The Verge

An illustration of Die Gute Fabrik’s studio space. Some game companies are spearheading the idea that employees should work less rather than more Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Bollinger, a Michigan-based startup, announced today that it was postponing its plans to manufacture electric trucks in order to focus on commercial delivery vans.Bollinger burst onto the scene several years ago with a pair of rugged, box-like electric truck prototypes: the four-door B1 (which is shaped like a Jeep Wrangler) and the B2 (which is longer and has a pickup bed). It’s the latest EV startup to run into speed bumps as it attempts to build a complicated vehicle manufacturing business from scratch.Bollinger has already delayed both vehicles, so their postponement may not come as a huge shock to close watchers. The trucks were originally scheduled to go into production in 2020, but that date was moved to late 2021, with the... Continue reading…

You’ve got yourself a small weekend project. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge In most cases, people purchase M.2 NVMe drives to stick into their desktop PCs or laptops for more of that good, fast storage. But there are some other, more practical applications that don’t require opening up your hardware. You can get one of these fast SSDs, then stick it into a small enclosure, and suddenly you’ve made yourself a convenient and speedy portable USB-C drive that’ll cost you as little as $93 with today’s deals.If that sounds like something you’d like to add to your tech repertoire, Sabrent’s tool-free USB-C Gen 3.2 enclosure is down to just $22.94 (usually $40) at Amazon. Adding an M.2 drive to it is simple, just pop the top off and follow the instructions for carefully guiding the drive into the slot. Then, you fasten... Continue reading…

Your case of Final Fantasy XIV FOMO is nearing its end. Last night, game director Naoki Yoshida wrote on the Final Fantasy XIV website that Square Enix will resume digital sales of the popular MMO on January 25th.Final Fantasy XIV grew so popular with the launch of its latest expansion Endwalker that the queues to log into game servers were thousands of people long and took hours to get through. Servers were so congested that in December, Square Enix suspended the sale of digital versions of the game. As more players progress through the content, levels of server congestion are finally starting to even out, permitting sales of the game to resume. Yoshida also acknowledged that FFXIV’s meme-able free trial offering will remain... Continue reading…

Mouse and keyboard, meet boy and Kratos Continue reading…

Founder of Microsoft and chairman of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, to establish the Breakthrough Energy Europe investment fund, Bill Gates looks on during a press conference at the EU headquarters in Brussels on October 17, 2018. | Photo by JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images Bill Gates’ climate investment fund is moving forward with plans to funnel billions of dollars into emerging green technologies. This week, the fund, Breakthrough Energy, put out a Request for Proposals for projects in Europe through Breakthrough Energy’s Catalyst program. It comes after the Catalyst program released its first RFP for similar projects in the US last month.The Catalyst program, launched last June with the aim of enabling a zero-carbon economy through public-private partnerships, says it has fundraised $1.5 billion over the past six months and hopes to raise $3 billion by the middle of next year. It plans to use that money to boost four different kinds of technologies: green hydrogen fuels, sustainable aviation fuels,... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Block, the payment company formerly known as Square, is working on building an “open Bitcoin mining system,” its CEO Jack Dorsey has announced. In a thread, Block’s general manager for hardware Thomas Templeton outlined the company’s goals for the system, which is for it to be easily available, reliable, performant, and relatively power efficient compared to its hashrate.The overall aim is to make mining more decentralized, in turn making the overall Bitcoin network more resilient. As the cryptocurrency’s value has increased, and it’s become more challenging to mine without economies of scale, there have been fears that the network has become centralized on too small a group of miners. Making mining more decentralized is “a long-term... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales While Slack began as a workplace instant-messaging tool, over the last few years it has become popular as a way for anyone to keep in contact with a group of friends, colleagues, or family. It now even offers a way for groups to create in-the-moment “huddles,” in which two or more people can move from text to audio — if you’re on a paid plan.Although Slack is largely intended for group collaboration, it also has tools if you just want to chat one-on-one with somebody. Here, we’re going to go over some of the ways you can have a private text, audio, or video conversation with one other person via the free version of Slack.Text conversationsUsing the Slack desktop app:

