly 130 millimeters wide and 120 millimeters tall, which translates to approximately 5.1 inches by 4.7 inches.In a user manual, Snap characterizes the drone as “a small smart drone with a camera and camera function.” The drone itself is a rounded rectangle in Snap’s characteristic yellow hue with translucent orange propellers. There’s a knob on the top that looks to offer a bunch of different settings — it looks like a camera mode dial, right down to a traditional “landscape picture mode”... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge If you’ve just bought a new laptop, one of the first things you’re probably going to want to do is personalize how it looks. Windows has plenty of options for customizing what you see when you open up your device. You can not only select a color, photo, or slideshow for your wallpaper, but you can choose a lock screen and pick a theme.It’s simple and straightforward to do once you access your personalization settings. To do that:

Bubble. | Image: Netflix In Bubble, a new anime film on Netflix, there are plenty of the typical hallmarks of a dystopic city. The movie takes place in a version of Tokyo that’s been almost entirely abandoned, and there are lots of rusted cars, crumbling buildings, and greenery reclaiming its place amongst the urban sprawl. But there’s also a vibrancy to the city — something that was very important to director Tetsuro Araki. “We wanted to make it light and colorful because we wanted to present this dystopian landscape almost as a utopia,” he tells The Verge.The reason for that tone might have to do with Bubble’s rather unique premise. It’s not a typical end of the world story. Instead of a planet beset by war or natural disasters, in Bubble, the earth is... Continue reading…

Starfield concept art. | Image: Bethesda E3 2022 may be canceled, but it looks like we’re still getting at least one big gaming event in June. Today, Microsoft announced the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, which will take place on June 12th at 1PM ET.There aren’t many details about the event itself just yet, but the company says that it “will include everything you need to know about the diverse lineup of games coming soon to the Xbox ecosystem, including upcoming releases to Game Pass on Xbox and PC.” The teaser art, which features the Xbox logo floating among the stars, suggests we’ll see more of Bethesda’s upcoming sci-fi RPG Starfield, which is due to launch in November for Xbox and PC.Last year’s June showcase featured news like the reveal of vampire shooter Redfall, a... Continue reading…

Applied VR Virtual reality company AppliedVR is taking an innovative approach to a new trial for its chronic pain treatment. Rather than try to find a group of people with chronic back pain to sign up for the trial and not get the treatment, they’ll pull data from an existing database of chronic pain patients to use as a comparison group — a strategy that has the potential to make clinical trials more efficient.AppliedVR got Food and Drug Administration approval for its virtual reality system that treats chronic back pain back in November. Now, the company is collecting more information about how the treatment works in different groups in the real world. They’re partnering with healthcare data company Komodo Health on the trial. Komodo offers its... Continue reading…

An inexpensive phone that feels like it should cost more than $300 Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Twitter overstated the number of daily users on its service for three years straight, overcounting by up to 1.9 million users each quarter. The error was due to Twitter inadvertently counting multiple accounts as active when they were all tied to a single user, even if they weren’t all in use. These incorrect usage numbers were given for Q1 2019 through Q4 2021.This is, somehow, not the first time Twitter has done this. In 2017, Twitter also realized it had been overstating its user figures by about 1 million to 2 million users for three years. The repeat mistake was revealed today in Twitter’s earnings release for the first quarter of 2022.The updated figures aren’t exactly a game-changer: Twitter now has 229 million daily users,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The rapid rise of the Twitter account Accidentally Based surprised even the person who created it. One of many so-called gimmick accounts, Accidentally Based was started as a left-wing response to conservative meme accounts that the creator noticed tended to grow quickly. Just a month after making Accidentally Based, the account had 100,000 followers, the owner estimates, and was getting retweeted by Twitter users with hundreds of thousands of followers themselves. What began as an experiment soon proved to be a reliable way to get content in front of millions.“I figured it was worth a shot, and maybe I’d be able to have some influence on the left,” the account creator says about starting Accidentally Based. “It didn’t feel like there... Continue reading…

