The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Cogent Communications, an internet backbone provider that routes data across intercontinental connections, has cut ties with Russian customers over its invasion of Ukraine, as first reported by The Washington Post. The US-based company is one of the world’s largest internet backbone providers and serves customers in 50 countries, including a number of high-profile Russian companies.The shutdown won’t disconnect Russians completelyIn a letter to Russian customers obtained by The Post, Cogent cited “economic sanctions” and “the increasingly uncertain security situation” as the motives behind its total shutdown in the country. Cogent similarly told The Verge that it “terminated its contracts” with Russian customers in compliance with the E... Continue reading…

The Vampire Survivors start screen, now in its true colors. | Photo illustration by Antonio G. Di Benedetto I was floored as soon as I got to the main menu of Vampire Survivors. I knew this hot indie darling sounded up my alley when I heard it described as a reverse-bullet hell blended with a roguelike, but I was not prepared for it to hit so close to home. While the main menu looks low-rent and the Castlevania-inspired aesthetics seems at first like a poor imitation, what stopped me in my tracks was the starting character. Antonio Belpaese: the first in a lineup of four Belpaese family members and a menagerie of other characters with incredibly Italian-sounding names. Even before playing a minute of the game, I was enthralled by my namesake taking the lead. As I struggled through the first few runs and slowly unlocked more characters, I felt... Continue reading…

Photo by Jay Peters / The Verge The days are starting to get longer as we creep ever closer to springtime in the US. And coincidentally, the deals are getting better. Is there a correlation? Let’s go with yes and not think about it too much. The Verge Deals team has been playing the hits this week, with deals so good that they bear repeating for the weekend crowd. Check out some of the best deals below.And if you’re looking slightly toward the future, stay tuned from whatever comes from next Tuesday’s Apple event. We expect the company to announce a new iPhone SE, among other exciting products. If you’re ready to upgrade your phone, there will probably be some good carrier deals and trade-in promos in store.Fully Jarvis standing desks are 15 percent off through March... Continue reading…

Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images Paramount Plus celebrated its first birthday yesterday. During its first year, the service debuted a SpongeBob movie, added original shows like 1883, and occasionally surprised us with exclusives like the second season of Evil, which was originally a CBS exclusive show. Plus, Paramount Plus managed to swipe the highly anticipated live-action Halo series — set to debut this month — from sister service Showtime.But a year after its launch, Paramount Plus is still suffering an identity crisis: the streaming service has yet to prove why we should care about Paramount Plus beyond its big Star Trek catalog and obsession with Yellowstone. So far, it’s seemed as though Paramount has struggled to find the sweet spot between propping up its... Continue reading…

The heatmap shows how many people are submitting snaps in an area. Snap has announced that it’s temporarily turning off Snapchat’s “heatmap” feature for Ukraine, making it so the app no longer shows how many snaps are being taken in particular locations. The company says that the move is “a safety precaution” and that there will still be a curated public feed of snaps submitted by Ukrainians.Normally, the Snap Map displays a color code to show how many people are posting public images in an area. In practice, that means you can get a good idea of where Snapchat users are concentrated. While this publicly available data isn’t usually meaningful (it’s not a surprise that more people are posting from downtown Seattle than the nearby national forest), in a wartime scenario where Russia may want to track... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is cutting off ads in Russia. It’s pausing ads that target people in the country and is no longer letting advertisers in Russia “create or run ads anywhere in the world, including within Russia,” the company announced on Friday. The moves mark a big escalation of its actions against the country and could help prevent Russian misinformation tied to its invasion of Ukraine from appearing in Facebook ads.Russia earlier on Friday began blocking Meta-owned Facebook entirely in the country, preventing many Russians from posting to social media amid the crisis. “As a result of the Russian government’s decision to block access to Facebook in the Russian Federation, soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from... Continue reading…

Elon Musk — the man whose Tesla and Tesla Solar have basically devoted their existence to competing with gas-guzzling cars, oil, and coal, and which briefly reached a market cap of $1 trillion and delivered nearly 1 million EVs last year — is now publicly in favor of increasing oil and gas production.He tweeted late Friday:

