The Verge

The watch will reportedly be available in four colors. | Image: OnLeaks / GizNext Renders of an unannounced smartwatch from Samsung called the Galaxy Watch Active 4 have leaked online, giving us our best look yet at Samsung’s first post-Tizen wearable. The renders, which come from leaker OnLeaks and GizNext, show a smartwatch with an edge-to-edge display and two buttons on the right-hand side but no rotating crown or bezel. Samsung is expected to announce the watch on June 28th during an event at which it says it’s “reimagining smartwatches.”Samsung’s next smartwatch is an important moment for the company. After months of rumors, the company announced in May that it would be merging the Tizen operating system it’s used previously with Google’s Wear OS to create a new OS tentatively called “Wear.” It’s claimed the new... Continue reading…

KYAT DJ Sammy Boyd reads off PSAs in English and Diné Bizaad. | Photo by Ash Ponders for The Verge During the pandemic, two radio stations broadcast vital information about COVID-19 to remote stretches of the country’s largest Indigenous territory. But how do you reach listeners who don’t want to hear it? Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you’re one of the blessed 8 million-ish people who’s been able to get their hands on a PlayStation 5, you’ve probably run into the controller update process at some point. I got mine on launch day (November 12th, 2020), and I’ve had to update the DualSense controller a few times since, as well as when I got the new red variant.It’s easy, right? Well, maybe not so much.Here’s how to update your PS5 controller automatically

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Prime Day 2021 is over. Most of the deals that we covered over the past two days are no longer available. You’ll certainly have another guaranteed shot to score similar discounts around Black Friday and Cyber Monday later in the year. However, that doesn’t mean that all of the Prime Day deals have up and disappeared. There are a few leftovers hanging around, and I’m going to point them out to you. You don’t need a Prime membership to access these deals.

Sony’s highest-end camera is a combination of everything that came before it Continue reading…

Captain Jack Sparrow in Sea of Thieves. I could almost smell the gloomy caverns of Sea of Thieves this week. Moments before meeting Captain Jack Sparrow in a surprise Disney crossover, I felt like I was sailing along in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. “Dead men tell no tales,” warns the spooky and familiar voice, just as you navigate caverns full of skeletons and water. I could feel the thunder from the Disney ride, spot the same seagulls dotted around, and experience phantom smells that reminded me of the damp and dark environment that’s a key part of Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom attraction.As Captain Jack Sparrow graces the shores of Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life this week, developer Rare has created a crossover with Disney that brings Pirates of the... Continue reading…

Arcade1up’s Infinity Game Table. | Image: Arcade1up Last October, Arcade1Up, known for its officially licensed arcade cabinets, launched a wildly successful Kickstarter for the Infinity Game Table, which lets you play digital versions of many tabletop games like checkers, chess, Monopoly, and Scrabble on a big touchscreen. If you missed the Kickstarter, though, you’ll soon be able to buy the Infinity Game Table for yourself: it will be available to preorder exclusively from Best Buy starting July 17th.Arcade1Up says the Infinity Game Table will offer more than 40 games for free at launch, and you can download them by connecting the table to the internet. And there’s more than just board games: you can also download things like a puzzle app, a coloring book app, a sudoku app, and a word... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a new 16-page report, Apple has laid out its arguments against allowing sideloading iPhone apps, claiming the practice would make its phones less secure and trustworthy for users. The report, which is titled “Building a Trusted Ecosystem for Millions of Apps,” outlines Apple’s existing security processes and how it believes these could change if it were forced by regulators to allow sideloading.The report is part of Apple’s pushback against lawmakers and other critics, who have argued that it should be forced to allow apps to be sideloaded onto its iPhones, bypassing its centralized App Store. In the US, the House Judiciary Committee is expected today to debate a series of bills aimed at addressing tech monopolies, including Apple’s... Continue reading…