This lightweight is worth a look Continue reading…

More choices about the ads you see. | Image: Google Google is expanding its sensitive ad categories options, letting users limit how many ads they see about dating, pregnancy, parenting, and weight loss, and making those settings apply to more places. The feature was introduced as a way to let people see fewer ads on YouTube about potentially addictive gambling or alcoholic products, but now it seems that Google is expanding it to cover other potentially uncomfortable or traumatic subjects.Your settings will now apply to all of Google’s Display network, not just YouTube ads, according to Elijah Lawal, a spokesperson for the company. Google says the network is “a group of more than 2 million websites, videos, and apps” that advertisers can target users across.To access the feature, go... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has reportedly contacted advertising agencies to reassure them that Elon Musk’s plans for the platform won’t make it an inhospitable place for brands.Musk has promised that, under his watch, Twitter will take a maximalist approach to “free speech” — perhaps only removing content that is actively illegal. However, as experts have pointed out, this would mean easing restrictions on a variety of unpleasant but legal forms of speech: from Nazi propaganda and ISIS beheading videos to medical misinformation. This is content that corporations do not want to be associated with, even indirectly.According to an email seen by the Financial Times, Twitter has reached out to ad agencies to preempt such fears, telling them that the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a new blog post, the developers behind Call of Duty’s Ricochet anti-cheat system have outlined a new “cloaking” measure that makes legitimate players invisible to cheaters. It effectively makes it impossible for cheaters to be competitive during a match, regardless of any illicit software they might be using.“Characters, bullets, even sound from legitimate players will be undetectable to cheaters,” the blog post reads. “Legitimate players, however, can see cheaters impacted by cloaking… and can dole out in-game punishment.” The new cloaking feature is offered alongside a previous anti-cheat measure called Damage Shield, which means a cheater’s bullets won’t do any damage to other players.Although Team Ricochet is only detailing the... Continue reading…

Straw-coloured fruit bats at their daytime roosts in ‘Mushitu’ or ever-green swamp forest in April, 2014, Kasanka National Park, Zambia. | Photo credit should read Nick Garbutt/Future Publishing via Getty Images Climate change is pushing mammals into new territory, increasing the number of opportunities for viruses to jump from species to species — including humans. By 2070, if global temperatures continue to rise as predicted, there could be a total of 15,000 new cross-species “viral sharing events,” according to new research published today in the journal Nature.Of the at least 10,000 virus species in mammals capable of infecting humans, most are still only circulating among animals in the wild. The worry is that more of those viruses could eventually make the leap to humans, potentially sparking a health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic.“Ultimately, this work provides us with more incontrovertible evidence that the coming decades will not... Continue reading…

Image: Sony New details have emerged about the time-limited game trials that Sony previously announced would be part of its new PlayStation Plus Premium subscription tier. According to sources speaking to Game Developer these free trials will be required for any game with a wholesale cost of $34 (€33) or above, and must be at least two hours long. They won’t be required for previously released games, or PlayStation VR titles.Game Developer’s initial report raised concerns that requiring developers to offer these time-limited trials could place a significant burden on smaller teams. However, Kotaku’s Ethan Gach reports that the PlayStation Store team will create the trials, suggesting developers shouldn’t have to put any extra work in.

The XPS 13 Plus is available in silver or graphite. Dell announced that the bold XPS 13 Plus it debuted back at CES 2022 is now available for purchase. It starts at $1,299, and while Dell didn’t detail the exact specifications for this configuration, it’ll likely get the lowest specs listed in a spec sheet shared by the company. Those include a 13.4-inch 1920 x 1200 16:10 aspect ratio display with 500 nits of peak brightness, Intel’s 12th Gen Core i5-1240P processor (28W, 12-core, 4.4GHz boost clock), 8GB of LPDDR5 RAM clocked at 5,200MHz, and a 256GB SSD.Each model includes a 60W USB-C AC adapter and features two Thunderbolt 4 ports (but no headphone jack), a Windows Hello 720p webcam, as well as a fingerprint reader embedded in the power button.there will also be a Developer Edition... Continue reading…

