The Verge

Sony has responded to Microsoft’s blockbuster proposal to buy Activision Blizzard with a comment on what that might mean for the future games like Call of Duty on PlayStation consoles. “We expect that Microsoft will abide by contractual agreements and continue to ensure Activision games are multiplatform,” a spokesperson tells The Wall Street Journal.That statement’s wording is less than definitive. It’s not surprising that Sony would expect Microsoft to honor any existing contractual agreements regarding PlayStation games, as it did when PS5 console exclusive Deathloop was released after Microsoft’s acquisition of publisher Bethesda Softworks. Once existing agreements expire, it opens the door for Microsoft to pursue Xbox exclusivity... Continue reading…

Canon has announced a new camera that brings cinema-grade video capabilities to a conventional full-frame mirrorless body. The EOS R5C looks a lot like the EOS R5, which in turn looked a lot like a Canon DSLR, but it’s much bulkier in the back. This is to accommodate an active cooling system so it can shoot for long stretches without overheating.How long? Well, Canon says the cooling system allows the R5C to shoot up to 8K/60fps indefinitely. This was an issue with the R5; it was advertised as being able to shoot 8K for about 20 minutes, and Canon later released a firmware update to improve overheating problems. The R5C also supports 8K HDR recording in HLG and PQ formats as well as 4K/120fps recording in 4:2:2 10-bit color without... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Roku experienced a significant service disruption on Wednesday evening, which resulted in some of the company’s streaming devices and even Roku TVs getting stuck on the loading screen or going through a reboot loop and becoming effectively useless. Roku TV sets from TCL, Hisense, and other manufacturers were affected.Users took to social media and Roku’s subreddit to report problems with their Roku hardware, and Down Detector showed a spike for Roku’s services. The company’s support account acknowledged the ongoing issues at around 8:30PM ET.“Roku is aware of an issue reported by users who are unable to access some Roku services,” the company said. “If you are trying to activate your device, please try again later. Our priority is to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’re a new or existing user of YouTube Premium and Music Premium, which let you watch and listen ad-free, you might be able to save up to $36 a year with Google’s new annual plans, as 9to5Google reports. From now until Sunday, January 23rd, users can receive an extra discount with the promo rate, but the new annual plans cost less than the current monthly rate either way.YouTube Premium’s new annual plan is currently selling for $107.99, roughly $36 less than you’d pay for a year at its current monthly price of $143.88.For YouTube Premium Music subscribers, the annual rate is currently $89.99, but will be priced at $119.88 after Sunday — still nearly a $30 savings over paying monthly.Users are still able to sign-up for a... Continue reading…

You’ve heard that PC graphics cards are nearly impossible to find, or that you’ll have to pay exorbitant sums. But if you were hoping the $200 budget AMD Radeon RX 6500 XT was about to change that, we have some very bad news. Reviewers are positively ripping it a new one, and not just because of its cost, or the fact it only has 4GB of VRAM — but apparently because this brand-new GPU is laughably bad.“[T]his is the worst GPU release since I can remember, and I’ve been doing this job for over two decades,” writes TechSpot’s Steven Walton.“AMD RX 6500 XT is worse than 2016’s GPUs,” declares Gamers Nexus.“WTF AMD!?” and “WTF is AMD thinking?,” ask Hardware Canucks and KitGuruTech respectively. “A GPU you might be able to buy... but... Continue reading…

You can’t just throw it in the wash. | Image of cloth: Apple Here’s the scenario: you managed to get your hands on Apple’s hottest product, its $19 polishing cloth meant for cleaning nano-texture screens and other Apple devices. But oh no! Instead of hanging it up with the rest of your priceless artifacts, you accidentally used it to actually clean something, and now it’s dirty. Thankfully, Apple has bestowed us with a guide on how to make our cloth good as new, and 9to5Mac has brought those instructions to our attention.Are you ready? Here’s how Apple’s “How to clean the nano-texture glass on your Apple display” support article describes the process:

Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images The 2022 Super Bowl won’t be broadcast or streamed in 4K again this year when the game takes place on February 13th, NBC Sports has confirmed to The Verge. The lack of a 4K stream marks the second year in a row that the big game won’t be available with the higher level of picture quality.“The game will not be in 4K,” Dan Masonson, a spokesperson for NBC Sports, told The Verge.NBC, which is hosting the big game this year, has never actually aired an NFL game in 4K or HDR before, despite hosting the nationally televised Sunday Night Football game every week during the regular NFL season. NBC, for what it's worth, isn’t the only network: CBS doesn’t produce any of its games in 4K (the network cited COVID-19 issues for the lack of a 4K... Continue reading…

