The Verge

Need a quick note? There’s an app for that. The public beta of macOS 12 Monterey, Apple’s next big macOS release, is now available for download. The operating system has the same general look and feel as its predecessor, macOS 11 Big Sur, but it brings some new features and a number of tweaks to Apple’s most popular services.Before we get into this, friendly reminder that Monterey is, for now, a beta. It may not be the best idea to install on a primary device, as you might encounter bugs, unfinished features, and incompatibility with third-party apps. If you will be installing the program on your daily driver, make sure you’ve backed up anything you can’t afford to mess with first.For those who take the leap and install the public beta, the component Apple seems most excited... Continue reading…

Chair Khan, appearing at the hearing via Zoom In an open meeting on Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission passed a pair of pivotal measures expanding its power to regulate anti-competitive business practices, setting the stage for a more aggressive enforcement approach from the embattled agency.Announced last week, Thursday’s proceeding is the first open business meeting of the commission in more than 20 years, as commission proceedings have traditionally been closed to the public. Chair Lina Khan plans to hold public meetings on a monthly basis going forward.The meeting paved the way for an aggressive antitrust approach from the agency, with three separate measures expanding the commission’s power to prosecute anti-competitive business practices.“We want to send a signal that... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple has launched the public beta for macOS Monterey. This is the next big update coming to Mac computers (the final version is expected later in 2021) and it brings several big changes. In this article, we’re going to walk you through how to get the beta onto your computer, should you want it. Once you install the beta, it will likely receive several updates between now and the final release.(Looking for steps to install the iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 public betas? We’ve got you covered here.)What’s new about macOS Monterey?One of the most impressive demos that Apple showed during WWDC 2021 was the new drag-and-drop feature called Universal Control that’ll let you seamlessly move your cursor and files between an iPad and Mac computer, as... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony and Sucker Punch’s hit game Ghost of Tsushima is getting an enhanced director’s cut edition for both the PS4 and PS5 that will include a new island to explore and all of the content that has been released so far for the original game. The upgraded game will be available on August 20th.The new content takes place on the island of Iki, and Sucker Punch says there will be new story content, characters, environments, armor, enemies, and more. “There are even new animals to pet!” Sucker Punch’s Andrew Goldfarb said in a blog post. Image: Sony An image of Iki Island in Ghost of Tsushima’s expansion. Alongside the additional content, Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut will also have some PS5-exclusive features,... Continue reading…

Photo by Chesnot/Getty Images At the UN Generation Equality Forum in Paris on Thursday Twitter, TikTok, Google, and Facebook committed to tackling online abuse and improving safety for women on their platforms. The pledge came following consultations with the World Wide Web Foundation (WWWF) over the past year, aimed at examining online gender-based violence and abuse.The WWWF said the consultations showed women want more control over who could reply or comment on their social media posts and more choice around what they see online, where, and when.According to the WWWF, the companies have pledged to “build better ways for women to curate their safety online” by offering more granular settings, such as who can see, share, or comment on posts; more simple and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Maria Chimishkyan Earlier this week, Australian developer Chris Lacy tweeted about a curious experience while logging into a rarely used Google account. When Google texted his two-factor authentication code, the message popped up along with an ad including a link for VPN services. Considering the downsides of phishing or malware distribution attached to a code that’s specifically intended to keep your account secure, this didn’t go over well.While Lacy did not name the carrier who delivered the text, Google Identity and Security senior director Mark Risher clarified that the ad didn’t come from his company.“These are not our ads and we are currently working with the wireless carrier to understand why this happened.”Google’s official statement on the... Continue reading…

