The Verge

The Base Station Pro can recharge up to three devices simultaneously. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Memorial Day is Monday, May 31st, but many of the best deals are already kicking off. Stay tuned for an upcoming post that’ll show you everything that’s worth checking out on sale, whether you’re interesting in headphones, TVs, video games, or something else. Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that Amazon Prime Day appears to be coming soon, according to Bloomberg. This hasn’t been confirmed yet by Amazon, but if you’re a Prime member, maybe go ahead and mark June 21st and June 22nd in your calendar. Until then, we’ve got some great deals highlighted below.Nomad’s Base Station Pro is half offFor those still looking to fill the Apple AirPower-shaped hole in their hearts, Nomad’s Base Station Pro is a wireless charging pad that makes for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has raised the alarm over a “sophisticated” ongoing cyberattack believed to be from the same Russia-linked hackers behind the SolarWinds hack. In a blog post, Tom Burt, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for customer security and trust, said the attack appears to be targeting government agencies, think tanks, consultants, and NGOs. In total, around 3,000 email accounts are believed to have been targeted across 150 organizations. Victims are spread across upward of 24 countries, but the majority are believed to be in the US.According to Microsoft, hackers from a threat actor called Nobelium were able to compromise the US Agency for International Development’s account on a marketing service called Constant Contact, allowing... Continue reading…

The current AirPods Pro from 2019. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple’s second-generation AirPods Pro will launch next year, following the release of an updated pair of standard AirPods this year, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The new AirPods Pro will reportedly feature upgraded motion sensors to allow for fitness tracking, while the entry-level AirPods will have an updated design similar to the Pro models along with a shorter stem.In a previous report from last year Bloomberg said that the upcoming AirPods Pro could ditch the stem entirely in favor of a more compact design similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Plus or Google’s Pixel Buds. However, at the time Bloomberg noted that design challenges meant these plans could change. Its latest report says Apple has “tested” this design, which... Continue reading…

A built in Micro HDMI port lets the tablet work as an external monitor. | Image: Lenovo Lenovo’s Yoga Pad Pro is a new 13-inch Android tablet that can easily double as an external monitor, Gizmochina reports. It will be available to buy in China for 3,299 yuan (around $517) on May 31st.It’s not tricky to get most tablets on the market to work as a second monitor, but for the most part you’re limited to using them with specific devices. Apple’s iPads can be used as external monitors thanks to their built-in Sidecar feature, for example, but this only works if you’re using them with a Mac. But the Yoga Pad Pro has a full-on Micro HDMI port built into its grip, meaning you can plug basically any HDMI device into it and use the Yoga Pad Pro as a 13-inch monitor. And yes, that absolutely includes a Nintendo Switch. ... Continue reading…

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a brand-new Sony product launching first on Indiegogo. Motion Sonic is, in the words of Sony’s campaign, “effects gear to control sound in sync with your motion for playing music.”The Motion Sonic device itself is a small capsule that can slot into differently shaped rubber wristbands, sort of like a Fitbit. There’s a band that attaches to your wrist for use cases like playing guitar, and another wraps around the back of your hand and is better suited to playing keys.What it actually does is allow you to link hand motions to specific musical effects. For example, you could set it to add a delay effect when you move fingers from left to right, or to bend pitch as you roll your wrist. These... Continue reading…

Photo by Amy Sussman/FilmMagic Merle Dandridge, an actor who’s had a long career in television and theater, will be reprising her role of Marlene in HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation, according to Variety and Deadline. Dandridge’s casting is particularly notable because actors in video games are rarely presented with the opportunity to play their characters in live action outside of the motion capture stage.Marlene is integral to how lead characters Joel and Ellie join together and head off on their zombie road trip in the first place. It’s unknown how much of the game’s story will carry over to the television adaptation, but Dandridge’s situation is unique. Both Troy Baker’s Joel and Ashley Johnson’s Ellie were recast for executive producer and writer Craig Mazin’s... Continue reading…

