The Verge

Apple Watch | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge People who get irregular pulse notifications on an Apple Watch but don’t have atrial fibrillation — the condition the feature focuses on detecting — could still have another type of problem with their heartbeat, according to a new study.The findings show that even if someone with a concerning alert from their Apple Watch doesn’t get an atrial fibrillation diagnosis, they may not be in the clear, says study author Marco Perez, the director of the Inherited Arrhythmia Clinic at Stanford University Medical Center. “Even if you didn’t find atrial fibrillation, we were finding a lot of people who had something else that probably needed some clinical attention,” he says.The analysis, published in the journal Circulation, was done using... Continue reading…

Wccftech There have been rumors that Asus partnered with Noctua, maker of very quiet PC case fans and this silent, fan-less CPU cooler, to make a custom Nvidia RTX 3070 desktop graphics card that looks like no other. While its existence has leaked a few times, picked up by PC Gamer in recent months, Wccftech was quick to spot that an Asus employee in Vietnam posted images of the graphics card and other info to the Asus ROG Vietnam Facebook page. Those assets have since been taken down, but not before Wccftech was able to snag the photos and take note of the details.This new GPU, apparently called the RTX3070-08G-NOCTUA, won’t be as affordable as your average RTX 3070 (MSRP of $499), plus the cost of a couple of Noctua fans. Asus’ Facebook page... Continue reading…

It’s a strange thing that one of the most enjoyable physical interfaces I use in my day-to-day life is on a kettle. The Stagg EKG Electric Kettle, specifically, a $150 appliance that’s almost entirely controlled through a single, magnificent dial that is a strong contender for the best way to turn on a kettle (a competition that, admittedly, lacks much competition).Using the Stagg is a delightful experience of tactility. The main control is a single dial/button located on the front right of the base. Turning it on takes just a single press, a deep, solid click that lets you know through touch and sound that you’ve turned on the kettle. Turning it off is a similar single press, another resonant click to announce that the kettle is off.... Continue reading…

It is rare for a big company to come out and categorically deny an entire report, but that’s what Nintendo just did — the Japanese corporate entity issued a press release insisting Bloomberg’s seeming revelation that Nintendo was pushing developers to build 4K-resolution games for an upcoming but potentially canceled “Switch Pro” handheld was entirely incorrect.Nintendo writes the report “falsely claims that Nintendo is supplying tools to drive game development for a Nintendo Switch with 4K support” and insists that it’s “not true.” Separately, it says that it has no plans for any new Nintendo Switch other than the slightly refined OLED model that’ll be out next week.On Thursday morning, Zynga spokesperson Sarah Ross also denied the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games announced Thursday that it would be making its parent verification services free for all developers in order to make it easier to build games that keep kids safe online.Epic Games bought SuperAwesome, a safe kidtech company, last September. With this new addition to the company, Epic Games was able to launch its Kids Web Services (KWS) program, allowing developers to “verify the identity of parents or guardians when granting their children permission to use features that collect personal information.” Once a parent is verified through the system, they receive what Epic calls the “ParentGraph,” which makes it simpler to offer verification through other games on the Epic platform.Epic says that this system not only protects... Continue reading…

The Nreal Air smart glasses. | Image: Nreal Augmented reality company Nreal is launching a cheaper, iOS-compatible, more compact version of its smart glasses. The new Nreal Air glasses are supposed to ship starting in December 2021 across Japan, China, and South Korea. The price isn’t set, but Nreal says they’ll cost “a fraction of the price” of its earlier Nreal Light glasses, which started selling for around $600 last year.Based on Nreal’s description, the new Nreal Air glasses have some core similarities with the Nreal Light glasses from 2020. Both are designed to look like relatively normal sunglasses and pitched as ideal for projecting a virtual big-screen display in front of your eyes. They’re both using micro OLED displays for their augmented reality optics and are powered... Continue reading…

