The Verge

Photo by Matthias Bein / Getty Images A rider that has effectively blocked recreational cannabis for years in Washington, DC appears in President Joe Biden’s proposed 2022 budget, which may keep weed on the back burner yet again.Even though residents of DC voted to legalize possession of recreational marijuana in 2014, the measure has been in limbo since then, derailed by a rider to DC’s appropriations bill first introduced by Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), that prohibits the District from spending its local funds on commercialization of recreational cannabis, such as dispensaries. And Biden’s proposed 2022 budget includes the rider’s language yet again.Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said in a statement she was having a hard time reconciling the Biden administration's... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The European Commission and UK regulators have opened antitrust investigations into Facebook over concerns its Marketplace service is unfairly distorting competition for classified ads. Both are interested in whether or not Facebook unfairly used advertising data to compete in the classified ads market, and are collaborating as part of the investigation.“Facebook collects vast troves of data on the activities of users of its social network and beyond, enabling it to target specific customer groups,” the European Commission’s competition head, Margrethe Vestager, said in a statement. “We will look in detail at whether this data gives Facebook an undue competitive advantage in particular on the online classified ads sector, where people... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Users are complaining that the Disney Plus and HBO Max Apple TV apps aren’t properly supporting the excellent new Siri Remote. Disney Plus has yet to be updated to make use of the remote’s helpful scroll wheel scrubbing feature, which works on rival Netflix and Apple TV Plus apps. The HBO Max app has more issues, Screen Times reports, and lacks support for several of the remote’s features and voice commands.When we tried the HBO Max app for ourselves, we found it doesn’t seem to support the new remote’s D-pad. Instead, we could only use the remote’s touchpad circle, which is technically an element of the remote you’re supposed to be able to disable. Scrubbing using the touchpad works, just very badly. The cause of these problems... Continue reading…

I’d still eat it. | Image: eBay After an intense, dayslong bidding war, a single McDonald’s chicken nugget shaped like one of the Among Us crewmates has just sold for an eye-watering $99,997 on eBay.The little nugget started off from humble beginnings, listed for a respectable 99 cents on May 28th. (I’d pay that much for it. Maybe even $5.) And for a little while, there were no bids.But then, two days after it was first listed, somebody placed an (at the time) astonishingly high $14,869.69 first bid on the nugget, and things just escalated from there. I recommend scrolling through the bid history, it’s wild. Screenshot: eBay The completed listing. One factor that may have driven up the price is that the nugget apparently came from a BTS... Continue reading…

Taito is the latest Japanese video game publisher to resurrect old hardware in mini form. The company behind Space Invaders, Bubble Bobble, and many more arcade classics has just announced the Egret II Mini, which like Sega’s excellent Astro City Mini is a shrunken-down version of a popular arcade cabinet.The original Egret II was released in the ‘90s, and its key feature was the ability to rotate its screen 90 degrees so that games with tall aspect ratios — like Space Invaders and other shooters — could be played in tate (vertical) mode. Appropriately enough, that feature is present on the Egret II Mini, which has a 5-inch 4:3 LCD that can be played in either orientation. The Egret II Mini’s primary controls include six... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is working on a new version of the iPad Pro with wireless charging, according to a new report in Bloomberg. To accommodate the technology, Apple will reportedly switch to a glass back for the new models, instead of the aluminum found on the rear of every iPad released so far.Apple is said to be testing a magnetic charging system for the new iPad Pro similar to the MagSafe connector introduced with the iPhone 12 range of phones last year. Apple may also include reverse wireless charging in the new iPad Pro, according to the report, which would allow the iPad to serve as a wireless charging point itself.Apple only just released the new M1 iPad Pro with its Mini LED display, and the wireless charging model reportedly won’t be ready... Continue reading…