Boeing is still working on the next generation Air Force One (the current one is pictured here). | Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images Boeing’s CEO, Dave Calhoun, says that the company’s deal with Trump to build Air Force One was a risk the company “probably shouldn’t have taken.” The comment was made on Wednesday during a conference call to discuss the company’s Q1 results for 2022, which show that the Air Force One program went $660 million over its expected budget in the past few months. In a financial filing (PDF), Boeing reports that it’s now lost $1.1 billion on the contract.“Air Force One I’m just gonna call a very unique moment, a very unique negotiation, a very unique set of risks that Boeing probably shouldn’t have taken, but we are where we are and we’re going to deliver great airplanes. And we’re gonna recognize the cost associated with it,” says Calhoun.Q... Continue reading…

Meta Mark Zuckerberg told the world last October that he was all in on the metaverse, and that the endeavor that would only get more expensive over time. Now that his company’s stock price has been hammered in recent months, he is dialing back that rhetoric.Meta will “slow the pace of some of our investments” due to “our current business growth levels,” Zuckerberg said during the company’s first-quarter earnings call Wednesday. Meta’s profits for the first quarter were $7.5 billion, down 21 percent from the year-ago period. Revenue rose 7 percent to $27.9 billion, the slowest growth rate since the company went public a decade ago. Its target expense range for 2022 was lowered by $3 billion.Make no mistake: Zuckerberg is still spending... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images Twitter’s prospective new owner Elon Musk still has some restrictions on his tweets that most of us do not. They’re as a result of a 2018 settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over his infamous “funding secured” tweet about taking Tesla private. Even considering Musk’s complaints that he was coerced into taking the deal and contempt for the “bastards” at the SEC, earlier today, US District Judge Lewis Liman ruled against Musk, letting the agreement stand as originally written (via Reuters).One of the things Musk wanted — but didn’t get — was for the court to stop a subpoena from the SEC for information to determine if a tweet last fall with a poll about selling 10 percent of his stock had been vetted first, per... Continue reading…

1Password Whenever we talk about password managers, especially ones that sync their data to the cloud, there’s always discussion about whether or not your information is secure and what happens if the servers go down. The second thing is exactly what 1Password users in the US experienced earlier today, as a problem affecting 1Password.com kept mobile, desktop, and browser clients from syncing.A status page first noted the problem at 10:42AM ET and listed it as stabilized, with clients able to connect again by 2:42PM ET. During the outage, the status page noted that the issue didn’t affect any offline data stored in clients, and other domains like 1password.ca, 1password.eu, or ent.1password.com were operational.Before I knew there was an... Continue reading…

91 games and counting... | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In the past year, Ubisoft has ceased online support for a list of games that has grown to 91 titles. This means that any multiplayer components associated with these games will no longer be accessible, along with any achievements or unlockables attached to the online aspect of the game. It’s worth mentioning, however, that the support for these games wasn’t cut off all at once and doesn’t necessarily impact all platforms.Many of the titles are remarkably old and no longer playable on modern hardware, with some reaching back to the Wii era. However, at the risk of aging myself, a good portion of the list reads like a rap sheet of my wasted hours in college. Some of the standouts include Tom Clancy’s Endwar, Splinter Cell, and World in... Continue reading…

The midrange Edge 30 includes a Snapdragon 778 chipset and a lower price tag than the premium 30 Pro. | Image: Motorola Motorola has announced the Edge 30, a pared-down version of its pricier Edge 30 Pro, coming to Europe for €449 (about $475) before reaching other markets in Asia and the Middle East later this year. North America is not on that list, but Motorola says the region will get another (unspecified) Edge family device later in the year.The Motorola Edge 30 offers a smaller screen and thinner build than the Edge 30 Pro — also known as the Edge Plus in North America. Its 6.5-inch 1080p OLED supports a fast 144Hz refresh rate, like the 30 Pro, but uses a Snapdragon 778 chipset that’s a step down from the 8 Gen 1 processor in the flagship. Rear cameras appear to be the same configuration of a stabilized 50-megapixel f/1.8 wide, 50-megapixel f/2.2... Continue reading…