Finally, a Garmin hybrid that checks off all the boxes Continue reading…

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft’s board of directors is hiring a law firm to review the company’s policies on sexual harassment and discrimination after years of complaints of wrongdoing at the company. The review, which will be conducted by law firm Arent Fox, will include a public transparency report “assessing the effectiveness of the company’s workplace sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies, training, and related policies.”It will also include an assessment of Microsoft’s previous investigation into allegations against the company’s co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates. GeekWire reports that this review won’t reinvestigate Gates’ affair with a company employee in the year 2000. Bill Gates resigned from the Microsoft board in March 2020,... Continue reading…

Google’s 2020 Chromecast with Google TV. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google TV’s director of product management Rob Caruso has outlined what the company’s plans are for its TV operating system in 2022 in a new interview with Protocol. While Caruso stopped short of making any specific feature announcements, he said that the company is interested in offering fitness and video conferencing services though Google TV, and better smart home controls.Caruso called fitness a “big area of exploration,” and cited Android’s recent smart home control changes (which, for example, made them easily accessible from a phone’s power menu) as a clue for what might come to Google TV. Zoom was cited as a potential addition to the platform (Google’s own Duo video calling service is already available), and he said Google is... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Hackers attacked a number of Ukrainian government websites on Friday, temporarily disabling sites and leaving messages warning readers to “be afraid and expect the worse.”A spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry described the incident as a “massive cyber attack,” according to reports from Bloomberg and Sky News, but noted that no content on the sites had been altered and no personal data had been leaked.Websites for the government’s cabinet, security and defense councils, and ministry for education were among those affected. “Our specialists are already working on restoring the work of IT systems, and the cyber police opened an investigation,” said the spokesperson.Russian troops have been gathering on Ukraine’s border for... Continue reading…

Giga Texas Belt Buckle now costs 835 DOGE. Tesla now lets customers buy select items of merchandise using Dogecoin, the company’s CEO Elon Musk has announced. Products buyable with the meme-based cryptocurrency include the Cyberquad for Kids (12,020 doge / around $2,320), the Giga Texas Belt Buckle (835 doge / around $161) and the Cyberwhistle (300 doge / around $58). Business Insider notes that Dogecoin was up 16 percent to around $0.20 following the news.The initiative was initially announced by Musk on Twitter on December 14th when he said that the company would “see how it goes” with the cryptocurrency payment option. It’s unclear if or when Tesla might eventually accept payment for its vehicles in Dogecoin, which Musk has previously said may be his favorite cryptocurrency.... Continue reading…

Photo by FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images Tesla has never been fantastic at meeting deadlines, so it’s not too surprising that the company’s ambitious electric pickup — the Cybertruck — is running a little late. Recently, reference to a 2022 production schedule was scrubbed from its website, and Reuters is now reporting that production of the vehicle won’t begin until the first quarter of 2023.The Cybertruck was originally announced in 2019, with Tesla promising that the vehicle would be rolling off production lines in late 2021. Then, in August that year, full production was delayed to some time in 2022. Now, that deadline seems to have been waived, too.Changes to the Cybertruck order page were first spotted by Edmunds. The site originally told buyers: “You will be able to... Continue reading…

