The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft announced this morning that it’s shutting down the localized version of LinkedIn for China that has been available there since 2014. The move comes after increasing claims from academics and reporters that they’ve received notifications stating their profiles on the service are blocked in China, as reported recently by The Wall Street Journal.In its blog post announcing the move and a plan to launch a new China-only standalone product called InJobs, Microsoft did not directly reference those reports. Instead, it says:

Photo by Walid Berrazeg/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images TSMC has announced plans to expand its chipmaking efforts with a new factory in Japan during its Q3 2021 earnings call, marking the latest expansion for what’s already the world’s largest chipmaker, via Reuters. But the news comes as the company also cautions that supply will be “tight” for chips throughout 2022 as a result on the ongoing shortage.The new plant is planned to focus on producing chips with older technologies, instead of the bleeding-edge processors that TSMC is best known for providing to companies like Apple, AMD, Nvidia, and Qualcomm. That’s particularly important, given that it’s those older chips — like those found in cars for controlling the airbags and seatbelts or the power management chip in an iPhone — that are... Continue reading…

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge We couldn’t get enough Continue reading…

The AirPods Pro, first released in 2019. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple has quietly extended a repair program for the AirPods Pro that offers free repairs or replacements for earbuds that have issues with noise cancellation or static. Reddit users (via MacRumors) were first to spot the change to Apple’s support page for the repair program, which now notes that the program covers affected AirPods Pro for three years after their first retail sale, rather than two. The page appears to have been updated at the beginning of October.The support program was originally introduced in October 2020, one year after the original release of the AirPods Pro in 2019. It meant that Apple’s repair program was introduced at the exact point that the warranty on launch units was set to expire. With the extension of the... Continue reading…

The final product wound up being remarkably faithful to this early render. | Image: Ncase In 2012, fed up with the sorry state of small-form-factor (SFF) computer cases, two users on the HardOCP community forum decided to create their own. Wahaha360 and Necere came up with the $200+ Ncase M1, a 12.7-liter marvel designed to put every cubic centimeter of that space to good use. Amazingly, they managed to attract the attention of renowned PC manufacturer Lian-Li to manufacture small batches of their crowdfunded case out of high-quality aluminum, and the result was greeted with rave reviews.Nine years later, though, Ncase has announced that it’s discontinuing the M1 for good. It’s a weird situation. Yesterday, the company posted that it had discontinued the M1 entirely — but overnight, the post was updated to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Months after HBO Max original docuseries Generation Hustle debuted on the service, a team representing WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann says the streamer has changed some language in an episode that mapped the startup’s rise and spectacular demise.In a press release sent to a staffer at The Verge earlier this week, defamation attorney Thomas A. Clare — who now represents the known tequila enthusiast and reported aspiring immortal — announced that HBO Max had altered parts of a Generation Hustle episode, titled “Cult of WeWork,” as well as its description on the HBO Max site.Previously, the show’s description said it combined “true-crime capers with fresh, glossy stories of charismatic fakes” and “colorful imposters,” according to a... Continue reading…

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images Electronic Arts is removing former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden from Madden NFL 22 following reports that he had used racist, homophobic, and misogynistic language in emails. Gruden resigned as the Raiders’ coach soon after the emails came to light.“EA Sports is committed to taking action in maintaining a culture of inclusion and equity,” EA said on in a statement posted to the Madden NFL Twitter account. “Due to the circumstances of Jon Gruden’s resignation, we are taking steps to remove him from Madden NFL 22. We will replace him with a generic likeness via a title update in the coming weeks.”This isn’t the first time EA has made changes to its hit football series in response to real-world events. In 2020, the company changed... Continue reading…

