The Verge

Kickstarter is announcing some big changes to the foundations of its technology. The company said Wednesday that it will support the development of “an open-source protocol that will essentially create a decentralized version of Kickstarter’s core functionality,” according to a Kickstarter blog post published Wednesday. The protocol will live on a public blockchain and will enable anyone, “even Kickstarter competitors,” to build upon or use it, the company says.An independent organization will start the development of the protocol, and Kickstarter will give this group funding, appoint a board, and will be one of the protocol’s first clients, the company says. It’s also making an “independent governance lab” that oversees “the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s secretive “Project Guardian” aims to shield controversial characters and users with large followings from an onslaught of trolls and haters, according to a report by Bloomberg. The platform reportedly maintains a list of thousands of users that Twitter deems high risk for harassment, which includes musicians, professional athletes, journalists, and other users who are particularly prominent — even if just for the moment.Bloomberg notes that when Twitter receives a report of an abusive post related to an account on the list, Twitter’s content moderation team will respond to that report faster than all the other ones it has lined up. The thinking behind the program is that Twitter can prevent harmful content from spreading, as... Continue reading…

In Destiny, the legendary rocket launcher Gjallarhorn was the ultimate weapon for a time. Its ability to create explosions filled with more explosions was unparalleled — and, some would argue, in desperate need of a nerf. Amusingly, Bungie and toymaker Hasbro are now taking that part literally: the Gjallarhorn is now slated to become an official Nerf blaster, complete with Wolfpack Round-like cluster missiles of its own. Image: Bungie The in-game version that just came back to Destiny 2. Destiny 2 just brought the digital Gjallarhorn back this week as part of the $24.99 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack, and you’ll have to pay a lot more than that for the Nerf version, of course — $160, which makes it one of the... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales Apple’s upcoming macOS 12.1 update will fix some odd interactions between its new MacBook Pros’ notched displays and menu bar apps, which should no longer be blocked behind the notch, according to MacRumors.Previously, some users had reported issues where menu bar icons could end up getting pushed behind the notch in the event that too many were open. Or, as Apple’s changelog describes the issue, prior to macOS 12.1, “[menu] bar extras may be obscured by the camera housing on 2021 MacBook Pro computers.”

Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2077. | Image: CD Projekt Red Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red has entered negotiations to settle a class-action lawsuit over the game’s bungled launch.There are still a number of outstanding questions about any potential settlement, according to court documents, including all class certification requirements, the proposed allocation plan for the settlement fund, and how the settlement will be administered. In other words, it’s undecided exactly who will be eligible for anything awarded in a settlement or how much those eligible parties may receive.The plaintiffs in the case must next file a preliminary approval of the settlement or an update on its status by January 13th, 2022. Four lawsuits against the company were compiled into one in May.At release... Continue reading…

Instagram is working on a chronological feed | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge During a hearing before a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the company is working on a version of its feed that would show users' posts in chronological order, unlike its current ranking algorithm that sorts posts based on user preferences.The company’s algorithmically sorted feed, introduced in 2016, and then updated in 2017 to include recommended posts, is widely disliked by users who prefer to have their posts and their friends’ posts surface in a timely manner. The current feed uses AI to create what Instagram considers a more personalized feed, based on users’ activity. But it has remained generally unpopular among a vast swath of users, despite the company’s assertions otherwise.Mosseri appeared... Continue reading…

Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for Fortune Apple says it will produce a movie about former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes, with Jennifer Lawrence of Hunger Games fame in the starring role. The movie, to be directed by Succession creator Adam McKay, will be based on the bestselling book Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by former Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou. He wrote the first news stories detailing Theranos’ problems, even as the company and Holmes were being lauded in Silicon Valley.Holmes is currently on trial facing 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud after it was discovered that Theranos’ blood testing technology didn’t meet the standards it claimed to investors. At the time of its unraveling, Theranos was valued... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony’s holding its Technology Day event to show off what it’s been working on in its R&D labs, and this year, we got some great visuals of tech the company’s been working on. Amidst the rehashes of the PS5’s haptics and 3D audio and a demo reel of Sony’s admittedly awesome displays for making virtual movie sets, we got to see a robot hand that Sony said could figure out grip strength depending on what it was picking up, a slightly dystopian-sounding “global sensing system,” and more.Perhaps the most interesting thing Sony showed off was a headset that featured OLED displays with “4K-per-inch” resolution. While the headset Sony used in its presentation was very clearly something intended for lab and prototype use, the specs Sony laid... Continue reading…