Playdate Pulp is in public beta. | Image: Playdate Panic, the maker of the quirky Playdate handheld, has released a public beta of its Playdate Pulp in-browser game builder. The company describes it as “a friendly tool for making tiny but visually and narratively rich games for Playdate,” in its developer documentation.In the Pulp editor, you’ll be able to do things like make pixel graphics, build levels, write music, and even create custom fonts. As you’re working on your game, you can test it right in your browser, and when you’re ready, you can export your game as a .pdx file (a clever reference to Panic’s Portland roots) so you can load it onto a Playdate handheld. You don’t have to write any code to make a game in Pulp, but if you do want to try your hand at some coding, you can... Continue reading…

Disney has named Joe Earley, a former EVP of its tentpole streaming service Disney Plus, to the position of president of Hulu.Earley previously served as EVP marketing and operations at Disney Plus and is headed to its sister service after joining the company in January of 2019. In the new role at Hulu, Earley will be tasked with building on the service’s brand and will liaise with its various content studios.The announcement comes as part of a reorganization as Disney continues to rally resources around its streaming business. Earley will report to Michael Paull, who the company has appointed to the role of president of Disney’s overall streaming business. In this newly created position, Paull will oversee the company’s ESPN Plus,... Continue reading…

Google is launching a limited beta of its app to bring Android games to Windows PCs. Google Play Games will be available in beta in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan today, allowing Windows PC owners to play popular Android games like Mobile Legends, Summoners War, State of Survival, and Three Kingdoms Tactics.Players in Hong Kong, South Korea, and Taiwan will be able to sign up to access the beta and access Google’s standalone app on Windows PCs. Google is promising “seamless gameplay sessions between a phone, tablet, Chromebook, and Windows PC,” suggesting that you’ll be able to easily resume games between multiple devices.“Players can easily browse, download, and play their favorite mobile games on their PCs while taking advantage... Continue reading…

Photo by Apple A new trailer gives us a glimpse of Apple TV Plus’ WeCrashed, an upcoming miniseries about the real-life buildup and dramatic downfall of WeWork, the coworking space with the weirdly bombastic public filing that laid off thousands of employees while later giving its brash CEO a huge golden parachute. The script practically writes itself.Jared Leto stars as WeWork’s former eccentric CEO, Adam Neumann, while Anne Hathaway takes on the role of his wife, Rebekah Neumann, who served as the company’s chief brand and impact officer and was former CEO of WeGrow. The trailer opens with Leto reimagining a run-down building as a vibrant office space — and then making that vision a reality. Leto and Hathaway are then seen leading a “WeWork” chant... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge C-band’s rollout has endured months of controversy Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Crypto.com, Kris Marszalek, has finally confirmed that hundreds of user accounts were indeed compromised by hackers and had funds stolen as a result, though details of the exact method of breach remain unclear.Marszalek acknowledged the hack in an online interview with Bloomberg Wednesday, stating that around 400 customer accounts had been compromised. He also told Bloomberg that he had not received any outreach from regulators since the attack was first disclosed but would share information if official inquiries were made.Previous statements from Marszalek and other communications from Crypto.com have been criticized for being vague and unclear. Official messaging from the company referred to a... Continue reading…

Update v37 adds many new features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Meta is adding a new feature to its Quest virtual reality headsets that lets you pinch your fingers to access the Quick Action menu, according to a blog post published Wednesday. The Quick Action menu functions similarly to the Control Center on iOS, so this new feature should give you an easier way to access some top-level settings.To do the gesture while using hand tracking on the Quest, “hold your hand palm-up, then make a pinching motion, and you’ll be able to call up a shortcut menu that will make it easier to take screenshots, activate voice commands, and more,” Meta said. The company also made a handy GIF to show the gesture: This new gesture is arriving with v37 of the Quest software, which is rolling out... Continue reading…