Two of the top shared electric scooter companies in the US, Bird and Spin, are releasing new vehicles today. Spin is revealing a new, more rugged electric scooter, which it is building in-house for the first time. Meanwhile, Bird is showing off a new electric bicycle with a baby blue paint scheme. Both companies are under increasing pressure to catch up to Lime, which is the number one micromobility provider in the world with over 200 million riders last year globally.There has always been an arms race among shared scooter and bike companies to produce the best, longest-lasting, and most technically advanced electric vehicles. But with increasing pressure to become profitable and some micromobility companies choosing to go public via... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This week, Bitcoin dipped below $30,000 for the first time since January. That’s half what it was worth just three months ago, and it’s coming amid fears that China, the world’s biggest Bitcoin mining country, is trying to ban cryptocurrencies outright. Is it? Here’s what we know as of today.While we haven’t seen any reports of China flat-out outlawing cryptocurrencies, the government started issuing warnings about trading and mining cryptocurrencies in May, and told the country’s financial giants they would have to stop dealing in crypto. Since then, we’ve seen the top three mining regions in the country start making moves against miners, and the government reportedly met with major banks again just this week to reiterate that banks... Continue reading…

Image: Roblox Starcourt Mall, the central location from season three of Stranger Things, is now a playable location in Roblox, the company announced today. The level includes four mini-games based around the Netflix show, as well as quests that reward players with Stranger Things-themed cosmetic items like a Scoops Ahoy costume, Dustin’s Hat, or Eleven’s Headgear. The experience is available in Roblox now.“Stranger Things is one of Netflix’s most iconic shows, and now it has a persistent space in the Roblox Metaverse where fans can experience and interact with the franchise in exciting new ways,” said vice president of brand partnerships at Roblox, Christina Wootton. “Roblox is the new social hangout, much like the local mall back in the 80s where... Continue reading…

Image: Twitter Twitter’s iOS app has been updated to let anyone quickly and easily share tweets to their Instagram Story, Twitter has announced. The feature works using the iOS share sheet: just tap the share icon underneath any tweet, and select “Instagram Stories” from the list of apps. Once in Instagram, the tweet can be resized, re-positioned, and adorned with the image service’s standard selection of text, stickers, music, and annotations.Of course, you’ve always had the option of screenshotting tweets and manually uploading them into an Instagram Story. But the new interface makes the process a lot easier, and the results are slicker. However, it seems to work better with text- and image-based tweets for now — I tried the feature out on a tweet... Continue reading…

Here’s the ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4. | Lenovo ThinkPad power users have a new option in Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4. The new 16-inch workstation will be available this upcoming August for a starting price of $2,149.The X1 Extreme Gen 4 is powered by Intel’s latest 11th Gen processors, up to a Core i9 H-Series chip with vPro. It can also be configured with up to a Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 64GB of RAM, two 2TB SSDs, a 90Wh battery, and optional 5G support. The screen is 16:10 (finally), and Lenovo claims it can reach up to 600 nits of brightness. The X1 Extreme Gen 3 had an OLED option, but OLED wasn’t mentioned in this announcement.Finally, there’s a new FHD webcam, along with the ThinkPad line’s signature camera shutter. Image: Lenovo This is the... Continue reading…

Many of the best Amazon Prime Day deals may have already sold out or expired, but Prime Day is a two-day shopping affair, and many discounts will continue until 12AM PT / 3AM ET tonight. Yesterday, we saw some of our favorite devices hit an all-time low, from the Bose Noise Canceling Headphone 700 and the OnePlus 8 to popular Amazon products like the Kindle Paperwhite and fourth-gen Echo Dot (both still available).Other retailers — specifically, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy — are still offering a range of anti-Prime Day deals, too, with sales on the last-gen Apple TV 4K and Vizio’s 55-inch OLED leading the pack. To make your purchase a bit easier, we’ve sifted through thousands of deals to bring you the Day 2 highlights below, all of... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’ve been thinking about buying some new earbuds or headphones, Amazon rime Day 2021 is a great opportunity to snag something at a fantastic price. The company’s own Echo Buds are still on sale, of course, but so are products from Bose, Jabra, Sony, and other brands — with some at the lowest prices we’ve ever seen on them.We’ve rounded up the highlights below, all of which are still available despite stock shortages in other categories. And if you’re shopping for TVs, laptops, or other tech accessories, we’ve also put together a guide to the best Prime Day deals, which encompasses the best true wireless earbud deals alongside other categories.The best earbuds deals for Prime DayAmazon’s latest Echo Buds are already aggressively... Continue reading…

