The Verge

Photo by Phil Esposito / The Verge But for $140,000, is it worth it? Continue reading…

Photo by Yoon S. Byun/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Fortnite maker Epic Games has announced its latest acquisition: Harmonix, the studio behind iconic music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band.In a blog post, Harmonix said that support for existing games like Rock Band and Fuser would continue. The studio also explained its plans to expand into — what else? — the metaverse. “Now, we’ll be working with Epic to once again challenge expectations as we bring our unique brand of musical gaming experiences to the metaverse, and we couldn’t be more excited,” the blog post reads. As part of this, Epic says that the studio will “develop musical journeys and gameplay for Fortnite.”Music has become an increasing focus for Epic, following the big success of virtual concerts inside of Fortnite from... Continue reading…

Have you ever played Pokémon Go and thought “I wish this game let you earn small amounts of Bitcoin by engaging with internet finance memes and a cryptocurrency debit card system”? If so, I don’t believe you, but I have good news.Fold AR is a new augmented reality game from Pokémon Go developer Niantic and the financial company Fold. The game — which a press release dubs part of the metaverse — is very loosely modeled on Pokémon Go but themed around cryptocurrency. As explained by Fold CEO Will Reeves, it runs with the metaphor of “mining” Bitcoin. So instead of capturing cute monsters, the central mechanic involves finding cubes of binary code and tapping them like Minecraft blocks until they reveal a prize. The prizes... Continue reading…

The AirPods Pro were recently refreshed with a MagSafe compatible charging case. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The Black Friday season just keeps on rolling, and we keep seeing such exceptional early deals day in and day out. If things keep up at this rate, we may all go broke by the time Black Friday actually arrives — but wow, will we have saved so much money on the coolest tech in the process.As the days go on, we continue to track the latest deals we can find for you. That means we’re constantly updating our ongoing deal coverage while we check new deals that are worthy of your attention.Today is no exception, where we have the best price ever on the AirPods Pro. The latest revision of the AirPods Pro, complete with its MagSafe-compatible charging case, has dropped to a historical low of just $159 at Walmart as well as Amazon. That is a... Continue reading…

An artistic rendering of the DART spacecraft approaching Dimorphos | Image: NASA/John Hopkins APL Takeoff of DART is scheduled for 1:21AM ET on November 24th Continue reading…

Image: Chuck Zlotnick / Marvel Studios Hawkeye is a few different things. It’s a chance to spend more time with one of the lesser-known Avengers, it’s an origin story for an up-and-coming hero, and it’s a detective drama set amidst the backdrop of Christmas in New York City as the MCU adds yet another genre to its all-enveloping fold. Most importantly, though, it’s a Marvel series that doesn’t take itself too seriously — making the first two episodes unexpectedly fun.This review contains some light spoilers for the first two episodes of Hawkeye.Though it’s named after the bow-wielding Avenger, Hawkeye really is a story about two people. Yes, one of those is Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), a surly hero and one-time vigilante who is now doing his best to enjoy life with his... Continue reading…

Electric boat startup Arc has raised $30 million just five months after coming out of stealth mode and has started putting its first prototype through its paces. The Series A funding round was led by Greg Reichow, a partner at Eclipse Ventures and a former vice president of production at Tesla. The round also includes existing Arc investors like Andreessen Horowitz and celebrities like Will Smith, Kevin Durant, and Sean “Diddy” Combs, who first put money into the startup in October through their own funds.Arc aims to sell a limited number of its first electric boat, the 24-foot Arc One, at an extraordinary price of $300,000 before moving on to making more affordable boats. It plans to justify that price by promising a much lower cost of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In the fight against ongoing allegations of harassment, discrimination, and complaints of insufficient action to address such allegations, Activision Blizzard’s board of directors has announced that the publisher is forming a new committee.