The GE-Alstom Block Island Wind Farm stands in the water off Block Island, Rhode Island, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 14, 2016. | Eric Thayer/Bloomberg via Getty Images Offshore wind farms could be coming to nearly every coastline along the continental US. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland today announced plans to auction off leases to developers for up to seven new areas by 2025. That includes waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of Maine, Central Atlantic, New York Bight (between Long Island and New Jersey), and off the coasts of Oregon, California, and the Carolinas.It’s a big scaling up of offshore wind in the US, which lags far behind Europe when it comes to deployment. The US’ first commercial-scale offshore wind farm just got federal approval in May. Two existing, smaller operations in US waters have a combined capacity of just 42 megawatts. The Biden administration set a goal of pushing capacity up... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge I don’t know about you, but I sometimes feel like Twitter is overloaded with ads in my feed. Unfortunately, those ads don’t seem to be enough for the company, though, because it’s testing a new place to show them: right in the middle of conversations.The new ad format is in testing on iOS and Android, and you’ll see ads after the first, third, or eighth reply to a tweet if you’re in the test, according to Bruce Falck, Twitter’s revenue product lead. He shared a GIF of what the new in-conversation ads look like:

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Privacy is on everyone’s mind these days. Last spring, iOS 14.5 introduced a new privacy feature called App Tracking Transparency that may have made its users happier but did not endear Apple to some other companies — specifically Facebook. The feature is still available in iOS 15, along with some new privacy features.Many apps don’t just track your movements inside the app, but they track your movements outside of the app — in other words, where you go after you’ve left the app. This is why you see ads in Facebook and other apps for products you were just looking at on Amazon or other sites.Before 14.5, you could turn tracking off for all of your apps by going to Settings > Privacy > Tracking and turning off “Allow Apps to Request to... Continue reading…

The adoption of augmented reality is happening slowly but surely, and it’s easy to see one possible future for the technology: hardware that lets you edit what you see in real time, replacing objects around you with virtual overlays. Call it mixed reality, to be more precise.Recent research from the AI team at Porsche (yes, the carmakers — we’ll get to that in a bit) shows how this might work. The team has built an AI system dubbed TransforMR that detects objects like cars and people, removes them, then replaces them with CGI alternatives in real-time. The end results are hardly flawless (edits are haphazard and the CGI models look like they were borrowed from 3D Movie Maker) but the concept is striking. It’s not hard to imagine... Continue reading…

Charging Ford’s electric Mach-E. | Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Ford has an interesting idea for how it can improve the reliability of electric car chargers in the US: charge angels. In an interview with Automotive News, Ford’s general manager of electric vehicles Darren Palmer, announced plans to deploy employees in specially equipped electric Ford Mach-Es to visit and test chargers when connected vehicle data or social media complaints suggest there might be a problem.“All they’ll do all day long is go and check them to see where they fail and why,” Palmer said. Although details of the initiative are yet to be finalized, the company expects it to launch before the end of the year, ready for the release of the all-electric F-150 Lightning in 2022.“Some of them are old and they don’t have the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge OpenSea has fixed vulnerabilities in its platform that could’ve let hackers steal someone’s crypto after sending them a maliciously crafted NFT. The issue was found by security firm Check Point Research, which noticed tweets from people claiming they were hacked after being gifted NFTs, according to a blog post. The researchers talked to one of the people saying they were attacked, and found vulnerabilities proving an attack could happen this way and reported the problems to OpenSea. The security firm says the NFT trading platform fixed the issue within an hour and worked with researchers to make sure the fix worked.While the attackers potentially being able to drain entire wallets is certainly not a good look for OpenSea, it wasn’t a... Continue reading…

Photo by Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Riding an electric scooter on the sidewalk is dangerous, but scooter-sharing companies have struggled to prevent their customers from engaging in risky behavior. Bird thinks it has found a solution: annoying beeps.Using technology provided by a company called u-blox, Bird is rolling out an end-to-end GPS system “designed to deliver centimeter-level accuracy specifically for the micromobility industry.” Riders who stray onto the sidewalk will be bombarded with audio alerts from the scooter, as well as notifications on their smartphones, warning them to get back on the street. Failure to follow directions results in a de-powered scooter: the vehicle will slow down and eventually come to a stop.The problem Bird is trying to solve is a... Continue reading…

