The Verge

Image: NASA New images from the James Webb Space Telescope show the latest big milestone for the space observatory: its 18 mirrors are now aligned enough to act as one massive mirror. The new images released by NASA today include a “selfie” from JWST showing the mirrors’ progress along with updated images of a single star.Since reaching its final orbit, the telescope’s combined 18 mirrors have been focused on the isolated star HD 84406, which the researchers are using as a target to align the mirrors. Images presented last month showed 18 images of the star that were captured individually on each mirror segment. NASA’s latest image of HD 84406 shows what it looks like when all 18 mirrors work together with the Near-Infrared Camera or NIRCam. They... Continue reading…

The ApeCoin logo. | Image: ApeCoin DAO Yuga Labs took its next step toward trying to build a broader media empire around the Bored Ape Yacht Club non-fungible token (NFT) series today with the announcement of a cryptocurrency called ApeCoin that will be the “primary token for all new products and services” from the company. That includes a newly announced play-to-earn blockchain game that the company plans to release later this year in partnership with the developer nWay.ApeCoin’s initial use will be as in-game currency, but it’s being pitched as something that can be used beyond the confines of Yuga Labs’ titles. Starting tomorrow, it’ll be supported in Benji Bananas, a game from Animoca Brands, which also owns nWay. And the hope seems to be that it could be adopted in even... Continue reading…

Photo by Fabian Sommer/picture alliance via Getty Images The Google Home app is getting a fresh design that should make it a lot more intuitive, according to a report from 9to5Google. The upcoming 2.49 update will let you interact with your devices from a single screen, resembling the device control panel on phones with Android 11 and up.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The latest Android Auto update adds a diagnostic feature that checks if your USB cable or port isn’t working as expected, as shown by former XDA Developers editor-in-chief Mishaal Rahman on Twitter. If your phone isn’t connecting to your car, the diagnostic tool might be able to help pinpoint if the USB connection is where the issue lies.In images shown by Rahman, the tool, seemingly called “USB Startup Diagnostics,” will check if a USB cable connects and checks the cable quality. On a support page, Google recommends using connecting to your car with the cable that came with your phone or one that’s less than three feet long and doesn’t “use USB hubs or cable extensions.”

Audi Audi unveiled its latest concept car, the A6 Avant E-tron, a luxury executive car that appears to be relatively close to production-ready.Audi surprised us last year with a concept version of an all-electric A6 sedan, which will be built on a new EV platform the company is co-developing with sister company Porsche. The two Volkswagen group companies are calling the new EV architecture Premium Platform Electric, or PPE. They first started talking about it a few years ago, and it’s slated to power the larger vehicles in Audi’s and Porsche’s forthcoming electric stables.It’s also at least Audi’s fourth distinct platform for its EVsIt’s also at least Audi’s fourth distinct platform for its EVs. Audi adapted one of its internal... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google’s big annual developer conference, Google I/O, will take place May 11th and 12th, the company announced Wednesday. The event will once again be fully online, though it sounds like at least some of the conference will be streamed live from the Shoreline Amphitheatre, a frequent Google I/O venue.“This year’s event will be broadcast in front of a limited live audience, and is completely free and open to everyone virtually,” Google spokesperson Alex Garcia-Kummert said in a statement to The Verge. That limited audience will be comprised primarily of Google employees and some partners, according to a Google statement shared with Axios’ Ina Fried.Registration will be free and will begin sometime this month, according to an FAQ. There... Continue reading…