Croatian electric bike manufacturer Greyp Bikes has a new majority shareholder: Porsche. The sports car manufacturer’s venture capital arm, Porsche Ventures, has held a stake of around 10 percent in the e-bike company since 2018.Greyp (pronounced like the fruit) was founded Mate Rimac — aka “Croatia’s Elon Musk” — the brainchild behind electric supercar startup Rimac Automobili. The company makes highly connected, extremely powerful electric mountain bikes, including the $10,000 flagship, full-suspension G6. The company sells its bikes in Europe and recently launched its US operations based in San Pedro, Calif.The investment is another sign of Porsche’s confidence in Rimac’s business prowessThe investment is another sign of... Continue reading…

Photo by Reddit Reddit will shut down its short-form video platform, Dubsmash, on February 22nd, 2022. After February, the app will no longer be available on apps stores and will stop functioning on devices that already have the app.A competitor to TikTok, Dubsmash was acquired by Reddit late last year with the purpose of embedding its video creation tools into the larger platform. Now that the integration is nearing completion, Reddit is introducing a slew of new video creation tools to its own TikTok-like video feed, courtesy of the Dubsmash team that came over with the buyout.“Our primary focus, in terms of the acquisition, was around bringing in the expertise from the team, as well as bringing in the technology that we had built over the past five... Continue reading…

2015’s Fairphone 2. | Photo by James Vincent / The Verge Sustainable smartphone manufacturer Fairphone has released an Android 10 update for the six-year-old Fairphone 2, a device that originally launched with Android 5 in 2015. The update is in beta for the time being, but the company says it hopes to release a stable version early next year. Alongside it, the company also plans to start beta testing an Android 11 update for the 2019 Fairphone 3 and 2020 Fairphone 3 Plus.Although getting an Android update two years after its original release wouldn’t normally be cause for celebration, it’s basically unheard of for an Android manufacturer to still be updating a handset six years after its original release. Only Apple comes close to these kinds of support periods and recently released its... Continue reading…

Photo by Spotify Spotify has introduced a new hub that’s home to all the music from Netflix’s shows and movies. A post on Spotify’s newsroom explains that both free and premium users can access the Netflix hub by searching for “Netflix” on Spotify.There, you’ll find official playlists from Netflix TV shows like La Casa de Papel, On My Block, and Bridgerton, along with the official soundtracks from Cowboy Bebop, Bruised, Squid Game, and more. It also includes some of Netflix’s official podcasts, such as Okay, Now Listen, Netflix Is a Daily Joke, 10/10 (Would Recommend), and The Crown: The Official Podcast, all of which you can access from this single location.Spotify has rolled out an “enhanced album experience” for Netflix’s The Harder They FallS... Continue reading…

Microsoft has created an Xbox metaverse museum where you can roam around and discover the history of Xbox consoles. It’s designed to celebrate 20 years of Xbox and includes some infamous mistakes like the Xbox 360 red ring of death or Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Nintendo in spring 2000.As you roam around this Xbox museum, you’ll see fellow Xbox players interacting with the digital exhibits and charting the progress of the original Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and the latest Xbox Series X / S consoles. Each moment in the 20-year timeline has an associated story, usually with a video documenting the milestone. The Xbox museum is a metaverse full of achievements and failures. There’s even a personal Xbox museum, so if... Continue reading…

For years, Capcom’s Resident Evil franchise has been split in half. There’s the game and animated film series built closely around Shinji Mikami’s 1996 survival horror game. Then there’s the live-action series, a half-dozen barely related blockbusters starring Milla Jovovich. But the newly released Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City aims to change that. It’s a jump-scare-filled live-action adaptation of the earliest Resident Evil games, and it plays out like a 107-minute fan film — which isn’t entirely a bad thing.The following includes mild narrative and thematic spoilers.Welcome to Raccoon City, written and directed by Johannes Roberts, merges the plots and characters of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2. In the year 1998, the... Continue reading…

Acast Hello, hello. Welcome back to Tuesday; I hope everyone has found ways to keep “working” ahead of the holiday and isn’t daydreaming too much about the hoards of food we here in the US will be eating in just a couple days. Today’s issue is a hodgepodge of things — a nice mix. Today, we’re talking about what happens when a podcast app gets acquired, ExxonMobil “duping” The Daily, and more.EXCLUSIVE: Acast acquired RadioPublic in February; now podcasters say the company has gone dark on themIn February, Acast, the Europe-based hosting and monetization company, acquired RadioPublic, a podcast player and company known for its creator-centric technology. The acquisition was billed to me as a way for Acast to take over the podcast space and... Continue reading…