Halo Infinite multiplayer | Image: 343 Industries Microsoft’s latest Halo game has finally arrived, and as we’ve seen, the Infinite campaign mode delivers. But for players already missing features like campaign co-op and Forge customizations, ongoing issues with the Halo Infinite Big Team Battle matchmaking have been another source of disappointment. A little over a week ago, the developers at 343 said a hotfix was on the way, and now it has arrived. But there’s bad news — it doesn’t seem to work.The size of the update varies by platform, but players report it comes in at about a gigabyte on Xboxes and 110MB for PC players via Steam. If you’ve been online the whole time, you may need to restart your game to download it.Here’s 343 on what’s happening:

Over half of internet-connected devices used in hospitals have a vulnerability that could put patient safety, confidential data, or the usability of a device at risk, according to a new report from the healthcare cybersecurity company Cynerio.The report analyzed data from over 10 million devices at over 300 hospitals and health care facilities globally, which the company collected through connectors attached to the devices as part of its security platform.The most common type of internet-connected device in hospitals was an infusion pump. These devices can remotely connect to electronic medical records, pull the correct dosage of a medication or other fluid, and dispense it to the patient. Infusion pumps were also the devices most... Continue reading…

Microsoft Corp. With the impending purchase of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion dollars, Microsoft is now the third-largest video game publisher in the world by revenue. It owns several of the biggest gaming franchises of all time, including Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls, and now Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Since the early 2000s, Microsoft has slowly but steadily expanded its holdings, adding to its stable of first-party developers. An explosion of acquisitions in the late teens combined with the purchase of Bethesda last year made Microsoft a many-armed behemoth in the gaming industry, surpassed only by Sony and Tencent. Here’s a breakdown of the studios and games Microsoft could own if the deal goes through.

AMD claimed back in 2020 that 4GB of VRAM was “insufficient” for modern PC games and could result in error messages, warning limits, lower framerates, and even gameplay stutter or pop-in issues. Today, AMD is launching the $199 RX 6500 XT with... 4GB of VRAM, and the blog post featuring AMD’s original claims has mysteriously disappeared.KitGuru reports that AMD has hidden the blog post today, as it was previously accessible yesterday, and a Google cached view version from January 16th has the post in full. “AMD is leading the industry at providing gamers with high VRAM graphics solutions across the entire product offering,” said Adit Bhutani, a Radeon marketing specialist for AMD, in the blog post from 2020. “Competitive products at a... Continue reading…

Image: FuboTV Live streaming app FuboTV is bringing its FanView widgets to Apple TV users, allowing them to view stats alongside single or multi-view match streams.Multi-viewing, which allows sports fans to stream up to four live TV channels at once, was previously supported on Apple TV. But beginning today, users will be able to use the streaming service’s Multiview and FanView features on Apple TV all at once. FanView allows users to see stats and scores from games alongside their matches on the same screen.With the feature support, Apple TV users will now be able to stream two games and two FanView widgets simultaneously, the company announced today. Mike Berkley, chief product officer at FuboTV, said in a statement that the addition will allow... Continue reading…

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano(pictured here on January 6th) erupted on January 14th. | Photo by Maxar via Getty Images The effects of a colossal volcanic eruption in the Pacific archipelago of Tonga are still being calculated, but one consequence is clear: Tonga has been cut off from the internet, after the lone undersea cable that connects the country to the rest of the web was damaged during the eruption.Like many island nations, Tonga relies on just a single undersea cable, about the thickness of a garden hose and filled with fragile fiber-optic filaments, to get citizens online. But on Tuesday, the government of Tonga said “communications both international and domestic were severed due to damage sustained by the submarine cable.”No internet has made it hard to get to detailed reports on the volcano’s damageThe government added that “limited... Continue reading…

Philips Hue’s white smart bulbs have dropped to an all-time low. | Image: Signify If you’re looking to light up your home with smart home tech for less, Philips Hue is selling an E26 starter kit containing four white ambiance smart bulbs and a Hue Bridge for just $59.99 instead of $119.99, which is an all-time low. These steep discounts come well after Philips Hue launched new 1,100 lumen smart bulbs, which means it’s likely offering this steep discount on the 800-lumen bulbs looped into this deal until they’re sold out for good.These popular smart bulbs can be customized with adjustable smart timers, and they allow you to set different hues of white light, with a warmer color temperature to help you relax, or a brighter, cleaner color temp to help you focus. You can also pair the bulbs with your existing setup via... Continue reading…