Steam was briefly mentioned during a developer keynote. | Image: Google Google announced that some ChromeOS users would finally be able to start testing Steam during its Google for Games Developer Summit but later revised that message to say that the alpha would be “coming soon.”During the keynote, Google’s product director for games, Greg Hartell, announced that “the Steam alpha just launched” for select Chromebooks and pointed viewers to the Chromebook Community Forum for more information. At the time, the promised post didn’t seem to be there yet, but it was later added with a slightly revised message:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Wednesday, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, removed a deepfake video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy issuing a statement that he never made, asking Ukrainians to “lay down arms.”The deepfake appears to have been first broadcasted on a Ukrainian news website for TV24 after an alleged hack, as first reported by Sky News on Wednesday. The video shows an edited Zelenskyy speaking behind a podium declaring that Ukraine has “decided to return Donbas” to Russia and that his nation’s war efforts had failed.In the video, Zelenskyy’s head is comically larger than in real life and is more pixelated than his surrounding body. The fake voice is much deeper than his real voice as well.

Coinbase Pay is available through the Coinbase Wallet Google Chrome extension. | Photo by Fabian Sommer/picture alliance via Getty Images Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is introducing a new tool, called Coinbase Pay, that’s supposed to simplify the process of loading cryptocurrencies into your wallet.As outlined on Coinbase’s site, you can access Coinbase Pay through the Coinbase Wallet extension for Google Chrome. You’ll have to connect your wallet to your Coinbase account if it’s your first time using the extension. Once you’ve done that, you can add funds by selecting the “Add crypto with Coinbase Pay” button. From there, you can select the currency you want to add to your wallet, enter the amount, finalize the transaction, and your funds will be available. Image by Coinbase You can use Coinbase Pay to purchase and transfer crypto directly to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Lyft plans to add a temporary fuel surcharge to fares amid rising fuel prices around the country, the company confirmed to The Verge on Monday. Gas prices have spiked recently in part due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.“We’ve been closely monitoring rising gas prices and their impact on our driver community,” Lyft spokesperson CJ Macklin said in a statement. “Driver earnings overall remain elevated compared to last year, but given the rapid rise in gas prices we’ll be asking riders to pay a temporary fuel surcharge, all of which will go to drivers.”The surcharge will go into effect next week, the company said in a blog published Wednesday. Lyft will add $0.55 to each ride, which could be in part an incentive to coax drivers to use its... Continue reading…

ID@Xbox, the Xbox indie game showcase, unveiled a host of new titles hitting the console and Game Pass. Over 20 games were presented during the event, which included live developer interviews, an appearance from T-Pain, and more. Watch the two-hour event (you heard me) here or check out the highlights below. Immortality, new game from Telling Lies and Her Story developer, Sam Barlow. Half Mermaid Productions, developers of the intriguing and unique Telling Lies and Her Story is back with another live-action mystery game, Immortality. Like Telling Lies and Her Story, Immortality is a game composed of full-motion videos and films that the player will sift through to solve the disappearance of a famous actress. I... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge AMC threw both its analysts and memestock shareholders for a loop this week after the company announced it was acquiring a 22 percent stake in a mining company. Not a crypto mining company — a company that mines actual silver and gold. It’s a baffling investment for a movie theater chain, enough so that one analyst we spoke to called it a “complete misuse of shareholder capital.”To acquire a minority stake in Hycroft Mining Holding Corporation, AMC is spending close to $28 million, a not-insignificant chunk of change for a company that not so long ago was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Hycroft, owner of the 71,000-acre Hycroft Mine in Nevada, is sitting on “some 15 million ounces of gold deposits and some 600 million ounces of... Continue reading…

The Winamp 1.0 skin | Winamp Winamp will sell a non-fungible token (NFT) linked to its media player’s original 1997 graphical skin, becoming the latest company to blend nostalgia and crypto. Winamp will put the NFT up for auction through OpenSea between May 16th and May 22nd, followed by a separate sale of 1997 total NFTs based on 20 artworks derived from the original skin. The proceeds will go to the Winamp Foundation, which promises to donate them to charity projects, starting with the Belgian nonprofit Music Fund.The NFT sale appears to be a combination of a publicity move and a fundraising effort. Winamp is sourcing the derivative art NFTs by asking artists to submit Winamp-based works between now and April 15th, then giving selected artists 20 percent of the... Continue reading…