The $499 Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 and $579 AMD Radeon RX 6800 are still selling well above MSRP. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Sony, Microsoft, Nvidia and AMD say they’re doing everything in their power to put a console or graphics card in your hands. But judging by eBay resale prices, their best won’t be nearly good enough this holiday season. One year after the next generation of gaming was supposed to arrive (narrator: it did not) people are still forking out hundreds of dollars over MSRP for a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X, and and they’re often still paying double what a new PC graphics card was originally supposed to cost.Remember March 2020, when I told you how the two graphics cards in the photo above were worth a combined $2,570 on the open market? That was a shocking leap compared to the $1,660 total they could fetch in December 2020, already well... Continue reading…

Qualcomm reportedly has an exclusivity deal with Microsoft for Windows on Arm licenses. The pair launched Windows on Arm laptops in 2016, and so far we haven’t seen any devices launch without a Qualcomm chip. XDA-Developers reports that Qualcomm has had an exclusivity deal on Windows on Arm, but that it’s set to expire soon.The report comes days after MediaTek held its executive summit with members of the media last week, where it shared its ambitions to build its own chip for Windows on Arm PCs.If Microsoft’s exclusivity deal is about to end with Qualcomm, this could open the door for many more vendors supporting Windows on Arm. Samsung, MediaTek, and even Apple’s M1 chips could eventually support Windows on Arm. P... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s new emoji for Windows 11. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is making its Fluent-style emoji available in Windows 11 this week. A new optional update for the OS is rolling out that includes a number of important bug fixes and the new emoji Microsoft previewed earlier this year. While it’s a totally new style, it’s not the 3D look that Microsoft previously promised — the company opted for 2D instead.The new emoji in Windows 11 includes the return of Clippy, as Microsoft has replaced the standard paperclip emoji with its Clippy character. The emoji have also been redesigned to include bright and saturated colors, but lack the 3D aspects that made them pop.“The new emoji style is only available in Windows 11 and is 2D,” explains Microsoft in a quiet update to its design blog from July.... Continue reading…

The ecosystem isn’t quite ready Continue reading…

Sony just got a restock of the PS5 | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Update November 22nd, 8:25PM ET: Sony appears to have sold out of PS5 consoles for the day. We’ll make sure to let you know when the next opportunity comes up.If you’re still trying to get your hands on a PlayStation 5, lining up at Sony’s digital storefront is one of the more reliable ways to snag Sony’s next-gen console. Sony has reopened the digital queue on its direct store to place orders for the $500 disc-based PlayStation 5, as well as the $400 PlayStation 5 Digital Edition.Provided you’ve already registered and logged into your PlayStation account, you should be able to line up once you’ve hit the landing page. Once you’ve entered the queue, you’ll be given an ETA of when you’ll be able to check out and, once that timer hits... Continue reading…

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Tile popularized marking items and tracking them from your phone with its small Bluetooth tags, but suddenly faces more competition from giants like Apple, Amazon, Google, and Samsung. The company that started out of an incubator and crowdfunding campaign has announced it will be acquired by Life360, which calls itself a “leading family safety platform.” The deal is valued at $205 million and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.Subscribers to Tile and Life360 services can expect some new benefits in their packagesTile has developed its product line over the years with a variety of different trackers and partnerships with other companies to use its technology. It also has a subscription service, Tile Premium, with extra... Continue reading…

Image: Roku Roku says it’s working to fix issues that users have been reporting following its 10.5 software update. TechCrunch reported the problems earlier on Monday, citing posts on Reddit and Roku forums where users said that apps like HBO Max, ESPN, Disney Plus, and more wouldn’t allow them to watch any video content after updating the OS on their smart TVs.According to Roku, “certain older Roku TV models or older Roku Ultra players” are affected by the problematic update. In a post on its forum, the company instructs users with Roku Ultra models 4660, 4661, 4662, or 4670, and users with a Roku TV model 7XXX to manually check for a software update, and tells owners of other devices to subscribe to the thread for future details.