It’s piloting a state media policy. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok has announced that it’ll start putting labels on videos from “some” state-controlled media outlets as it starts rolling out its new state media policy. According to a news post from the company, it is “expediting” its plans for piloting the policy due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The company says it started working on the policy last year. Users can expect the labels to start appearing within the next few days, according to the post.A TikTok spokesperson told The Verge via email that the labels would be applied to at least some Russian state media accounts but didn’t specify which ones or how many. The Verge confirmed that at least one Russian state-controlled outlet, RT, has a verified account on TikTok. The spokesperson... Continue reading…

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge Samsung is suspending shipments of all of its products to Russia, the company announced Friday. “Due to the current geopolitical developments, shipments to Russia have been suspended,” reads a statement from an unnamed Samsung representative, via Samsung’s generic PR email address. “We continue to actively monitor this complex situation to determine our next steps.”It’s not just smartphones — Samsung’s suspension includes products ranging from “chips to smartphones and consumer electronics,” a source informed Bloomberg — meaning the move cuts off Russia from a huge range of products from one of the largest electronics vendors in the world.Samsung is also making donations to humanitarian effortsSamsung is also making donations to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge At Apple’s annual shareholder meeting, investors in the company had more to consider than just how much money CEO Tim Cook and other executives stand to make — last year, the compensation for running a $2 trillion company added up to nearly $99 million for Cook. Instead, certain shareholder proposals brought up issues with social and cultural impact, like addressing forced labor, pay equity, and employee NDAs. On Friday, for the first time in years, two proposals actually passed (via CNET).Bloomberg reports shareholders (unsurprisingly) opted to re-elect the same board of directors and approved the executive pay package outlined in the 2022 proxy statement. They also followed Apple’s recommendation in voting on eight of the ten... Continue reading…

Nvidia never denied that it got hacked. The GPU giant just didn’t say all that much about what happened, either.But now — as we wait to see whether the hackers make good on their threat to dump hundreds of gigabytes of proprietary Nvidia data on the web, including details about future graphics chips, by an unspecified Friday deadline — the compromised email alert website Have I Been Pwned suggests that the scope of the hack includes a staggering 71,000 employee emails and hashes that may have allowed the hackers to crack their passwords (via TechCrunch).It’s not clear how Have I Been Pwned obtained this info, and Nvidia won’t say. Nvidia would not confirm or deny to The Verge whether 71,000 employee credentials have been compromised,... Continue reading…

Tesla is planning a Gigafactory in Germany | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla’s Gigafactory in Germany won approval from local officials on Friday, but the company still has to meet several requirements before the plant can begin production of vehicles, Reuters reported, including concerns about the plant’s water use.Construction on the factory, which is nearly complete, was delayed several times by complaints from environmental groups in the area who protested the factory’s water use and potential disruption to wildlife. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said the Gigafactory will use “relatively little” water and has argued that the forest that was cleared before the plant’s construction was “not a natural forest” since it had only been planted to make cardboard.Musk first announced in 2019 that Tesla would locate... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge iFixit plans to start offering Steam Deck replacement parts this summer, iFixit’s Kevin Purdy tells The Verge. Valve first announced in February that the repair experts at iFixit would be one of the authorized sellers of replacement parts but did not give a specific timeline as to when they would be available. The vast majority of consoles aren’t easily user repairable, so making official Steam Deck replacement parts available, even if they aren’t out just yet, is a good thing for consumers. And hopefully, it will push other hardware makers to do the same in the future.We’ve asked iFixit if it can share information about which parts you’ll be able to get and how much they’ll cost. In Valve’s official Steam Deck teardown video from... Continue reading…

Google Fiber workers voting whether to unionize | Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Voting is open for workers for a Google Fiber subcontractor in Missouri, who are deciding whether to unionize as part of the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU), a division of the Communication Workers of America. If successful, the 12 workers, who are employed by staffing agency BDS Connected Solutions as workers at Google Fiber stores, would be the AWU’s first bargaining unit to be recognized by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).The workers have to mail their ballots back to the NLRB by March 24th, when they’ll be counted by the agency’s regional office.Google spokesperson Jennifer Rodstrom noted in an email to The Verge that the AWU petition filed with the NLRB mentions BDS, but not Google. “We have many contracts with both... Continue reading…