Around 60 workers banded together to demand a $3 raise. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Early Wednesday morning, Amazon workers staged a walkout in two states, quitting work and even shutting off a machine to demand a $3 raise. The workers also demanded that Amazon bring back 20-minute breaks — a “perk” introduced during COVID that the company has since replaced with 15-minute breaks, according to Vice. The actions are part of a wave of labor activism at Amazon as more employees band together to demand better working conditions, compensation, and representation.The roughly 60 workers were employees at three different warehouses in New York and Maryland, working the night shifts. The walkout was organized by Amazonians United, a group that includes workers from at least nine warehouses nationwide, according to Vice. In... Continue reading…

Image: Rockstar Games With this week’s launch of the next-gen versions of GTA Online for the Xbox Series X and PS5, Rockstar has made it easier and faster to jumpstart your life of crime in the best-looking and best-playing version of its online open-world mode. All of the same graphical and quality-of-life changes that recently arrived in GTA V, which my colleague Andrew Webster reported on here, can also be found in GTA Online.Whether you’re a new player, or you’re migrating a character from a previous console, one of my favorite improvements is that it’s easier to be funneled into the kind of content you want to play. From the main menu, you can enter heists, free mode (where you can just roam about with no immediate objective), or be directed to new... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In 2018, Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) was alarmed when Facebook notified the commission, between June and December, of 12 separate data breaches that affected up to 30 million users, TechCrunch reports. The DPC began to investigate and now Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has been fined 17 million euros ($18.6 million USD).The DPC concluded from its investigation into the breaches that Meta violated Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). According to its press release, the DPC identified 12 data breach notifications that occurred between June and December 2018. “As a result of its inquiry, the DPC found that Meta Platforms failed to have in place appropriate technical and organisational measures which would... Continue reading…

Image: Getty Russian oligarchs have been looking for ways to park their money outside Vladimir Putin’s control for a long time, and the tackiest method available to them is the megayacht — so obviously, there are a lot of them. It is remarkably satisfying to see the yachts get seized.An expensive toy for worthless people, the megayacht is the epitome of conspicuous consumption. For instance, the Amore Vero, linked to Rosneft CEO Igor “Darth Vader” Sechin, has a swimming pool that converts to a helicopter platform. This boat exists only to please Sechin and impress his guests; it has a similar relationship to regular boats as handmade silk toilet paper does to Charmin.Here is a short and delightful list of megayacht action:

South Korean workers observe collapsed container cranes after Typhoon Maemi pounded the southern port city of Busan on September 13, 2003 in Busan, about 450km (281 miles) southeast of Seoul, South Korea. | Photo by Getty Images Ports around the world stand to suffer billions of dollars in losses if greenhouse gas emissions continue to grow, a new report finds. Extreme weather, flooding, and rising sea levels would all damage vital seaport infrastructure, disrupting global supply lines.Losses from storms and climate-related port disruptions could near $10 billion a year by 2050, according to the report, commissioned by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). By 2100, without action on climate change, those costs could balloon to more than $25 billion a year. For context, that last figure is more than the total operating profits for the entire global container shipping industry in a year.Many ports are already overwhelmed after the COVID-19 pandemic... Continue reading…