You can use the Alexa app to control Amazon’s Smart Thermostat, which is currently enjoying its first discount. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge Even without a discount attached to it, Amazon’s surprisingly great Smart Thermostat is a good deal in itself. After our reviewer spent a decade testing almost every smart thermostat since the launch of the Nest Learning Thermostat, she found it to be one of the best yet. That’s saying a lot, and it’s pretty impressive given this is an affordable smart thermostat.The thermostat is discounted for the first time today, selling for $47.99 at Amazon — a 20 percent discount on its typical $59.99. Built in collaboration with Resideo, the makers of Honeywell Home Thermostat Technology, this gadget is capable of learning and adapting to your schedule, just like more expensive thermostats out there. With the price in mind, it does lack some... Continue reading…

Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday outlining a sweeping plan for the federal government to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Under the plan, the government would spend billions of dollars to purchase electric vehicles, upgrade federal buildings, and leverage the power of the government to shift to cleaner forms of electricity.It won’t be a completely seamless transition, though. The government would stop purchasing gas-powered passenger cars in 2027 but would only achieve 100 percent electric vehicle purchases by 2035.Biden’s order would direct the government to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent by the end of the decadeBiden’s order would direct the government to reduce its greenhouse gas... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An appeals court has paused one of the most consequential parts of the Epic v. Apple ruling, placing a stay on the enforcement of the injunction issued by the lower court. As a result of the stay, Apple can maintain its IAP system as the sole source of in-app payments on iOS, despite the district court’s earlier ruling that the exclusive arrangement is illegal.The stay, issued Wednesday afternoon, does not reverse the earlier ruling but puts enforcement on hold until the appeals court can fully hear the case, a process that will likely take months.“Apple has demonstrated, at minimum, that its appeal raises serious questions on the merits of the district court’s determination,” the ruling reads. “Therefore, we grant Apple’s motion to... Continue reading…

Using a hotel key stored in Apple Wallet | Photo by Hyatt Apple is partnering with Hyatt to give some hotel guests the ability to store their room keys in their Apple Wallets, as announced in a post on Hyatt’s newsroom. Instead of checking your pockets for your room key, you’ll now be able to use your iPhone or Apple Watch to unlock your room, as well as any other areas around the hotel that require a key for entry. Photo by Hyatt Your Apple Watch can unlock your hotel room at participating Hyatt hotels. There are currently only six Hyatt hotels in the US that support this feature, although Hyatt says it plans to eventually include it in hotels worldwide. But for now, the participating hotels include: Andaz Maui at Wailea Resort, Hyatt Centric Key West Resort and Spa,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, in front of Blizzard Entertainment’s Irvine, California headquarters, Christine (her last name withheld to protect her privacy) held a press conference in which she spoke about her experiences of sexual harassment and retaliation while employed at the embattled game developer.Content warning: This story contains discussions of sexual harassment.Christine gave a tearful statement detailing how working at Blizzard was her “dream job” but how she was then subjected to inappropriate touching, rude comments about her body, and invitations to have sex with her supervisors. When Christine complained to HR, she said she was told the people who made those comments were “just joking” and that they “did nothing wrong by law.” She further... Continue reading…

One of Android 12L’s biggest features is a two-column UI for things like the notification shade and lock screen. | Image: Google Google has announced its Android 12L update — the one designed to give its OS a better experience on tablets and large folding phones — is getting its first beta release today. While Beta 1 still seems very much pointed toward developers, it could be a chance to see what Google’s working on in a (slightly) more polished state than the developer preview.With Android 12L, Google is adding a two-column layout for devices with larger screens, which will let you get at more information at once. For example, your quick settings and notifications can display side by side. Google’s also working to improve multitasking, letting you drag an app into split-screen mode from the taskbar (which you can also use to quickly switch between apps). ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is piloting a new feature that will let users add specific content warnings to individual photos and videos sent out in tweets. The platform noted that the feature would be available to “some” users during the test.