Russian technology company Yandex said that it was “pausing” its autonomous vehicle and sidewalk robot testing in the US. The news was first reported by Automotive News.The company said it was idling its robotaxi fleet in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well as a delivery service with Grubhub powered by its six-wheeled sidewalk robots. “We hope to resume the operations in the future,” a spokesperson said.The news comes as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued to send shockwaves around the world. The conflict has sparked a fierce outcry among Western nations, leading many to cut business ties with Russian companies. On Friday, Russia announced it was blocking access to Facebook.The news comes as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Some of the most popular programming on Hulu will now head to Peacock. A contract between the streaming services’ parent companies Disney and Comcast to stream NBCUniversal shows to Hulu has been terminated.“The Hulu agreement was terminated,” NBCUniversal spokesperson Lisa Scalzo confirmed to The Verge.The partnership will see episodes of NBCUniversal-owned shows like Saturday Night Live and The Voice debut on Peacock, rather than Hulu, after airing on pay-TV. Because Hulu will no longer be paying for some of NBC’s biggest titles, the deal could give Hulu the financial freedom to pursue more originals.The change will likely go into effect next broadcast season, possibly around September and October. The termination will not wipe all... Continue reading…

Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge Nintendo has temporarily put its Russian eShop into maintenance mode, the company said in a notice on its Russian website, which appears to mean that players in the country can’t buy digital games from the store.“Due to the fact that the payment service used in Nintendo eShop has suspended the processing of payments in rubles, Nintendo eShop in Russia is temporarily placed into maintenance mode,” according to a Google-translated version of the message. “We apologize for any inconvenience caused.” It’s unclear what payment service Nintendo uses. The Verge has reached out for more information.Many gaming companies have taken action in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. EA and CD Projekt Red have halted sales of their games in... Continue reading…

It’s hard to guess a song in the first few seconds. If you’ve finished your Wordle, Worldle, and Octordle and have more room in your heart for more Wordle-alikes, may I suggest trying out Heardle.app? It’s a guessing game where you’re given progressively longer snippets of a pop song and get six tries to figure out what it is. It’s a fun twist on the Wordle format, especially for those of us who are significantly more interested in music than words like “knoll” or “vivid.”An interesting twist with Heardle is that it gives you a skip button. Mechanically, it makes sense — with Wordle, you’re only going to get closer to the answer by guessing a word and seeing what letters are or aren’t in the correct answer. But when you’re guessing a song, hearing a new snippet will give you more... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge If you own any wireless Xbox controller from the current or previous generation, you already have a great option for playing controller-based games on a PC or smartphone. The key to the adaptability of these controllers is their support for both the Xbox Wireless protocol and Bluetooth. After Apple rolled out iOS 14.5 with support for wireless Xbox controllers and Microsoft tested and rolled out firmware updates for the older Bluetooth-equipped Xbox One controllers and the Elite 2 (matching the functionality of newer Series X models), these controllers went from being the only de facto option for Xbox or PC gamers to one of the most versatile options for use across consoles, phones, tablets, and Windows PCs.Connecting to all these... Continue reading…

The Nintendo Switch only comes with 32GB of internal storage, which is minuscule if you plan on having more than just a handful of games and apps downloaded to your handheld console. The solution is to use a microSD card to expand the Switch’s storage. But what’s the easiest way to do that? And if you already have a microSD card and want to use a new one with more capacity, how do you migrate your files? Don’t worry; we’ll walk you through it all.Before you begin, it’s always a good idea to back up your games to a desktop computer using a microSD card. Of course, any title downloaded from the Nintendo eShop (they’re tied to your account) can be archived and downloaded again directly, if needed. But it takes a lot longer to download... Continue reading…

The newest Microsoft Flight Simulator is one of the most demanding games ever made — and yet you can now play it on a shitty PC (or an original Xbox One) with the power of Microsoft’s cloud. There’s just one big hole: you can’t play currently play Xbox with a mouse and keyboard because Xbox Cloud Gaming only supports gamepads (and touch) for now. But according to Microsoft Flight Simulator boss Jorg Neumann, that’s about to change: mouse and keyboard control is coming.Neumann spilled the beans in a Flight Simulator video Q&A (via Windows Central), where he says it will be platform-level support, meaning, theoretically, any Xbox cloud game could offer mouse and keyboard control. Here’s my transcript of the most relevant part:

The S22 Ultra (left) and regular S22 (right). | Image: iFixit The release of Samsung’s latest flagship smartphone means we’ve got another excellent iFixit teardown to enjoy, which offers a great look at the insides of the Galaxy S22 and S22 Ultra.The teardown gives us a look at how Samsung has gone about integrating its S Pen stylus into the Galaxy S22 Ultra, as well as the new vapor chamber for keeping the phone cool during use. But the most interesting discovery relates to the vibration motor inside the S22 devices, which iFixit notes is now built into the bottom speaker rather than the top.The speculation is that Samsung is trying to catch up to the performance of the iPhone’s Taptic Engine, but it’s doing so with a component that takes up less internal space. The changes Samsung has made to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Russia’s communications agency Roskomnadzor announced Friday that it is blocking access to Facebook in Russia. It cited 26 cases of “discrimination against Russian media and information resources by Facebook” since October 2020, in addition to the more-recent restrictions Facebook has placed on Russian state media outlets.In response, Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg tweeted in response to the move, saying “Soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends and silenced from speaking out. We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services so they remain available to people to safely and securely express... Continue reading…

Here’s the Gigabyte Aero 16, an option for creators with deep pockets. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The thing nobody tells you about working as a professional laptop reviewer is that everyone in your life who you are even somewhat acquainted with will, at some point, ask you what laptop they should buy.There are variations, of course. There’s “Which laptop should I buy for my son?” or “Which laptop should I buy for my sister?” or “Which laptop should I buy to start my podcast?” I’ve heard them all. I imagine most laptop reviewers on the internet can say the same.My answers are very often disappointing. I think people often expect that because I use these things for my job, I’ll be able to give them the perfect recommendation immediately. But — as I imagine many gadget reviewers will tell you — that’s much harder than you think.H... Continue reading…

More devices need to follow in the footsteps of Apple’s recent (bigger) MacBook Pros | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Gadgets are getting too thin, again.These past few weeks saw some of the latest victims of the seemingly unending drive towards making our devices as thin as possible, no matter the consequences. Samsung’s Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus — what will undoubtedly be some of the most popular Android phones of the year — are thinner than last year’s models and held back by disappointing battery life. The new Dell XPS 15 is “exceptionally thin and light” but barely lasts four hours on a charge and runs nearly as hot as the sun. And the OnePlus 10 Pro is a flagship smartphone that can somehow be snapped in half with your bare hands.It seems that despite over a decade of chasing the thinnest, lightest phones and computers around to the detriment of... Continue reading…

Image: ULA Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.There is an Apple event next week, so Dan Seifert comes on to talk about what we can expect. He thinks there will be some new hardware but isn’t completely sold that we will see anything with a new design.Loren Grush comes on to talk about the conflict in Ukraine and how it’s affecting space flight. She also gives Elon and SpaceX the appropriate credit for delivering Starlink to Ukraine after a tweet requesting it.And there was a Rivian debacle this week, so Andrew Hawkins comes on to tell us about how vehicle pricing went up by as... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic I’m moving on from media Continue reading…

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images EA is halting sales of its games and content in Russia and Belarus in response to the invasion of Ukraine, the publisher announced Friday. On Wednesday, the company said that it was removing Russian teams from its FIFA and NHL games, but Friday’s actions go a significant step further.“We have made the decision to stop sales of our games and content, including virtual currency bundles, in Russia and Belarus while this conflict continues,” EA said in a blog post. “As a result, our games and content will no longer be available for purchase in our Russian region storefront on Origin or the EA app, including through in-game stores. We are also working with our platform partners to remove our titles from their stores and stop the sale of new... Continue reading…

Apple is phasing in its return to offices | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple will begin phasing in its planned hybrid work pilot on April 11th, bringing employees back to the office one day a week to start, according to an email from CEO Tim Cook to Apple employees, which was seen by The Verge. Apple originally announced its plans for a hybrid work pilot in November.In the third week of the pilot, Cook writes, employees will come in twice a week, with the full hybrid pilot — where workers will come into the office on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday and work “flexibly” on Wednesday and Friday — would go into effect May 23rd. The timing may vary from office to office depending on local conditions, Cook added.“For many of you, I know that returning to the office represents a long-awaited milestone and a... Continue reading…