Screenshot: Arcanium: Rise of Akhan Netflix’s foray into the mobile gaming subscription market is showing no signs of slowing down. This week it added a pair of new titles to its service, a card-battling roguelike called Arcanium: Rise of Akhan, and a hidden object game called Krispee Street. Both are available to download on iOS or Android free of charge if you’re already subscribed to the streaming service.Arcanium follows an increasingly familiar template for Netflix’s mobile game releases, in that it’s a pre-existing title added to the subscription service. The game originally launched in early access on Steam back in 2020, where it currently boasts “Mostly Positive” user reviews. Its Steam listing describes it as an “open-world, single-player strategy card adventure”... Continue reading…

The image from Samsung’s website, showing the unannounced tablet. | Image: Samsung A Samsung support page for, of all things, Bixby, may have just given us our first official look at the company’s upcoming flagship tablet. The picture, which was spotted by 91Mobiles, shows a familiar looking Samsung smartphone alongside a very unfamiliar looking tablet, complete with a display notch that Samsung savagely mocked when first introduced on the iPhone X. Reports suggest this new tablet will be called the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, and it may be announced as early as next month.The design shown in the image on Samsung’s site corresponds with unofficial renders of the tablet released last October, leaked images from December, and leaked details from WinFuture from this month. If these unofficial details are to be... Continue reading…

Nintendo has announced the next game coming to its Switch Online service: Nintendo 64 platforming classic Banjo-Kazooie. The game is inextricably associated with the N64 — it’s a collect-a-thon with blurry cartoon graphics and cute animal characters — but this will actually mark the first time you’ll have been able to play it on Nintendo hardware since Microsoft bought original developer Rare in 2002.Rare did release a couple of spin-off titles for the Game Boy Advance, but the last major Banjo-Kazooie game was 2008’s Nuts & Bolts for the Xbox 360. That game, as well as 360 ports of the original Banjo-Kazooie and sequel Banjo-Tooie, are also available on modern Xbox consoles through Game Pass and a compilation called Rare Replay.B... Continue reading…

Photo by BENOIT DOPPAGNE/BELGA/AFP via Getty Images It looks like the FAA may have made a whoopsie. Remember when the US aviation authority suggested that FedEx might possibly potentially maybe be able to stick a laser onto its cargo planes to knock missiles out of the sky? Yeah, no: “further internal study is necessary,” the FAA wrote on Thursday (via Reuters), adding that the proposal “is not moving forward at this time.”Before you say that of course the FAA wasn’t going to let a private company mount a frickin’ laser beam (sorry, old reference) to their airplanes, you should know that we’re not exactly talking about the kind of high-energy solid state lasers that can literally blast things till they catch fire and/or explode — though the US military has certainly tested those sorts... Continue reading…

Some Nest customers are unhappy with Google’s changes. | Photo: Dan Seifert / The Verge Google offers many ambient sounds from the Google Assistant, including one for white noise that might help block out noise to make it easier to sleep or study. The company seemingly changed its white noise sound last week, and many expressed frustration with the update, as reported by 9to5Google. But Google tells us it has fixed what it describes as an issue, and the sound should work like it used to.“There was an issue impacting our white noise experience. It’s fixed now and working as it previously did,” Google spokesperson Robert Ferrara said in a statement to The Verge.The change had been disruptive for a lot of people, as documented in this Google Nest community thread which had more than 150 replies when we first published this... Continue reading…

Photo by Elizabeth Frantz-Pool / Getty Images As the Senate Judiciary Committee inches towards passing legislation that could loosen Big Tech’s grasp on consumers, Big Tech is expectedly outraged. Both Apple and Google have written letters publicly opposing new pieces of legislation, while a coalition of smaller tech companies has voiced their support.The outcry comes in response to two pieces of proposed legislation: The American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which prevents Big Tech from favoring their services over others, and the Open App Markets Act, which aims to promote competition on app stores.Apple’s senior director of government affairs, Tim Powderly, penned a letter, viewed by Bloomberg, to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL), Antitrust Subcommittee... Continue reading…