Illustration by Ana Kova Over 40 million people in the United States had their personal health information exposed in data breaches this year, a significant jump from 2020 and a continuation of a trend toward more and more health data hacks and leaks.Health organizations are required to report any health data breaches that impact 500 or more people to the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, which makes the breaches public. So far this year, the office has received reports of 578 breaches, according to its database. That’s fewer than the 599 breaches reported in 2020, but last year’s breaches only affected about 26 million people.Since 2015, hacks or other IT incidents have been the leading reason people have their health... Continue reading…

Both the disc-based model and the Digital Edition will be available. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Update 12:55PM ET, December 8th: Walmart has cleared through its stock of consoles reserved for its Walmart Plus subscribers. I hope that you lucked out today!Ready. Steady. Go. If you’re still looking for a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, Walmart Plus members will be able to queue up for the console beginning at 12PM EST on Wednesday, December 8th. Walmart will open the digital queue for the standard PlayStation 5 ($500), the disc-less, digital-only version ($400), and the Xbox Series X ($500). This paywall doesn’t guarantee that you’ll have success in snagging a console, but it’s currently the only way to be in the running at this particular retailer.You have to be logged into your Walmart Plus account to even attempt to add a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Language generation is the hottest thing in AI right now, with a class of systems known as “large language models” (or LLMs) being used for everything from improving Google’s search engine to creating text-based fantasy games. But these programs also have serious problems, including regurgitating sexist and racist language and failing tests of logical reasoning. One big question is: can these weaknesses be improved by simply adding more data and computing power, or are we reaching the limits of this technological paradigm?This is one of the topics that Alphabet’s AI lab DeepMind is tackling in a trio of research papers published today. The company’s conclusion is that scaling up these systems further should deliver plenty of... Continue reading…

Turning on professional mode lets creators earn money for their Reels. | Photo by Facebook Facebook is rolling out professional mode for profiles, letting creators take advantage of additional monetization tools. The new mode also gives creators access to features that help track the growth of their audience, something that was previously only available with Pages.Professional mode lets creators partake in the Reels Play bonus programTurning on professional mode allows creators to partake in the Reels Play bonus program. Reels, Instagram’s short-term video feature, became available on Facebook in September. The bonus program lets creators earn up to $35,000 / month, all depending on how many views their Reels rack up. However, all creators aren’t eligible for the program — it’s currently invite-only, and creators must comply... Continue reading…

You could play Sky Force Reloaded while driving — but you shouldn't. | Image: The Verge Tesla updated its software allowing vehicle occupants to play video games on the center touchscreen while in motion, raising questions about safety and driver distraction. Previously, video games were only playable while the vehicle was in park.But according to The New York Times, an over-the-air software update was pushed out last summer enabling the ability to launch some games regardless of whether the car was stationary or not, raising serious concerns about safety.The Verge confirmed the ability to play video games while the vehicle is in motionThe Verge confirmed in a Tesla Model 3 that Sky Force Reloaded, Solitaire, and The Battle of Polytopia are playable on the center touchscreen while the vehicle is in motion. A... Continue reading…

Image: Nintendo Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is finally complete. After launching in 2018 with a roster that included every single character from the series’ long history, it has since been steadily updated with new fighters, culminating in the addition of Sora from Kingdom Hearts in October. The game’s last major update came on December 1st.Three years and countless charming video presentations later, series creator Masahiro Sakurai — an infamous workaholic — seems to finally be taking it easy. “I have more free time now than I’ve probably ever had since I started working in game development,” he tells The Verge over email. That career has been tightly intertwined with Smash, a series he has not only led but also been a key developer on for more than... Continue reading…