Bluestacks X brings Android games to the browser. | Image: Bluestacks BlueStacks started off life as an Android emulator for Windows more than 10 years ago, allowing anyone to run native Arm-based or x86 Android apps on Windows PCs and tablets. Now BlueStacks is transitioning to the cloud, bringing Android games to the browser and across iOS, Windows, macOS, Android, and Linux devices, and even inside Discord.BlueStacks X launches today as the only cloud gaming service that offers free streaming of mobile games across multiple platforms and devices. BlueStacks has built its hybrid cloud technology under its now.gg brand to make this possible, combined with Amazon’s AWS Graviton servers. BlueStacks X also offloads part of the compute and graphics rendering to local devices thanks to advancements in modern... Continue reading…

Dolby Atmos isn’t the reason you should buy it Continue reading…

Spotify Spotify is making podcasts on its platform more interactive. The company announced today that podcasters who create their shows in Anchor, its creation software, will be able to build interactive polls and Q&As into their programs. Listeners across 160 markets will be able to engage with them. For now, the functionality is only available to Anchor podcasters — not even for people who use Megaphone, Spotify’s podcast hosting platform — and it only works on the Spotify app.To view a poll or Q&A, you’ll see it at the bottom of your Spotify mobile app. Once you respond to a poll, you’ll be able to see how others voted, while Q&A answers will be sent to the podcaster privately. These podcasters can then choose to pin and publicly display the... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Backbone Labs has acknowledged the issue that hampers the use of its excellent iPhone gaming controller with the new iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max. As we noticed last week, the iPhone 13 Pro’s thicker camera bump means the phone doesn’t sit neatly in the Backbone One controller, either sticking out on one side or causing the bridge on the back to slightly buckle. It’s not unusable, but it’s not great.“We spent a tremendous amount of time meticulously crafting every surface of Backbone One (both bits and atoms) and even designing universal support for the iPhones available when it was released,” a Backbone representative wrote in an official post on Reddit. “As a result, we’re disappointed in the situation at hand. Several folks on the... Continue reading…

DISH and Boost Mobile hope to bring in new 5G customers with their own phone, the Celero5G. | DISH/Boost Mobile After acquiring Boost Mobile as part of the Sprint and T-Mobile merger in 2020 and snapping up Republic Wireless for its 5G network earlier this year, Dish is finally ready to turn Boost Mobile into the fourth wireless carrier that the FCC envisioned.Its opening salvo? The satellite television provider is introducing an exclusive budget 5G phone for Boost Mobile’s prepaid customers.The Celero5G is a “custom-built phone” for Boost Mobile, according to its spokesperson. Just like T-Mobile’s Revvl or AT&T’s Radiant, it has unique branding that you won’t find anywhere else. For a carrier that is trying to expand its user base, this is certainly an unusual way to get there. After all, most other carriers try to dangle the latest flagship... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is launching its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service in Australia, Brazil, Mexico, and Japan. The software giant has been testing streaming Xbox Game Pass Ultimate games in these markets over the past few months, and is now ready to greatly expand the reach of its xCloud technology.XCloud will be available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers in Brazil and Mexico later today, meaning it technically launches in Australia and Japan in the early hours of October 1st. Xbox Cloud Gaming will be available through the dedicated Android and Xbox Windows apps, or via the web for iOS and other devices.Microsoft is now offering Xbox Cloud Gaming in 26 countries, thanks to this big expansion. “Since cloud gaming is powered by custom... Continue reading…

Xbox Series X console. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Microsoft’s Xbox chief, Phil Spencer, says console supply issues will continue into 2022. In an interview with The Wrap, spotted by Video Games Chronicle, Spencer admits the Xbox supply issues will last for the rest of the year and into 2022 due to supply chain complications beyond just a chip shortage.“I think it’s probably too isolated to talk about it as just a chip problem,” says Spencer. “When I think about, what does it mean to get the parts necessary to build a console today, and then get it to the markets where the demand is, there are multiple kind of pinch points in that process. And I think regretfully it’s going to be with us for months and months, definitely through the end of this calendar year and into the next calendar... Continue reading…