Image: Hulu In the week ahead of former Theranos COO Sunny Balwani’s fraud trial, which was set to begin today before being postponed due to a juror being exposed to someone with COVID, the Santa Clara County Superior Court was hard at work screening potential jurors from the pool of local citizens.This is a typical part of court cases meant to ensure that a jury’s makeup is representative of the larger community. But the process is a bit trickier with high-profile cases like those of Balwani and Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, given the potential for jurors’ opinions to be influenced by information from outside of the trial; things like, say, a flashy 8-episode streaming miniseries based on a podcast by the same name.While the amount of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge People have vast, spiraling experiences on psychedelic drugs, often returning from a hallucinogenic trip full of new outlooks on their life or even changes to their personality. They describe the trips with vivid, emotional language — which might be able to tell researchers what parts of their brains are reacting to the drugs.In order to figure out how and why hallucinogenics trigger certain experiences, a research team used machine learning to pull common words and phrases out of people’s testimonials about their trips. Then, in a new study published Wednesday, the researchers linked those words to the parts of the brain impacted by the drugs.It’s a different approach to studying drugs and the brain: normally, researchers looking to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is testing a feature that will make it possible to transfer a specific profile to an entirely new account, potentially as a way to encourage streaming freeloaders to sign up for their own subscriptions, as first reported by Variety. As described in a post on Netflix’s site, this feature — and another that enables you to add sub-accounts for people you don’t live with — is currently being tested in Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru.Netflix notes that users can transfer profiles to new accounts, or the sub-accounts that subscribers will have to pay an additional fee for. This lets users retain their viewing history, My List, and recommendations when they complete the transfer to a new account. Netflix first rolled out user profiles in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Just a few weeks after announcing its latest price hike, Netflix announced it’s cracking down on the widespread practice of password sharing between people who don’t live in the same household by prompting them to pay an extra fee for the privilege.In a blog post, Chengyi Long, director of product innovation, says, “While these have been hugely popular, they have also created some confusion about when and how Netflix can be shared. As a result, accounts are being shared between households — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films for our members.”During a test period, Netflix will try out its approach in three countries: Chile, Costa Rica, and Peru. There, in addition to the ability to transfer viewing profiles into... Continue reading…

Image: Finji As a kid, I was obsessed with Nintendo’s official player’s guides. I loved poring over the maps, hints, tips, and information in them so that I could use what I learned the next time I sat down in front of the TV. I have a particular fondness for the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask guides — without them, I would have never been able to find all of the pieces of heart or masks hidden in the games.Thanks to the internet, I don’t really need player’s guides anymore, as there’s now a helpful article or video for almost every conceivable puzzle or challenge. (I’m embarrassed by how many Elden Ring tutorials I’ve googled.) And in exploring the world of Tunic, a new game from a small team and Chicory: A Colorful Tale... Continue reading…

Volodymyr Zelenskyy once played Ukraine’s president in a comedy series. | Photo by Sergei Supinsky / AFP via Getty Images The comedy satire series Servant of the People, which stars former actor and current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is available once again on Netflix in the US, the streamer announced Wednesday. In the show, which was on Ukrainian television from 2015 to 2019 and first aired on Netflix from 2017 to 2021, Zelenskyy played a teacher who unexpectedly becomes president of Ukraine after a video of him complaining about corruption goes viral.The show ended production when Zelenskyy decided to run for president of Ukraine in 2019 as a member of the Servant of the People political party (he won in a landslide). Zelenskyy campaigned on promises of building a new Ukraine, telling supporters in his acceptance speech, “I will never fail... Continue reading…

The New York Times said the Wordle Archive’s use was “unauthorized.” | Photo by Mike Kemp / In Pictures via Getty Images The Wordle Archive, which let you play Wordles of days past, has been forced offline at the request of The New York Times, according to a report from Ars Technica. Navigating to the Wordle Archive yields a disappointing message: “Sadly, the New York Times has requested that the Wordle Archive be taken down.”It’s still unclear what went down legally between the NYT and the Wordle Archive, but a spokesperson for the news outlet vaguely told Ars Technica that the archive’s “usage was unauthorized, and we were in touch with them.”The Wordle Archive previously displayed a list of old playable puzzles that were great for when you finished your daily Wordle just a little too fast and were left wanting more. Luckily, our old friend the Web... Continue reading…