Image: Google TV Evidently acknowledging our collective content fatigue, Google TV has announced a new celebrity-curated Watch With Me series that should make finding something to binge a little less painful.Google announced that the Watch With Me series will spotlight series and movies loved by entertainers and artists. In addition to Watch With Me showcasing celebrities’ favorite flicks, the series will feature interviews with those curators about why they hand-selected a specific title to be featured.Celebrities and artists will handpick their favorite titles to help you find something to watchGoogle TV’s algorithm is fairly good at surfacing relevant titles, but the idea is to allow these hosts to guide users specifically through a collection of... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Pinterest said Thursday it is updating its ad policies to “prohibit all ads with weight loss language and imagery.” The company said in a blog post that it developed its new policy with guidance from the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA), whose research shows there has been a rise in eating disorders and unhealthy eating habits in young people during the pandemic.“Pinterest is the place people come for inspiration to create life they love,” the blog post reads. “It’s where everyone belongs—regardless of body shape or size. We’re empowering Pinners to plan for a summer and beyond without weight loss ads, so they can focus on what matters most.”The company claims it is the “only major platform to prohibit all weight loss... Continue reading…

The Google app on iOS appears to have gotten a new Easter egg: a rather entertaining little pinball app hidden away in the “Tabs” menu. The game appears to have been added a few weeks ago, as spotted by several YouTube videos and a Reddit post in the middle of June.Opening the pinball game is simple: switch over to the Tabs, uh, tab in Google’s iOS app, clear out any open tabs, and then wait for the colorful shapes to start creeping up from the bottom of the screen. Swipe up on those shapes, and you’ll launch a surprisingly full-featured pinball game directly in the app.A surprisingly good pinball gameGameplay actually works like a mix of pinball and Brick Breaker, with each level spawning a variety of colorful shapes that shrink and... Continue reading…

The Apple Watch Series 6, in Product Red color. | Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple has now released public betas for iOS 15, iPadOS 15, watchOS 8, tvOS 15, and soon macOS Monterey. We’ve covered how to get the iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 betas here — follow along below if you’re interested in testing out the latest Apple Watch software, too.WatchOS 8 is expected to get a full, stable release this fall. It brings a handful of new features, including more workout types in the Fitness app, a new Mindfulness app, a watchface that works with Portrait Mode photos taken on an iPhone, as well as improved weather and smart home apps, among other things. It’s compatible with the Series 3, Series 4, Series 5, Series 6, and SE Apple Watch models.Before we go through how to install the beta, there are some important things you... Continue reading…

The European Union’s digital COVID-19 certificate officially launched today. The certificate allows people to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination, a recent negative test result, or a past COVID-19 infection.The certificate, which includes a QR code and digital signature, can either be displayed on a digital device or printed out. People who have the certificate should not have to get an additional COVID-19 test or quarantine when traveling in the EU. The certificate only recognizes COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the EU — that includes the AstraZeneca, Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson shots.Some countries in the EU have already been issuing and recognizing the certificate. Germany, for example, said in mid-June that... Continue reading…

Wally Funk in an undated photo provided by Blue Origin Wally Funk, one of the “Mercury 13” pilots who fought to open NASA’s early astronaut program to women, will ride with Jeff Bezos on his space company’s first crewed mission out of Earth’s atmosphere later this month, the billionaire announced on Instagram Thursday.

Unfortunately, the batteries won’t look as cool as this one. | The Battery Issue | Artist: William Joel Batteries don’t usually come cheap, so if you have lots of battery-operated gadgets and remotes, you might want to stock up during Best Buy’s big sale happening today. Many of the store’s alkaline batteries from in-house brand Insignia are over half off their usual price. The most appealing offer is the 33-piece assortment pack for $7 (usually $20) that includes 12 AAA, 12 AA, four C, and four D batteries, with one 9V battery.If you just need more commonly sized batteries, you can get a 36-pack of AA and AAA batteries that includes 24 AA and 12 AAA batteries for $5.95 (usually $16.99). Best Buy has other varieties of batteries on sale today, including AAAA and coin batteries for watches, if you want to take a look yourself. ... Continue reading…