PUBG-maker Krafton filed a big lawsuit Monday. | Image: Krafton PUBG-maker Krafton filed a big lawsuit Monday: it’s suing the developer of two mobile games that it accuses of copying PUBG: Battlegrounds, the hit PC battle royale shooter, and it’s suing Apple and Google for distributing those games on their app stores. Krafton even accuses Google of hosting YouTube videos with gameplay of the two games in question, as well as “numerous posts containing a feature-length Chinese film that is nothing more than a blatantly infringing live-action dramatization of Battlegrounds.”The games Krafton takes issue with are called Free Fire and Free Fire Max, offered by developer Garena. On both the App Store and Google Play, they show up as Garena Free Fire and Garena Free Fire Max. Both are available for free... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge NBC News has published a great report on the struggles Amazon employees face trying to get tested for COVID after the company stopped onsite testing last summer, and the HR quagmire they could end up in when reporting their results or dealing with illness-related PTO. The story is well worth a read, as it delves into Amazon’s policies and systems, and gives a voice to the employees they affect.The author of the report spoke to workers who faced breakthrough cases and unexpected costs as they tried to get tested for COVID, struggling with an overburdened and difficult-to-navigate healthcare system. “I really wish they would bring free COVID testing back to us,” says one employee.One employee says Amazon’s systems “take the human out of... Continue reading…

She ran a program that used iPods to teach reading and math to underprivileged Native American schoolkids living on tribal land. Now, 46-year-old Kristy Stock of New Mexico is getting 18 months in prison for stealing 3,000 of them, which she resold for a personal gain of over $800,000 between 2013 and 2018.That’s according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland (via Engadget), and Stock isn’t the first who’s been sentenced as part of this scheme — it all seems to center around around 36-year-old Colorado resident Saurabh Chawla, who bought up stolen electronics and other goods and resold them on eBay and Amazon. Law enforcement raided him in 2019, according to an earlier press release, and he bought stolen iPads from... Continue reading…

Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl and LauncherOne just after rocket separation on a previous flight | Image: Virgin Orbit This afternoon, small satellite launcher Virgin Orbit successfully lofted seven tiny satellites into orbit around Earth, marking the third successful mission for the Virgin Galactic spinoff company. The payloads consisted of various research satellites for the Department of Defense, along with three small satellites from companies SatRevolution and Spire Global.The launch comes less than a week after Virgin Orbit’s stock began publicly trading for the first time on the New York Stock Exchange. Virgin Orbit announced in August its plan to go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, making it one of three small rocket launch companies to follow the trend in 2021. On Friday, January 7th, Virgin Orbit CEO... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images ViacomCBS has canceled 60 Minutes Plus at its tentpole streaming service Paramount Plus, axing a title that was touted as one of the service’s premium exclusives.The company confirmed to The Verge that it will no longer produce 60 Minutes Plus, a spinoff of its award-winning broadcast news magazine 60 Minutes. The series had only streamed one, 30-episode season as of the cancellation announcement, which was shared with staffers Thursday morning, Variety earlier reported, citing sources familiar with the situation. In a statement, the company said that the content the series produced will remain on Paramount Plus.“The excellent work that has been done by the 60+ team will continue to be on Paramount+.”“We are proud of the team at 60... Continue reading…

In November, Valve gave everyone some bad news, revealing a two-month delay for the Steam Deck, but it’s starting off 2022 on a better note. In its latest update, the company says it “looks like” Steam Deck shipments will start by the end of February. Of course, we’re in a pandemic, and things can always change, but the preorder windows for Verge staffers are holding steady with their original projections — you can check your status here.

Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images Congress has sent subpoenas demanding information from Meta (formerly Facebook), Twitter, Reddit, and Alphabet concerning the January 6th, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The House of Representatives Select Committee that’s investigating the attack wants each company to disclose moderation policy details and other information that could illuminate how participants organized their efforts or spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.The committee requested records from dozens of companies on a voluntary basis last year, but it says the response from the aforementioned four has been “inadequate” so far. “Two key questions for the Select Committee are how the spread of misinformation and violent extremism contributed... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Phone companies could have to follow new rules about how they notify customers and the government following a data breach if a proposal from the Federal Communication Commission’s chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel passes. The notice of proposed rulemaking, released on Wednesday, cites the “increasing frequency and severity of security breaches involving customer information” as a risk to consumers.The current rules give telecommunication providers seven business days to notify the FBI and Secret Service of data breaches that leak customer proprietary network information, or CPNI. In most cases, the company cannot notify customers about the breach until seven business days after information has been relayed to federal law enforcement. The... Continue reading…