Hiring private contractors to sample greenhouse gases from the air is an important aspect of NOAA’s climate research. Here, Paolo Wilczak pilots a sampling flight over southeastern Connecticut on April 25, 2020, as part of the East Coast Outflow field mission. The Global Monitoring Laboratory hopes to add civilian airliners to its sampling fleet. | Paolo Wilczak, Scientific Aviation A greenhouse gas-tracking technology is about to go commercial. Greenhouse gas detectors will soon take flight on an Alaska Airlines-run Boeing 737-9, in an effort to help federal scientists get even more information about how we’re changing the climate. The tools would measure concentrations of planet-heating pollution in the air, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today.They’re calling the plane, which won’t have any passengers, an “ecoDemonstrator.” It’s testing a number of contraptions along with the greenhouse-gas detector — including features that might make the plane more fuel-efficient or less noisy.Over several test flights this year, NOAA will figure out the best place to install their... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge One of Google’s top executives in diversity strategy and research has left his position after a 2007 blog post slamming the state of Israel resurfaced on June 1st. In the post, Kamau Bobb used antisemitic language, insinuating Jews have an “insatiable appetite for war and killing.”The post was quickly picked up by the New York Post and the Washington Free Beacon. “While Google has been a vocal supporter of diversity initiatives... it has not commented on the recent spike in anti-Semitic hate crimes,” read a Washington Free Beacon article on the subject.But the controversy likely didn’t start with the right-wing press. It seems to have begun internally, with an email from a member of Google’s Jewish employee resource group. On June... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook plans to end its controversial policy that mostly shields politicians from the content moderation rules that apply to other users, a sharp reversal that could have global ramifications for how elected officials use the social network.The change, which Facebook is set to announce as soon as Friday, comes after the Oversight Board — an independent group funded by Facebook to review its thorniest content rulings — affirmed its decision to suspend former President Donald Trump but critiqued the special treatment it gives politicians, stating that the “same rules should apply to all users.” The board gave Facebook till June 5th to respond to its policy recommendations.Facebook also plans to shed light on the secretive system of... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is distributing an AirTags software update that makes it harder for people to use them for surreptitious tracking, CNET reports. According to a statement sent to The Verge, Apple is also working on an app for Android users which will let them detect potentially unwanted trackers.AirTags were released earlier this year as Apple’s solution for helping people keep track of everyday objects. In its marketing, Apple shows people finding their lost keys or bags that have the trackers attached. However, there have been concerns the tiny devices are being used to secretly track people without their knowledge, and we’ve seen numerous reports since the AirTags’ release indicating that some tweaks were needed to make the devices more... Continue reading…

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images President Joe Biden signed an executive order Thursday expanding a Trump-era ban on Americans investing in Chinese companies with purported ties to China’s military.The order increases the number of restricted Chinese companies from 48 to 59. It also rewrites a previous order issued by former President Donald Trump to include companies that create and deploy surveillance technology, like the technology used against Muslim minorities and dissidents in Hong Kong. The move signals that Biden plans to continue some of the same China-related policies previously put in place by the Trump administration.The order does not include DJI, WeChat, TikTok, or its parent company ByteDance among the 59 companies, despite previous concerns about... Continue reading…

The Paramount Plus logo. | Paramount Plus Paramount Plus is set to introduce a new ad-supported plan on Monday that will cost just $5 per month — half the price of its more premium plan.The primary difference between what the service is calling its “essential” plan and the more expensive commercial-free plan — besides the addition of ads — is some missing content. The $10 commercial-free plan includes both local and national news coverage with CBSN and CBS live, whereas the new essential plan only includes national news with CBSN. There’s more sports coverage on the commercial-free plan as well, and premium users also get support for offline downloads.Both plans include access to tens of thousands of TV episodes and movies, as well as the platform’s originals, but premium... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge The Biden administration will make $1 billion in grants available to expand broadband access and adoption on tribal lands, Vice President Kamala Harris announced at the White House Thursday. The funds, from the Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), will be made to eligible Native American, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian entities for broadband deployment, to support digital inclusion, workforce development, telehealth, and distance learning.“For generations, a lack of infrastructure investment in Indian Country has left Tribes further behind in the digital divide than most areas of the country,” Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. “We have a... Continue reading…

Public health takes a village, not a tech campus Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Deliveries of Ford’s first long-range electric vehicle, the Mustang Mach-E, in the United Kingdom are on hold after a “safety risk” was discovered, The Verge has learned. It’s the latest delivery snafu to hit the automaker’s much-hyped electric SUV, after US customers experienced similar delays earlier this year.But while the cause of the US delivery delays was unknown, the UK delays are a result of “incorrect location information when using the eCall system,” according to documents viewed by The Verge. The eCall system, in which emergency services are notified when a vehicle’s airbags are deployed, is a European Union requirement in all vehicles manufactured after 2018.“incorrect location information when using the eCall system”“... Continue reading…