Photo by AMY OSBORNE/AFP via Getty Images “A success was that we had successfully achieved the objectives of the program.” Continue reading…

DoorDash settled with San Francisco for $5.3 million | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Food delivery platform DoorDash has agreed to pay $5.3 million to the city of San Francisco to settle allegations it failed to provide healthcare and paid sick leave to some 4,500 delivery drivers, as the city requires. The company did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement, most of which will be used to reimburse drivers who made deliveries in the city between 2016 and 2020, before a new state law covering gig workers took effect.California’s gig workers law, which voters approved in November 2020 as ballot measure Proposition 22, allows companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash to treat workers as independent contractors, not employees. A judge ruled in August that the law was unconstitutional, but it remains in effect pending... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Monday, the Federal Communications Commission voted to approve Verizon Wireless’ purchase of Tracfone in a deal worth more than $6 billion, positioning Verizon to become one of the largest prepaid service providers in the US.Tracfone is the largest reseller of wireless devices in the US and maintains over 20 million subscribers with more than 90,000 retail locations. Verizon’s Tracfone acquisition combines the largest mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) with the largest wireless provider in the country. When Verizon first proposed the deal last September, the company said that the acquisition would bolster Tracfone’s networks while making low-income wireless services more competitive.“After rigorous review, the Commission found... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon and EA will be giving away free PC games and content through Amazon’s Prime Gaming program for the next few months, so it may be time to check in on the gaming service if you’ve forgotten that it comes included with Prime. This month, Prime subscribers will be able to get a free Origin code for the surprisingly decent remaster of 2010’s Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, and Amazon says that four more of EA’s “most popular titles” will be coming in 2022 (though given the starting game, it may be worth keeping your expectations in check).If it’s still November when you’re reading this, you can also snag EA’s Dragon Age Inquisition for free from Prime Gaming. Amazon’s partnership with EA also includes skins for games like Apex Legends... Continue reading…

Just last week, Walmart made headlines by launching its first commercial US drone delivery service within a 50-mile radius of Pea Ridge, Arkansas — dropping parachute-laden packages from an autonomous Zipline plane to a “hand-selected group of recipients.” Now, it’s already expanding those drone deliveries in another, small way: customers who live in Farmington, Arkansas, can now order small items like cans of tuna, baby supplies, and paper plates starting today. That’s thanks to a partnership with DroneUp, which will also provide drone delivery stations in Rogers, AR and Bentonville, AR “in the coming months.”While it’s kind of exciting for drone delivery watchers, you should know that it’s also very much baby steps. DroneUp’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Dodge will cease production of its gas-powered Charger sedan and Challenger coupe in 2024 in order to make way for the automaker’s first electric vehicles.Dodge Brand CEO Tim Kuniskis shed some new light on the timeline in an interview this week with Motor Trend. The company will roll out its first electric muscle concept car in 2022, followed by a plug-in hybrid vehicle and a mysterious third vehicle.Dodge had previously announced its intention to produce its first EV in 2024 during a July event covering electric vehicle strategy by the automaker’s parent company, Stellantis. During the event, Kuniskis proclaimed that Dodge would not “sell electric cars — it will sell eMuscle,” which is apparently Dodge branding for its future EVs.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Walmart kicked off its Black Friday deals with a bang, granting Walmart Plus subscribers early access to a big console restock. Paid members can now have a go at snagging a PlayStation 5 (both the $499.99 disc-based version and $399.99 digital version are available) or the $499.99 Xbox Series X console.To get this early access to boost your chances of getting a console (though it’s no guarantee), you’ll need to be a paying member to Walmart Plus, starting at $12.99 per month. To reiterate, members sampling the free trial will not get early access to this restock or Walmart’s myriad Black Friday deals that launch an hour earlier at 3PM ET.Here are the links, with more details about this restock beneath them.Hey, if you miss out on... Continue reading…