In 2018, we marveled over the Spyra One, an attempt to crowdfund a modern Super Soaker that could blast veritable bolts of water; refill itself from a pool; and maintain a digital ammo gauge of your shots, thanks to a heap of electronics, a self-pressurizing tank, and a battery you recharge via a standard USB-C port. The big catch: you had to be willing to risk north of $133 on an unproven Kickstarter that wound up shipping a year behind schedule.Spyra TwoBut not only did Spyra eventually manage to ship those blasters (11,000 of them, according to the company) it’s now got a new version coming next month that sounds like a huge improvement in practically every way. The new Spyra Two fires faster, further, has twice the battery life,... Continue reading…

Tesla is starting to use the camera above the rear-view mirror in the Model 3 and Model Y to help make sure people pay attention to the road while using Autopilot, the company’s advanced driver assistance system.Until now, the main way Tesla’s cars measure driver attention is through torque sensors in the steering wheel that look for resistance — a crude way of ensuring drivers keep their hands on the wheel. If it doesn’t register enough feedback, the car performs a series of escalating visual and audible warnings.The change comes after regulators and safety experts spent years begging Tesla to add better driver monitoring to its cars. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has even admitted that crashes involving Autopilot stem from complacency. But... Continue reading…

Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage Marvel has confirmed that Oscar Isaac will star in the Disney Plus Moon Knight series, bringing the Star Wars star to another highly lucrative side of the Disney empire. Moon Knight is one of several Marvel characters who seem to be inspired by DC Comics’ Batman, and is certainly more of an obscure character to adapt, but as the company pivots into the next phase of movies and now shows, weirdness is on the menu.Moon Knight, or Marc Spector, is a mercenary possessed by an ancient Egyptian moon god named Khonshu. That possession is what gives him his superpowers but also multiple conflicting personalities, including a taxi driver, wealthy playboy, and masked vigilante. Marvel and Isaac’s announcement — “WE ARE MOONKNIGHT” — seems to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Four women who used to work for Google have won class-action status for their gender equity lawsuit against the search engine company, allowing them to represent some 10,800 women, Bloomberg reports.The lawsuit alleges that Google pays men more than women for the same work, in violation of California’s Equal Pay Act, and that Google paid its female employees nearly $17,000 less per year than male counterparts in the same roles. The women filed the suit in 2017, claiming they were put into lower career tracks than their male colleagues— so-called “job ladders” that resulted in them receiving lower bonuses and salaries. The women have since left Google.“This is a significant day for women at Google and in the technology sector, and we... Continue reading…

US wireless carriers plan to shutter their old 3G networks next year. Major US wireless carriers are gearing up to shut down their old 3G networks — a process that has been fraught with delays and miscommunication as companies alert customers with older phones that it’s time to upgrade. To that end, Verizon and AT&T have published guides to which devices will stop working after their 3G networks go offline next year. Here’s what you need to know.Verizon has delayed its CDMA 3G network shutdown several times but is now firmly committed to shutting the network down by December 31st, 2022. All 3G basic phones and smartphones will lose service, but some 4G devices will be impacted as well — namely, those that don’t support VoLTE (Voice over LTE). A few connected devices are affected, too; take a look at V... Continue reading…

You don’t need a PS5 for this trick. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The DualSense controller for PS5 has great haptic feedback for games like Returnal and Demon’s Souls. But today I found out that it’s also good at humming along to tunes on Spotify when plugged into a PC.While browsing Reddit, I stumbled across an ancient thread from six months ago where a user explained that, by plugging in a DualSense and tweaking a few settings, the device’s built-in haptics motors will do their best to play your music from the Spotify app on Windows 10. If you press your ear to the controller, it’s like listening into the world’s smallest rave ever, perhaps with a few Astro Bots in attendance.I assume you just ran to go get your controller to try this out — because that’s the same reaction that I had. Okay, but... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony showed off 14 minutes of Horizon Forbidden West gameplay on a PS5 in a new State of Play presentation on Thursday. In the footage, protagonist Aloy fought against some giant animal-like machines and some human enemies on a beautiful post-apocalyptic beach settlement.The presentation revealed that Aloy has some new tools to get around in Forbidden West, like a diving mask to let her dive underwater and a Breath of the Wild-like hang glider. And much like in the first game, it looks like you’ll still be slinging a lot of arrows against your enemies, both human and machine. Image: Sony Aloy and Erend in Horizon Forbidden West. Horizon Forbidden West, a sequel to the hugely successful Horizon Zero Dawn, is... Continue reading…