Getty Images A preview of arguments to come Continue reading…

Amazon has settled a dispute with two workers that the National Labor Relations Board said were fired for their activism. In April 2020, the company fired Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa after they had organized a protest against Amazon’s work with oil and gas companies, as well as raising concerns with the company’s coronavirus measures at its warehouses. In a joint statement, Costa and Cunningham said that the company would have to pay them lost wages as well as inform employees that they couldn’t be fired for organizing. They haven’t mentioned whether they would be getting their jobs as UX designers back.At the time of the NLRB’s ruling, Amazon said that it disagreed with the findings, and that Costa and Cunningham had been fired... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook has shared the internal research about the impact of Instagram on teenage mental wellbeing reported on by The Wall Street Journal earlier this month. The Wall Street Journal reported that the files showed Instagram knew the social media network has a negative affect on teens’ mental health. Facebook has pushed back on the WSJ’s characterizations of its research, saying that “it is simply not accurate that this research demonstrates Instagram is ‘toxic’ for teen girls.”The research slide decks are available on Facebook’s newsroom here, split into two PDFs. We’ve also embedded the PDFs at the bottom of this story. Notably, the two PDFs have been annotated by Facebook in an effort to provide context.Following Facebook’s release... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Several Chinese companies have filed a class-action complaint against Amazon for banning them from the Amazon marketplace over their use of paid reviews, a new complaint filed on September 13th claims. In the last year, Amazon has cracked down on companies soliciting paid reviews on its platform, claiming to have permanently banned 600 Chinese brands across 3,000 seller accounts.The companies listed in the complaint, doing business as Sopownic, Slaouwo, Deyixun, Cstech, Recoo Direct, Angelbliss, and Tudi, are seeking “recovery of funds that are being illegally and improperly withheld by Amazon” and are filing the class action to “stop any further misappropriation and misuse of funds that are legally and rightfully due to thousands of... Continue reading…

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images Virgin Galactic is cleared to resume flights of its SpaceShipTwo space plane, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Wednesday, after capping a safety investigation into issues that came up during the company’s July flight carrying its founder Richard Branson. During that mission, SpaceShipTwo strayed from its designated airspace on its descent from space, and Virgin Galactic didn’t tell the FAA about it when it was supposed to.With the investigation now closed, the FAA required Virgin Galactic to make changes “on how it communicates to the FAA during flight operations to keep the public safe,” it said in a statement. Virgin Galactic said that includes “updated calculations to expand the protected airspace for future flights”... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Don’t get me wrong; we’re excited about Nintendo’s new OLED Switch — the number of preorders in The Verge newsroom confirms it. But what about the more powerful Switch that so many of us thought was around the corner? A new Bloomberg report suggests that the global chip shortage is why plans fell through for a “Switch Pro” with upgraded hardware from Nvidia and 4K resolution.The outlet, which previously reported on the device, backs up those reports by saying it’s identified at least 11 developers, like Zynga, who have received 4K Nintendo Switch development kits. Specifically, Bloomberg claims employees heard from Nintendo that they should design games to target the higher resolution. In response, Nintendo told Bloomberg its reporting... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok has agreed to settle a lawsuit with Bev Standing, the voice actress who said she was behind the app’s original text-to-speech voice. Standing sued TikTok in May, saying that the app was using her voice without permission. A robotic version of what sounded like Standing’s voice had been in the app for months, speaking over what felt like every other video at the time.A lawyer for Standing said the settlement was still being finalized and details around payment could not be disclosed. “They’ve reached an amicable resolution,” Robert Sciglimpaglia, who represents Standing, said in a phone call with The Verge. Sciglimpaglia said TikTok would license Standing’s voice as part of the agreement, but it’s up to TikTok whether or not to... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge The 2022 Escalade is heading into production, but it’ll be missing a key feature when the first customers pick up their new ride: the hands-free driving mode known as Super Cruise. It’s the latest feature to get the axe as a result of the global semiconductor shortage, which has been an especially big drain on the auto industry.The shortage is also forcing Cadillac to hold off on adding Super Cruise to the CT4 and CT5 sedans, according to Roadshow. With the Bolt currently not on sale due to the massive battery recall, that means parent company General Motors’ most advanced technological feature is currently not available on any new car.“[W]e’re confident in our team’s ability to find creative solutions to mitigate the supply chain... Continue reading…