The QuietComfort 45s are on sale at Best Buy | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’re in the market for some new headphones or earbuds, Bose has got you covered. Currently, you can find the Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones at Amazon or Best Buy for $279, matching their lowest price. The Verge staffer Chris Welch reviewed the QuietComfort 45 headphones for us and was generally impressed by the overall comfort and effective noise cancellation of these headphones.The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds are also on sale, discounted from their regular $279 price to $219.99 at Amazon and Best Buy. These earbuds have been available for as low as $199.99 before, but they haven’t been available for that price since early January. Chris Welch also reviewed these earbuds for us and praised their sound quality and noise-cancellation... Continue reading…

After years of zooming through deep space, a presumed leftover piece of a Chinese rocket slammed into the Moon today, just as space tracking experts expected it would. At least, it should have hit the Moon around 7:30AM ET this morning, as long as the law of gravity has not changed. The collision brings an end to the rocket’s life in space and likely leaves a fresh new crater on the Moon that may be up to 65 feet wide.The now-expired rocket has caused quite a buzz this past month. First of all, the vehicle was never intended to crash into the Moon, making it a rare piece of space debris to find its way to the lunar surface by accident. Additionally, there was some confusion over its identity, with various groups trying to nail down... Continue reading…

Russia’s lower house of parliament has passed a law punishing “fake news” with up to 15 years in prison, according to Reuters. The rule would impose fines or jail terms for spreading false information about the military, as well as fines for people who publicly call for sanctions against Russia. Courts would mete out the harshest sentences for fake news that leads to “serious consequences.”According to earlier coverage from The Moscow Times, the bill is meant to penalize people who knowingly “distort the purpose, role and tasks of the Russian Armed Forces, as well as other units during special military and other operations,” including people who spread information about Russian war losses.“Literally by tomorrow, this law will force... Continue reading…

Justin H. Min stars as Yang, an android at the end of his life Continue reading…

The PS5 and Xbox Series X / S versions of Grand Theft Auto V will launch on Tuesday, March 15th, as will a separate version of GTA Online that — for the first time — won’t require the base game to play.Rockstar Games shed some light on what’s coming a few weeks ago when it teased that development on GTAVI was underway. But today, it’s providing some more details of what you can expect from the updated games and how character migration will work if you’re a fervent GTA Online player.As for GTAV, there will be graphical touchups throughout, and it will offer three graphics settings: a 4K fidelity mode with ray tracing, a comparatively stripped-back, upscaled 4K (1080p on Series S) performance mode that runs faster at 60 frames per... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a blog post published Friday morning, Microsoft president Brad Smith confirmed the company “will suspend all new sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia.”It didn’t go into further detail about what that looks like or specify what meaningful financial impact the move will have on its businesses, as CD Projekt Red did yesterday while announcing a ban on services to Russia and Belarus. In response to a request for more information by The Verge, a spokesperson said the company had nothing more to share at this time.“we are coordinating closely and working in lockstep with the governments of the US, EU, and the UK”Microsoft is only the latest tech company to announce a stop in some of its services to Russia following... Continue reading…

ZAPORIZHZHIA, UKRAINE - MARCH 4: A screen grab captured from a video shows a view of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant during a fire following clashes around the site in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine on March 4, 2022. | Photo by Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images A fire broke out at the site of Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant during an apparent Russian attack, Ukrainian officials told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The fire at the Zaporizhzhia power plant has been put out and did not affect the nuclear reactors’ safety systems. Radiation levels at the plant remained the same, the IAEA reported early morning on March 4th.The fire started when a projectile hit a training building near one of the plant’s reactors, the agency said. The incident heightened concerns about vulnerabilities at Ukraine’s nuclear facilities during Russia’s invasion. This is the first time war has broken out in a place so heavily reliant on nuclear energy. Ukraine typically gets over half of its... Continue reading…