Photo by Janie Osborne/Getty Images A company looking to build a massive solar project in Butte, Montana claims it would provide 300MW of renewable power and cost $250 million, Gizmodo reported. That’s according to Madison River Equity LLC, whose parent company also manages cryptomining outfit Atlas Power. As Gizmodo reports, Madison would build the solar array, then sell it to Atlas, which hopes to use it to power its cryptocurrency mining operations. If the solar farm, dubbed the Basin Creek Solar Project, is actually built, it could be one of the largest in the US, but it raises questions about the impact of such projects, and about crypto’s impact on energy.While the project would theoretically allow Atlas’ mining and other data center operations to run on renewable... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Two tech industry organizations have sued Florida over its newly passed rules for social networks. NetChoice and the CCIA — which represent Amazon, Google, Intel, Samsung, Facebook, and other tech giants — say SB 7072 violates private companies’ constitutional rights. They’re asking a court to prevent the law from taking effect, calling it a “frontal assault on the First Amendment.”SB 7072, which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed earlier this week, restricts how large social apps and websites can moderate user-generated content. It makes banning any Florida political candidate or “journalistic enterprise” unlawful, lets users sue if they believe they were banned without sufficient reason, requires an option to “opt out” of sorting... Continue reading…

After three years of production, Ian Hubert, king of the one-minute Blender tutorial, has uploaded the first episode of his sci-fi series, Dynamo Dream. And it’s been worth the wait. The series is a mix of live-action and CGI that follows a salad merchant on a seemingly normal day through the dense streets of the Sunset District, a futuristic metropolis filled with fax machine drones, giant mutant crabs blocking traffic, and flying assassin bots.The episode is visually stunning and seems to be endlessly filled with details. Every frame can be paused and observed, each containing hints to an expansive world that stretches beyond the camera’s frame. The world is convincing and surprisingly charming.While bearing resemblance to other... Continue reading…

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Acer just announced a new iteration of its Chromebook Spin 713 2-in-1 laptop, and we’ve already reviewed it. Perhaps by coincidence (or not), the previous model has received a big price cut at Best Buy. You can get the starting model for $329, and it offers much more than many other Chromebooks in this price range. My colleague Monica Chin currently rates this 2020 Spin 713 as the best Chromebook that you can buy. Check out their buying guide to see how it stacks up to the competition.The Spin 713 has a 13.5-inch 2K (2256 x 1504) 3:2 aspect ratio display that can show more content at once than comparatively squished 16:9 screens. Its battery life and build quality are great, and its 10th Gen Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB... Continue reading…

Instacart In the crowded food- and grocery-delivery space, Instacart is hoping that shaving off a few minutes makes all the difference. To that end, it’s creating a new “priority delivery” option that debuts today in select markets and promises to have orders fulfilled in “as fast as 30 minutes.”While 45- and 60-minute deliveries are already available to many Instacart customers, “priority delivery” is, according to the company, debuting in more than 15 cities (though it only names six: Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle). It’s intended use case is for quick errands, rather than the bulk, groceries-for-the-week function Instacart tends to thrive on. With that in mind, even in participating stores, the 30-minute... Continue reading…