A new version of the excellent Nest Hello video doorbell (pictured) will arrive in 2022. | Photo by Florence Ion for The Verge Google is working on a successor to the excellent Nest Hello doorbell, which it recently rebranded the Nest Doorbell (wired). The new Nest Doorbell will support 24/7 recording, will work with the Google Home app (not the Nest app), and should launch in 2022.Rishi Chandra, GM of Google Nest, shared the news in a blog post on the Google Nest Community forum today. “We commit to being more transparent with you on where we are taking the camera portfolio,” writes Chandra. “We know that those with wired doorbell connections prefer to have a doorbell that can also support 24/7 continuous video history (via the Nest Aware subscription). We are excited to share that we will be launching a 2nd generation of Nest Doorbell (wired) in 2022.”There... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch is adding new tools in the fight against harassment on the platform. Twitch announced it will be adding phone verification chat controls that will allow streamers to require a viewer to have a verified phone number in order to chat. Additionally, Twitch is tweaking the existing email verification settings to give creators greater control over who gets to chat.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Sonos developed a system called “Concurrency” that could make multiple voice assistants interoperable on its smart speakers but had to put its plans on hold because of Google, a new Washington Post report explains.Concurrency does more or less what its name suggests by allowing Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa to be used side by side. “Sonos today sells speakers that let you choose between Alexa and Google, but only one can operate at a time — you have to disable one before you can use the other. In the Concurrency demo, talking to both of them required nothing more than saying their names,” The Washington Post shares about Sonos’ demo.Sonos wants voice assistants to work togetherThe basic idea behind relying on multiple... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images On Tuesday, Elon Musk accused Jeff Bezos and his companies of using the legal system to slow SpaceX’s progress during a talk at the 2021 Code Conference. Just a few hours later, Amazon — which is working on a competing satellite-based internet project — sent The Verge an unsolicited 13-page list of lawsuits, government petitions, and other legal actions that SpaceX has taken over the years.“Attached is a list of some of the times SpaceX has sued the U.S. government on procurement matters and protested various governmental decisions,” a spokesperson for Amazon’s satellite division, Project Kuiper, wrote in the email. “It is difficult to reconcile their own historical record with their recent position on others filing similar actions.”“... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple’s Find My app has been a very useful (and reassuring) feature, allowing you to locate a misplaced (or stolen) phone so that you can retrieve it (or contact the authorities, if that’s safer). With the expansion of Find My to a variety of other objects, especially via Apple’s AirTags, it’s become even more useful.And now that iOS 15 brings with it the capability to locate your phone even if the battery has run out or it’s been turned off — if you’ve got the right phone — the utility of Find My has become even greater.You will be able to locate a shut-off phone if you have the following:

The Pro 8 offers Thunderbolt 4 support, a 120Hz display, a better camera, more storage, and more. During its recent Surface event, Microsoft launched the largest upgrade of its flagship Intel-powered Surface Pro lineup in years: the Surface Pro 8. The new 2-in-1 machine boasts a 120Hz display, Thunderbolt 4 support, and new processors, but all of those improvements come at a cost — literally. Whereas the Surface Pro 7 starts at $549.99, the Surface Pro 8 starts at $1,099.99, meaning it’s nearly double the price. And that’s also before you factor in the cost of Microsoft’s new stylus and detachable keyboard, two add-ons that are more like necessities if you intend to use the 2-in-1 as advertised.With all that said, is it worth upgrading or picking up the Pro 8 over the last-gen model when it launches on October 5th? To help make your... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge For years, Apple has let you redownload many built-in apps from the App Store that you may have deleted, but store listings for those apps had a distinct difference from others: there was no way to leave a rating or review. That appears to have changed recently, though, as you can now review Apple’s apps in the store.In a cursory, unscientific scan of some of Apple’s apps, many of them don’t have overwhelmingly positive scores. Files, Apple Maps, and Home all had ratings between three and three-and-a-half stars. Apple News is currently sitting at 2.3 stars. As 9to5Mac observed, Podcasts has a whopping two-star rating.There aren’t a lot of ratings yetThat said, most of Apple’s apps just don’t have many ratings — many don’t break triple... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge These days, you have to pay for the privilege Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge General Motors announced a new “end-to-end” software platform for its cars called “Ultifi” — a play on the name Ultium, which is the automaker’s new electric vehicle battery architecture. GM says the new software will enable over-the-air (OTA) updates, in-car subscription services, and “new opportunities to increase customer loyalty.”The automaker envisions the new software powering everything from the mundane, like weather apps, to potentially controversial features like the use of in-car cameras for facial recognition or to detect children to automatically trigger the car’s child locks. The Linux-based system will also be available to third-party developers who may want to create apps and other features for GM customers.GM is... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The iPhone 13 Pro Max can charge a bit faster than other models, according to tests done by YouTuber ChargerLAB (and backed up by other tests), which show that the phone sips up to 27 watts of power when plugged into a compatible charging brick. If you have a 13 Pro Max and want to fill up its massive battery as fast as possible, you may want to look into getting a 30W charger that, according to tests cited by @duanrui1205, can charge it from zero to full in less than 90 minutes.This appears to be an upgrade from the previous generation — 9to5Mac reports that the iPhone 12 caps out at around 22W charging speeds. That’s about a 5W boost, which is nothing to sneeze at. The benefit of a bigger charger is limited to the Pro Max, according... Continue reading…