Image: Rockstar Games Rockstar Games is releasing new story content for GTA Online featuring Franklin Clinton, one of the key characters from Grand Theft Auto V. In lieu of releasing standalone single-player expansions, the company is weaving new story-focused missions into its massive online mode on December 15th. Despite what sounds like a more low-key approach, Rockstar seems to be going big with this one, including Dr. Dre’s likeness, as well as new, unreleased music from the legendary rapper.The story apparently picks up in the years following the events that transpire in Grand Theft Auto V, and Rockstar got Franklin’s voice actor, Shawn Fonteno, to reprise the role. Aside from new missions, the content drop will include lots of new music. There will be... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Wednesday afternoon, head of Instagram Adam Mosseri will appear before a Senate Commerce subcommittee to answer questions about whether the photo-sharing app is harmful to children’s health. It’s Mosseri’s first appearance before Congress and the first hearing to specifically address Instagram separately from Facebook.The hearing, titled Protecting Kids Online: Instagram and Reforms for Young Users, will be streamed live from the Senate beginning at 2:30PM ET.Instagram has been the focus of growing concern from lawmakers and parents, following a bombshell report in The Wall Street Journal based on documents provided by whistleblower Frances Haugen. Those documents suggested that Facebook was well aware that Instagram is “toxic” for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has released a OneDrive sync app for Windows on Arm and Apple’s M1 Macs for its cloud-based storage service. The public preview of the updated OneDrive app is available as an opt-in download for both Windows on Arm and macOS, and allows the app to run natively on these devices.This should improve the performance of the OneDrive sync app, as the OneDrive process will no longer run emulated on Windows on Arm. The jump to 64-bit is also useful for OneDrive users with lots of files or large files.Microsoft’s OneDrive support for Apple’s M1 Macs and Windows on Arm comes after Dropbox revealed it’s testing its own native app. Dropbox is currently supported on Apple’s M1 Macs through Rosetta, but an updated app is arriving next... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Canadian hacker Gary Bowser has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a Nintendo lawsuit against him over piracy charges. Bowser is a member of the Team Xecuter group that have created mod chips or jailbroken the Nintendo Switch, 3DS, NES Classic Edition, and other consoles.Team Xecuter’s most well-known product is a USB device called the SX Pro that allows the Nintendo Switch to run pirated games. Nintendo has been chasing Switch hackers for years, and Bowser was arrested and indicted last year in a separate federal case. He was ordered to pay $4.5 million for charges related to Nintendo Switch hacks. In total, Bowser is paying Nintendo at least $14.5 million in restitution.Bowser made a business out of selling console mods, a... Continue reading…

Oppo has released a brief video hinting at a new type of camera design for smartphones. The company’s “self-developed retractable camera” is shown extending from the phone’s body before retracting back inside. The video suggests that the mechanism is waterproof and that it’ll automatically retract the camera if the phone is dropped.Unlike pop-up selfie cameras that hide themselves inside a phone until needed, moving the camera back and forth on the Z-axis could have implications for image quality, though Oppo hasn’t yet claimed anything about any optical advantages of this design. It doesn’t appear to be a zoom lens, given it’s marked simply as 50mm, but it could theoretically help improve telephoto performance.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge A scattershot day in court Continue reading…