The Ace Attorney series is one of gaming’s great pleasures, mashing up courtroom drama with anime sensibilities into something dramatic, heartwarming, and silly in equal measure. But if you’re a new player, it can be tough to know where to start. There’s the original trilogy starring Phoenix Wright, a handful of spinoffs, and more recent titles that further the story of a hapless defense attorney with a heart of gold. It’s like jumping into a long-running soap opera and having to quickly catch up.But it looks like a solution is almost here: Capcom is set to launch a prequel called The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles that offers the same tone and gameplay without all of the narrative baggage.Chronicles is actually a compilation of two... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikToks are about to get longer. The app is now rolling out the ability for everyone to publish videos up to three minutes in length, three times the existing one-minute limit. The extension is meant to give creators more flexibility while filming and limit the need for multi-part posts — though I suspect creators love hooking users that way and will keep breaking up stories.Three-minute videos have been in testing at least since December, and it’s been easy to come across them when scrolling through videos from top TikTok creators, particularly in categories like cooking. Longer videos were limited to select users, though, but they’ll now be rolling out to everyone on TikTok “over the coming weeks.”TikTok didn’t say how longer clips... Continue reading…

Image: Sony The latest patch for Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart has given the game a small but significant performance boost when playing using its fidelity mode on 120Hz displays. According to the patch notes for version 1.002 of the game, fidelity mode now runs at 40 frames per second when used with 120Hz displays, up from the 30 frames per second previously. That’s over a 30 percent improvement, which should make the game look a lot smoother and feel a lot more responsive to play in this mode.It’s a change that mainly affects just one of the three display modes the PS5 game shipped with, but it’s a fascinating example of the kinds of things that will become possible as 120Hz TVs become the norm. It’s also an interesting workaround for Sony’s... Continue reading…

Microsoft Flight Simulator is a notoriously demanding PC game, but a big patch is arriving later this month that promises significant performance improvements. Asobo, the developer of Microsoft Flight Simulator, has been busy rewriting its engine to perform well on Xbox Series X / S, and the changes will also bring some much-needed improvements to the PC side on July 27th.During a recent Twitch stream, spotted by Twinfinite, Asobo demonstrated just how significant the performance improvements will be on older systems with an Intel Core i7-9700K and an RTX 2060 Super. Microsoft Flight Simulator jumped from around 30fps to nearly a solid 60fps just thanks to the patch. CPU utilization also drops from 100 percent to 75 percent on this... Continue reading…

The Galaxy Watch 4 Classic in black, gray, and white. | Image: Android Headlines Images of Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 Classic have leaked online, giving us our first look at what could be the more traditionally-styled entry in Samsung’s upcoming smartwatch lineup. The images, published by Android Headlines, show a smartwatch with a rotating bezel and two buttons on its right-hand side, available in white, gray, and black.The watch will reportedly be available in three sizes in total: 42mm, 44mm, and 46mm, and will run on the smartwatch platform co-developed by Samsung and Google. The watch will also reportedly be available in either stainless steel or aluminum, will be water resistant up to a depth of 50 meters (thanks to a 5ATM rating), and should be rugged thanks to a MIL-STD-810G certification. I... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images A Florida internet law is on hold while a lawsuit contesting it continues. Judge Robert Hinkle has issued a preliminary injunction blocking nearly all of SB 7072, a controversial and sweeping regulation of social media platforms.“The legislation now at issue was an effort to rein in social-media providers deemed too large and too liberal. Balancing the exchange of ideas among private speakers is not a legitimate governmental interest,” Hinkle wrote his order. Moreover, the law “discriminates on its face among otherwise identical speakers,” partly thanks to an eyebrow-raising exemption for companies that operate a theme park. That raises the bar for evaluating whether the law violates the First Amendment — and in Hinkle’s estimation, it... Continue reading…

A digital COVID vaccine card in Android. | Image: Google Google is opening up Android’s built-in passes system to let Android users store a digital vaccine card, which it calls a COVID Card, on their phone. The feature will initially roll out in the US, and it will rely on support from healthcare providers, local governments, or other organizations authorized to distribute COVID vaccines. The feature will also support storing COVID test results.For vaccinations, your COVID Card will show info on when you were vaccinated and which vaccine you received, according to a Google support page. The card can be saved from your healthcare provider’s app or website as well as from texts or emails sent to you.Google recommends that you add a shortcut to the card on your home screen and will offer the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In March, Twitter said it would soon let you use a security key as your only two-factor authentication method, and on Wednesday, it announced that feature was live on both mobile and web.Being able to use a security key as one of your two-factor authentication methods isn’t new, but now you can make it the only one, if you want to. Physical security keys have advantages over other two-factor methods like an authenticator app or SMS because they don’t rely on a code that a bad actor could intercept.