Image: Pure Watercraft General Motors has taken a 25 percent stake in Pure Watercraft, a Seattle-based startup that makes electric outboard motors and batteries for boats, CNBC reports.The deal is worth $150 million, though that’s split between cash and payment-in-kind contributions from GM. The two companies didn’t tell CNBC what that split will look like, but GM “will become a supplier of components to Pure Watercraft, a co-developer of new products, and will provide engineering, design and manufacturing expertise to help [Pure Watercraft] establish new factories,” according to the report.GM struck a similar deal — though half the size — with Lordstown Motors in 2020 as part of that electric pickup truck startup’s merger with a special purpose acquisition... Continue reading…

Photo by IO Interactive Hitman 3 VR will become available on PC next year, according to an announcement by game developer IO Interactive, which outlines the roadmap of content that players can expect in Hitman 3’s second year.

Twitter has introduced aliases for contributors in its Birdwatch moderation program | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is introducing aliases for participants in its Birdwatch moderation tool so they don’t have to include their usernames in notes they leave on others’ tweets, the company announced in a blog post Monday. The social media platform launched the pilot of Birdwatch in January as a way to crowdsource fact-checking on tweets that might contain misleading or inaccurate information. But the company said contributors in the pilot Birdwatch program “overwhelmingly voiced a preference for contributing under aliases. This preference was strongest for women and Black contributors.”

GoDaddy via FastCompany GoDaddy has suffered a security breach that gave an attacker access to more than 1 million email addresses belonging to the company’s active and inactive Managed WordPress users, according to a disclosure it filed with the SEC on Monday.The company says the attacker gained access to a provisioning system (meant to set up and automatically configure new sites when customers create them) in early September by “using a compromised password.” GoDaddy says that it noticed the intrusion on November 17th and immediately locked the attacker out before beginning an investigation and contacting law enforcement.The compromised password gave the attacker access to emails and much moreThe hackers had access to more than just the email addresses —... Continue reading…

Twitter’s livestream shopping interface. | Image: Twitter Twitter is hosting its first shopping livestream on November 28th at 7PM ET, the company announced today as it becomes the latest social media platform to embrace the trend.The “Cyber Deals Sunday” stream will be a collaboration with Walmart and will take place during the post-Thanksgiving weekend, which is traditionally associated with big sales promotions. Twitter describes the livestream, which will be hosted by Jason Derulo, as a “30-minute variety show” that will feature “electronics, home goods, apparel, seasonal décor, surprise special guests, and much more.”Twitter joins a growing trend towards shopping-focused livestreams on social media, providing a modern QVC-style shopping experience with influencers and integrated... Continue reading…

Qualcomm’s teaser for its new branding scheme | Image: Qualcomm Qualcomm has announced some key changes to how it brands its Snapdragon chips, including a shift away from the three-digit numbering system it’s been using to differentiate between its products for years. The news comes ahead of the company’s expected next-gen flagship chip debut at the Snapdragon Tech Summit on November 30th.To start, Snapdragon will now exist as a standalone brand, separate from the “Qualcomm” brand (which won’t be showing up as much on its chips). It’s a direction the company has started moving in earlier this year (the Snapdragon 888 Plus badge, for example, notably lacked the word “Qualcomm”), but today’s news solidifies that plan going forward. Image: Qualcomm The already “Qualcomm”-less... Continue reading…

Health secretary Sajid Javid | Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Britain’s health secretary announced Sunday that he’s launched a review of racial and gender biases in medical devices, triggered by reports that blood oxygen monitoring devices work less well on people with darker skin.Secretary Sajid Javid told the BBC that he thinks it’s possible that some people died during the COVID-19 pandemic because of those discrepancies and that they may have contributed to the overall higher death rates in Black and South Asian people in the United Kingdom.“The possibility that a bias — even an inadvertent one — could lead to a poorer health outcome is totally unacceptable,” Javid wrote in the Sunday Times.Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine in late 2020 found that pulse oximeters,... Continue reading…