A recruiter works on a computer, 19 June 2007 at the cyber cafe “Le Milk” in Paris, during the Neo Job-Meeting (NJM) event, the first virtual job fair on the 3-D “Second Life” on-line game. | Photo credit should read STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images Throughout months of metaverse hype, with all the new names and virtual real estate speculation, I can’t count how many times I’ve thought, “Didn’t Second Life already do that?” Apparently, the people behind Second Life agree and are trying to pull our attention back to their virtual world that (rather helpfully) exists somewhere you can visit on your existing computer.

Silphwave / Dirt Funding a media outlet is a tricky business, and in recent years, some journalists have looked toward the cryptocurrency world to do it. That includes Dirt, an entertainment newsletter co-founded by Kyle Chayka and Daisy Alioto in late 2020. Dirt has raised money since launch by selling non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and earlier this week, it announced plans to work those NFTs into a decentralized autonomous organization or DAO — giving its audience input into where Dirt spends its money.Dirt isn’t the first blockchain-based media outfit. In 2017, for instance, a project called Civil funded a panoply of websites using its own cryptocurrency token. But Civil collapsed after a difficult launch and initial funding that quickly ran dry.... Continue reading…

Twitter is opening up the ability to record Spaces. | Image: Twitter Twitter is now letting all Android and iOS users record Twitter Spaces, the company announced Thursday. Users will be able to choose to record a Space when they’re setting one up and the recording will be available for public playback for 30 days after the Space has ended. If you’re in a Space that’s being recorded, you’ll see an icon at the top of the Space letting you know.You can see how it all works in this tweet from Twitter’s support account.

Activity data from a Fitbit can predict changes in blood sugar control for adults with prediabetes, a condition that affects around one in three adults in the United States, a new study shows. The findings point to a strategy that tech companies might use in their rumored efforts to build diabetes technology into wearable products.“It kind of makes sense intuitively — more movement, more physical activity leads to overall better health, and better health is one of the factors behind improved glycemic control,” says Jessilyn Dunn, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Duke University who wasn’t involved with this study but has also done work on wearables and glucose monitoring.People with prediabetes have elevated blood... Continue reading…

From bugs to halted releases, Android 12 has seen an unusually troubled launch. There are some unique complicating factors this year, but it’s the same old Android — the good and the bad Continue reading…

The PS5 will be available in select GameStop stores as a part of a bundle. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge GameStop PowerUp Rewards Pro members still on the hunt for the ever-elusive PlayStation 5 may have another shot at nabbing the console. Once again, GameStop is selling PlayStation 5 bundles tomorrow, January 14th.The retailer has announced its first special in-store PlayStation 5 sales event of this year will take place in select stores on Friday, January 14th. To participate, you must have a subscription to GameStop’s Pro membership, which sells for $14.99 per year.The standard PlayStation 5, which offers a disc drive, typically retails for $499.99. However, as GameStop will be selling pre-built bundles, you should expect to pay more than that. An image published by GameStop also suggests the less expensive $399.99 PS5 Digital Edition... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s becoming ever-so-slightly less of a maddening exercise to get your hands on a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X. Granted, it’s still harder than it should be, but recent retailer restocks have taken longer to sell out than they used to. So, here’s hoping that you’re able to purchase whichever console you want during today’s restock at Walmart, which is specifically for paid Walmart Plus subscribers and going on right now.Walmart is offering the $499.99 PS5 with a disc drive, the $399.99 PS5 console that can only play digital titles, as well as the $499.99 Xbox Series X. These consoles are available to non-trial Walmart Plus members, meaning you actually have to opt-in to pay Walmart for the service to get... Continue reading…