Image: Bandai Namco FromSoftware’s Elden Ring has been nothing short of a smash hit, hitting 12 million copies sold worldwide since its release last month. But like any pop culture success in 2022, Elden Ring isn’t going to stop at one great game: it’s going to be a franchise, with FromSoftware telling fans to “please look forward to more of ‘ELDEN RING’ as an IP (characters and other intellectual property) in hopes of expanding beyond the realm of games.”“Much effort was placed into creating ‘ELDEN RING’ so that we could exceed the expectations of our fans worldwide. In like manner, we will continue our efforts in expanding the brand beyond the game itself, and into everyone’s daily life,” commented Yasuo Miyakawa, the president and CEO of Bandai Namco,... Continue reading…

Here’s a resource a student might pull up. | Image: Google Imagine if your old trig worksheets stepped in to help you out when you were stumped on a question. That’s Practice Sets, the newest Google Classroom tool, in a nutshell.Google Classroom, for folks who went to school before the internet was everything, is a widely used gaggle of web tools that allows teachers to post assignments, students to submit them, and teachers to return them online. With Practice Sets, not only will teachers be able to send out problem sets, but they’ll be able to make those problem sets interactive.An algorithm will provide hints to students who seem stumped. It will automatically grade the sets as well. Shantanu Sinha, head of product efforts for Google Education, says the algorithm will recognize when... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Weeks ago, Ukraine-based influencer Kristina Korban’s TikTok was a steady stream of gym motivation and personal finance tips punctuated by trending audio. In bold title text, she told her followers to “STAY CONSISTENT” and “DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY!” Aside from one lighthearted reference to the escalating situation with Russia, Korban’s page stayed on message: “YOU CAN BE AN INVESTOR.”Then, on February 23rd, the facade of normalcy fell apart. In a video that’s been viewed more than 9 million times, the Kyiv-based influencer recorded herself from bed, describing explosions in the distance that rattled her home. “This might be the beginning of something serious,” she says.For weeks, TikTok users have watched Russian troops and military... Continue reading…

Start11 supports a lot of Windows 11 Start menu customization. | Image: Stardock If you’re like me and you’re disappointed by the taskbar in Windows 11, there are plenty of apps to bring back missing functionality. One of the most fully featured is Stardock’s Start11, and it’s being updated today (version 1.2 beta) to include support for ungrouping apps on the taskbar in Windows 11.Microsoft doesn’t currently support ungrouping app icons on the taskbar in Windows 11, nor small icons or even the ability to resize the taskbar. These key missing features are all supported in Start11, with multi-monitor support to independently define window grouping on secondary monitors. Image: Stardock Centered icons and Start button on the left. There’s even a new option so you can left-align the Start... Continue reading…

Slack’s upgraded iPad interface. | Image: Slack Slack is giving its iPad app a much needed upgrade that will see it inherit many features of its desktop version, the company has announced. The app is getting a new two-column layout that shows a list of available channels and messages on the left, and their contents on the right. The left-hand sidebar is also being updated, and the app is getting better support for accessibility features like Apple’s VoiceOver screen reader.None of these are particularly revolutionary features, but they’re welcome additions to an iPad app that can sometimes feel more like a giant iPhone app. Slack is marketing the update as serving the needs of newly emerging hybrid workplaces, which should hopefully make it easier to keep up with workplace... Continue reading…

For all of its open-world excess, Grand Theft Auto V is also a game about repetition: you go through missions multiple times, trying to finally complete that high-speed pursuit or violent shootout successfully. This can often mean reloading the same mission repeatedly, and — in previous iterations of the game — that time could add up quite a bit and become a frustrating nuisance. But after replaying the first few hours of the game’s new next-gen release, the thing that has struck me most is just how fast things move.GTAV is out now on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S (I’ve been playing the PS5 version), and it features the usual assortment of next-gen upgrades. That means support for 4K visuals, ray tracing, and 60fps gameplay,... Continue reading…