Demon’s Souls is one of the numerous PS5 titles currently on sale for Amazon Prime Day. | Image: Sony There are usually good gaming deals happening all the time, but Prime Day is especially good to gamers. Amazon is currently hosting some amazing deals on PlayStation 5 games, as well as headsets, headphones, phone clips, keyboards, mice, controllers, and other popular accessories. Other retailers are hosting attractive sales, too, as evident in our roundup of the best anti-Prime Day deals.While we can’t expect to see price cuts on next-gen consoles like the PS5 or the Xbox Series X — or even availability, for that matter — there might be some surprise game or accessory deals you weren’t expecting. We’ve gathered the best gaming deals below, and we’ll be updating them throughout Prime Day alongside our main post, which highlights the b... Continue reading…

Tech giants have repeatedly said they would welcome government regulation — if it’s the right regulation, of course. But faced with five antitrust bills that could unwind what the House Judiciary Committee described as Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook’s “monopoly power,” Big Tech is bringing out the big lobbying guns.Apple CEO Tim Cook himself called Speaker Nancy Pelosi to “deliver a warning” that that the “rushed” antitrust bills could disrupt the iPhone, according to The New York Times, and that’s not all:“Executives, lobbyists, and more than a dozen think tanks and advocacy groups paid by tech companies have swarmed Capitol offices, called and emailed lawmakers and their staff members, and written letters arguing there will be... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft promised on June 10th that it was in the “final stages” of upgrading its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) datacenters with Xbox Series X hardware — and nearly two weeks later, it seems as if you can finally play games on that new hardware. Some xCloud games are now showing upgraded graphics options in their settings menus that would otherwise only be available on the Xbox Series X, or are loading much faster on xCloud than they used to.You can see upgraded graphics settings in Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Rainbow Six Siege in this tweet from my colleague Tom Warren:

Fuse Studios in New York City, New York, United States in 2004. | Photo by David Pomponio/FilmMagic Fuse Media has announced the beta launch of Fuse Plus, a new streaming service that will roll out widely later this year. It’ll be available on Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV devices to start.The company said Tuesday in a press release that the subscription service will give viewers access to the entire catalog of Fuse — the lifestyle and entertainment channel that formerly focused primarily on music — as well as new originals that will premiere exclusively on the service. In a statement, Fuse Media CEO Miguel Roggero said the service will be “curated by, and for, a young, diverse viewer that craves representation in what they stream.”Fuse Plus will launch on Apple TV and Amazon Fire TV devices before a wider rollout later this yearW... Continue reading…

In this illustration photo Amazon logo is displayed on a smartphone screen with MGM. | Photo by Muhammed Selim Korkutata/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Following Amazon’s recent acquisition of MGM, the deal will reportedly be reviewed by the Federal Trade Commission — meaning Lina Khan, a long-outspoken critic of Amazon who recently became FTC chair, will have oversight over the deal. The proceedings could signal how she’ll handle antitrust cases against Amazon in the future.Citing people familiar with the situation, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the FTC requested oversight of the deal during negotiations between agencies specifically because it is currently overseeing the ongoing antitrust probe. According to the WSJ, the Justice Department and FTC have divvied up antitrust investigations of the tech giants — Apple, Google, and Facebook are also the subject of the... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Amazon Prime Day 2021 isn’t over yet, and there are still member-only deals for Prime subscribers to get in on. We have a gigantic post that includes all of the best Prime Day deals happening now (and we’re updating it frequently), but if you’re only looking for the best TV deals, you’ll find those below. There’s a range in terms of the price and the feature set included in the ones that are discounted, and we’ll make sure to clearly state any major differences in the text if they exist so you can make the most informed decision.The best budget-friendly 4K TV deals for Prime Day

Amazon Prime Day is an event — understandably — dedicated to all things Amazon, with substantial discounts on a range of Echo, Fire TV, and Kindle devices, as well as a time-sensitive smorgasbord of deals from both well- and little-known manufacturers. Apple is one of them, and while the company still charges a premium, Prime Day 2021 is a chance to save on an Apple Watch, a new MacBook, or a pair of AirPods, among other products.Below, we’ve gathered the best remaining Apple deals for Prime Day, some of which come from retailers running their own anti-Prime Day deals. If you’re open to other, non-Apple discounts, we’ve also put together a guide highlighting the best Prime Day deals in a variety of categories, including laptops, TVs,... Continue reading…

The Acer Travelmate P6 is discounted for Amazon Prime Day. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Amazon Prime Day 2021 is finally here, and it’s a good time to find discounts if you’re trying to buy a laptop. If you’re a budget shopper with your eye on one of the best Chromebooks, best gaming laptops, or best student laptops, you can likely find something that will strike your fancy.We’ve listed the best Prime Day deals on laptops below. If you’re signed up for Amazon Prime and are online at the right time, you should be able to take advantage of these deals alongside many others we’ve curated in our guide to the best Prime Day deals.The best productivity laptop deals for Prime Day