You played us all, Charlie | Image: HDCYT on YouTube It’s hard to describe the absolute chaos around NFTs (non-fungible tokens) right now; tech reporters’ inboxes are flooded with the latest and stupidest additions to this trend of digital certificates for memes and other pieces of digital memorabilia. Disaster Girl sold for around $500,000, Keyboard Cat went for about $64,400, and Nyan Cat brought in around $590,000. But most NFTs aren’t all that noteworthy, and we can’t possibly write about every single one (despite this sentence, my inbox will now be flooded with NFT pitches for the next two months). But despite our attempts to be judicious and write about newsworthy topics, we can’t win them all.We wrote about the Charlie Bit Me NFT auction because it had a twist the others did... Continue reading…

What appears to be an official photo of the Sony WF-1000XM4s. | Image: WinFuture We heard earlier this month that Sony may be planning to launch its next noise-canceling true wireless earbuds, the WF-1000XM4s, as early as June, and thanks to new leaks published by WinFuture, we might now know almost all of the specs for the upcoming buds.Like the very good previous-gen WF-1000XM3s, the new WF-1000XM4s will offer active noise cancelation (ANC), but thanks to a new “Sony V1” processor, ANC performance will be improved, WinFuture reports. The headphones will also support Sony’s LDAC codec, which lets you listen to high-quality audio over Bluetooth, WinFuture says.And it sounds like the new 1000XM4s will have a very good battery life, like the 1000XM3s. WinFuture says you’ll be able to get eight hours of battery on a... Continue reading…

Image: Kellog’s Kellogg’s — legal guardian of such cereal mascots as Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam — has partnered with DoorDash-owned Chowbotics to launch a new cereal-mixing robot at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Florida State University (via Gizmodo). The Kellogg’s Bowl Bot offers a vending machine-type experience for one of the simplest breakfast foods, and charges anywhere from $2.99 to $6.50 for the privilege.The Bowl Bot could be best thought of as an extension of Chowbotics’ earlier “Sally” fresh food and salad robot. You interact with it via a touchscreen to select through your dairy bases (milk or yogurt), combinations of cereals and granolas, and toppings like fresh fruit or cocoa nibs. Kellogg’s also offers custom pre-designed... Continue reading…

A truck drives down the street during a power outage in McKinney, Texas, U.S., on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021. Blackouts left almost 5 million customers without electricity that day, while refineries and oil wells were shut during unprecedented freezing weather. | Cooper Neill/Bloomberg via Getty Images Hundreds more people died in Texas during the February deep freeze and blackouts than the state’s official count shows, according to an investigation by BuzzFeed News. The outages left millions of people without power as indoor temperatures dropped to deadly lows.The way authorities typically count death tolls from disasters tends to drastically low-ball the actual lossesTexas has so far acknowledged 151 winter storm-related deaths. BuzzFeed News, on the other hand, found that an estimated 700 people lost their lives from the combined catastrophes of the storm and power outages. The news outlet conducted a thorough analysis of data that showed how many more people died around that time than would normally be expected. It’s the most... Continue reading…

Image: Innersloth Among Us, the multiplayer game that soared in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, is the latest free title on the Epic Games Store. If you have an account for that storefront, you can download it for free until June 3rd (it normally costs $5). You can then join friends in the game’s newer Airship map, and good news: those friends don’t all need to be playing on PC. The game supports cross-platform multiplayer, so players of the Android, iOS, PC, and Nintendo Switch versions can play together. The PS4 and PS5 versions of the game will support crossplay, too, once it launches later this year.This promo is part of Epic Games’ Mega Sale that’s happening until June 17th. A new mystery game will be free each week, so once Among Us’ time... Continue reading…

Sonic Colors Ultimate. One of the most beloved Sonic the Hedgehog games is making a return. Sega announced today that a remaster of Sonic Colors — called Sonic Colors: Ultimate — will be coming to the PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch on September 7th.The platformer originally launched in 2010, garnering a cult following, and Sega says the new version will feature “stunning visuals, additional features, a new mode, and improved gameplay enhancements.” The game will also be getting a two-part animated tie-in called Rise of the Wisps. The first episode will be out later in the summer.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite. | Image: Samsung Samsung has officially announced two long-rumored tablets: the Galaxy Tab S7 FE and the Galaxy Tab A7 Lite. The company is yet to confirm US pricing or availability for the Tab S7 FE, but in the UK, the tablet will cost £589 or £629 depending on whether you opt for 64GB or 128GB of storage, and it’ll release on June 18th. Meanwhile, the Tab A7 Lite is a smaller, more affordable model. It starts at $159 in the US where it will release on June 10th. (In the UK, it starts at £149 and will release on June 18th.)There’s not a lot we don’t know about the Galaxy Tab S7 FE since most of its specs were revealed earlier this week by its German product page. It’s got a large 12.4-inch 2560 x 1600 LCD display, an 8-megapixel camera on the rear, and... Continue reading…