The last-gen iPad Air is down to $500 at Amazon The announcement of the latest iteration of the iPad Air at Apple’s Peek Performance event last week has resulted in price cuts for the last-gen model. Usually, the 2020 model of the iPad Air can only be found for $599.99, but Amazon currently has the 64GB model of this tablet in all colorways for $499.99. While the newer iPad Air comes with Apple’s M1 processor, the A14 Bionic chip in the 2020 model still provides more than enough power for a vast majority of applications. The iPad Air uses a 10.9-inch retina display with a resolution of 2360x1640, but for more details on the specs of the latest version of this tablet, feel free to read our review by Dan Seifert.It’s been a while since we showed off this deal from Amazon that drops... Continue reading…

Image: Disney Starting on March 16th, 2022, when you first sign in to your Disney Plus subscription, you’re going to be asked to select content ratings for all of the users in your family — a reflection of the network’s new parental controls. When you open the app, you’ll be asked if you want to change your content rating from TV-14, which is somewhat restricted to TV-MA (no restrictions). If you don’t choose, you will be automatically slotted into a TV-14 rating.(Why the new TV-MA rating on what was a very family-friendly service? Perhaps because it’s also bringing in a group of Marvel shows, such as Daredevil and Luke Cage — shows that do not fall into the category of “family-friendly.”)Here’s how the process works on a computer; you will see a... Continue reading…

Image: BMW In a few weeks, BMW plans on unveiling its latest electric vehicle, the i7 luxury sedan. Ahead of that, the German automaker is offering a few teaser images, some interesting specs, and — of course — confirmation that this EV will have an absolutely massive, entirely unnecessary kidney-shaped grille.To be fair, the grille is an indelible part of the automaker’s identity. It’s how you know a BMW is a BMW. So it stands to reason that the company would include it on its upcoming EVs, despite the vehicle lacking an engine under the hood in need of cooling.To be fair, the grille is an indelible part of the automaker’s identityBMW claims that the i7’s grille has been “completely reinterpreted to achieve a modern and distinct look.” For... Continue reading…

Universal Control links multiple Macs and iPads together under a single mouse and keyboard. | Image: Apple It’s been a good month for Mac desktop setup aficionados. Apple just released the Studio Display, its first vaguely affordable (as in not $6,000) new monitor in more than a decade. But there’s another new option that I’ve been testing that flips the entire idea of an external monitor on its head. Universal Control is now available in iOS 15.4 and macOS Monterey 12.3, and if you can make it work in your setup, you really ought to try it.If you haven’t heard of Universal Control, it basically lets you use your Mac’s keyboard and mouse or trackpad to control your iPad (or another Mac, though I haven’t been able to test that). Just nudge your cursor to the side of your Mac’s monitor, and it’ll jump on over to the iPad like it was another... Continue reading…

The new iPad Air is a blend of familiar features with predictable results Continue reading…

The Surface Hub 2 Smart Camera. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is launching its first AI-powered camera for the Surface Hub 2. Businesses that have bought fully into Microsoft’s future-of-work vision with the Surface Hub will now be able to upgrade its camera capabilities. The new Surface Hub 2 Smart Camera supports automatic reframing, a wide field of view, and image correction features that will all improve meetings.“Surface Hub 2 Smart Camera reframes, adjusts lighting, and enables incredibly wide angles of view, all without any warping, distortions, or depth-of-field issues that might otherwise limit what is visible,” explains Steven Bathiche, corporate vice president of Windows and devices at Microsoft. “The team put tremendous work into tuning the experience to capture and frame... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft was one of the first companies to warn other businesses that the pandemic would forever change work habits. Two years later, Microsoft has embraced remote work both in its products and in practice with regard to how and where its employees get work done. Today it’s announcing changes to Microsoft Teams, Outlook, PowerPoint, and even Surface hardware to improve the hybrid realities of remote and office work.As more businesses return to offices and contemplate a mix of remote and office work, Microsoft is updating Outlook to make it easier to see if colleagues are planning to attend meetings in person or not. A new Outlook RSVP feature will appear in public preview in the web version of Outlook in Q2 that allows meeting... Continue reading…