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you’ve been holding off purchasing a Samsung Galaxy phone in search of a deal, then today’s your day. Amazon’s Prime Day 2021 phone deals feature discounts on recent Galaxy S21 models as well as a couple of noteworthy models from last year. Prime Day is a little light on discounted phones this year, but you can also snag a deal on the Motorola Edge, as well as Tile trackers so your new device can help you keep tabs on your stuff. We’ve also rounded up the best Prime Day deals happening now, if you’re looking for discounts on other items.As far as phone deals are concerned, the Galaxy S20 FE and Note 20 Ultra are also included in the mix, and it’s not totally clear if we’ll see 2021 versions of these devices this year. The company... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is updating OneDrive on the web and Android with basic photo editing features, the company announced Tuesday (via XDA Developers). The new features bring the photo storing experience in OneDrive closer to what Google offers in Google Photos.Among the editing features OneDrive now supports, you can crop, rotate, and make light and color adjustments to photos. Photo editing only works on JPEG or PNG files and is currently only offered on personal OneDrive accounts. Microsoft says it plans to expand the photo editing feature to business and school accounts this summer and its iOS OneDrive app later this year. Image: Microsoft Rotating an image in OneDrive for the web. Image: Microsoft... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you weren’t already cued in, Amazon Prime Day 2021 is drawing to a close, with most of the remaining deals set to expire at 3AM ET / 12AM PT tonight. Thankfully, many of the best Best Prime Day gaming deals are still available, including one on the road-ready Nintendo Switch Lite. There is also an assortment of deals covering some of the best accessories and games, whether you’re a fan of charming role-playing titles like The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening or the latest entry in Capcom’s monster-slaying franchise.Below, we’ve rounded up the best Prime Day deals for the Nintendo Switch, some of which are also featured in our guide to the best anti-Prime Day deals. Now, if only picking up a PS5 was as easy.The best Prime Day deals... Continue reading…

Cyberpunk 2077. | Image: CD Projekt Red Just over a week after Cyberpunk 2077’s disastrous December launch, Microsoft began offering full refunds for people who bought the game through the Microsoft Store. At the time, the company said this expanded policy would be in place “until further notice.” But on Tuesday, Microsoft announced it plans to end those generous refunds, saying that Cyberpunk 2077 would once again fall under Microsoft’s standard refund policy for digital games starting July 6th.“The team at CD PROJEKT RED continues to work hard to improve the experience of Cyberpunk 2077 for Xbox players and has made a number of updates,” Microsoft said in a statement on its support page for game refunds. (Click on the link in the “Update on Cyberpunk 2077” box to see the... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge To take part in Amazon’s two-day Prime Day 2021 sales event, you need a Prime membership. That’s easy enough to sign up for, and the company even offers a 30-day free trial for first-time subscribers who don’t want to commit. But whether you’re anti-Amazon, or just want to mix up where you shop, there’s nothing but good news: plenty of retailers are offering competing deals to go up against Prime Day. Stores like Walmart and Target are responding with price cuts of their own, slashing prices on AirPods, Nintendo Switch games, and webcams, along with plenty of other tech.Here, we’ve corralled all of the best anti-Prime Day deals in one place. Like our main guide to the best Prime Day deals, we’ll be adding to this list over the next day... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Peloton, connected exercise equipment company and all-around fitness media powerhouse, appears to be working on a new wearable, Bloomberg reports. The device is described as a heart rate monitoring armband and according to Bloomberg, is referenced deep within the code of the company’s iPad and iPhone apps.The new wearable will reportedly connect to Peloton devices like the company’s bikes and treadmills, and Peloton's apps, which are available on iOS, iPadOS, smart TV platforms, and Android. The armband is said to feature a small screen for displaying battery and whether the device is currently paired, and it will also come in small and large sizes. We’ve reached out to Peloton for comment on the details in the report.Based on what B... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Peloton says that it’s working on an update to make its Tread Plus treadmill usable without a subscription, after news broke today that a $40 a month membership would be required after a software update. In a support email sent to at least one customer, the company said that its “Just Run” feature, which previously allowed users to use the $4,300 Tread Plus as a normal treadmill sans subscription, is currently inaccessible without a membership.The Just Run feature now requires the Tread Lock feature, which secures the treadmill with a four-digit passcode and is available only to those with a subscription. The company told The Verge that “due to current technical limitations, Tread Lock is not yet available without a Peloton Membership.”... Continue reading…