Nanoleaf Elements accent lights | Image: Nanoleaf Nanoleaf, the company best known for illuminated panels that you stick to your wall, has announced the new Nanoleaf Elements line, a set of wall panels that are designed to look as nice turned off as they do when on. The new Elements line accomplishes this through a wood-like veneer that allows the light to shine through when its on but doesn’t look blank when the light isn’t in use.Aside from the new veneer, the Elements lights are very similar to Nanoleaf’s other hexagonal light panels. They glow from both the front and back of the panel, allowing for a double lighting effect, and can be programmed with different lighting patterns and effects. The Elements do not have a full color spectrum LED, but they are adjustable from warm to... Continue reading…

A new dialog box will warn if an extension isn’t considered trusted. | Image; Google Google is rolling out new safety features for Chrome which are designed to make it easier to spot dubious downloads and extensions. They build upon the browser’s Enhanced Safe Browsing feature, which launched last year to offer better warnings against phishing sites.When it comes to Chrome extensions, the browser will now show a warning if what you’re installing is not considered “trusted.” In order to be trusted, extensions need to come from a developer that has followed Google’s Developer Program Policies and has been around for “at least a few months.” That means brand-new developers won’t immediately be considered trusted by Google.When attempting to download an extension that’s not trusted, Chrome will show a pop-up warning that... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Valve has started letting developers team up to create bundles on the Steam gaming storefront. It outlined the new “DIY collaborative bundles” in a blog post yesterday, describing the feature as a way to collect titles with “common themes.”Steam already offered multi-developer bundles, but only ones that were specially curated by the platform. Now, any developer can create a bundle and send an invitation link to other creators, who can then choose to add their own projects. The bundle owner then locks the bundle and participants agree to a name, royalty split, discount amount, and other details. All participants have to approve later game additions, but someone can remove their game from the bundle unilaterally, and the bundle owner can... Continue reading…

The $99 Pixel Buds are a better buy than their pricier predecessors Continue reading…

Image: Google As usual for Google hardware, the new Pixel Buds A-Series have already been extensively leaked, and the company even tweeted about them prematurely. But today, the earbuds are being officially announced. They’re priced at $99, a significant savings compared to the $179 standard Pixel Buds, and are available for preorder in the United States and Canada starting now. Google says the Pixel Buds A-Series be released on June 17th. They come in either olive green or white and gray.Despite their much lower cost, the Pixel Buds A-Series retain the same sound quality as the 2020 Pixel Buds. They also still offer hands-free “Hey Google” voice commands and are rated IPX4 for water and sweat resistance. Google has slashed some features of the prior... Continue reading…

United Airlines has agreed to purchase 15 supersonic aircraft from Boom Supersonic, with an option to increase that order to 50 jets, the companies announced Thursday. That agreement, though, is still subject to change depending on the outcome of United’s safety testing and also Boom’s ability to deliver on its promises despite never having built or flown a full-scale supersonic jet before.If Boom’s Overture jets pass inspection, the plan is for them to be rolled out in 2025, fly in 2026, and expected to carry passengers by 2029. At that point, Boom claims its supersonic jets will eventually be able to travel from New York to London — normally a seven-hour flight — in just 3.5 hours, or Los Angeles to Sydney — typically a 15-hour trip —... Continue reading…

Quadcopters equipped with munitions and machine vision systems are creating cheap, autonomous-enough weapons. | Image: The Verge It’s the sort of thing that can almost pass for background noise these days: over the past week, a number of publications tentatively declared, based on a UN report from the Libyan civil war, that killer robots may have hunted down humans autonomously for the first time. As one headline put it: “The Age of Autonomous Killer Robots May Already Be Here.”But is it? As you might guess, it’s a hard question to answer.The new coverage has sparked a debate among experts that goes to the heart of our problems confronting the rise of autonomous robots in war. Some said the stories were wrongheaded and sensational, while others suggested there was a nugget of truth to the discussion. Diving into the topic doesn’t reveal that the world quietly... Continue reading…