US President Joe Biden speaks with a fire victim as he tours a neighborhood destroyed by the Marshall Fire in Louisville, Colorado, January 7, 2022. - Authorities say the fast moving wildfire destroyed more than 1,000 homes | Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images Federal authorities have a new plan to protect communities across the western US from increasingly explosive infernos by fighting fire with fire. In a shift from old-school firefighting strategies that attempted to stamp out naturally occurring blazes, the USDA and Forest Service will focus on thinning out forests to minimize “mega fires.”The agencies released a 10-year strategy today that includes removing trees and using “controlled burns” to reduce the amount of vegetation that feeds flames. The plan is to treat up to 20 million more acres of national forest land than is currently managed, plus work with partners to employ the tactics on an additional 30 million acres on other federal, state, tribal, and private lands. All in all,... Continue reading…

Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images Emirates, Air India, ANA, and Japan Airlines have all announced they’re canceling some flights to the US due to this week’s rollout of C-band 5G over concerns it could potentially interfere with some instruments, particularly on Boeing 777 aircraft. This comes as cell carriers, federal agencies, airlines, and airplane manufacturers struggle to reach an agreement on policies regarding how the rollout should be handled.Emirates’ announcement is one of the clearest about what’s being canceled. The airline, described as the world’s largest operator of the Boeing 777 by Reuters, says that it’s “suspending flights to the following US destinations from 19 January 2022 until further notice,” listing Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft released an out-of-band (OOB) update yesterday to fix some Windows issues caused by last week’s monthly patching cycle on Patch Tuesday.The January 2022 updates that shipped last week included security patches and a fix for Japanese text appearance issues in Windows 11 (KB5009566) and Windows 10 (KB5009543) — along with a secret payload of issues, including unexpected restarting of Domain Controllers and VPN connections using L2TP failing.One of the major issues that came up during the week for IT admins included finding that Windows Server 2012 became stuck in a boot loop, while other versions suffered broken Windows VPN clients, and some hard drives appeared as RAW format (and unusable). Many IT Admins were forced to roll... Continue reading…

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images Nearly a month after President Joe Biden first announced that Americans would be able to order rapid at-home COVID-19 tests for free from the government, the administration’s website finally went live on Tuesday. But hours after the site’s launch, users struggled to place orders to homes or apartment buildings where other tenants may have already placed an order.The extent of the problem is still unclear as of publication, but White House spokesperson Kevin Munoz said, “It’s a really small percentage and USPS will be sending our statement on this shortly.”Users trying to order tests to multiple-family homes and apartments seem to be experiencing this issue the most. Once a user enters their information into the form, they’re prompted... Continue reading…

The site appears to be handling the traffic. | Image: USPS The US government’s site to claim free COVID tests, which has started accepting orders a day before it was scheduled to, is drawing in a lot of visitors — more than every other government page combined, according to the government’s own analytics site.Web traffic numbers change by the second, but at 1:32PM ET, when I ran the report to download real-time numbers for all governmental pages, COVIDTests.gov (along with its FAQ page and versions of the site in other languages) had 685,817 visitors. The visitor counts for the 3,853 other pages included in the report totaled 419,615. Traffic doesn’t seem to have dropped since then. At times, the COVIDtests.gov page had over 705,000 visitors. There have been concerns... Continue reading…

Photo by Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images On Tuesday, Democrats introduced a new bill that would ban nearly all use of digital advertising targeting on ad markets hosted by platforms like Facebook, Google, and other data brokers.The Banning Surveillance Advertising Act – sponsored by Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) – prohibits digital advertisers from targeting any ads to users. It makes some small exceptions, like allowing for “broad” location-based targeting. Contextual advertising, like ads that are specifically matched to online content, would be allowed.“The ‘surveillance advertising’ business model is premised on the unseemly collection and hoarding of personal data to enable ad targeting,” Eshoo, the bill’s lead sponsor, said... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube will scale back a significant portion of YouTube Originals, which produced original content including scripted series, educational videos, and music and celebrity programming. Chief business officer for YouTube Robert Kyncl announced the changes today in a statement on Twitter.Going forward, the company will only fund originals in the YouTube Kids Fund and the Black Voices Fund, a program created in 2020 that committed $100 million to “amplify” Black creators on the platform.“With rapid growth comes new opportunities and now our investments can make a greater impact on even more creators when applied towards other initiatives, like our Creator Shorts Fund, Black Voices Fund, and Live Shopping programming to name a few,” the... Continue reading…