Here it is. | Image: Drop Sure, why not. Stack Overflow has teamed up with tech retailer Drop to release this cute little keyboard called The Key. It’s programmed to do exactly two things: copy and paste.The product started as an April Fools’ Day joke earlier this year — Stack Overflow users were shown alerts claiming that they had a limited number of copy / pastes and that they could only lift that cap by purchasing The Key. Users, as Stack Overflow’s blog post notes, were disappointed to find out that The Key was not a real thing they could buy.So, you can buy it now. It’s up for preorder on Drop’s website for $29. Per the company, the next batch is shipping on December 13th. Image: Drop What more could you need? As you can see,... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google says search is still far from solved Continue reading…

Google’s Tree Canopy Lab | Image: Google Google Maps has new features that should make it easier for users to see wildfires, tree canopy, and locations without formal addresses. It’s all aimed at helping communities be “safer, more sustainable, and discoverable,” according to the company.A new wildfire layer on Maps will begin rolling out globally this week, Google announced today. It’ll show most major fires, those prompting evacuations, across the world. Red splotches and pins on the layer will indicate where blazes are and how far they’ve spread. By tapping on any single wildfire, users can see more information, like how many acres have burned, what percentage of the fire has been contained, and links to local emergency resources.The map is updated about every hour. It... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge All the new features coming to the search giant’s core product Continue reading…

Image: Google Shopping online isn’t always a convenience. If you enjoy window shopping or browsing curated collections at a brick-and-mortar store for inspiration, finding something online you don’t yet know you want or are unaware of is tricky if you start with a text search. Google is announcing new shopping search tools to try to alleviate this, with features that utilize Google Lens for finding products to buy from pictures online, broader search terms to help you browse clothing, and the ability to check in-store inventory from home. It claims the new tools will help shoppers “find what they’re looking for in a more visual way.” This comes after Google allowed all businesses to create listings on Google Shopping for free last year. Now, it wants... Continue reading…

Google is updating its visual search tool Google Lens with new AI-powered language features. The update will let users further narrow searches using text. So, for example, if you snap a photo of a paisley shirt in order to find similar items online using Google Lens, you can add the command “socks with this pattern” to specify the garments you’re looking for.Additionally, Google is launching a new “Lens mode” option in its iOS Google app, allowing users to search using any image that appears while searching the web. This will be available “soon,” but it’ll be limited to the US. Google is also launching Google Lens on desktop within the Chrome browser, letting users select any image or video when browsing the web to find visual search... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge “Can you get medicine for someone at the pharmacy?”It’s a simple enough question for humans to understand, says Pandu Nayak, vice president of search at Google, but such a query represents the cutting-edge of machine comprehension. You and I can see that the questioner is asking if they can fill out a subscription for another person, Nayak tells The Verge. But until recently, if you typed this question into Google, it would direct you to websites explaining how to fill out your prescription. “It missed the subtlety that the prescription was for someone else,” he says.MUM is Google’s biggest, brightest AI language modelThe key to delivering the right answer, says Nayak, is AI, which Google is using today to improve its search results.... Continue reading…