Image: Disney Disney Plus will be adding a cheaper, ad-supported subscription tier sometime in “late 2022,” the company announced today. The tier will come to the US first before expanding internationally in 2023.Crucially, Disney hasn’t said how much cheaper the advertisement-supported version of Disney Plus will be compared to the standard, ad-free plan (which currently costs $7.99 per month or $79.99 per year) or when exactly it’ll be launching the new tier of service.Adding cheaper options with ads has become increasingly popular among subscription services. HBO Max last year introduced a $10 per month plan that shaved $5 off the ad-free price, although in addition to adding commercials, the cheaper plan also is limited to HD content (and not... Continue reading…

The last few games that Tomoya Asano has worked on all have a few things in common. A producer at Square Enix, Asano’s most recent titles have been attempts at reimagining the classic Japanese role-playing game for modern audiences, harking back to the glory days of turn-based Final Fantasy adventures. They also all have extremely weird names like Bravely Default, Octopath Traveler, and Various Daylife. That trend continues with the release of Triangle Strategy on the Nintendo Switch today.“We do want the titles to have a uniqueness to them,” Asano tells The Verge. “We also try to be careful that it’s not outrageously weird to the point that consumers can’t remember the name of the game.”At first glance, Triangle Strategy doesn’t seem... Continue reading…

The Essential Phone heritage is clear. | Image: Osom Osom, the company formed by Essential’s employees after the startup went under, has released new details about its upcoming OV1 phone, including a very familiar list of build materials. Meant to compete with flagships from Apple, Google, and Samsung, the OV1 will have a stainless steel and titanium housing, a ceramic back, Corning Victus cover glass, and a Qualcomm processor.The stainless steel is for the phone’s frame, while titanium will be used for accents like the power and volume buttons as well as the ring around the camera bump, according to Android Police. It sounds like the phone will have a heft to it — Osom says the OV1 will be “noticeably bigger” than the Essential Phone, which had razor-thin bezels and a 5.7-inch screen.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google’s testing a darker dark mode for its Android search app (via Android Police), according to 9to5Google. This new shade still isn’t the same as the one presented in Google’s test of a pitch-black dark mode on desktops last month. Rather, the one spotted in the mobile app is darker than the usual dark gray but still lighter than pitch black. I momentarily had the pitch-black search page on desktop, but shortly after, it switched back to dark gray.The new dark mode in Google’s mobile app could be more attractive for devices with OLED displays looking to save battery life, or who just prefer to use dark mode more. Android Police said that the new shade is available Google’s latest 13.8 beta in the Google Play Store which you can get v... Continue reading…

Photo by Tayfun CoÅkun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Apple is beginning to change its mask requirements for employees, according to Bloomberg. Vaccinated corporate staffers will not have to wear a mask at offices where “local indoor-mask mandates have been eliminated,” while masks will be optional for retail workers at “a small number of locations” beginning Friday, the publication says.Just last week, Apple began to drop mask requirements for Apple store customers in several states. At the time, employees were still required to wear masks, but it appears Apple is beginning to relax those rules for some. Apple had previously dropped mask requirements for some stores and offices in June, but brought them back in July.Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge.... Continue reading…

He reiterates that employees can work fully remote if they want. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter will be fully re-opening its offices and bringing back business travel starting on March 15th, according to a post written by CEO Parag Agrawal. In his note (see the full text below), Agrawal reiterates the policy put into place by former Twitter lead Jack Dorsey, saying that employees will be allowed to work remotely full-time if that’s what they’re comfortable with.While Agrawal says that he wants Twitter employees to work wherever they “feel most productive and creative” and that the company is committed to “truly flexible work,” his statement does lean a lot on the benefits of office work. It mentions how difficult distributed work is while also saying that “office visits, team meetings, and events all bring that culture to... Continue reading…

Lemoore, California July 2021. Westlands Solar Park, near the town of Lemoore in the San Joaquin Valley of California. | Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Clean energy just had a record-setting year in the US, but without a drastic shift in policies, oil and gas will continue to dominate the US energy sector for the next three decades, according to two new energy reports released today.The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) annual energy outlook forecast that the US, the world’s top producer of oil and gas, will continue to produce record amounts of crude oil and gas through 2050 if it continues down its current path. Petroleum and gas will also continue to be the country’s “most-consumed” sources of energy through the middle of the century unless something changes. “Though renewable sources grow faster, there is still a large established base of fossil fuel use that we simply do... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge A telecoms blackout has reportedly hit Sumy Oblast in northeastern Ukraine, marking one of the most serious communications disruptions of the conflict so far.The blackout was reported by the internet shutdown tracker NetBlocks on March 3rd at 8:23PM local time (1:23PM ET).NetBlocks said that residents had reported massive blasts at a thermal power plant and electrical substation. A power outage tracker monitoring the region also said that it was no longer receiving data for Sumy Oblast.Sumy Oblast is one of 24 administrative regions, known as “oblasts,” that make up Ukraine and has a population of roughly one million people.