Photo: Acer Although the pandemic crisis seems (hopefully!) to be slowly receding, it looks like our work habits may be permanently changed. Many people who have been effectively working from home are reluctant to switch back to commuting, and many companies, recognizing this, are adjusting to having their employees work from home some, or all, of the time.But to have the best work-from-home experience, it helps to have good equipment and supplies, and today, the second day of Amazon’s Prime Day deals, is a good time to stock up. Here are some of today’s deals that can help you save money and make your job more pleasant and efficient to handle.Laptop dealsIt goes without saying that a good workplace needs a good laptop, and there is a range... Continue reading…

Zee5 officially launched in the U.S. on June 22nd. | Zee5 Zee5, a streaming service for South Asian content, is now widely available to all users in the US.The service will bring 130,000 hours of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi programming to US audiences, including originals, music, Bollywood films, and health and lifestyle content, as well as more than two decades of popular TV shows. Zee5’s arrival in the US, which follows a beta test, will make it the premier destination for South Asian programming, with titles available in 18-plus languages.While most content on the service will be available with English subtitles and some content is currently dubbed, Zee5 Global’s chief business officer Archana Anand told The Verge Tuesday that the service will likely dub more titles in English in... Continue reading…

Image: Blizzard Overwatch’s first foray into cross-play is now live — starting today, players across PC, PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch devices will be able to group up together, instead of being limited to only playing with friends on the same platform.Players from all four platforms will be able to play together in Quick Play, Arcade, and Custom game modes; for Overwatch’s ranked Competitive mode, though, only console players will be able to play together. PC players, on the other hand, will still be limited to the same PC player pool — presumably for balance, given the advantages that mouse and keyboard players traditionally have in shooters.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Twitter is opening applications for a limited test of its Super Follows and Ticketed Spaces features. US-based users can apply separately for each program through Twitter’s mobile app; Super Follows are restricted to iOS, while Ticketed Spaces are available on iOS and Android.Twitter will select a “small group” of users to test its new monetization features, both of which were announced earlier this year. The Super Follows feature lets users charge $2.99, $4.99, or $9.99 per month for access to exclusive content. Ticketed Spaces lets them charge between $1 and $999 for access to one of Twitter’s social audio rooms, and it offers extra features like setting a room size cap. Users can see if they’re eligible to apply by checking a new... Continue reading…

Iron Man in Marvel’s Avengers. | Image: Square Enix Marvel’s Avengers got a big new patch on Tuesday, but alongside a number of updates, it has added a pretty bad bug on PS5. The game will now show a string of floating text on-screen while you’re playing — and notably, that string includes your IP address, according to Forbes. That means if you want to stream or show any sort of gameplay on Marvel’s Avengers’ current patch, somebody could use your IP address to learn a lot about you, such as a general idea of your location.The developers have acknowledged the bug via the game’s Twitter account, and in tweets posted after we first published this story, specified that this bug is affecting PS5 players and shared when you expect to see a fix.“We are currently testing a solution to the... Continue reading…

Myst | Cyan Worlds Last fall, Cyan Worlds, the original developer of Myst, released a built-for-VR remake of its game exclusively for Facebook’s Oculus Quest platform. Now, it has announced a timeframe for the game’s availability elsewhere: a version for PC and Mac that you can play in a compatible VR headset or on any regular 2D monitor will debut in the third quarter of this year, promising that players can explore “in a whole new dimension.”When the Myst remaster was revealed last year, Cyan Worlds said other platforms would follow the Oculus and eventual PC releases. There’s no word yet on other new versions to extend the reach of a game that has already spanned three decades.Reviews of the $30 Oculus Quest version by UploadVR and PC Gamer noted its... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AMD’s new FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) has started rolling out today, available initially in a handful of titles. Much like Nvidia’s Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), AMD’s answer with FSR aims to upscale games from a lower resolution to provide smoother frame rates without a noticeable compromise in image quality.AMD is launching FSR in seven games today — Anno 1800, Evil Genius 2, Godfall, Kingshunt, 22 Racing Series, Terminator: Resistance, and The Riftbreaker. It’s not an impressive lineup given Nvidia’s DLSS support across a number of top games, but the company is promising support for DOTA 2, Resident Evil Village, Far Cry 6, and more soon.What’s more important is how well FSR works right now. AMD is enabling FSR on a... Continue reading…