Complete your minimalist desk setup with this gadget The latest gadget from Satechi is both a stand and a USB-C hub made for the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models that have a USB-C charging port, as well as the 2020 iPad Air. It’s $100, and with your tablet wedged into the stand, it should look more like a traditional monitor, so you can keep on pretending it’s an actual desktop replacement.Like any hub, it gives you a handful of extra ports for expanding the functionality of your iPad. This one includes an HDMI port capable of outputting 4K at up to 60Hz refresh rate, a USB-A data port, a USB-C PD port with up to 60W of charging power, a headphone jack, and separate slots for an SD and microSD card. You technically don’t need an iPad to use this hub, as this foldable... Continue reading…

The Strix G15 punches above its price Continue reading…

At eBay, the highly rated seller Antonline is listing two Switch bundles that are a little more affordable than it’d be to purchase each of the included items separately. Starting with the most appealing bundle (in terms of value and what’s included), the limited edition console with an Animal Crossing-inspired design comes with New Pokémon Snap and a one-year family membership to Nintendo Switch Online, which altogether costs $379 (usually $395). Note that Animal Crossing: New Horizons isn’t included with this console. This bundle would make for an extremely good gift to yourself or someone else.Also at eBay, you can get the best-ever price on Sony’s excellent WH-1000XM4 over-ear wireless headphones that have noise cancellation.... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge When somebody comes to your door — not a virtual door, your real door — and wants to get your attention, they usually ring the doorbell. Zoom has a feature that is sort of, kind of like that: it notifies you with a loud “ding dong” when somebody enters your meeting. This can be useful if you’re waiting for a friend to show up for a Zoom meeting and are playing with your dog or dusting the bookcase in the meantime. It can also be irritating if you’re part of a meeting with ten or more people, and you hear a “ding dong” every time somebody enters or leaves the meeting.So if you want to turn this notification on — or off — here’s how you do it. To turn audio notifications off, go to the web-based Settings page.

Fortnite is getting a visual boost on PC very soon. As part of the upcoming Chapter 2: Season 7, which will launch on June 8th, the PC version of the game is getting a new “epic” graphical setting.Epic says it will include “new and enhanced effects plus improved post-processing features and shadow quality.” Among other changes, it sounds like many of the great visual enhancements that came to the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of the game are coming to PC, including “more advanced explosion effects.” In other words, after you update, try to find a rocket launcher to play with.As part of the update, the system requirements for Fortnite are now getting a tweak. Basically, there are now three ranges: epic, recommended, and minimum. Here’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has officially announced Twitter Blue, a paid subscription service that offers access to new features like undoing tweets and viewing threads in an easier to digest “Reader Mode.” Starting Thursday, it will roll out first in Canada and Australia, where the subscription will cost $3.49 CAD or $4.49 AUD per month, respectively. We already had a good idea of what features to expect from Twitter Blue thanks to sleuthing from app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, but now Twitter has detailed everything the service includes.A new undo send feature gives you the option of retracting your tweets before they actually go live, and you can set a timer for undoing your tweets that can last up to 30 seconds. A Bookmark Folders feature lets you... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Update June 3rd, 11:15AM ET: All initial stock of the RTX 3080 Ti, including Best Buy’s in-store stock, appears to be sold out. Newegg, however, is still accepting lottery entries for its Newegg Shuffle through 1PM ET. If selected, you’ll be notified between 5PM and 9PM ET.The Nvidia RTX 3080 Ti is here, at least for those lucky enough to find one. Announced earlier this week alongside the forthcoming RTX 3070 Ti, the 3080 Ti serves as the pricier successor to the GeForce RTX 3080, an excellent graphics card that made 4K gaming that much more affordable and exemplified just how transformative DLSS technology could be.Like the RTX 3090, Nvidia’s newest flagship touts impressive 1440p and 4K performance, albeit in a smaller, quieter... Continue reading…