HBO Hot on the heels of Euphoria’s season 2 premiere, HBO and partner WildBrain have just greenlit a new Degrassi series from co-showrunners Lara Azzopardi (The Bold Type) and Julia Cohen (Riverdale) that the network is billing as “a reprise of the original teen drama.”Like the original Degrassi, which explored the tumultuous lives of Canadian youths, the new show will focus on a group of high schoolers from Toronto who are all on different journeys of self-discovery. Unlike its predecessors (there have been five Degrassi series to date), which all featured half-hour episodes, the newest series will see Degrassi become an hour-long drama, indicating that its approach to storytelling is going to be a bit different this time around.While D... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Following a summit on open-source security hosted at the White House Thursday, Google has called for increasing government involvement in identifying and securing critical open-source software projects.In a blog post published shortly after the summit, Kent Walker, president for global affairs and chief legal officer at Google and Alphabet, said that collaboration between government and the private sector was needed for open-source funding and management.“We need a public-private partnership to identify a list of critical open source projects — with criticality determined based on the influence and importance of a project — to help prioritize and allocate resources for the most essential security assessments and improvements,” Walker... Continue reading…

Image: Nicola Goode / Lucasfilm Ltd. The long-awaited Boba Fett spinoff, The Book of Boba Fett, is roughly halfway through its seven-episode season on Disney Plus, which follows the iconic bounty hunter as he attempts to reinvent himself as “literally anything other than a bounty hunter.”Yes, Boba Fett has a new job in The Book of Boba Fett. After killing off Jabba the Hutt’s former majordomo, Bib Fortuna (who, we’re told, stepped in to fill the Hutt-shaped space in Mos Espa’s criminal underworld), Boba is now the new “daimyo,” the lord and master of the desert planet’s seedier elements.As we noted in The Verge’s initial review, it’s not entirely clear why Boba Fett is chasing a sudden career change at this point in his life. And after a few more episodes, The Book of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Jose Batista, a retail investor, was awarded almost $30,000 from Robinhood after filing a complaint using the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s (or FINRA’s) arbitration service. His case may end up being an example for other retail traders who are still upset at the trading platform’s actions in January of 2021.On January 28th, Batista was planning on selling his stock in Koss and Express — but Robinhood had placed trading restrictions on them, limiting the amount of shares its users could buy. This meant that Batista had to watch helplessly as the prices of his stock fell to nearly half of what they were the day before the restrictions were put in place, according to MarketWatch. “Seeing it plummeting and plummeting, I felt... Continue reading…

I hope the future can do better Continue reading…

Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call Democrats and Republicans are getting behind a new bill, introduced Thursday, that would force tech companies to simplify the language in their terms of service agreements, making it easier for consumers to understand.The Terms-of-service Labeling, Design and Readability Act – or TLDR for short – would require websites to provide a “summary statement” for users before they opt in to a terms of service agreement. The statement would summarize the legal jargon into something more easily understood by the average user, along with disclosing any recent data breaches (from the three years) and the types of sensitive data the site may collect. The summary would also explain “whether a consumer can delete their data, and if so, provide... Continue reading…

Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images Did you struggle with Wordle today? I sure as hell did, racking up my second ever failure since I started playing the game at the beginning of the year. I was annoyed at myself more than the puzzle and eased that frustration by sharing my results on Twitter.As I did, I realized why the game’s auto-generated grids of emoji are so brilliant. It’s not just that they’re social (though that certainly helps), nor is it that they’re intriguing (there’s no link to the game and no explanation for the uninitiated as to what the emoji mean). No, it’s because each grid tells a story with wonderful concision. With just 30 squares and three colors, Wordle’s emoji results convey narratives of luck, frustration, perseverance, and failure; each grid a... Continue reading…

Marvel Studios Marvel’s Eternals from director Chloé Zhao was a film of many firsts for the studio, but it would be a bit inaccurate to say that it featured the MCU’s first sex scene, as a lot of people seem to think it did. Daredevil and the rest of the Netflix / Marvel gang spent seasons getting it in over in their neck of the cinematic universe, and those shows very much laid some groundwork for Eternals’ much-tamer take on superpowered sex. Eternals’ sex scene might not technically be Marvel’s first, or particularly “fun” to watch, but it’s one of the movie’s more clever ways of stating the obvious about how its story is going to end.This essay contains spoilers for Marvel’s Eternals.Throughout Eternals, an emotionally-inert foray into the cosmic... Continue reading…