Realme has launched its latest flagship phone for India, the GT Neo 2. It’s similar to the impressive Realme GT that came to Europe a few months ago — this one is better in some ways but worse in others. Depending on your taste, you’ll probably feel quite strongly about which bucket the neon green version pictured above falls into. (It also comes in black and blue.)While the GT has a Snapdragon 888 processor, the GT Neo 2 is built around an 870. This is basically Qualcomm’s speed-bumped version of the 865 Plus, which was itself a faster version of last year’s flagship chip — the main core now runs at 3.2GHz. Realme says the GT Neo 2’s new vapor cooling system is 30 percent larger and 20 percent more efficient, making use of stainless... Continue reading…

Image: Bethesda The “next-gen upgrade” for this year’s Quake remaster, which adds support for up to 4K / 120fps gameplay, is now available for the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. The upgrade is available for free, according to Bethesda, and there’s no time limit to redeem it. The PC version of the game isn’t getting the upgrade, since it already supports 4K / 120fps.As well as the framerate improvements, the upgrade also adds support for the PS5 Dualsense controller’s adaptive triggers and integrated speaker. Meanwhile, Xbox players get Play Anywhere support, a Microsoft technology that means ownership of the game and progress automatically carries over to its PC version.The upgrade process is a little different for the PlayStation and Xbox.... Continue reading…

New streaming tech, old Zeppelin shape. | Image: Bowers & Wilkins Bowers & Wilkins has announced a new Zeppelin speaker that updates the eye-catching design with modern connectivity and smarts. The new speaker supports wireless standards like Qualcomm’s AptX Adaptive and Apple’s AirPlay 2 and also has Alexa built-in for voice control of your music. The new Zeppelin is available to order in light or dark grey starting today and is priced at $799 / £699 / €799.The original Zeppelin was one of the most iconic iPod docks available when it launched in 2007, and it’s been updated several times over the years as the way we listen to music has changed. 2011’s Zeppelin Air added support for Apple’s AirPlay standard alongside its existing 30-pin dock, while the 2015 Zeppelin Wireless dropped the dock entirely... Continue reading…

Image: Visible Some customers of Verizon’s Visible service are using social media to say that hackers have accessed their accounts, changed their information to lock them out, and in some cases even ordered phones using their payment info (via XDA). If you’re not familiar, Visible is a cell service owned and operated by Verizon that pitches itself as a less expensive, “all-digital” network, meaning there aren’t any physical stores like you’d get with a traditional carrier. Starting on Monday, customers on both Twitter and Reddit reported en masse that they’d been getting emails from the company about changed passwords and addresses, and that they’ve had difficulties contacting the company’s chat support.Visible’s customer service account on Twitter... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The trans employee resource group at Netflix is planning a company-wide walkout on October 20th to protest statements made by co-CEO Ted Sarandos regarding Dave Chappelle’s latest comedy special The Closer.“Trans Lives Matter. Trans Rights Matter. And as an organization, Netflix has continually failed to show deep care in our mission to Entertain the World by repeatedly releasing content that harms the Trans community and continually failing to create content that represents and uplifts Trans content. We can and must do better!” wrote a leader of the trans ERG in an internal organizing message.The event comes even as Netflix has reinstated Terra Field and two other employees who were suspended after attending a director-level meeting... Continue reading…

Samsung has just sent out invitations for an event it is holding online on Wednesday, October 20th at 7AM PT / 10AM ET. It’s called “Galaxy Unpacked Part 2,” which is possibly an indication that rather than all new Galaxy phones, we may be seeing iterations on existing ones.With Samsung’s announcement, we’ll now have an Apple event on Monday (where we are expecting new MacBook Pros), Google’s Pixel 6 launch on Tuesday, and now Samsung’s apparently smaller event on Wednesday.In addition to the invite’s image, Samsung’s newsroom post announcing the event hints at some kind of personalization for Galaxy devices: “Our users are multifaceted and live life in so many colorful, interesting, and unique ways. As such, the technology they use... Continue reading…

Image: G4 TV After more than a year of teasing and occasional streams, G4 will make its return as a linear TV channel on November 16th. So far, the channel is confirmed to appear on Comcast/Xfinity, Verizon Fios, Cox, and Philo. Since announcing its return last year, G4 has put out some reunion content plus occasional streams on Twitch, where the network will maintain a “multi-year promotional and commercial partnership.”Though the original G4 faded out when it got rebranded as the Esquire Channel about eight years ago, the network’s new mantra is that “we never stopped playing.” Network president Russell Arons writes in a statement that G4 “can’t wait to have our fans join us in our hilarious and fairly preposterous sandbox.”When G4 comes back... Continue reading…