Parag Agrawal | Photo Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The new CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, has a clear message: expect the social network to move a lot faster than it has in the past.In his first public appearance since taking the reins of Twitter from co-founder Jack Dorsey, Agrawal says his top priority is “improving our execution” and streamlining how Twitter operates. His comments, made at the Barclays technology conference, come after activist investor Elliott Management shook up Twitter’s board of directors last year and pressured Dorsey to step down from his part-time CEO role. Dorsey remains the CEO of Block (formally called Square).“I believe we have set them up so they can really move fast”Despite being Twitter’s CEO for only nine days, Agrawal has already made big changes... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Problems with some Amazon Web Services cloud servers are causing slow loading or failures for significant chunks of the internet. Amazon’s widespread network of data centers powers many of the things you interact with online, including this website, so as we’ve seen in previous AWS outage incidents, any problem has massive rippling effects. People started noticing problems at around 10:45AM ET, and just after 6PM ET the AWS Status showed “Many services have already recovered, however we are working towards full recovery across services.”Amazon’s internal apps went down, too, cutting off some delivery drivers and stalling warehouse robotsWhile some affected services that rely on AWS have been restored, the internet is still a bit... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is testing a redesign of its venerable Notepad app, adding some welcomed modern features like a dark mode, a better search / find and replace interface, better undoing, and more.While the visual updates like the addition of dark mode, updated right-click menu, and Windows’ new theme-adopting material are nice, the functional updates will probably be the biggest upgrade to anyone who actually writes in Notepad. In the current version of the app that ships with Windows 11, the text search tool and the find and replace tool are two different pop-up windows, accessed by two different keyboard shortcuts. The redesign combines them into one floating bar instead of something that looks like it’s from the XP era. F... Continue reading…

Image: Niko Tavernise / Netflix For a goofy satire about a comet destroying the planet, Don’t Look Up sure takes you on an emotional journey. The film — helmed by writer and director Adam McKay, best-known for movies like Step Brothers and Anchorman — starts out hilarious, with big-name stars trading one-liners amid an impending apocalypse. But over its lengthy runtime, it slowly morphs into something else. Laughs give way to anger, frustration, and ultimately a kind of desperate hope. It’s a trajectory that serves as an eerie mirror to the last two years of pandemic life — just don’t go in expecting lighthearted fun.Don’t Look Up doesn’t waste any time getting going. It starts out with a pair of Michigan State astronomers, Randall (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Kate... Continue reading…

Have a gamepad handy and a recent LG TV? You can likely now try Google’s Stadia cloud gaming platform — as of today, it’s an app you can download for your television running webOS 5.0 or webOS 6.0 (read: likely 2020 models or later) in any of the 22 countries that Google covers. You’ll find it in the LG app store on your TV.LG promised that both Google Stadia and Nvidia’s rival GeForce Now cloud gaming service would arrive on its TVs in 2021, and the company’s made it under the wire — GeForce Now arrived in beta in mid-November. Previously, most Stadia-supported TVs ran some version of Android TV.Both Stadia and GeForce Now are free to try with a basic account — though they’re not necessarily equal. We were blown away by GeForce Now’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After game designer and author Jane McGonigal sent her Pixel 5a to Google for repair, someone allegedly took and hacked her device. This is at least the second report in as many weeks from someone claiming they sent a Google phone in for repair, only to have it used to leak their private data and photographs. McGonigal posted a detailed account of the situation on Twitter on Saturday and advised other users not to send their phones in for repair with the company.

Photo by Facebook The Meta (formerly Facebook) Portal is getting a number of updates, including one that lets you browse through your Facebook friends’ stories hands-free, as detailed in a post on the About Facebook blog. You can access the feature by saying, “Hey Portal, show me Stories.”In addition to Stories, you can now ask the Facebook Assistant to display recent Facebook posts, responses, and photos. Previously, there wasn’t any native support for Facebook, as it was only accessible through a web browser.The Portal will let you take screenshots during Messenger calls by saying, “Hey Portal, take a photo”And while the Portal could always take pictures of you during a call, it never had a feature that let you capture images of your friends or... Continue reading…

Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Lisa Bloom, the celebrity lawyer who represented Bill O’Reilley’s, Donald Trump’s, and Bill Cosby’s sexual assault accusers, as well as once advising Harvey Weinstein in his sexual assault case, has announced that she will be holding a press conference on behalf of one of the survivors involved in the numerous sexual assault, harassment, and discrimination allegations against Activision Blizzard.