California prosecutors filed two felony charges against the owner of Tesla Model S for a deadly crash in 2019 that involved the vehicle’s Autopilot system, marking the first time that a Tesla owner has been criminally charged in the US in a case involving the automaker’s advanced driver assist system. The charges were first reported by the AP.According to the LA County District Attorney, the incident took place in Gardena, a suburb of LA, on December 29, 2019. Kevin George Aziz Riad, 27, was exiting a highway in his black Model S when he ran through a red light, slamming into a Honda Civic and killing two people.Riad, a limousine service driver, will now face two charges of vehicular manslaughter, according to charges filed with the... Continue reading…

AT&T says airlines “have not utilized the two years they’ve had to responsibly plan for this deployment.” | Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images AT&T and Verizon have announced that they will push back plans to activate some 5G towers around airports after airline operators warned that the deployment could cause “catastrophic disruption” to travel and shipping. While both carriers have an agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration to create buffer zones around 50 airports, AT&T has confirmed to The Verge that it’s halting the rollout of even more towers than originally planned, and that the decision applies to a “limited number of towers around certain airport runways.” Verizon responded to an email asking if it was planning on doing more than the agreement requires with a statement that says it’s “voluntarily decided to limit our 5G network around airports.”AT&T is... Continue reading…

As you watch the first trailer for Marvel’s Moon Knight series, a few things quickly become clear about Oscar Isaac’s take on the titular hero. The first: like his comics counterpart, this Moon Knight will grapple with having multiple personalities. The second: one of those personalities is meant to be believably British, despite his having one of the most ludicrous British accents recently captured on camera.In Marvel’s comics, Moon Knight — created by Doug Moench and Don Perlin — is both a codename and one of the alternate personalities coexisting within Marc Spector, a former Marine turned mercenary who appears to gain otherworldly abilities after dying and seemingly being resurrected by an Egyptian moon deity known as Khonshu.... Continue reading…

The PlayStation epic God of War was released to PC a mere four days ago but is currently discounted to just $37.76 at Eneba, an excellent break on the regular $49.99 price tag. This amazing reboot of the classic Sony franchise brings back Kratos in his role as the iconic God of War in a sweeping narrative bedded in the lore of Norse mythology. The RPG-inspired gameplay is made even stronger with the help of an amazing story that adds some much-needed depth to the otherwise one-dimensional diety.The Gigabyte G32QC 32-inch curved gaming monitor is currently discounted to match its lowest price ever at Newegg. Normally, this curved gaming panel costs $369.99 but has been reduced to just $299.99 when you use the promo code GNLBNA8242 at... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Joe Raedle/Getty Images With its pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft could soon add the likes of Diablo, Warcraft, and Call of Duty to its lineup of big-name franchises, which already includes everything from Halo to Minecraft to Fallout. That’s sure to move more Xbox consoles and bring more subscribers into the increasingly tempting Game Pass ecosystem. But there’s another, less obvious, part of the deal that could be just as important: it instantly gives Microsoft a huge audience in the mobile space.The biggest video games in the world are largely found on smartphones, and for the last few years, major publishers have been spending lots of money to get into the space. Just this month, Take-Two — the company behind the likes of NBA 2K and G... Continue reading…

Photo by Michael Loccisano / Getty Images Most of us check our gift card balances online (because who actually keeps those receipts that tell us how much money we have left on them?), making an apparent oversight by Google all the worse. It appears that Google inadvertently approved a prominent ad for a phony Target gift card balance checker that’s meant to steal your funds, although it has since removed the ad.A Reddit user on r/assholedesign discovered the slip-up when searching Google for “Target gift card balance” on mobile and found that the very first result is an ad, titled “Check Gift Card Balance - Target.” Only, the site isn’t Target — it’s actually a site called “bristolhirevan.” The ad’s description says it will let you check your gift card balance “immediately” and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Well, hi, everyone! You’ve got Aria. Real excited to be here with y’all.As a reminder, Ashley’s out this week, so if you have things to share, you can send ‘em my way (aria.bracci@voxmedia.com). In the meantime, I’ll share some things with you, which is my job, to share those things.P.S. Julie, if you’re reading this, tell your 10-year-old we said hey!Hot Pod Summit is almost here! We’re hosting the invite-only event on February 24th in Brooklyn, New York, as part of On Air Fest. You can see this year’s On Air Fest lineup and buy tickets here. We’ll have more to share on programming and ticketing for Hot Pod Summit in the coming weeks.EXCLUSIVE: $100K podcast fund launches for upstart showsStarting today, budding US-based... Continue reading…