An image from Cowboy Bebop. | Image: Netflix Netflix is adding the original Cowboy Bebop anime series to its catalog on October 21st, giving you about a month to watch it all ahead of the live-action series’ debut on November 19th.This is great news for me personally. I’ve been extremely intrigued by what Netflix has shown from the live-action series — which so far has included a series of images and the opening title sequence, which is inspired heavily by the one from the anime — but I haven’t seen the original show for myself. Now that the whole show will be on Netflix, I can see it all with a subscription to just one streaming service.

Image: Netflix Netflix’s hugely popular series Squid Game has become its biggest title ever at launch, the company said Monday.The company’s Netflix Geeked account tweeted Monday that Hwang Dong-Hyuk’s survival thriller reached 111 million global accounts in its first 17 days on the service. Additionally, Squid Game is the first Netflix series to surpass 100 million in its first 28 days on the service, a spokesperson told The Verge. Netflix typically uses 28-day windows to measure the performance of a title on its platform.The spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that the figures it shared are based on the number of accounts that watched the series for at least two minutes, its standard metric for ranking titles (though it has used additional... Continue reading…

A leaked marketing image of the unannounced HTC Vive Flow VR headset. | Image: Evan Blass on Twitter On Monday, I wrote about leaked details of an unannounced HTC Vive Flow VR headset that’s expected to be announced at an event on Thursday. Just one day later, we now know what it looks like thanks to images shared by prolific leaker Evan Blass, who has been actively posting new photos over the course of the evening. According to a slide in a more recent tweet, the device will cost $499 and start shipping in November.Here’s the first batch:

Image: Coinbase Coinbase announced Monday that it plans to sell, trade, and mint NFTs in an expansion from the marketplace’s cryptocurrency-based roots. Details on how “Coinbase NFT” will do all of that are slim, but the company sees an opportunity. “Just as Coinbase helped millions of people access bitcoin for the first time in an easy and trusted way — we want to do the same for the NFTs,” Coinbase vice president of product Sanchan Saxena writes.The big idea seems to be social engagement. Coinbase wants to “curate your personal feed” of NFTs and display the NFTs you own on your profile so you can make connections with like-minded fans of digital cats, punks, apes, and beyond.At launch, Coinbase NFT “will support Ethereum based ERC-721 and ERC-1155... Continue reading…

Apple October 18th event invitation | Image: Apple Apple’s next hardware event will take place on October 18th, according to invites it sent out today. The company is widely expected to use its second fall event to launch a pair of new MacBooks, a redesigned higher-end Mac Mini, and possibly a pair of third-generation AirPods.The invite video teases one word: Unleashed. As seen below in a tweet from Apple marketing exec Greg Joswiak, it appears in a dotted font that could hint at mini LED tech on the way. The “special” event will stream live on Apple.com at 1PM ET / 10AM ET.There have been reports for months that Apple is on the cusp of releasing new 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. The new MacBooks would be the latest step in Apple’s transition away from Intel chips, replacing... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Adobe is bringing Camera Raw to the iPad version of Photoshop, and has demonstrated how it works in a hands-on video. Ryan Dumlao, senior product manager for Photoshop on iPad, shows how Camera Raw can be used to edit RAW and DNG photos directly imported from a camera — in this case a Fujifilm — or ProRAW files from the iPhone 12 Pro and 13 Pro.Camera Raw is a long-standing plugin that allows for advanced RAW image editing within Photoshop, and it’s also the technical basis of Lightroom’s processing engine. Dumlao’s video shows how you can edit various settings and exposure parameters within Photoshop, including importing the RAW file as a smart object for non-destructive editing that can be carried over to the desktop version. In his... Continue reading…