Photo by GEORGE FREY/AFP via Getty Images Verizon and AT&T are hoping new swaths of C-band cellular radio spectrum will help make the 5G hype closer to reality, but the big mid-band 5G rollout may have a side effect. Airplanes rely on radio altimeters to tell how high they are above the ground to safely land when pilots can’t see, and the FAA is now instructing 6,834 of them to not do that at certain airports because of 5G interference.The FAA ruled on Tuesday that those thousands of US planes (and some helicopters) won’t be able to use many of the guided and automatic landing systems that are designed to work in poor visibility conditions if they’re landing at an airport where there’s deemed to be enough interference that their altimeters aren’t reliable. “Landings during... Continue reading…

Twitter is testing a new way to report abusive tweets | Illustration by Alex Castro Twitter says it is testing an overhaul to the process for reporting tweets, which it says will ultimately make it easier for users to alert the company to abusive or suspicious behavior. The approach being tested with a small group of users in the US streamlines the current reporting process so that a person reporting a tweet doesn’t have to choose from a list of pre-selected descriptions of what rule a tweet is violating. Instead, the company says, it will ask the user what happened in a “symptoms-first” approach to gather more complete information.The blog post used the example of a patient in an emergency; the doctor doesn’t ask them, “Is your leg broken?” but rather, “Where does it hurt?” instead. Brian Waismeyer, a data scientist... Continue reading…

Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker. | Image: Square Enix Many players eager to jump into Final Fantasy XIV’s highly anticipated Endwalker expansion have hit big queues since the game launched in early access on Friday. Part of the reason for the long waits is that the global chip shortage has prevented Square Enix from getting enough servers to handle demand, according to a blog post from producer and director Naoki Yoshida.“When it comes to adding new Worlds, we need tens of ‘server machines’ for every World that we add,” Yoshida says. “Server machines are high-performance computers, which utilize numerous semiconductors. However, due to the COVID-19 countermeasures currently in place, many factories across the globe which produce semiconductors, have halted production or have faced labor... Continue reading…

Photo by eBay eBay now lets you get a 360-degree look at some of the sneakers it has for sale, all thanks to its handy new 3D viewing tool, called eBay 3D true view. In a post on eBay’s website, the e-commerce platform said that the feature will let sellers add interactive images of their sneakers to listings. It’s partnering with Unity, a platform that can be used for real-time 3D modeling, to pilot the feature.Scans of sneakers will be uploaded to the cloud and processed using AIStarting this month, eBay says that select sneaker sellers will get the chance to try out the feature, however, the 3D images will only be viewable from its iOS or Android app. To use it, sellers will have to use a proprietary app to take a video of their sneakers from all... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon Amazon is today beginning to roll out new features and functionality to its lineup of Fire TV streaming devices and the recently released Fire TV Omni and 4-Series televisions. At the top of the pile of new tricks is a Smart Home Dashboard that looks similar to what’s already available on the company’s Fire tablets and Echo Show smart displays.The dashboard, available in the US and Canada, offers quick access and on / off toggles for connected lights, plugs, and switches that are linked to your Alexa system. Smart cameras get their own row in the dashboard, complete with a thumbnail of their perspective — though not a live view until you actually click into them. Previously, you could control your smart home gadgets with voice commands... Continue reading…

On December 3rd, Final Fantasy XIV’s latest expansion launched its early access period, allowing those who preordered the game the opportunity to play Endwalker in advance of its December 7th release date. Or at least that’s how it was supposed to work. For lots of players, the early-access experience was an exercise in patience. With game servers at max capacity and login queues containing upward of 4,000–8,000 players, if you were in early access and actually got access, you were one of the privileged few.Square Enix warned players this would happen. Days before early access began, it published a notice detailing what the company had done to prepare for the inevitable congestion, along with tips to mitigate wait times. Still, after a... Continue reading…

City leaders and representatives from NRG eVgo unveil three new electric vehicle charging stations at the public parking structure in Hermosa Beach, CA on Friday, September 05, 2014. | Photo by Scott Varley/Digital First Media/Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images Over 50 utilities across the US have come together to speed up the build-out of electric vehicle charging stations along the nation’s highways. The new National Electric Highway Coalition was announced today by the Edison Electric Institute (EEI), an association of investor-owned power companies.Together, the companies aim to “fill charging infrastructure gaps along major travel corridors,” according to a fact sheet. Each utility that’s a member of the coalition must commit “in good faith” to create an EV fast charging network across its service territory “using any approach they see fit” by the end of 2023. The US will need more than 100,000 fast charging ports for the 22 million electric vehicles expected to traverse American... Continue reading…