Instagram’s parental control features in action. | Image: Meta Instagram’s new parental controls, announced in December, are launching today in the US. The service’s head, Adam Mosseri, refers to them as the company’s “first set” of parental supervision tools, allowing parents and guardians to view and set limits on the amount of time their teens are spending on Instagram, get updates on which accounts they’re following and being followed by, and receive notifications when they report another user.The controls are being introduced after the Meta-owned social network came under fire for its impact on younger users. Leaked internal research from the company suggests that Instagram usage has detrimental effects on the mental health of its younger users, particularly teenage girls. Shortly after the... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge On Sunday, one of the most trusted sources of Apple rumors revealed that we can expect four new iPhones later this year: two with 6.1-inch screen sizes, likely to be the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro, and two with 6.7-inch screens, likely dubbed the iPhone 14 Max and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Four phones in total.The tweet made me gasp because of what’s missing. There’s nothing even close to the 5.4-inch screen size of my beloved iPhone Mini.I know, I know, many people prefer big screens, and the iPhone Mini wasn’t exactly a success according to supply chain reports.But that didn’t keep me and 11 other Verge staffers from buying one — and when I polled my colleagues this week, seven of us still agree that the rest of the world’s too-big... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is rolling out a new feature in its Docs that’s designed to make it easier to use its word processor to draft emails, the company has announced. It’s part of Google’s “smart canvas” initiative, which aims to seamlessly weave together the search giant’s productivity software like Meet, Docs, and Gmail.Much like Google Docs’s other smart canvas features, the email draft template is accessed with the @ symbol, before selecting “Email draft” from the context menu. You can then draft the email, including defining recipients, a subject line, and its body text. When it’s ready to send, click the Gmail icon on the left to open the email service. Image: Google Draft an email, then send it to Gmail with a click. ... Continue reading…

Image: YouTube / AI Addict Tesla has a complicated relationship with customers who pay to test the beta version of its “Full Sell Driving” software. Often, these people are diehard fans, keen to promote the company’s prowess and show off its new driver assist features. Sometimes, though, they overshare — posting videos that show exactly when and how Tesla’s software gets it wrong.When the person sharing these clips also works for Tesla, things are even more complicated. John Bernal, a former Tesla employee who reviewed the company’s FSD Beta software on his YouTube channel AI Addict says he was fired by the company last month after posting a video that showed his Tesla hitting a bollard.Bernal says he was told his YouTube channel was a “conflict of interest”As... Continue reading…

Photo by Tayfun CoÅkun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Part of the Apple Park campus in Cupertino was evacuated after first responders discovered an envelope containing a white powder substance, NBC Bay Area reports. The Santa Clara County Fire Department’s incident report shows there was a fire alarm and hazmat response at Apple’s headquarters just after noon local time.Emergency personnel since have determined that the situation is under control, and employees apparently have been allowed to go back inside, according to the publication. It’s unclear what the substance may have been.Apple told employees at Apple Park that “authorities concluded that there was no presence of hazardous materials,” according to an email obtained later in the day by The Verge. The email says that operations... Continue reading…

Spotify’s name will be featured on FC Barcelona’s jerseys for the next four seasons. | Image by FC Barcelona/Spotify Camp Nou, one of the most iconic soccer stadiums in the world, is being rebranded as Spotify Camp Nou as part of a sponsorship agreement with Spanish soccer club FC Barcelona that gives Spotify naming rights to the stadium. Spotify’s name will also appear on the jerseys of both the men’s and women’s teams for the next four seasons starting in the 2022/23 season.The deal still has to get ratified by FC Barcelona’s Extraordinary Delegate Members Assembly in a vote that will take place on April 3rd. It likely won’t have much trouble passing, however, as FC Barcelona is in a huge amount of debt and sought to sell a stake in its media production division last year.The deal is reportedly worth $310 million. It could have been worth more,... Continue reading…