Siri can now be set as the default voice assistant in the Ecobee SmartThermostat. | Image: Ecobee First announced at Apple’s WWDC earlier this year, Siri has now landed on Ecobee SmartThermostats. The Apple voice assistant arrives via a free software update allowing you to say “Hey Siri” to the thermostat to set the temperature, send an intercom message, and use all of Siri’s smart speaker features.This is the first third-party device to include Apple’s virtual assistant Siri, although the feature is not exclusive to Ecobee. Apple said that all HomeKit accessory makers will be able to integrate Siri voice control into their products starting this year. For any integration to work, you will need to have a HomePod or HomePod Mini on the same network, through which the device (in this case the SmartThermostat) will send the requests.... Continue reading…

Image: Paramount Pictures He’s back, and he’s coming for you — through your smart home. As if Ghostface’s reappearance after a decade laying dormant wasn’t scary enough, this time, the nineties-self-aware-slasher-killer knows how to control your door locks. And clearly, smart home manufacturers could learn a thing or two from him (or her). This dude’s got some killer protocols on hand.The first trailer for Scream dropped today. It’s technically Scream 5, but apparently, we’re ditching numbers when it comes to horror movie re-boots. And it opens in that kitchen with another child star home alone. Disney darling Jenna Ortega steps in for the E.T. wunderkind as “Tara,” and while we need to get past the landline phone in the kitchen (what decade is this?), seeing as... Continue reading…

DC’s newest Superman is coming out of the closet next month, with the comics company revealing that Jon Kent will be starting a relationship with Jay Nakamura, a new character introduced earlier this year.The son of the original Superman (Kal-El / Clark Kent), Jon took over for his father as the “official” Superman in DC’s mainline Superman: Son of Kal-El comic earlier this year as Earth’s most powerful superhero. (For those not caught up, Clark is still around, albeit off dealing with some drama on Warworld in the Action Comics and limited-run Superman and the Authority lines.)“Everyone needs heroes and everyone deserves to see themselves in their heroes.”“I knew replacing Clark with another straight white savior could be a real... Continue reading…

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Poll, Q&As, and comment sections could turn podcasting interactive Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge After over a year in limbo, Withings finally has Food and Drug Administration clearance for its ScanWatch, which monitors for abnormal heart rhythms through an EKG feature and flags nighttime breathing issues with its blood oxygen sensor. The watch has been available for sale in Europe, but not in the United States.This is the first smartwatch to get the FDA’s signoff on both types of health features. Apple, Fitbit, and Samsung all detect blood oxygen levels, but they don’t claim they can detect any medical conditions using that information, so they didn’t need to get the agency’s clearance in order to market the devices. Withings, on the other hand, is claiming that its device can flag nighttime breathing problems through a... Continue reading…

Two display from an M1 MacBook. | Image: Hyper Hyper claims its new USB-C hubs will address one of the key frustrations with Apple’s M1 MacBooks: their inability to natively power more than one external display at a time. Both Hyper’s $129.99 “HyperDrive Dual 4K HDMI 3-in-1 USB-C Adapter” and its $199.99 “HyperDrive Dual 4K HDMI 10-in-1 USB-C Hub” have two HDMI ports, which it says can output to two 4K monitors without the need for software drivers. They’re both launching today and are available to buy direct from Hyper.Neither offers a perfect solution. Hyper notes that both hubs are only able to output a 60Hz signal to one 4K display, while the other will be limited to 30Hz. But it’s more convenient than the kinds of existing workarounds outlined in this guide from MacWorld,... Continue reading…

Astra’s 3.2 rocket taking off from Kodiak, Alaska | Image: Astra/John Kraus Small satellite launcher Astra says it has identified the culprit behind its bizarre launch failure in August, which caused the company’s rocket to hover sideways right after takeoff before briefly climbing into the sky. After implementing some design changes, Astra says it is ready to try again, with another launch attempt called LV0007 set as early as October 27th.This will be Astra’s fifth attempt to reach orbit with one of its rockets, which primarily take off from Kodiak, Alaska. The company first tried to send its vehicle to orbit for a DARPA launch challenge in March 2020 but failed to get the rocket off the ground in time to meet the competition’s deadline. The vehicle then exploded on its launchpad a few weeks later. After... Continue reading…