Everrati’s Ford GT40 build in collaboration with US partner Superformance | Image: Everrati Justin Lunny, CEO of the UK-based electric vehicle conversion company Everrati, sees his work as more than just taking on iconic vehicles, like the VW Microbus, and giving them an electric powertrain. “Our ethos is about redefining the cars,” Lunny said in an interview with The Verge. “We redefine them as an EV.” After two years in operation, Lunny is finally bringing that ethos to the US in the hopes of tapping into a growing EV conversion market.No structure is damaged during the process of converting the cars: “To the untrained eye, they look like a beautiful, original Porsche or GT40 or Land Rover... true to the essence of the original, but without any emissions anymore,” Lunny shares.All conversions are also reversible to retain... Continue reading…

Image: TikTok TikTok is expanding its presence on TV screens in a major way. After initially launching in North America on Amazon’s Fire TV platform, the TikTok TV app is today available on Samsung and LG smart TVs — plus Android TV devices, including the Chromecast with Google TV.Whereas the massively popular mobile app is intended for “little bursts of joy,” TikTok says its big-screen software is optimized for “a TV home-viewing experience, making it easy to watch content from our For You and Following feeds on the big screen. This includes the most liked and viewed videos across a huge range of categories, from gaming and comedy to food and animals.” There’s a Discover section in the TV app, as well. TikTok videos can be up to three minutes in... Continue reading…

You can now order cannabis via the Uber Eats app, but only in Ontario and there’s no delivery option. | Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Uber is partnering with a cannabis retailer in Canada to allow cannabis purchases via its Uber Eats food delivery platform. The arrangement does not include delivery of weed orders, however, but makes it possible for users in Ontario to order products from Tokyo Smoke in a dedicated section on the Uber Eats app.For customers in Ontario, in the Uber Eats app, select either the “cannabis” category or search for “Tokyo Smoke.” After confirming their age, the customer is directed to the menu of a Tokyo Smoke store in the area to place their order, which Uber says will be filled within an hour. The consumer then picks up their order at the Tokyo Smoke store.Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in April that the company would take a look at... Continue reading…

Analogue Pocket preorders will start shipping on December 13th. In a brief blog post, Analogue, manufacturers of the retro handheld Pocket, wrote, “Due to unprecedented shipping congestion, your order will ship and be delivered between December 14th - December 30th.”If you’re unable to accept delivery during that window, the company also outlined steps you can take to defer shipping until after January 3rd, 2022.Customers who preordered the Pocket will receive an email with more information.The Analogue Pocket, which has the ability to play cartridges from the Game Boy family and the Sega Game Gear, was delayed numerous times due to global electronics component shortages brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. Other handhelds like... Continue reading…

Roku serves as a gateway to access various streaming services, but now, a report from The Wall Street Journal reveals that the service wants to develop over 50 original series in the next two years, expanding the original content that it already has on its free Roku Channel.As noted by the WSJ, 155 million people have access to Roku devices, and about half tune into the Roku Channel, a hub for ad-supported TV shows, movies, and live news. The service added Roku Originals to the Roku Channel earlier this year, a large portion of which actually come from Quibi, the short-lived streaming service that shut down last year. Apparently, the set of 50 new shows also include some that the service acquired from Quibi that never premiered.Roku... Continue reading…

A proverbial tidal wave of deals crashed down this morning, heralding the beginning of Black Friday week. As I searched for deals to include in this roundup, I kept finding one after the other that was better. If you think these are good, consider acting fast, as it’s impossible to tell if they’ll stick around all week or if they’re just a flash in the pan. The very best discount that kicked off recently is a big $60 discount on the Apple Watch SE (40mm, GPS) at Best Buy and Amazon. Regularly selling for $279, it’s just $219 — the lowest price yet. If you want the larger 44mm-sized model, it’s $249 instead of $309. You can shop all of the sizes and colorways right here at Best Buy.We heartily recommend the SE over the Apple Watch Series... Continue reading…