Whether it wants to be or not, YouTube is a guardian of internet history, with countless classic videos sitting in its archives. That makes it jarring when the company acts like what it is: a multinational corporation with no real understanding of this value. Case in point, this week, YouTube removed the original upload of the “Ah fuck, I can’t believe you’ve done this” meme, initially rejecting an appeal from its creator (and the guy who can’t believe this was done) and claiming that the clip violates the company’s “violent or graphic content policy.”In the words of Paul Weedon himself, star of and uploader of the original video: Ah, fuck. “It’s completely out of the blue,” Weedon told The Verge regarding the takedown. “I made the case... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Almost everything Hasbro won’t give you in one package Continue reading…

The Mandalorian and Boba Fett in The Mandalorian. | Image: Lucasfilm Disney’s The Book of Boba Fett, a new show focused on the iconic Star Wars bounty hunter, will premiere on Disney Plus on December 29th, Disney announced Wednesday.Disney revealed that the show was in the works after a post-credits scene during the season 2 finale of The Mandalorian. Shortly after that big reveal, we learned that the show would premiere in December 2021, but now we have an official date.Here’s the official synopsis, from Disney:

Image: Facebook A little over a month after Facebook announced a test blending Instagram Reels’ short-form video content with its main Facebook app, the company is ready to roll it out fully in the US. Now, the creators who use it can create reels on Facebook, and Facebook is testing suggestions that will push the videos to its users. Image: Facebook Facebook Reels recommendation A big part of the Reels effort is appealing to the people who make entertaining content, and with its news feed, Facebook can offer potential levels of exposure that are bigger than anyone else, including competition like TikTok and Snapchat. To drive the point home, Facebook announced a Reels Play bonus program, which will invite certain creators to... Continue reading…

Image: Disney Disney’s next animated feature, Encanto, has a lot of what you’d expect from the studio. It’s bright and colorful, telling the story of a magical family living in the mountains of Colombia, most of whom have been blessed with superpowers. It’s even a musical with songs written by Lin-Manuel Miranda. But despite the familiar fantasy trappings, it explores new territory for Disney: the narrative tradition of magical realism. “The magic is born out of a human need or drive,” Encanto co-writer and co-director Charise Castro Smith tells The Verge. “It’s all generated by relationships and what these characters are going through.”Encanto tells the story of the Madrigal family, who lives in a magical home and go through a very unique experience... Continue reading…

Image: Sony They’re not audiophile earbuds by any means, but I’ve been a fan of Sony’s “extra bass” WF-XB700 earbuds since they were released. A big part of that is their unconventional shape, which twists into my ear canal deeper than most other earbuds for a sturdy fit that also manages to remain comfortable. But today, Sony is introducing the replacements for those earbuds, and while there are notable improvements like app support (with EQ), longer battery life, and easier controls, the overall design of the new $100 WF-C500 earbuds is definitely playing it safer. They also cost less out of the gate than the XF-XB700s did.Sony says it decided to go for a more compact style this time, but it has maintained the IPX4 water and sweat resistance of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In a new attempt to stem the flow of anti-vaccine misinformation, YouTube said Wednesday that it won’t allow videos that claim vaccines approved by health authorities are dangerous or don’t work. The platform is also banning prominent anti-vaccine accounts, including Joseph Mercola’s channel and the Robert F. Kennedy Jr.-linked Children’s Defense Fund.YouTube pulled ads from anti-vaccination content in 2019, and said in October 2020 that it would remove videos that pushed misinformation around COVID-19 vaccines. The new policy expands to block misinformation around other vaccines, including the flu shot, the HPV vaccine, and the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Videos that inaccurately claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism... Continue reading…

Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin’s founder, unveiling his space company’s Blue Moon lunar lander in 2019 in Washington, DC. | Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images Blue Origin is backed by the world’s richest man — why didn’t it just offer NASA a cheaper lunar lander? Continue reading…

Every year ahead of the League of Legends World Championship, developer Riot tries to get everyone excited with a new song. This year’s anthem is called “Burn It All Down” from American band Pvris, and it definitely fits into the tradition of music to get players amped up. But it also comes with a bonus: a music video that turns some of the game’s best players into anime heroes. (Journalist Ashley Kang has a great thread detailing who is who.) It’s the kind of short that makes you want a full League esports anime, and it even transitions to a 3D art style at the end, in a nod to the upcoming Netflix series Arcane.This year’s iteration of Worlds will take place in Iceland starting October 5th; it was originally slated for China but was... Continue reading…