Image: Netflix Netflix has shared the first five minutes of its upcoming horror movie trilogy Fear Street, inspired by R.L. Stine’s Fear Street series of young adult novels. The film trilogy, which will be released over three Fridays starting on July 2nd, is also split across three separate time periods: 1994, 1978, and 1666. Teens fleeing for their lives is universal, regardless of the year, it seems.Here’s Netflix’s synopsis for the films:

Way back in 2005, Apple released Mac OS X Tiger, and with it, the original implementation of widgets on the Mac through its Dashboard software. One of those widgets was a now-defunct iTunes media player — but thanks to the efforts of programmer Mario Guzman, who’s recreated an exact replica of the widget for modern Macs, you can once again enjoy your music in retro OS X style.Ironically, the new Music Widget isn’t actually a widget (at least, not in the current style of widgets introduced in last year’s macOS Big Sur,) but rather a standalone app that mimics the look of the original iTunes widget from 2005. The app is fully functional, offering the same controls as the original. Music Widget only works with the Apple Music app, though—... Continue reading…

iOS 15 comes with a number of new features and tweaks | Image: Apple Beta versions of new software are great to try out, but sometimes you realize that they’re not so good for day-to-day usage. If you’ve upgraded your iPhone to the iOS 15 beta, which is now available to the public, and you realize that you need to go back to the stable world of iOS 14.6, you can do that.The simplest way to go back to a stable version is to delete the iOS 15 beta profile and wait until the next update shows up:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram appears to be exploring a new feature that shares some similarities with Twitter’s Super Follows, according to TechCrunch. Called “Exclusive Stories,” the possible future feature, spotted by developer Alessandro Paluzzi, allows creators to post exclusive content to their Instagram story that’s presumably only available to subscribers.Based on the screenshots Paluzzi shared, exclusive stories are differentiated in your feed with a purple tag (similar to how Close Friends posts have a green one). When you try to watch an exclusive story without being a fan of the person sharing, you’re prompted with a pop-up that says only fans can watch.

Image: Instagram Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app, according to Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram. In a video posted to his Instagram and Twitter accounts, Mosseri said the company is looking to lean into entertainment and video after seeing the success of competitors like TikTok and YouTube.He describes some upcoming changes and experiments that Instagram will be doing, including showing users recommendations for topics they’re not following and making video more immersive by offering a full-screen experience.

Messaging app Discord has added the ability to customize your profile just a little bit more than you could before: you can now fill in a short “About Me” blurb, and, if you have Discord’s premium Nitro subscription, you can add a banner image to your profile. I noticed the change in the Mac version of Discord on Wednesday, but I haven’t opened the app for a little while, so it may have been added sooner.To make the changes, at least on the Mac version of the app, click on the User Settings gear, then the “User Profile” section. (That section had a bright red “New!” alert on it when I first opened up Discord settings.) From there, you can write a 190-character blurb about yourself (which can include markdown and links if you want), and... Continue reading…

Volvo unveiled a new concept car that forecasts the Swedish automaker’s all-electric future. The vehicle was revealed during a “Tech Day” event held Wednesday during which Volvo laid out an extensive roadmap to becoming an EV-only carmaker by 2030.The vehicle, called “Concept Recharge,” features suicide doors that open up to a roomy interior, where the lack of an internal combustion engine means more space for the driver and passengers. The sleek exterior design and minimalist interior certainly evoke Tesla but also are reminiscent of other EVs on the market, such as the Ford Mustang Mach-E.But the concept won’t necessarily appear in this form as a production vehicle. Henrik Green, chief technology officer at Volvo, said it was... Continue reading…

Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images The latest mega-auction of an NFT tied to a piece of internet history is complete, with Sir Tim Berners-Lee selling a digital item representing source code to the original web browser for $5,434,500. Berners-Lee is credited as the creator of the world wide web that this site is published on, and the NFT includes a time-stamped signed archive including 10,000 lines of the source code that initially made it possible to display an HTML document, among other things.For comparison, the highest price for an NFT remains the $69 million or so MetaKovan paid to own Everydays: the First 5000 Days by the artist Beeple, while Jack Dorsey’s digital collectible representing the first tweet on Twitter sold for a little less than $3 million.“I’m... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge T-Mobile announced on Wednesday that it is fully compliant with the FCC’s new anti-spoofing protocol, telling the FCC that its now certifying that calls from its network are protected against impersonation by scam callers using the STIR/SHAKEN protocol.Verizon also announced that it’s verifying that the number that shows up on your caller ID is actually the number that’s calling you, using the same STIR/SHAKEN protocol. The two major carriers announcing their progress on the same day isn’t a coincidence — Wednesday, June 30th, is the deadline the FCC set for major carriers to implement STIR/SHAKEN. An AT&T spokesperson told The Verge that the carrier also met the deadline, as it filed on the 29th.The protocol works to prevent scam and... Continue reading…

Iketsj/YouTube Have you ever been using a recently updated Mac computer and thought, “Man, I would love to use this operating system with a really tiny keyboard and a really tiny screen?” Okay, me neither, but I certainly would love the opportunity to carry a MacBook around in my pocket and whip it out on command.Apparently, YouTuber Ike T. Sanglay Jr., or “Iketsj,” has had this thought as well. In this eight-minute vlog, the YouTuber builds a tiny handheld PC that can run macOS Big Sur, and it’s very fun.The PC includes a LattePanda Alpha SBC (single board computer) with an Intel Core m3 CPU and 8GB of RAM, as well as an Arduino Leonardo microcontroller board, a 240GB SATA SSD with the operating system preinstalled, and a 3D-printed case (of... Continue reading…

Dozens of satellites launched to space on Tuesday in SpaceX’s second in-house “ride-share” mission from Florida, bringing the total number of orbital objects carried by Elon Musk’s space company this year to nearly 900. A reused Falcon 9 rocket launched 88 satellites total for the “Transporter-2” mission, including the first five for a new Pentagon agency and dozens more for various companies, countries, and schools.SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 3:31PM ET from Cape Canaveral, Florida, marking the company’s 20th launch this year and the eighth flight for the rocket’s first stage booster. That booster returned to Earth about 10 minutes later at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1, a pad of concrete that hasn’t been used for rocket landings... Continue reading…

Amazon is pushing back against Lina Khan, the newly confirmed chair of the Federal Trade Commission, by filing a recusal motion against the longtime antitrust advocate, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The petition asks Khan to restrict herself from any proceedings involving Amazon on the basis of her past statements about the company, including claims that Amazon is a monopoly and should be broken up.“[Federal ethics rules] require recusal when a new Commissioner previously has expressed views that go beyond general policy commentary and has made statements about specific factual and legal issues relating to a particular company,” the petition reads. “Chair Khan has made numerous and highly detailed public pronouncements... Continue reading…