Death Stranding studio Kojima Productions has announced a brand-new division as it looks beyond video games. No new projects have been announced, but the company says the Los Angeles-based office “will focus on securing opportunities in the film and television space.”Death Stranding originally launched in 2019 as the first title from renowned Metal Gear director Hideo Kojima following his much-publicized departure from Konami. (It has since been re-released on both the PC and PS5.) While he’s best known for his work in games, it’s also no secret that Kojima is a huge movie fan, something that often bleeds into his gaming work. Death Stranding featured the likes of Norman Reedus and Léa Seydoux, and Kojima previously partnered with... Continue reading…

Through a glass, darkly Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony has filed a patent for its PS5 faceplates. The design patent was originally filed just a week before the PS5’s November launch last year, and it was subsequently published in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on November 16th. It has fueled speculation that Sony will create its own PS5 faceplates or skins.The design patent, spotted by OP Attack, comes more than a year after Matt MacLaurin, Sony’s former VP of UX design at PlayStation, previously hinted at a black version of the PS5 or “a special edition for everyone.” While Sony has created black versions of its DualSense controller and Pulse 3D Audio headset, the PS5 console remains white for now. Image: DBrand DBrand’s previous PS5... Continue reading…

An example emoji reaction in iMessage. | Screenshot: Apple Messages An update to Google Messages on Android allows it to properly display emoji reactions sent from the iPhone’s Messages app, 9to5Google reports.The update addresses a long-standing issue that occurs when users of Apple’s iMessage service chat with friends using the Messages app on Android. Previously, when an iPhone user reacted to an Android user’s message using an emoji, it appeared as a separate text message when received on Android, often resulting in confusion and lots of unnecessary clutter. Screenshot: Google Messages The old method generated a separate message for each reaction. Screenshot: 9to5Google The new approach is much cleaner. After the update, however, the... Continue reading…

Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images One of the biggest esports events in the world will be spread across four North American cities next year. Riot Games has announced that the 2022 edition of the League of Legends World Championship will take place in New York, Toronto, Mexico City, and San Francisco. The announcement was made ahead of an NBA match between the Warriors and Raptors at the Chase Center in San Francisco.Riot says this will be the first-ever multi-country edition of its annual competition; it’s also the first to take place in North America since 2016. Things will start out with the play-ins portion of the event in Mexico City (the Liga Latinoamerica competition arena), followed by the group stage and quarterfinals in New York (the Hulu Theater at Madison... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Bobby Kotick is still the CEO of Activision Blizzard, despite a Wall Street Journal report that detailed Kotick’s history of harassment and abusive behavior while also saying he knew about allegations and incidents of abuse within the company for years.The WSJ claims that some employees asked in meetings if Kotick would step downKotick has reportedly told executives that he may consider stepping down if the company can’t fix its toxic work environment “with speed,” according to the WSJ. Sources close to the situation told the WSJ that Kotick met with Activision Publishing and Blizzard Entertainment leaders last week. His status as CEO was addressed, as executives said some employees won’t “be satisfied” until Kotick hands in his... Continue reading…

Photo by Cliff Lipson/CBS via Getty Images Spotify has stopped shuffling albums by default following a request from Adele, according to a report by BBC. Previously, when viewing an album on Spotify, you’d see a small shuffle icon within the larger “Play” button. This indicated that Spotify would begin playing the album’s songs in a random order, which isn’t always what users would expect (or want) it to do.Now, when you hit “Play” in Album View, songs will play in order — that is, as long as you have a Premium subscription. You can still enable shuffle mode by toggling on the “Shuffle” icon when viewing an individual track.

Welp, The Morning Show season two finale was a messy disappointment much like the rest of the season. I think Linda Holmes’ recap at NPR really nailed why a season that seemed full of promise never hit the mark, mostly because it couldn’t quite figure out what it wanted to be. The latest season of Succession has yet to steer me wrong, however(and we learned this week that there is a fun Verge-related Succession backstory).This week’s round up is heavy on the sci-fi, which was unplanned but makes for some nice symmetry.The ExpanseThe sixth and final season of the sci-fi drama is on the horizon, and is a disappointingly short six episodes. It has a lot of work to do and from the looks of the trailer, wastes no time getting down to... Continue reading…