Yesterday, Politico opened its newsletter with an article on Vice President Kamala Harris’ aversion to using Bluetooth headphones. The VP was “Bluetooth-phobic,” the story claimed, “wary” of her AirPods and cautious with her technology use to an extent former aides described as “a bit paranoid.” Proof could be seen in her televised appearances: wires dangling from her ears in an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid or clutched in her hand during the famous “We did it, Joe” call.But for a high-profile public official, this is a lot more reasonable than you might think. As security researchers were quick to point out, Bluetooth has a number of well-documented vulnerabilities that could be exploited if a bad actor wanted to hack, say, the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A jury has ruled that Craig Wright, a man who claims to have invented Bitcoin, won’t have to give up half of his supposed stash of crypto — a stash valued at over $50 billion. The court case has generated a lot of buzz in the Bitcoin community because he would have had to transfer those Bitcoins if the court had ordered him to, and that’s something only the real Satoshi can do.If the name Satoshi Nakamoto rings a bell, it’s because that name shows up on the original whitepaper that described how Bitcoin would work. While Satoshi is a hallowed name in Bitcoin lore (it’s also used as a way to denominate the smallest unit of the currency), Nakamoto’s identity has never been proven — we don’t even know if it was one person or a group of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram’s algorithms recommend drug dealers’ accounts to minor users, according to a new report from the Tech Transparency Project. The platform also suggests drug-related hashtags, the report found.In the report, published Tuesday, the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) created seven fake accounts for teen users aged 13, 14, 15, and 17. Instagram did not stop those accounts from searching for drug-related content. In one case, the platform auto-filled results when a user started typing “buyxanax” into the search bar. One suggested account was a Xanax dealer.After following the account of a Xanax dealer, a fake minor user got a direct message “with a menu of products, prices, and shipping options,” the report found. A fake minor... Continue reading…

NASA’s new astronaut candidates posing for a photo | Photo by THOMAS SHEA/AFP via Getty Images Yesterday, NASA announced its newest class of astronauts: 10 new candidates who will train to fly to space with the agency over the next two years. The group included plenty of qualified individuals with backgrounds in the military, as well some with more unique professions. One of the candidates was most recently a flight surgeon at SpaceX, while another has worked as a drilling engineer on remote rigs in the Arctic.The Verge spoke briefly with three of the newest astronaut candidates to get a better understanding of their backgrounds and what inspired them to pursue becoming an astronaut. Learn more about the newest members of NASA who could fly to deep space one day.These interviews have been edited for brevity and clarity.Anil... Continue reading…

Amazon Prime delivery van | Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images The Amazon Web Services outage that started this morning might be worse than it seemed. That’s not only because it’s reportedly cutting off some streams from Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus, and Netflix, but because the apps that keep warehouse, delivery, and Amazon Flex workers connected are down too.Amazon has confirmed it’s “experiencing elevated error rates for EC2 APIs in the US-EAST-1” region, meaning that connections from one of its largest server operations are spotty at best. Posts in the Amazon employee subreddits say many people can’t access the AtoZ app that manages practically everything about their jobs.Warehouse workers report entire facilities shut down due to network problems and have posted pictures of the company’s... Continue reading…

The budget thermostat Nest should have made Continue reading…

Apple Music’s new voice plan will cost $4.99 per month. | Image: Apple Apple seems to be close to rolling out the Apple Music Voice Plan, a more affordable tier of Apple Music that lets you access music using only your voice and the company’s Siri assistant. The new plan appeared in the update notes for the iOS 15.2 release candidate, according to MacStories editor-in-chief Federico Viticci, which suggests it will be available widely sometime soon.