The newest Revvl phone offers 5G, a massive 6.8-inch screen, and a rear-facing triple camera. | Image: T-Mobile The year of cheap 5G phones is upon us, and T-Mobile is offering its customers yet another low-cost 5G phone with today’s announcement of the Revvl V Plus 5G. The T-Mobile-branded device will cost $199, with a huge 6.8-inch 1600 x 900 display and 5,000mAh battery. It’ll go on sale first through Metro by T-Mobile starting on July 12th, with sales through T-Mobile starting on July 23rd.The Revvl V Plus 5G comes with Android 11 and uses a MediaTek Dimensity 700 processor designed with inexpensive 5G phones in mind. It’s paired with 4GB of RAM plus 64GB of built-in storage, which is expandable via microSD. It offers a main 16-megapixel rear-facing camera along with two more unspecified 5-megapixel and 2-megapixel sensors on the back as well... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced on Wednesday that it’s fining Robinhood almost $70 million to settle charges over issues it identified with the company’s stock trading service. The authority claims that the financial app company neglected its duty to supervise trades, maintain its own technology, and protect its customers. The fine is the largest in FINRA’s history and Robinhood has agreed to pay.FINRA says since 2016 Robinhood has periodically provided false and misleading information on topics like whether customers were able to place trades on margin (using credit from Robinhood to buy shares), including displaying inaccurate information in its app on how much cash was in customers’ accounts.Robinhood’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Clive Brunskill/Getty Images Right now, you could wake up and turn on Wimbledon. By the afternoon, there will be EuroCup matches. And then, in the evenings, we’ve had some thrillingly chaotic basketball — both men’s and women’s, plus hockey and baseball. What a time to be alive (and working from home)! Best of all: it’s all streaming, and I think finally, in 2021, we’re in a place where it’s relatively effortless to watch sports without being tethered to the dregs of convoluted cable packages. Is this the golden age of watching sports during the workday?I mean, I wouldn’t know. Because I, like all staffers at The Verge, am an extremely diligent employee and would never do anything that would distract me throughout the entire workday. Bosses, if you’re reading this,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The state of Maine now has the most stringent laws regulating government use of facial recognition in the country.The new law prohibits government use of facial recognition except in specifically outlined situations, with the most broad exception being if police have probable cause that an unidentified person in an image committed a serious crime, or for proactive fraud prevention.Since Maine police will not have access to facial recognition, they will be able to ask the FBI and Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) to run these searches.Crucially, the law plugs loopholes that police have used in the past to gain access to the technology, like informally asking other agencies or third parties to run backchannel searches for them. Logs... Continue reading…

Image: Disney Disney’s IP has once again fully synergized with the arrival of a new Marvel-themed Simpsons short titled “The Good, The Bart, and The Loki.” Disney very much appears to be putting that $71 billion investment in IP from 21st Century Fox to work.The company announced Wednesday that the special will debut July 7th exclusively on its streaming service Disney Plus. Tom Hiddleston, who plays Loki in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, will also voice Loki in the Simpsons adaptation.Because Disney owns everything and we’ve evidently reached peak content, the key art for the animated short is styled similarly to that of Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame — which is not even the first time Disney has done this. But Lisa as Thor and Ralph Wiggum as Hulk... Continue reading…

Hands-on with the public betas Continue reading…

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Microsoft and Google have reportedly ended a six-year truce on legal battles. The Financial Times and Bloomberg are both reporting that Microsoft and Google formed an unusual truce in 2015, which expired in April. The pact was reportedly forged to avoid legal battles and complaints to regulators. It meant we haven’t seen Microsoft and Google complaining publicly about each other since the days of Scroogled, a campaign that attacked Google’s privacy policies.Now the gloves appear to be off once again, and we’ve seen some evidence of that recently. Google slammed Microsoft for trying to “break the way the open web works” earlier this year, after Microsoft publicly supported a law in Australia that forced Google to pay news publishers for... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Google has announced a big change for developers who want to list their apps on Google Play that could have an impact on the Android app ecosystem. Right now, the standard format for app publishing is the APK, but starting in August, Google will require that new Play apps are published instead using the Android App Bundle.On a Google page about Android App Bundle, the company touts many potential improvements with the new format, such as smaller app downloads for users. But the format has a catch: Android App Bundles are a format that only Google Play uses, which could complicate app redistribution.The App Bundles requirement only applies to new appsThe timing of Google’s announcement also comes just days after Microsoft announced... Continue reading…

Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images The World Health Organization released a guidance document outlining six key principles for the ethical use of artificial intelligence in health. Twenty experts spent two years developing the guidance, which marks the first consensus report on AI ethics in healthcare settings.The report highlights the promise of health AI, and its potential to help doctors treat patients — particularly in under-resourced areas. But it also stresses that technology is not a quick fix for health challenges, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, and that governments and regulators should carefully scrutinize where and how AI is used in health.The WHO said it hopes the six principles can be the foundation for how governments, developers, and... Continue reading…