Amazon’s new Movement Health feature in Halo | Amazon Soon, Amazon’s Halo fitness service will offer to use your smartphone’s camera and some cloud-based AI to create a scan of your “Movement Health.” After a five- to 10-minute session where you put yourself into different poses for the camera, Amazon’s servers will analyze the video and use it to create a customized workout routine to improve your “stability, mobility, and posture.” The service is expected to launch “in the coming weeks.”As with Halo’s body fat scan, Amazon says that the video it records for Movement Health is sent to its cloud servers, analyzed only by its algorithms (and not humans), and is then promptly deleted both from the cloud and from your phone. The videos are encrypted in transit and when they’re (briefly) at... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s going to get harder for Android apps to track users who’ve opted out of receiving personalized ads, the Financial Times reports, after Google announced changes to how it’ll handle the unique device identifiers that allow marketers to track them between apps. Starting later this year, Google is cutting off access to these “Advertising IDs” after a user opts out, and will show developers a “string of zeros” in its place.The news was announced in an email to Play Store developers, and Google has also updated its support page for Advertising IDs with the announcement. Google told developers the changes will “provide users with more control over their data, and help bolster security and privacy,” the Financial Times reports.The change... Continue reading…

Lucifer. | Photo: John P. Fleenor/Netflix Netflix is holding its first “Geeked” virtual event starting on June 7th, an entire week dedicated to genre stories across film and TV. That means sci-fi and fantasy, and shows based on comic books and video games.The company says that more than 50 projects will be featured, including big names like The Witcher, Sandman, Lucifer, Cowboy Bebop, Arcane (the League of Legends animated series), The Cuphead Show, and more. In addition to big announcements and trailers, the event will also include “first looks, behind-the-scenes footage, cast interviews, celebrity games, script table reads, live performances, and much more,” according to Netflix.It’s a lot to spread across five days. Here’s how you can keep up with everything.What time is... Continue reading…

Microsoft has been teasing a “next generation” of Windows for months now, but new hints suggest the company isn’t just preparing an update to its existing Windows 10 software, but a new, numbered version of the operating system: Windows 11.The software giant announced a new Windows event for June 24th yesterday, promising to show “what’s next for Windows.” The event invite included an image of what looks like a new Windows logo, with light shining through the window in only two vertical bars, creating an outline that looks very much like the number 11. Microsoft followed up with an animated version of this image, making it clear the company intentionally ignored the horizontal bars.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge WhatsApp has confirmed that its long-rumored multi-device support will be entering public beta in the coming months, allowing users to access their accounts from up to four linked devices. New “view once” and “disappearing mode” features were also officially announced. The news came in an interview between WABetaInfo and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and WhatsApp head Will Cathcart.Cathcart stopped short of confirming reports that WhatsApp has an iPad app in development, but said that multi-device support will make WhatsApp on iPad a possibility.As well as multi-device support, Zuckerberg also confirmed that WhatsApp is adding a new “view once” feature, which will allow users to send content that disappears after it’s been viewed. The... Continue reading…

Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Ring is adjusting how public agencies such as police and fire departments are able to request video clips from Ring camera owners in its Neighbors app. Starting next week, agencies will only be able to request clips be sent to them through public posts that are viewable in the app’s main feed; they will no longer be able to send individuals specific requests for clips.Ring says this new method provides greater transparency to what public agencies are requesting, as all requests will now be logged on the agency’s profile and reviewable by anyone using the app. Agencies will not be able to remove or delete the posts, according to Ring, though they can be marked as “resolved.” Ring says it limits video clips requests to “verified public... Continue reading…

The Home screen of the updated Hue app. | Image: Signify The Philips Hue app is getting a big update on Thursday. The team at Signify, which makes Hue lights, has rebuilt the app “from the ground up” to make it easier to use. The new version looks mostly the same as the existing app, but it has tweaks around the edges to make it quicker to access different controls.One of the bigger changes is faster access to room controls. Now, when you tap on a room or zone, the app will present a grid of all the available lights and pre-set scenes so you can find them right away. In the prior version, you had to switch back and forth across different tabs that were easy to get lost in.You’ll also now be able to add new lights from within the Room tab — not just the Settings menu — and if you’re a power... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The FBI has said that cybercriminal group REvil (also known as Sodinokibi) was behind the recent attack on meat supplier JBS (via The Record). This follows a statement from White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, which indicated that the attack likely came from a Russian-based organization.REvil has previously been implicated in the recent Apple and Acer ransomware attacks, as well as last year’s Travelex attack. The JBS intrusion, however, could have wide-ranging effects: the company is the world’s largest meat processor, and the incident shut down some of the largest slaughterhouses in the US.