The Chromecast with Google TV makes it easy to play content in front of a class without occupying your laptop. | Photo by Philip Berne for The Verge The last year of lockdown and learning from home was undoubtedly the most challenging year for teachers in a generation. Now that students are returning to class, we face new challenges. Students hide behind their masks. Understaffing and last-minute changes require us to be more flexible. The transition from “going to school” in pajamas on the couch to physically going to school is exhausting, and engagement is low. Frankly, it’s quiet. Too quiet.Here are some of my favorite tools that I’ve purchased this year to overcome the COVID doldrums. If you are a teacher with some classroom funds to spend, or if you know teachers who could use a tech boost, this is what I recommend.Every time a student gives an impassioned answer and I have... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Liptak / The Verge General Motors and LG Electronics have struck a deal in which the South Korean battery maker will pay for all the costs associated with the massive Chevy Bolt recall, the companies announced.Last August, GM announced that it was recalling all Chevy Bolts made after 2017, including the new versions released earlier this year, after multiple fires in the electric vehicle’s battery packs were found to have been caused by defects in the LG Chem cells found inside.As part of the agreement, LG will reimburse GM for the “costs and expenses” associated with the recall, which the automaker estimates will “offset $1.9 billion of $2.0 billion in charges associated with the recalls.” It’s a better deal than originally expected, with GM stating... Continue reading…

Samsung has created a new 980 Pro SSD model designed for Sony’s PlayStation 5. The SSD includes a heatsink specifically designed to fit inside the M.2 SSD storage expansion slot inside the PS5. Samsung is releasing this new 980 Pro SSD model on October 29th, priced at $249.99 for the 1TB version or $449.99 for the 2TB model.The built-in heatsink is designed to keep temperatures low enough to deliver sustained speeds, with sequential read speeds of up to 7,000MB/s and sequential write speeds up to 5,100MB/s. Not many games take advantage of such speeds on the PS5 just yet — Samsung’s 980 Pro specs are way above the 5,500MB/s read speeds that Sony recommends.This new 980 Pro model will sit neatly inside the PS5’s M.2 SSD expansion slotS... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge The senior vice president of devices and services gets into the weeds Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Truly wireless earbuds vary wildly in price, but if you’re looking to save money today, check out Woot’s deal on the first-gen Echo Buds from Amazon. These debuted in 2019 for $129, and while they’ve since been succeeded by an even better model, it’ll be hard to beat their current $40 price at Woot. This low cost is for a new set with a full one-year manufacturer warranty.The Echo Buds raised the bar in terms of what kind of sound quality you should expect from truly wireless earbuds in the $100-$120 price range. While they lack active noise cancellation like the newer model, their Bose active noise reduction tech should hush some sounds in your environment. Read our review.Super Mario 3D All-Stars for the Nintendo Switch is over 30... Continue reading…

The Nokia G300 is a 5G-enabled phone with a 6.52-inch LCD and 4,470mAH battery. | HMD Global Why should postpaid mobile customers have all the 5G fun? HMD Global, the manufacturer behind new Nokia phones, is announcing its most affordable 5G phone yet for Tracfone and Straight Talk Wireless’ prepaid customers — the Nokia G300.Like T-Mobile’s $199 REVVL V Plus 5G, the Nokia G300 doesn’t try to wow you with flagship-level specs but offers the bread-and-butter features you’ll care about at an affordable price.One of the most useful features of the G300 is its fingerprint scanner. It is integrated with the power button so that you can inconspicuously unlock your phone while pressing the same button to wake it up. Of course, you can also use your face to unlock the device.It has a reasonably large 4,470mAh battery, which Nokia... Continue reading…

Netgear launches the first quad band Wi-Fi 6E mesh system. Just when you were starting to think about upgrading to a Wi-Fi 6 router, Wi-Fi 6E is here. And it’s expensive. Netgear announced its newest entry into the 6E foray today, the Orbi Quad-B and Mesh WiFi 6E RBKE960 series. This is the first quad-band Wi-Fi 6E mesh offering, but not the first Wi-Fi 6E mesh router (the $1,200 Linksys Atlas Max 6E took that honor earlier this year). Featuring a 2.4 GHz band, two 5GHz, and a brand spanking new 6GHz band, this $1,500 system also supports four different networks out of the box, including one designed exclusively for your insecure smart home devices. And if that doesn’t get you excited, they’re also releasing a limited-edition color… black. Image: Netgear The new Orbi... Continue reading…