Hot Vax Summer is fast approaching: vaccination rates are rising, and many people are ready to get out there and party hard — except Airbnb. It’s extending its global partying ban through the summer as it tries to “cultivate safe and responsible travel through our platform.”The company notes in the announcement of the extension that the global ban on parties has already “proven to be popular with our Host community,” noting that most Airbnb hosts had banned hosting raucous parties by choice in their own listing rules prior to the platform-wide ban last August.Airbnb points out that the party ban was already an indefinite one, so the announcement today is less of an extension and more of a clarification for customers who were asking... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Amazon’s Prime Day for 2021 may happen on June 21st and 22nd, according to Bloomberg. Last year’s Prime member-exclusive shopping holiday was delayed until October due to the pandemic. In years prior, Amazon had hosted Prime Day in the summer. But with June upon us, this could mean one of the best times to buy tech, games, movies, and more could be just around the corner.We’ll have that covered end-to-end with all of the best deals. But here are the tech deals you need to know about today.A couple of Beats headphone models with noise cancellation are seeing big discounts today. Firstly, the Beats Solo Pro at Amazon are down to $150 (originally $300), and notably, this sale price is for the black, gray, and ivory colorways that aren’t... Continue reading…

It’s been just over three weeks since the Epic v. Apple proceedings kicked off, and the news has been relentless. So as we wait for a verdict to roll in, we’re taking a quick turn through all the biggest takeaways from the trial. A lot of the juiciest points didn’t speak directly to the verdict — like the profit structure of the Xbox or the troubled history of Fortnite crossplay — but that’s part of the fun of a massive trans-corporate dustup like this. Once you start digging through CEO Tim Cook’s inbox, all sorts of interesting stuff comes out.1] Apple keeps iMessage closed in order to sell more iPhonesWe’ve known for a while that Apple isn’t going to make iMessage available outside of iOS devices, but this trial showed exactly how... Continue reading…

The Acer Predator Triton 500 SE. | Image: Acer We asked CEO Jason Chen about the company’s path to innovation Continue reading…

It doesn’t actually look this polished, but this is the general idea. | Image: Acer Acer has announced SpatialLabs, a new 3D technology that will debut on the company’s ConceptD laptops. I got a chance to try it. It’s not something we’ll realistically see on a consumer device anytime soon — but it’s pretty dang cool nonetheless.SpatialLabs is, according to Acer, “a suite of experiences empowered by cutting-edge optical solutions.” Plainly, it’s a set of tools that makes 3D work look very realistic and cool without requiring special glasses to see it. It delivers content in Stereoscopic 3D, which presents a pair of nearly-but-not-quite-identical 2D images (one to each eye) that combine in your brain to look like one 3D picture. (It’s essentially imitating what your eyes already do.)SpatialLabs uses a combination of... Continue reading…

Take it in. There’s a new Acer Predator in town: the 16-inch Predator Triton 500 SE. It has a new subtle design with a touch of RGB as well as the latest chips from Intel and Nvidia. It also has a feature that I am much too excited about: a 16:10 display.Put this next to the previous Triton 500, and this device looks much more like something you might bring to a meeting or a lecture. It’s not quite as flashy. The last model’s glowing Triton logo has been removed from the center of the lid and squeezed into the top-right corner. The previous Triton also had “Predator” printed along the large bottom bezel, which has been replaced by a smaller and subtler Triton logo as well. The corners are sharper, the keyboard is a bit blacker — it’s a more modern,... Continue reading…