Photo credit should read STR/AFP via Getty Images Dota 2’s The International tournament, one of the biggest esports competitions in the world, may no longer take place in Sweden as originally planned.“Over the course of the past year, Stockholm Live and Visit Stockholm continued to reassure us in our regular and constant communications with them that The International - Dota 2 Championships qualified for the same exemptions other elite sporting events there received,” Valve said in a blog post. “However, despite previous reassurances, we were informed two weeks ago that the Swedish Sports Federation had just voted not to accept esports into the sports federation.”Valve also tried to reclassify The International as an “elite sporting event” with the minister of the Interior, but was... Continue reading…

Photo: Faze Clan The ongoing confluence of fashion and games continues with a collaboration between Takashi Murakami and Faze Clan. The celebrated pop artist has designed a new line of merchandise for Faze, including an esports jersey and mouse pads, featuring his iconic smiling flowers.While it may largely look like two brands collaborating on limited-edition merchandise, Murakami sees it as something a little more... ambitious. In fact, in a statement, the artist compared working with Faze to the relationship between Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat:

Image: Dell Prime Day 2021 has proven itself to be a great time to buy a new set of headphones, a new TV, a phone, and lots of other things. It’s also a stellar opportunity for PC builders to score discounts on memory, storage, power supplies, desktop cases, monitors, processors, and more. The only things you won’t find discounts on (in 2021, at least) are graphics cards, which are still very much in demand and hard to find.Whether you’re building an all-new PC piece by piece (for gaming or general use), upgrading one or two parts this year, or hoping to grab some discounted accessories, we’ve got a few categories below containing the best deals we’ve found.Prime Day deals on monitors

Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images The biggest electronic health record company in the United States, Epic Systems, claims it can solve a major problem for hospitals: identifying signs of sepsis, an often deadly complication from infections that can lead to organ failure. It’s a leading cause of death in hospitals.But the algorithm doesn’t work as well as advertised, according to a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine on Monday. Epic says its alert system can correctly differentiate patients who do and don’t have sepsis 76 percent of the time. The new study found it was only right 63 percent of the time.An Epic spokesperson disputed the findings in a statement to Stat News, saying that other research showed the algorithm was accurate.Sepsis is hard to spot... Continue reading…

Image: Fisker Inc. On May 21st, vehicle designer Henrik Fisker said he had a “private audience” with Pope Francis and that his company, Fisker Inc., would make a custom electric SUV to be used for official papal transport in late 2022. What he didn’t share was that the meeting took on a much different character than described, and that the proposal was something of a surprise.An electric popemobile is the latest bold claim from Fisker, who raised nearly $1 billion for his company last year after previously touting a revolutionary solid-state battery and a manufacturing partnership with Volkswagen — each half-baked ideas that didn’t come to pass. And it comes at a time when a number of well-funded EV startups are facing intense scrutiny of the promises... Continue reading…

Zoox released the second version of its safety report today, containing new details about the vehicle that the Amazon-owned company is building from the ground up to be completely autonomous. The vehicle, which looks like an oversized toaster on wheels, lacks typical controls like a steering wheel and pedals and is designed to be bidirectional, meaning it can travel in either direction. And while that could in theory increase the chances of passengers getting sick, Zoox says its specialized design will make it one of the smoothest rides around.Zoox is one of the few companies that is building its own autonomous vehicle rather than retrofitting a car designed for human drivers to then drive itself. This gives the company more leeway to... Continue reading…

LAKE ISABELLA, CA - JUNE 14: In an aerial view, cattle graze on June 14, 2021 near Lake Isabella, California. Authorities are bracing for a predicted driest year on record for the Kern River, carrying only about a quarter of its average Sierra snowmelt water to Lake Isabella. The water level of the lake continues to dip below 16 percent capacity and large portion of the west are now in the most extreme drought category, with fire officials warning of another devastating wildfire season in California. | Photo by David McNew/Getty Images Seen from space, California’s drought is horrifying. To get some perspective on the dire situation, the European Space Agency took a satellite image of Angeles National Forest and the San Gabriel Reservoir in Southern California this month and compared that to an image taken around the same time last year.In 2020, the landscape looks lush and green and the San Gabriel Reservoir is bright blue. Fast forward to this year, and the same location is so dry it looks like a scene out of a Mars movie. The forest is scarred red, and the San Gabriel Reservoir is almost empty.While 2020 was awful for plenty of other reasons, it did give California a brief break from drought. The Golden State’s longest drought persisted from 2011 to 2019. The... Continue reading…