Samsung has announced two new Windows laptops running Arm-based processors. The Galaxy Book Go and Galaxy Book Go 5G both use Snapdragon chips from Qualcomm rather than Samsung’s own Exynos designs.The Galaxy Book Go is an entry-level model that starts at $349. It has the updated Snapdragon 7c Gen 2 processor that Qualcomm announced last month, as well as 4GB or 8GB of RAM and 64GB or 128GB of eUFS storage. The display is a 14-inch 1080p LCD and the laptop is 14.9mm thick, weighing in at 1.38kg. The Galaxy Book Go 5G, meanwhile, uses Qualcomm’s more powerful Snapdragon 8cx Gen 2 processor — though other laptops with that chip aren’t exactly powerhouses — and, as the name suggests, it includes 5G connectivity. Despite... Continue reading…

The Apple TV Plus logo. | Image: Apple This week, Apple brought its Apple TV app to many new Android TV devices — not just the Nvidia Shield. And Apple was smart to widen that support — the expiration date for free trials of Apple TV Plus is swiftly approaching, with many customers about to see their subscriptions end July 1st. That gives Apple a month to win over Android TV users by letting them watch flagship shows like the earnest and delightful Ted Lasso on the big screen, a show whose second season will premiere near the end of July.The rollout of the Apple TV app to Android TV OS devices started Monday at 8AM PT, a Google spokesperson confirmed to The Verge. As a caveat, the Google spokesperson clarified that support does not extend to third-party operator set-top... Continue reading…

Image: Norton Ethereum mining is coming to perhaps an unexpected place: Norton 360, the antivirus software that many readers will know from setting up new computers for their parents (via BleepingComputer). In its press release, Norton claims its brand is a perfect fit: people looking to mine crypto won’t have to dig through the dark, scary parts of the web, where they could possibly find “unvetted code.”The company also says that it’ll store users’ crypto wallets in the cloud, with its own Norton Wallet. As far as actually using their gains, a Norton spokesperson tells The Verge there will be a button that allows users to “pull money into Coinbase.”Until now, Norton claims, people who wanted to mine had to disable their security software to do it,... Continue reading…

The agency has picked two new robotic missions to explore the hot hell-world of Venus, Earth’s neighbor and the second planet from the Sun, administrator Bill Nelson announced on Wednesday. The two missions, DAVINCI+ and VERITAS, were among four competing proposals under the latest round of NASA’s Discovery Program, which manages smaller planetary exploration missions with a slim budget of roughly $500 million each.“These two sister missions both aim to understand how Venus became an inferno-like world capable of melting lead at the surface,” Nelson said during his first “State of NASA” address at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC on Wednesday. “They will offer the entire science community a chance to investigate a planet we... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple employees are being asked to return to the office three days a week starting in early September. Tim Cook sent out an email Wednesday informing staff of the change.“For all that we’ve been able to achieve while many of us have been separated, the truth is that there has been something essential missing from this past year: each other,” he said. “Video conference calling has narrowed the distance between us, to be sure, but there are things it simply cannot replicate.”Cook said that most employees will be asked to come in to the office on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, with the option of working remotely on Wednesdays and Fridays. Teams that need to work in-person will return four to five days a week.Employees also have the... Continue reading…

Magicicada periodical cicadas, members of Brood X, cluster on a plant at Fairland Recreational Park June 01, 2021 in Burtonsville, Maryland. | Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Brood X is back and ready for action. After a 17 year nap, the cicadas of the Eastern US have emerged to scream, mate, and perhaps pick up a fungus that turns them into “horror movie sex bots.” While some people have been dreading the return of the screeching multitudes, others have eagerly awaited the brood with tasty bug recipes in hand. But before you run to the nearest cicada cookout, be aware that you’ll probably want to avoid these crunchy morsels if you have a shellfish allergy.

