The Verge

Images: Ford Up to 300 miles of range starting at just under $40,000 Continue reading…

If you told me you’d found an OLED laptop for just $800, I’d have warned you against refurbished computers and deep-discount closeout sales. The inky blackness and gorgeous colors of OLED have not come cheap. Dell charges a $300 premium just for the screen. And yet Asus’s new affordable OLED laptop defies those expectations.The new machine is called the Asus ZenBook 13 OLED, and early reviews are already suggesting it could be a slam dunk for budget buyers. While there’s no headphone jack and some are complaining about a cramped keyboard, the 2.5-pound laptop doesn’t seem to skimp on the specs. In addition to that 13-inch 1080p OLED screen (one of the first 1080p OLEDs I can recall on a laptop) with its 100-percent DCI-P3 color gamut,... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Google is one of the major companies behind the upcoming interconnected cross-platform smart home standard Matter, and today, the company has explained how it’ll work to support Matter with its Android devices and Nest smart home products.To start, the company is promising that all of its Nest displays and speakers will be updated to enable them to control Matter devices. That means once the update arrives (Google isn’t giving a timeframe yet), you’ll be able to use Google Assistant to control any Matter device, whether it was previously part of Google’s smart home platform or not.Additionally, newer Google smart home products with Thread built in, like the Nest Wi-Fi, Nest Hub Max, and second-gen Nest Hub, will also serve as Matter... Continue reading…

Nintendo is releasing the HD remake of The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Switch on July 16th, and in the run up to the return of the — checks Hyrule Historia — current earliest entry in the Zelda timeline, it’s also selling a new amiibo. The $25 “Zelda and Loftwing” NFC-equipped figurine features the proto-princess and her bird companion, but also comes with the unique ability to teleport to the game’s floating hub world from anywhere, bypassing one of Skyward Sword’s many annoying quirks for an extra cost.Fast travel in Skyward Sword is normally only accessible at in-game save points, a remnant of the more rigid Zelda design the game launched with on the Wii in 2011. When this new amiibo is placed on the Switch in the HD... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Five female Amazon employees filed discrimination lawsuits against the company Wednesday, Recode reports. The women worked at vastly different areas of the business, ranging from a warehouse to corporate HR. All say they were retaliated against by white managers after bringing forward complaints of racial discrimination, sexism, or sexual harassment.One of the plaintiffs, a 64-year-old Black woman named Pearl Thomas, said she was placed on a performance improvement plan after complaining about her boss’s racist remarks. Thomas, who worked in HR, claimed her boss used the “n-word” in reference to her, and told her and another Black colleague “you don’t want to be an angry Black woman.”He allegedly made comments like “Latins suck,” and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Slack is now rolling out a new field for profiles that will let you list your pronouns right under your name and job title. Once filled out, your pronouns will appear both on the mini-profiles you see when you click on someone’s name and in their full profiles.Note that your Slack profile may already have a pronouns field, if an administrator created a custom field for your company’s employees. (When I went to check The Verge’s Slack, I found we already had one.) Slack says administrators can continue using that custom field or choose to turn on this new one, though the new dedicated pronouns field has the benefit of appearing more prominently in your profile. Image: Slack Here’s how your pronouns will appear in... Continue reading…

Image: Yee, Tantipongpipat, Mishra Twitter is phasing out its image cropping algorithm in favor of showing larger previews, and the company has announced that it’s been looking into accusations that the system was biased. It found that the crops were slightly biased towards certain races and genders, but Twitter’s main gripe seems to be that the algorithm doesn’t give users control.Starting in 2018, Twitter started using the algorithm to crop images so they fit in its image preview boxes. The algorithm tries to determine what will be most visually interesting to a user so it can include it can include it in the preview, but some have accused it of favoring white faces over black ones. To determine if that’s the case, Twitter had some of its researchers produce a report... Continue reading…

Photo: Netflix The ’90s are back in Netflix’s latest horror movies. A trilogy of movies based on R.L. Stine’s classic Fear Street book series is coming to the streaming service in July. Plan your spooky movie nights accordingly: part one will debut on July 2nd, followed by sequels on the 9th and 16th.Here’s the basic premise, according to Netflix:

Apple Watch with the Assistive Touch cursor. | Image: Apple Apple announced a variety of new and updated features for people with disabilities today. Beginning May 20th, customers can use the new SignTime sign language interpreter service to contact AppleCare and retail customer care through their web browsers. Software updates later this year to iOS, watchOS, and iPadOS will bring improved options for Assistive Touch, VoiceOver, hearing aid support, and background sounds.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Update May 19th, 2021 5:03 PM ET: GameStop has sold out of both PS5 bundles.GameStop has released some precious stock of the PS5 consoles, both for the $499.99 disc-based version and the disc-less model that costs $100 less. However, it’s offering them in bundles, as GameStop has been wont to do since the console launched late last year. Stock is coming in and out, as usual, so stay on the page if you want to ensure the best chance that you’ll get one.You can get the disc-based console with Returnal, MLB The Show 21, an extra DualSense controller, and a $20 GameStop gift card for $729.99.Alternatively, the disc-less model comes in a $599.99 bundle that includes a second DualSense controller, a $20 GameStop gift card, a $50 credit for... Continue reading…