Borderlands 3 is set to get crossplay support soon, but not on Sony’s PlayStation consoles. Gearbox, the developer of Borderlands 3, has revealed it was ready to enable “full crossplay support across all platforms” but that the publisher, 2K Games, required it be removed for PlayStation consoles.Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford revealed the details in a Twitter post today, noting “we have been required by the publisher to remove crossplay support for PlayStation consoles” to pass certification. It’s not immediately clear why 2K Games has asked Gearbox to remove PlayStation crossplay or whether it’s related to Sony’s general disdain for crossplay. We’ve reached out to both Gearbox and 2K Games to comment on the situation.

Splatoon 2. Nintendo is expanding its esports efforts by moving into high schools. The company has announced a new partnership with PlayVS, which will see games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and Splatoon 2 introduced into varsity athletics starting in the fall. “What’s magical about this opportunity is that it’s a way for kids to participate, to compete against their peer levels, and to do so as part of high school athletics,” Nintendo’s Bill Trinen tells The Verge.PlayVS is an amateur esports platform that has partnerships with state and national high school athletic associations, turning competitive gaming into officially recognized competition. It currently operates at three age brackets — youth, high school, and college — with games including... Continue reading…

Image: Bird Bird is out with a new electric scooter that’s designed to be the Santa Monica, California-based company’s most durable and sustainable vehicle yet.The Bird Three scooter has a longer wheelbase, a dual-sensor throttle, and a “triple braking system” with dual independent handbrakes and an “autonomous emergency braking” system that the company claims is an industry-first.But specifications aside, the really interesting thing about the Bird Three is the company’s insistence on calling it a “micro-EV.” It’s a clear effort by Bird, which recently announced its intent to go public via a “reverse merger” with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, to capitalize on the current momentum around electric vehicles.“Autonomous... Continue reading…

Art for the 2021 Pokémon Go Fest. | Image: Niantic Pokémon Go Fest is just a few weeks away, and this year, the annual event is also going to be a music festival, developer Niantic announced on Thursday.During the event, you’ll pick one of two Pikachu — Pikachu Rock Star or Pikachu Pop Star, which you can see in the image at the top of this post — and that choice will influence the music you’ll hear in-game throughout the fest. Longtime Pokémon developer Junichi Masuda has produced special tracks for the event, including “a rock-and-rolling track for Pikachu Rock Star fans” and “a high-energy electro-pop song for Pikachu Pop Star stans,” according to a blog post.Tickets cost $5 this yearIf you complete in-game activities during the festival, you’ll be able to encounter a mythical... Continue reading…

If you’ve ever had to share an Outlook calendar with colleagues, you’ll know how painful it can be when things go wrong. I spent a decade of my professional career in IT support, and shared calendar problems with Outlook for Windows were a daily problem. Microsoft is now promising that it is “dramatically” improving the reliability of shared calendars in what it’s describing as “arguably the biggest change to Outlook for Windows since its initial release in 1997.”Microsoft first started testing a new shared calendars experience for Outlook last year, and it’s now starting to roll out more broadly. Improvements include much faster sync times for new meetings and updated meetings, meaning changes should instantly be reflected in... Continue reading…

Apps are put into five categories, each represented by a color in the live wallpaper. | Image: OnePlus OnePlus’ new Digital WellPaper app turns your app usage into one of three live wallpapers on Android. Apps are simplified into six categories — social, lifestyle and communication, entertainment, gaming, information and business, and tools — which translate to six colors within each wallpaper that become more or less prominent as you use the apps.Both iOS and Android already have the ability to track app usage at a system level, but generally you have to go into a dedicated menu to actually see the information. The advantage with Digital WellPaper is that it puts this usage information — albeit in an abstract form — front and center, so you’re aware of it every time you look at your home or lock screen. OnePlus says it hopes this will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In April 2019, amid growing questions about the effects of social networks on mental health, Instagram announced it would test a feed without likes. The person posting an image on the network would still see how many people had sent it a heart, but the total number of hearts would remain invisible to the public.“It’s about young people,” Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said that November, just ahead of the test arriving in the United States. “The idea is to try and depressurize Instagram, make it less of a competition, give people more space to focus on connecting with people that they love, things that inspire them. But it’s really focused on young people.”After more than two years of testing, today Instagram announced what it found:... Continue reading…