This morning, we heard some news that would be exciting if true — that Belkin is working on what could be the very first consumer gadget with truly wireless charging, the kind that actually beams a small amount of power through the air and across a room.That’s what Wi-Charge founder and chief business officer Ori Mor told TechCrunch this morning — going so far as to claim that Belkin would launch a specific, “center-stage consumer product” with the tech later this year.But Belkin is now denying much of that report, telling The Verge that not only is there no product as of today, but the two companies also haven’t even moved to the product concept phase yet.Belkin spokesperson Jen Wei confirmed that Wi-Charge and Belkin do have a... Continue reading…

Kite Man and another Gothamite knocking back a few beers at Noonan’s. | HBO Max Between his lack of superpowers and proper fighting skills, the Kite Man of HBO Max’s Harley Quinn series is barely anyone in Gotham’s idea of a real supervillain, but that isn’t stopping him from starring in his own spinoff show.Ahead of Harley Quinn’s upcoming third season, HBO Max announced today that Kite Man (Matt Oberg) will soon also feature in Noonan’s, a new 10-episode comedy from Justin Halpern, Patrick Schumacker, and Dean Lorey about Gotham’s seediest dive bar. Noonan’s will focus on Kite Man as he partners up with the villainous Golden Glider to make a new name for himself in the time after Poison Ivy dumps him for Harley. In a press release about the show, Warner Bros. Animation executive vice president of alternative... Continue reading…

It’ll remove links to your address, phone number, and more. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google says it’s expanding the types of personal information that it’ll remove from search results to cover things like your physical address, phone number, and passwords. Before now, the feature mostly covered info that would let someone steal your identity or money — now, you can ask Google to stop showing certain URLs that point to info that could lead someone to your house or give them access to your accounts.According to a blog post, Google’s giving people the new options because “the internet is always evolving” and its search engine giving out your phone number or home address can be both jarring and dangerous. Here’s a list of what kinds of info Google may remove, with the new additions in bold (h/t to the Wayback Machine for m... Continue reading…

While CNN Plus already accelerated through the Go90 Scale of Doomed Streaming Services in record time, it has somehow managed to shave another two days off of its lifespan. Warner Bros. Discovery originally announced that the streaming video news service would close on April 30th, but Digital Trends reports that subscribers have received an email confirming the actual end date is April 28th.That’s confirmed by this support page, and it appears to line up so that subscriptions, which started as early as March 28th before CNN Plus launched the next day, don’t run over a month and charge anyone a second time. This seems like something executives could’ve checked before announcing the end of CNN Plus, but these are unprecedented times.The... Continue reading…

Avatar: The Way of Water is coming to theaters in December. | Image: 20th Century Fox The first Avatar sequel will be called Avatar: The Way of Water, Disney announced Wednesday at CinemaCon, perhaps the biggest indication yet that the long-delayed movie is actually going to be released on December 16th. And we might have even more potential proof soon, as the first teaser trailer is set to debut alongside Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which premieres on May 6th.Here is Disney’s synopsis of the film, which is quite vague:

Characters from the first season of Star Wars Visions. | Lucasfilm/Disney Plus In addition to being an anthology, Star Wars Visions was a brilliant testament to how refreshing and exhilarating the Star Wars franchise can still be when it dares to loosen up a bit and wander off the beaten path of its core saga. Though a second season of Visions is one of the big things fans have been hoping to hear about at this year’s Star Wars Celebration, it looks like there’s another anthology series to be on the watch for.Though we’re still a few weeks out from this year’s Celebration event, a listing of the convention’s panels went up earlier today, along with descriptions of what attendees can expect to see. In what may have been a mistake given how the page was initially pulled, one listing for a panel hosted by The... Continue reading…