Photo by Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images On Tuesday, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission launched a joint effort to modernize antitrust enforcement, seeking comment on how the agencies can apply current law in cases against tech companies like Meta (parent company of Facebook) and Google.The announcement came at a joint press conference from FTC Chair Lina Khan and Justice Department Antitrust Chief Jonathan Kanter, who described the move as a wide-ranging enforcement modernization effort. While the announcement spans markets, it specifically questions how regulators should approach merger approval in digital markets, potentially setting new legal standards around data aggregation, interoperability, and market consolidation that can affect competition.“We... Continue reading…

COVIDTests.gov is now available. | Screenshot: COVIDTests.gov Last week, the White House announced COVIDTests.gov, a site that you can use to order four free at-home COVID-19 rapid antigen tests per household, and it looks like it has gone live ahead of schedule. It was initially set to start taking orders on January 19th, but it appears you can place an order for your free tests now.

The site is live, but you won’t be able to order tests until Wednesday. Update January 18th, 12:15PM ET: The site and ordering page are live now, one day earlier than expected.The White House has announced that people will be able to order free COVID-19 tests from COVIDTests.gov starting on Wednesday, January 19th. This follows a promise that the government would be setting up a website to distribute 500 million tests, which President Joe Biden announced in December.You’ll only have to put in two pieces of info to get a test shipped to you — your name and address. In its announcement, the White House said the tests will ship through the US Postal Service “within 7–12 days of ordering.” Currently, the limit is four tests per residential address.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Coinbase is partnering with Mastercard to allow card payments on its upcoming NFT marketplace. This means you’ll be able to directly purchase an NFT with fiat currency (also known as a government-issued currency, such as the USD) using your Mastercard credit or debit card, all without having to buy cryptocurrency first.The cryptocurrency exchange says it’s working with Mastercard to “classify NFTs as ‘digital goods,’” which should, in turn, make NFTs more accessible to someone who might be uncomfortable purchasing and storing cryptocurrency. Most NFT marketplaces require that you purchase cryptocurrency first, add it to a secure wallet, and then connect that wallet to the marketplace, a process that obviously isn’t as simple as your... Continue reading…

Photo by Mike Windle/Getty Images for Vanity Fair Since Activision Blizzard was sued in July by the state of California for a culture of “constant sexual harassment,” among many other troubling issues, the company has been in a state of controversy. There were a pair of employee walkouts, and more than 1,500 employees signed a petition to remove CEO Bobby Kotick. An Activision Blizzard spokesperson recently told the Wall Street Journal that 37 people had exited the company, and 44 have been disciplined as part of its investigations.Kotick will continue as CEO, for nowKotick himself was the center of another WSJ report saying the publisher’s former CEO was not only aware of but participated in the company’s pervasive toxic culture. Employees called for Kotick to step down not long... Continue reading…

Noam Galai/Getty Images Today, Roku, Funny Or Die, and Tango announced that they’re partnering up to produce WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story, a biopic written by “Weird Al” Yankovic and director Eric Appel, with Daniel Radcliffe attached to star in the lead role. In a statement about the upcoming film, Yankovic spoke about how he sees WEIRD as his making good on a promise to maintain a dedicated presence in the film space over the decades.“When my last movie UHF came out in 1989, I made a solemn vow to my fans that I would release a major motion picture every 33 years, like clockwork. I’m very happy to say we’re on schedule,” Yankovic said. “I am absolutely thrilled that Daniel Radcliffe will be portraying me in the film. I have no doubt whatsoever that this is... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Buying a TV can be a confusing ordeal, but it doesn’t need to be Continue reading…

As part of Microsoft’s plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the software giant has created a Microsoft Gaming division. Phil Spencer, former head of Xbox, will now lead this team as it focuses on gaming across Xbox, PC, mobile, and the cloud. It’s a big promotion for Spencer, described as the Xboss by Xbox fans.Spencer originally took over as the head of Microsoft’s Xbox division in 2014, reporting to former Windows chief Terry Myerson. In a sign of how gaming has changed at Microsoft under Spencer, he quickly moved into Microsoft’s senior leadership team in 2017, reporting directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella as the corporate vice president of gaming. After more than 30 years at the company, Spencer is now CEO of... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge A new electric Microbus offers a glimpse at the future of VW Continue reading…