Photo by Michal Fludra/NurPhoto via Getty Images Lime is rolling out a new monthly subscription service for its electric scooters that’s called — no joke — Lime Prime.Lime typically charges a fixed rate to unlock a vehicle and then a per-minute fee to ride. For $5.99 a month, the company will waive that initial fee for Lime Prime subscribers. And in markets with no unlock fees, riders will receive 25 percent off the price of their ride. Subscribers will still pay the per-minute charge, but Lime says that someone who uses one of its scooters every day would save approximately $25 a month under the subscription plan.This isn’t the first iteration of Lime’s subscription serviceThere are other perks that come with a subscription. Lime Prime members can reserve any scooter or bike for... Continue reading…

Privacy International (PI) and several other European privacy and digital rights organizations announced today that they’ve filed legal complaints against the controversial facial recognition company Clearview AI. The complaints filed in France, Austria, Greece, Italy, and the United Kingdom say that the company’s method of documenting and collecting data — including images of faces it automatically extracts from public websites — violates European privacy laws. New York-based Clearview claims to have built “the largest known database of 3+ billion facial images.”PI, NYOB, Hermes Center for Transparency and Digital Human Rights, and Homo Digitalis all claim that Clearview’s data collection goes beyond what the average user would expect... Continue reading…

The Save to Photos option. | Image: Google Google is adding a new “Save to Photos” button to Gmail which you can press to automatically save an emailed image to Google Photos, the company has announced. It’s rolling out to personal Gmail users, Google Workspace, G Suite Basic, and G Suite Business customers over the next couple of weeks and will be available alongside the existing “Add to Drive” button. Unfortunately it only works on JPEGs for the time being. Sorry PNG stans.It’s a good time to be getting a more convenient way to add images to Google Photos, because the service’s storage options are getting a big overhaul on June 1st. At that time, the service’s unlimited storage for “high quality” photos will disappear and will be replaced with a 15GB cap. Importantly, any... Continue reading…

Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge Nintendo could release its heavily rumored new version of the Switch in September or October, according to a report by Bloomberg. Manufacturing is reportedly planned to start as soon as July, and Bloomberg says the system may be announced before the E3 trade show, which kicks off in virtual form on June 12th.As Bloomberg notes, an announcement ahead of E3 would allow third-party publishers, as well as Nintendo itself, to show their games running on the new hardware. This version of the Switch is said to use more powerful silicon from Nvidia that works with DLSS technology, allowing for 4K output to a TV. It also reportedly has a 7-inch OLED display sourced from Samsung.Bloomberg says Nintendo’s suppliers are “confident” in their... Continue reading…

Square Enix has announced the latest mainline entry in the Dragon Quest series. Dragon Quest XII: The Flames of Fate was revealed on a livestream to celebrate the series’ 35th anniversary. Not much beyond the game’s logo and title was revealed, but series creator Yuji Horii hinted at some changes to the traditional turn-based battle system, and said Square Enix was aiming for a simultaneous worldwide release.Dragon Quest is the most popular RPG series in Japan. The last game, Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, was released for the PlayStation 4 and 3DS in its home market in 2017, though the original Western release only came to the PS4 and PC. An updated version, Dragon Quest XI S, was released for the Nintendo Switch and later... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook won’t remove claims that COVID-19 was man-made anymore, according to a report from Politico that cites a Facebook spokesperson. The company altered its policy because of a renewed focus on the origins of the virus, including an order from President Joe Biden to his intelligence agencies to investigate the so-called lab-leak hypothesis.Facebook’s policy change was made “in consultation with public health experts,” that spokesperson told Politico. The social network’s policy mandates that false claims and conspiracy theories about the virus be removed.The company has been trying to stem the tide of misinformationMisinformation has often circulated on Facebook, including during the Ebola crisis in 2014. The company is under... Continue reading…