The Windows 11 taskbar. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge I’m not the only one who hates the new Windows 11 taskbar, and now third-party developers are coming to the rescue with apps that bring back some of the features missing in Microsoft’s latest OS.Microsoft removed basic taskbar functionality in Windows 11, like displaying the time and date on multiple monitors, moving the taskbar to the top of the screen or sides, and even small things like altering its height and having small icons. It has angered many Windows users, and most of the top feedback in Microsoft’s Windows Insider program was related to the taskbar changes before Windows 11 debuted last week.

LEONARDO can fly and walk thanks to bipedal legs and propeller arms. | Image: Caltech Aerospace Robotics and Control Lab / Science Robotics When it comes to judging how cool robots are, I deploy a simple but reliable heuristic: can I imagine this machine appearing in the Metal Gear Solid franchise? With LEONARDO, a bipedal robot with propellers for arms, I can not only imagine it, I’m pretty sure it is in MGSV. From the bubble head to the uncannily precise movements, it’s just a very cool robot, which I can also imagine being used to infiltrate mercenary basecamps.Just like a bird, LEONARDO can both walk and flyLEONARDO is a pleasingly choppy acronym for “LEgs ONboARD drOne” — the product of those linguistic geniuses in Caltech’s Aerospace Robotics and Control Lab. You may have seen an earlier iteration of the bot back in 2019 (when, amazingly, LEONARDO stood for “LEg ON... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The US PC market has declined during the recent quarter, due to pandemic-related supply issues. It’s the first time the US PC market has declined since the pandemic began causing lots of people to rush out and buy new PCs over the past 18 months. Overall, Gartner and IDC analysis both suggest the worldwide PC market grew in Q3, but at a slower rate than we’ve seen during the pandemic.Gartner says “consumer and educational spending began to shift away from PCs to other priorities,” during the quarter, leading to less demand for PCs. That’s illustrated best by a 17 percent drop in Chromebook shipments, which Gartner has included in its traditional PC shipments for the first time ever this quarter. Both IDC and Gartner report 84.1 million... Continue reading…

Image: Google TV Google TV is making finding something to watch in a multiuser household a whole lot less chaotic by adding custom profiles, watchlists, and personalized Google Assistant help.Previously, Google TV supported the ability to sign into multiple Google Accounts to be able to use services with more than one account. But content suggestions, the watchlist feature, and Google Assistant functionality were all based on the activity of the primary account holder. With personalized profiles, every user’s recommendations, watchlist, and Google Assistant responses will be tailored to their own interests and activity.A Google spokesperson told The Verge that profiles will start rolling out next month on Chromecast with Google TV as well as Google TVs... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Nintendo’s Switch OLED Model is now available, and even if it’s no Switch Pro, there’s a lot to like about it. But as new owners of the console start enjoying its larger, more vibrant screen, some might also wonder whether they should pay any mind to the classic “risk” of OLED technology: burn-in.In the early days of OLED smartphones, it wasn’t uncommon to find a mistreated demo phone at a carrier or Best Buy that had a ghastly display with home screen icons or a status bar left permanently visible whenever the screen was on. Burn-in could also befall OLED TVs if they were carelessly left on a news channel (with a ticker at the bottom) for many hours.But we’ve come a long way since then.Bloomberg has reported that Samsung Display is... Continue reading…

The release also includes Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis controllers for Switch. | Image: Nintendo The Nintendo 64 games being re-released as part of the upcoming Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription will run at 60Hz, Nintendo of Europe has confirmed. The news follows concerns reported by Eurogamer that the re-released games, which include classic titles like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, would run at a reduced 50Hz in European PAL regions.The disparity is a holdover from the days of standard definition TVs which typically used the 50Hz PAL standard in Europe, but the 60Hz NTSC standard in the US. It meant that footage shown on European TVs would refresh 50 times per second, rather than 60 as in the US. This wasn’t a major issue for regular TV content (which typically ran at 30fps in the US... Continue reading…