Joe Cavaretta/Sun Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images The US government’s New Car Assessment Program (NCAP), also known as the five-star safety rating, is getting a major update. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced Thursday a set of new proposals for the federal program aimed at curbing the surge in pedestrian deaths.For the first time, NHTSA will consider the inclusion of advanced driver-assistance system (ADAS — sorry for all the acronyms!) features, like automatic emergency braking, blind-spot detection, and lane-keep assistance. These ADAS features, which are quickly becoming standard in most vehicles today, could become essential criteria for a five-star safety rating from the government.Traditionally, NHTSA assigns safety ratings to new cars and... Continue reading…

New Twitch policy will ban accounts that spread misinformation | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch said Thursday it will ban users who repeatedly spread harmful misinformation on its platform. The streaming site said the new rules won’t apply to users based on “individual statements or discussions” on a channel but to users “whose online presence is dedicated to (1) persistently sharing (2) widely disproven and broadly shared (3) harmful misinformation topics,” the new policy states. Twitch considers such users “harmful misinformation superspreaders.”The company chose those three criteria because, when grouped together, they “create the highest risk of harm including inciting real world harm,” according to a blog post outlining the new policy.Twitch stressed in the blog post that the update “will likely not impact you or... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Coming off a fraught month, Peloton is now extending free at-home trials for its Bike, Bike Plus, and Tread from 30 to 100 days.According to Peloton’s website, this is a limited-time offer for new customers who buy a Peloton machine between March 3rd, 2022, 5PM ET and March 22nd, 2022, 2:59AM ET. Essentially, the program allows customers to buy a new Peloton device, try it for a little over three months, and then return the machine for a full refund if it’s not to their liking. Returns will get free pickups, and Peloton says it’ll also cover shipping fees. While the trial starts once the machines are delivered, Peloton says that buyers will get immediate access to the Peloton app once their orders are confirmed.That said, there’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit is now categorically banning its users, globally, from posting links to Russian state-sponsored media outlets, including RT and Sputnik.It’s possibly the most concrete deplatforming of those channels yet — because while Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Twitter, YouTube, and many others have paused their ads or removed content or restricted discoverability or stopped actively promoting content, and both Facebook and YouTube have blocked content in the EU specifically, none of those is the same thing as a blanket site-wide global ban on all links.In a blog post (via Engadget), Reddit says it’s already been rejecting ads “that target Russia or originate from any Russia-based entity, government or private,” notes that the moderators... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images In the latest salvo from hacktivists working in support of Ukraine, an Anonymous-linked group has defaced a website belonging to Russia’s Space Research Institute (IKI) and leaked files that allegedly belong to the Russian space agency Roscosmos.As reported by Vice, hackers appear to have breached one subdomain of the IKI website, although other subdomains remain online. The compromised part of the site relates to the World Space Observatory Ultraviolet project (WSO-UV), a project similar to the Hubble Space Telescope and planned for launch in 2025.A popular Twitter account tied to the loosely organized Anonymous movement shared details Thursday morning and attributed the action to a group known as v0g3lSec.

Image: Netflix Netflix’s foray into trivia continues with its newly announced series Trivia Quest, an interactive experience that will launch April 1st.Much like its other interactive series like Black Mirror: Bandersnatch or Netflix’s similarly trivia-centered Cat Burglar — which launched last month — Trivia Quest is a narrative interactive experience, meaning each “win” will help move the story along. For Trivia Quest, correctly answering the game’s questions will also help free the friends of the protagonist, Willy, who vows to save hostage citizens of Trivia Land captured by a knowledge-hungry villain named Evil Rocky.Trivia Quest is the latest show to join Netflix’s growing slate of interactive titles. It’s the second game, after Cat Burglar, to... Continue reading…