Microsoft is expanding its Designed for Xbox program to include monitors and displays. Some gaming monitors will now include a new “Gaming Features for Xbox” badge that will indicate they support the latest and greatest HDMI 2.1 technology, with variable refresh rates, HDR, and 4K at 120Hz support all for the Xbox Series X / S consoles.At least three HDMI 2.1 displays will get this new badge, including the new 55-inch Philips Momentum display. The Momentum supports 4K resolution at 120Hz with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, a dedicated Xbox picture mode, and DisplayHDR 1000 support. Microsoft says it has worked with Philips to validate the display for Xbox Series X / S, and it will launch worldwide for $1,599.99 this summer. ... Continue reading…

Blink Outdoor security camera | Image: Amazon Amazon Prime Day is always a good opportunity to smarten up your abode, whether it’s an apartment or a multi-room, multi-level house. Compared to other product categories, there are usually some pretty aggressive smart home deals happening during Amazon’s annual shopping extravaganza. Most come from companies under the Amazon umbrella like Ring and Blink, however, like last year, companies such as Ecobee, SimpliSafe, and Google have also discounted a selection of smart home products.Whether you’re looking for smart speakers, thermostats, cameras, or smart locks, we’ve got all of the best Prime Day 2021 smart home deals you need below. And if you’re looking for discounts in other categories, we’ve rounded up the best Prime Day deals to... Continue reading…

Animation by Caleb Worcester A man carries a heavy backpack through a war-ravaged city. A medic pushes a zombified corpse on a stretcher toward an ambulance, as an ominous building with a logo for “Harvest Corp” sits in the background. Then we’re on a bright, vibrantly colored alien world whose surface is a shallow liquid, where an astronaut pulls on a wire dragging a vehicle behind them.That’s just the first 30 seconds of nearly 11 minutes of strange, beautiful, and imaginative worlds all created based on the same original animation. The video was assembled by Clinton Jones, aka pwnisher, who challenged animators to create their own 3D animated scene based on a bare-bones animation he created. The video rounds up his 100 favorite clips.The premise behind the... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge One of the standout deals of Amazon Prime Day 2021 is a huge discount on Bose’s flagship headphones, the Noise Cancelling Headphones 700. Normally priced at $379, today they’re dropping all the way down to $229. If you’re in the market for a pair of wireless headphones that are up there with the very best at quieting the world around you, you might not find a better moment than this to buy.The steep discount only applies to the white / rose gold model of the headphones, but the black and silver headphones are also on sale for $299 — and that’s still a solid deal.The Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 have a sleek design that stays comfortable no matter how long you wear them. They also have much better voice call performance than their... Continue reading…

Image: Apple When you open Patreon’s iPhone app and subscribe to a creator, Apple doesn’t step in the way and take a cut. It turns out, that’s not because of some behind-the-scenes arrangement between the two companies — Apple’s App Store team just decided to give Patreon a pass.“I wish we had some special contract with Apple. We don’t,” Patreon CEO Jack Conte said on Decoder, a podcast from The Verge. “We have to deal with the App Store policies and review process like anybody else.”“It’s just not the primary behavior that’s happening on Patreon.”On iOS, Apple takes up to a 30 percent cut of in-app payments for digital goods. That means creators on platforms like Twitch, Twitter, and Facebook can expect to lose 30 percent of whatever a fan is... Continue reading…

Image: Epic Games Epic Games is launching free voice chat and anti-cheat services that developers can implement in their games, the company announced on Tuesday. They’ll be offered as part the studio’s Epic Online Services suite, which is available to use with any game engine and supports Windows, Mac, Linux, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.The new voice chat service is cross platform and supports both one-on-one and party chat in lobbies and during in-game matches. When using the service, voice data is relayed through Epic’s back-end servers, and the technology handles all scaling and quality of service features. Epic says the technology has already been “integrated and battle-tested in Fortnite,” which provides some assurance that... Continue reading…