PUBG Mobile is currently one of Tencent’s biggest titles. | Image: Tencent Games Tencent’s sprawling games empire just grew one studio bigger. Uncapped Games is a new Los Angeles-based studio led by Blizzard veterans Jason Hughes and David Kim. Hughes is serving as the studio’s lead producer and has previously worked on Diablo III and IV, while Kim is its lead designer and has previously worked on StarCraft 2 and Diablo IV.The new studio’s focus will be on real-time strategy (RTS) games, with a focus on creating the “next great PC RTS,” Kim says. Although the RTS genre has remained consistently popular over the years, it continues to be dominated by ‘90s franchises like StarCraft, Age of Empires, and Command and Conquer. A fresh entry to the genre would be no bad thing.“Making the next great PC RTS has been my... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge AT&T and Google have announced that all Android phones on the network will use Google’s Android Messages app for SMS and RCS services. T-Mobile made the exact same partnership deal with Google in March, which leaves Verizon as the only US carrier who hasn’t committed to switching its customers to Android Messages by default.Along with the switch to Messages comes another important shift: real interoperability with RCS on other networks. AT&T has supported RCS for awhile now, but that support has been as haphazard as it was half-hearted. The new deal also means that AT&T customers will benefit from the rollout of end-to-end encryption for RCS that Google is rolling out to all customers this year (that rollout has already begun, in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a letter to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) on Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) called for an investigation of Google’s alleged manipulation of the marketplace for online ads, opening the door for a new federal regulator for digital advertising markets.Warren’s letter focuses on a program called “Project Bernanke,” revealed in April as part of a lawsuit against Google led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Under that program, Google allegedly used historical Google Ads data to boost clients’ chances of winning auctions. The practice allegedly resulted in $230 million in additional revenue for the company.“The market for digital advertising has become perhaps the most actively traded commodity exchange in... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge The auto industry is holding its fire — for now — over the new requirement to report crashes involving vehicles equipped with partially and fully autonomous driving systems. But automakers are also distancing themselves from the company that appears to be the primary target of the new rule: Tesla.The rule, issued yesterday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, requires companies like Tesla and Alphabet’s Waymo to report incidents involving driver assistance and autonomous systems within one day of learning of a crash, a major change that signals a tougher stance by regulators.car companies are taking a wait-and-see approachSo far, car companies are taking a wait-and-see approach, mostly lauding NHTSA’s commitment to... Continue reading…

J.J. Guest and G.C. Baccaris Does anybody else remember Excalibur? You know, Excalibur: the British TV show that ran for two seasons in the mid-1970s, mixing Arthurian legend with Aleister Crowley mysticism, interplanetary exploration, an undead (sorry, spoilers!) villain named Poseidon, and a deeply troubled production history? If so, that’s a little weird because it never existed — but if enough people remember it, maybe that could change.Excalibur is, in fact, an interactive fiction project made by J. J. Guest, G. C. Baccaris, and Duncan Bowsman. It’s a detailed “fan wiki” for the eponymous (and fictitious) BBC series, and clicking through it reveals layers of in-show plot summaries, behind-the-scenes cast and crew drama, and a running conflict between the... Continue reading…

Wing, the drone delivery arm of Google’s parent company Alphabet, has launched a free app in the US to help pilots fly their drones legally. OpenSky has been available in Australia since 2019 but is now available for both commercial and recreational pilots in the US to use for anything from conducting commercial surveys to filming and photography. It’s available now on both iOS and Android.OpenSky is based on Google Maps, Wing tells DroneLife, and it’s color-coded to show areas where pilots can and can’t fly. Green areas are a-okay, but pilots need to exercise caution in yellow areas, and shouldn’t fly at all in red areas. Perhaps its most useful feature is that it lets pilots submit requests to fly in controlled airspace and receive... Continue reading…

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images Virgin Orbit is in the middle of its debut commercial mission from Southern California, five months after the company first reached orbit during a January test flight. Seven satellites from three different countries are loaded onto a rocket that blasted off in midair from Virgin Orbit’s modified Boeing 747 less than an hour after the plane departed the Mojave Air and Space Port.The carrier aircraft, a modified Boeing 747 named Cosmic Girl, took off at 9:53AM ET. Less than an hour later at 10:47AM, a 70-foot-long two-stage rocket called LauncherOne dropped from the plane’s left wing and ignited its single engine to zoom toward the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. The rocket is carrying the Netherlands’ first military satellite, four tiny... Continue reading…

This radical editing collective is unlearning what they know about film Continue reading…