A promotional image for Fortnite’s next season. If you hop into a game of Fortnite right now, you might get teleported across the map by a mysterious laser beam that appears out of the sky.Yes, seriously. Watch it happen in this video from streamer Ali “SypherPK” Hassan, which I’ve also embedded below at the right timestamp.While it’s hard to tell exactly where the laser beam is coming from, it’s hard to think that it isn’t coming from some kind of UFO or alien... thing.The abductions started happening in Fortnite Tuesday evening, just one week before the game’s next season begins on June 8th. And a few other hints seem to indicate that Chapter 2 Season 7 could be alien-themed in some way, too.Check out this video teaser that apparently is on TikTok, for example, which features... Continue reading…

Image: Apple The Apple Card experienced an outage on Wednesday that reportedly affected users’ ability to make payments, manage their cards, and see recent transactions, according to Apple’s status page. Interruption in service appears to have started at 6:17AM PT today and lasted for a little over five hours, ending at 12:19PM PT.Apple’s credit card solution is managed almost entirely through the built-in Wallet app in iOS, where users can pay off their credit card bill, see recent transactions, and make payments through Apple Pay. Apple said that all users were affected by today’s outage, but it wasn’t clear if every user experienced all of the possible issues the company reported.My colleague Mitchell Clark was able to pay off a portion of their... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is relaxing its policy around employees using weed, according to a new blog post, and will no longer enforce marijuana drug tests for any employee who isn’t also regulated by the Department of Transportation, like a delivery driver. In the past, Amazon used positive tests as a reason to disqualify applicants during the hiring process.Dave Clark, Amazon’s CEO of worldwide consumer, announced the change as part of the company’s goal to be “Earth’s Best Employer,” a strategy that so far has been characterized by new programs like WorkingWell that seem to view employees as things that need to be maintained and trained, rather than people who should be treated fairly. Still, as weed is legalized for recreational and medicinal use... Continue reading…

Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images Look, when the internet learns a new trick — like it did in January, with GameStop — it’s a pretty safe bet that people will play the trick again. So AMC is through the roof right now: it touched $72.62, a 91 percent increase from its open and an all-time high. That’s because AMC has embraced the trolls, and now the stock price is going brrr.AMC announced today that it was creating AMC Investor Connect, “an innovative, proactive communication initiative that will put AMC in direct communication with its extraordinary base of enthusiastic and passionate individual shareholders to keep them up to date about important company information and to provide them with special offers.” This represents “a groundbreaking new approach” to... Continue reading…

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule is seen docked to the ISS in April, 2021 after a port relocation manuever with its crew of four Crew-1 astronauts on board. | NASA/JSC SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule will launch three more private astronaut missions tentatively through 2023 under a bulk deal signed this week with mission manager Axiom Space, the companies announced on Wednesday. Though specific terms weren’t disclosed, it marks one of the biggest deals yet in the burgeoning private spaceflight industry and makes for a busy ISS schedule for the next few years.The three missions, paced roughly six months apart, will come after Axiom’s first ride on Crew Dragon in January next year flying an “all-civilian” crew to the International Space Station for eight days. Ax-2, the second mission, will be led by former NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson. Crews for Ax-3 and 4 haven’t been announced yet. All flights will... Continue reading…

The HBO Max logo. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge HBO Max’s ad-supported streaming option has officially launched on the platform. The new tier will be priced at $10 per month, which shaves $5 off HBO Max’s regular cost of $15 per month. How exactly HBO Max planned to successfully introduce ads on its premium content has been a bit of a head-scratcher, as premium and ad-free content was sort of the entire point of HBO to begin with. But to hear the company justify it, ads on the platform’s content will be both “elegant” and “respectful” of the subject matter.“Advertising is a time-tested way to reduce the cost of great entertainment and reach a wider audience,” Andy Forssell, EVP and general manager at HBO Max, said in a statement. “We’ve worked hard to create an elegant, tasteful ad... Continue reading…

The next God of War game has been pushed to 2022. The game, intended for PS5, was originally planned to launch sometime in 2021. Head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst confirmed the news in a post shared on the PlayStation blog, saying “we’ve made the decision to push that game out to next year, to ensure that Santa Monica Studio can deliver the amazing God of War game that we all want to play.” We also learned today that a PS4 version of the next God of War is in development.The studio posted a tweet confirming the delay.