LeBron James wearing what appear to be Beats Studio Buds. | Image: LeBron James on Instagram Earlier this month, an unannounced pair of Beats wireless earbuds, apparently called the Beats Studio Buds, showed up in beta releases of iOS and tvOS. While those betas were a good start, a flood of new leaks — including actual photos of mystery earbuds from superstar athlete LeBron James — suggest that they could be available very soon.Here’s what we already knew: on May 17th, people digging into the iOS and tvOS 14.6 betas found evidence of the new headphones, with perhaps the clearest look at them coming from animations in the OS shared by MacRumors contributor Steve Moser (he has a whole thread of them here):

Twitter Spaces on the web. | Image: Twitter You’ll be able to join Twitter’s Clubhouse-like Spaces from desktop and mobile web browsers starting Wednesday, the company announced, making the company’s social audio rooms much more widely accessible. Previously, you could only join Spaces from Twitter’s iOS and Android apps.You can get a look at what a Spaces look like on the web in screenshots below, from Twitter. The image on the left shows what you’ll see before joining a Space. The one on the right shows a Space off to the side so you can continue scrolling through Twitter while you listen.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge In February, Sony revealed it was selling the PlayStation 5 at a loss — but that’s imminently about to change. The PS5 should hit break-even in June, and become profitable the very same month, according to a presentation the company shared with investors (PDF) during its investor day today.Needless to say, that’s fast — happening before the company has even managed to catch up with demand, in the midst of a global chip shortage. (We bemoaned the needless drama of buying a PS5 just days ago!) Mind you, this is for the standard PS5, the one where Sony has to supply a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray drive and pay as much as $8 per console in licensing fees, and charges you an extra $100 at retail. It’s not clear if Sony’s driveless PS5... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images Uber has finally recognized a union of its own drivers. Allow yourself that single moment of elation before we get to the rest of the details.GMB trade union in the UK (it’s not really an acronym for anything, as it was shortened from General, Municipal, Boilermakers’ and Allied Trade Union some 40 years ago) managed to clinch union recognition from the jaws of the famously labor-hostile app company today. As The Guardian reported, “GMB will have access to drivers’ meeting hubs [...] It will also be able to represent drivers if they lose access to the Uber app, and it will meet quarterly with management to discuss driver issues and concerns.”It’s not clear whether this arrangement hews closer to traditional union representation as we... Continue reading…

Image: Sandisk Western Digital, owner of the SanDisk brand, has announced a new product called the Pro-Dock 4, and it’s all I’ve ever wanted in a card reading solution: it lets you mix and match four card reading modules, which can all be read simultaneously, and connect them all to your computer using a single Thunderbolt 3 cable. This dock not only fills the hole that was left in my heart by Lexar’s Workflow hub, but it makes me completely forget it existed: the Workflow didn’t have Thunderbolt daisy-chaining or a 260W power supply for charging devices and accessories (though I will admit that Lexar’s SSD modules were kind of neat).SanDisk says it’ll be making modules for the dock that support CFast, CFexpress, Red’s Mini-Mags, CF, microSD, and SD... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Clubhouse has hired Justin Uberti, creator of the WebRTC standard and the Google Duo video chat app. He leaves Google after nearly 15 years at the company, where he was most recently the engineering lead for Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service and led the team that made the Stadia iOS web app.“Justin is a phenomenal engineering leader and one of the original inventors of WebRTC, on top of which Clubhouse is built,” Clubhouse co-founder and CTO Rohan Seth said in a statement. “There’s so much that goes into crafting a fantastic audio experience — the quality, the latency, the ability to use spatial distance when multiple speakers are talking. This will be a critical area of investment for us as we open Clubhouse to the whole world, and... Continue reading…