Image: Gap Gap is selling NFTs, following other clothing retailers like Adidas, Nike, and Macy’s that in recent months have jumped into the NFT space. The NFTs are built on the Tezos blockchain, which touts itself as a more energy-efficient option.The NFTs come in the form of a series of digital hoodie art, with different levels of rarity at different price points. Common level pieces starting at roughly $8.30, or 2 tez, are on sale today. Rare, epic, and one-of-a-kind tiers will roll out over the next few weeks. Gap is partnering with artist Brandon Sines, creator of the Frank Ape cartoon character, on the designs.The gamified experience comes out to around $500.For shoppers who’d prefer to buy something wearable, look no further than the... Continue reading…

Photo taken on Aug. 12, 2021 shows burned bushes after a wildfire caused by high temperature in Siggiewi, Malta. Matla was hit by a heatwave which has swept across the Mediterranean Sea. | Photo by Jonathan Borg/Xinhua via Getty Images The last eight years have been the eight hottest years on record, NASA and the National Oceanic Administration (NOAA) confirmed today. 2021 ranks as the sixth hottest year on record, the agencies said, as global average temperatures trend upward. Rankings aside, there were plenty of red flags throughout 2021 to show us how remarkable the year was for temperature extremes.“The fact is that we’ve now kind of moved into a new regime ... this is likely the warmest decade in many, many hundreds, maybe 1000s of years,” says Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “There’s enough change that it’s having impacts locally.”In North America, those local impacts included epically bad summer heat, even for typically... Continue reading…

Fortnite is back on iOS today... sort of. The popular battle royale game isn’t back on the App Store (where it’s been missing since Apple pulled the app from its storefront in August 2020), but iPhone and iPad owners can now stream Fortnite to play on their phones and tablets through Nvidia’s GeForce Now service, which opened up a closed beta today to test the new streaming version of the game.Nvidia and Epic Games have been promising that Fortnite would come back to iOS through GeForce Now running through Safari’s web browser (the only way that Apple currently allows game streaming services like GeForce Now, Stadia, xCloud, or Luna to operate on iOS) as far back as November 2020, when the service first launched on Apple’s hardware.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The White House will meet with leaders of major tech companies including Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta, IBM, and Microsoft on Thursday to discuss the security of open-source software. The issue has become urgent in the wake of the extremely serious Log4j vulnerability, discovered in December 2021.The summit will also include the Apache Software Foundation — the owner and maintainer of the Log4j library — and Oracle, owner of the Java software platform on which the Log4j library runs. GitHub and the Linux Open Source Foundation will also be represented.Executives from the tech companies will meet with representatives of various federal agencies, including the departments of Commerce, Defense, Energy, and Homeland Security. Other agencies... Continue reading…

Magic Leap Magic Leap announced Tuesday that it was giving four healthcare partners early access to its next-gen augmented reality headset, including neurotechnology company SyncThink. With the new partnership, the company is interested in targeting vestibular disorders, which cause dizziness, SyncThink chief clinical officer Scott Anderson told The Verge.SyncThink has been collaborating with Magic Leap for a few years, Anderson says. Now, it’s expanding that relationship to bring Magic Leap 2 into the neurological health space and collaborate on clinical studies, he says. SyncThink already has FDA clearance for an eye-tracking VR device that helps diagnose concussions. Changes in eye movements are also linked to vestibular disorders.The upgrades... Continue reading…