These people seem really thrilled about their websites. | Image: Google Google Domains, the company’s domain registration service, is losing the beta tag after first launching more than seven years ago, Google announced Tuesday. The service is now generally available in 26 countries, and the company says it already has “millions of active registrations.”If you register with Google Domains, you can pick from more than 300 different domain endings, have access to “high performance DNS” (Google says it’s the same infrastructure it uses for itself), “around-the-clock customer support from real people,” and more. The company is also offering a 20 percent discount off “any single domain registration or transfer-in to Google Domains” for new and returning users with the code DOMAINS20.However, if you register a... Continue reading…

He provided some details, but didn’t talk specific features. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta would add NFTs to Instagram, according to Engadget and The Daily Beast. While he didn't describe exactly what that would look like, he said during a session at South By Southwest that "over the next several months, the ability to bring some of your NFTs in, hopefully over time be able to mint things within that environment."There have been rumblings that this was coming. Last year, Instagram lead Adam Mosseri said the team was "actively exploring NFTs" but didn't have any actual announcements. In January, we heard a report that teams at Facebook and Instagram were working on NFT integrations. The report mentioned that there was progress on features to let you use an NFT as a profile and mint NFTs on the... Continue reading…

Super73 Super73, the electric mobility company popular with YouTubers and celebrities, introduced its first electric motorcycle — though it’s just a concept for now. The company also unveiled a host of other battery-powered vehicles, including an e-bike for kids, in a dramatic expansion of its product lineup.The Super73 C1X Concept cuts a slimmer profile than most motorcycles, with 15-inch wheels and a 31-inch seat height. The 51-inch wheelbase is significantly shorter than other electric motorcycles, like Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire (58.7 inches) and Zero’s SR/F (57.1 inches). It also isn’t as fast as most two-wheelers on the road, gas or electric, with a top speed of 75mph. That still makes it one of the fastest vehicles to come out of the... Continue reading…

A discount brings the price from $20 a month to $0 a month. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon is introducing a new discount to its Fios Forward plans, which should let low-income customers get fiber internet for free when combined with discounts through the federal Affordable Connectivity Program. The free tier, which is normally $40 a month, includes 300Mbps speeds as well as a $10 discount on a Verizon Unlimited Wireless plan. Customers who need more bandwidth (and are able to pay more) can get a gigabit connection for $50 a month with the ACP discount, which also includes more benefits and a larger cell plan discount.Verizon says Fios Forward is available to people who qualify for the government’s Lifeline program. The 200Mbps tier used to cost $20 a month, according to a Wayback Machine archive from November, so... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In the days since The Walt Disney Company first came under fire for giving money to the politicians behind Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill, CEO Bob Chapek has apologized for initially having nothing to say, and he subsequently announced the corporation’s plans to “pause” its political donations in Florida for an undetermined amount of time. In the eyes of many of Disney’s queer employees, those steps are simply not enough, and now they’re taking action to make that point as clear as they can to the company’s leadership.In response to Disney’s actions and Chapek’s emails, a number of Disney employees are now planning to stage a week of virtual 15-minutes walkouts beginning this afternoon, culminating in a day-long walkout on March 22nd.... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Phones have become so much a part of our daily lives that it can be immediately traumatic if you suddenly can’t find your phone — whether you’ve left it in a cab, accidentally dropped it out of your pocket, or lost it under your bed. If you have an Android phone, you can use the Find My Device feature to (hopefully) locate your phone.Find My Device depends on two things being enabled: the feature itself (of course) and Google’s Location services. In addition, the phone also has to be turned on and signed in to a Google account.The Find My Device feature comes as part of the standard OS on Pixels and several other Android phones and is usually turned on by default. Be aware that some Android models may offer a different app; for... Continue reading…