Both the ad-free and ad-supported HBO Max plans are currently on sale. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Whether it’s exclusives like the new Harry Potter reunion special, Return to Hogwarts, or access to new films like The Matrix Resurrections, an HBO Max subscription means you can watch some of today’s most popular titles from the comfort and safety of your home. Unfortunately, we rarely see deals on the popular streaming service — that is, until today.Right now, HBO Max is offering 20 percent off both its ad-supported and ad-free monthly subscription plans, which throughout 2021 gave subscribers limited-time access to movies like Dune the same day they hit theaters. And while Warner Bros. has stated it doesn’t intend to keep simultaneously releasing movies in theaters and on HBO Max this year, it will release six exclusives on HBO Max... Continue reading…

Leica M11 in black | Image: Leica Leica has introduced the latest generation of its venerated M rangefinder camera, the new M11. The M11 is very similar in appearance to the M10 line it’s replacing, with much of the claimed 40 new improvements found on the inside. Leica says the M11 will be available starting today, January 13th, 2022, with a price tag of $8,995.The most significant upgrade is a new, 60-megapixel backside-illuminated full-frame CMOS sensor that captures 14 stops of dynamic range at its full resolution. Uniquely, the M11 also allows photographers to capture RAW files at 36 or 18 megapixels, which unlocks another stop of dynamic range, provides better low light performance, and allows for longer burst shooting at the expense of zoomed-in detail. (The... Continue reading…

The HP Elite Dragonfly G3 is one of thebiggest laptop releases from CES, bringing more consumer-friendly features to a traditional business laptop. | Image: HP HP had one of the most expansive laptop launches of this year’s CES. The headliners included two Elite Dragonfly models, a whole gaggle of Windows 11 Elitebooks, and a dump of gaming laptpos and desktops (as well as accessories). We saw the usual spec upgrades: better chips, smaller bezels, better battery life, bigger touchpads, etc.But a few newer themes ran through HP’s releases and through those of many other major laptop manufacturers as well. Less obtrusive, chic-er looks. Heavier duty chips in chassis that are thinner, lighter, and easier to take from place to place. AI features meant to prevent snooping in public places. Better conferencing technology — lines that have resisted adding webcams for years finally have them. These... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / Photo by Becca Farsace Back in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, people who wanted to get together while staying safe from infection discovered that they could meet with friends, families, and co-workers via videoconferencing software. Maybe because many of them were already using Zoom at work for videoconferencing, that app almost immediately became the flavor of the day.There were a few hiccups along the way — possibly because Zoom was meant to be primarily a business app. At first, while Zoom included some methods that could be used to safeguard meetings, those features could be hard to find, especially if you hadn’t used the app before. Meetings began to be interrupted by unwanted intruders who would purposely cause disruptions, often in extremely... Continue reading…

You should probably buy the Pixel 6 instead Continue reading…

Photo by Walid Berrazeg/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which supplies silicon for Apple, Qualcomm, and other tech giants, plans to spend as much as $44 billion to increase its manufacturing capacity in 2022, Reuters reports. In its latest earnings release, the Taiwanese firm said it expects capital spending to be between $40 and $44 billion in 2022, up from a previous record of $30 billion in 2021.It’s not an entirely unexpected increase, given the company’s previously announced plan to spend $100 billion on expanding its manufacturing capacity through 2023. But the record sum suggests it doesn’t expect demand for chips to slow down anytime soon, despite some analyst warnings of potentials slowdowns in areas like... Continue reading…

Xbox One S | Photo by Tyler Pina / The Verge Microsoft has stopped manufacturing all Xbox One consoles. The software giant originally discontinued the Xbox One X and digital Xbox One S ahead of the Xbox Series X launch, then quietly stopped manufacturing the Xbox One S at the end of 2020, leaving retailers to sell out their remaining stock.“To focus on production of Xbox Series X / S, we stopped production for all Xbox One consoles by the end of 2020,” says Cindy Walker, senior director of Xbox console product marketing, in a statement to The Verge.Microsoft’s confirmation comes just as a Bloomberg report suggested Sony had planned to end PS4 production at the end of 2021, but that the company will now manufacture around a million PS4 consoles in 2022. Sony has confirmed PS4... Continue reading…