Image: Anker/Eufy Eufy has put out a statement apologizing for a glitch that occurred two days ago, allowing some Eufy home security camera users to see video from other users’ homes. The statement explains that it happened during a software update, but the company claims it only affected a small number of users: just 712 people across the US, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, New Zealand, Australia, and Argentina. Eufy says that the issue was fixed with an emergency update less than two hours after it was identified.In a statement to The Verge, Eufy confirmed that “users were able to access video feeds from other users’ cameras.” However, in its official statement posted to Twitter (which can be viewed in full below), Eufy doesn’t explain what the bug actually was.... Continue reading…

Yesterday brought the momentous news that Google and Samsung will merge together their Wear OS and Tizen-based smartwatch platforms into a single operating system. The new software is currently being referred to as Wear, but that name could change as we get closer to the first devices that will ship with it.The unified platform is intended to give Android smartwatches a huge boost and much simpler strategy. It will also allow developers to create apps and widgets for a single OS instead of splitting their efforts between Wear OS and Tizen. A lot of this is spelled out in more detail in the below video, but let’s also focus on the big highlights.It’s going to be faster than Wear OSSpeed and responsiveness were one of the major... Continue reading…

HBO Max is getting a pair of new animated DC shows: Batman: The Caped Crusader and My Adventures with Superman, WarnerMedia announced today.The two shows appear pretty different in tone. The Caped Crusader, coming from a team that includes J.J. Abrams, Matt Reeves (the director of the upcoming The Batman), and Bruce Timm (one of the co-creators of the fan-favorite Batman: The Animated Series) promises a noir-ish “reimagining” of the character.“The series will be thrilling, cinematic and evocative of Batman’s noir roots, while diving deeper into the psychology of these iconic characters,” Abrams, Reeves, and Timm commented in a joint announcement. The teaser poster showcasing the art style for the series seems to back up the darker... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Early Monday morning, AT&T announced a sudden change in direction: it reached an agreement to spin off WarnerMedia — the conglomerate of Warner Bros., HBO, CNN, DC Comics, and more — into a new company to be merged with Discovery. While Discovery’s roster of the Cooking Channel, Travel Channel, and Food Network is a whole lot less exciting than WarnerMedia’s lineup of Batman, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones, the combined company brings together the components needed to build a new streaming giant. And it’s already clear that this new Discovery-Warner hybrid has Disney in its sights.“It’s a combination of bulking up both sides of the business, creating a more compelling direct-to-consumer offering for HBO Max or Discovery Plus,” Neil... Continue reading…

Ford is getting ready to pull the curtain back on its latest electric vehicle. The F-150 Lightning, the electric version of the automaker’s bestselling pickup truck, will take center stage at Ford’s headquarters in Dearborn, MI, at 9:30PM ET on Wednesday, May 19th.Ford says there will be “30+ ways to watch across physical and digital destinations,” including live streams on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. The event will also be broadcast in several public locations like Times Square in New York City and Las Vegas Boulevard.“30+ ways to watch across physical and digital destinations”It’s a lot of hoopla for a truck that’s been in the works for over four years and has already been seen publicly, with and without camouflage. We got our... Continue reading…

Image: Consumer Reports If you’re ever annoyed by a website or app trying to trick you by using small text, brightly colored buttons, or tricky toggles, there’s a new tip line you can use to report the bad behavior, run by Consumer Reports Advocacy. The Dark Patterns Tip Line aims to collect various examples of dark patterns, defined by the website as “design tactics used in websites and apps to persuade you into doing things you probably would not do otherwise,” and use those examples to fight back against the companies that are behaving poorly.Even if you’ve never heard the term “dark pattern” before, you’ve likely come across one. Consumer Reports provides a list of examples in a tweet, and on the tip line’s site, but there are entire websites (like d... Continue reading…

Photo by Drew Angerer / Getty Images Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount has confirmed that his company did in fact pay $4.4 million to the hackers responsible for the ransomware attack on the pipeline system that transports around 45 percent of fuel used on the East Coast, The Wall Street Journal writes. Earlier reporting estimated Colonial Pipeline paid a ransom of nearly $5 million, news that was surprising — not for the amount of money that was paid, but because paying ransoms to cybercriminals is frowned upon by law enforcement agencies.The situation with Colonial Pipeline is further complicated by the fact that the Colonial Pipeline Company itself was responsible for the shutdown. Blount tells the Journal that its operational systems weren’t directly impacted, but it... Continue reading…

Photo by Amy Osborne/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images In 2010, the San Francisco Bay Area introduced a single tap-to-pay NFC card for practically all its public transit — and Google introduced the first NFC-equipped Android smartphone. Now, over a decade later, the two ideas are finally compatible. Today, you can finally digitize a Clipper card into most Android phones, or buy one there to start, then tap it to ride 24 different transit systems in SF and the greater Silicon Valley.Apple also added the same functionality to iPhones and Apple Watches last month, and here’s how I described it at the time:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge HBO Max will launch an ad-supported tier in June for $9.99 per month, offering a cheaper option than the full $14.99-per-month ad-free subscription. The news was announced during a WarnerMedia presentation for advertisers today. The price and launch date were rumored last month.The streaming service, which has 64 million subscribers, has been planning an ad-supported tier as a way to reach a wider audience. The price makes it cheaper than a standard Netflix plan, though it still costs more than Disney Plus. HBO promises the “lightest ad load” in the industry, but it’ll include new ad formats such as “pause ads” that display ads while shows are paused.Ad-free subscribers will get access to “the full HBO Max content catalog,” but with... Continue reading…

Microsoft is finally retiring Internet Explorer next year, after more than 25 years. The aging web browser has largely been unused by most consumers for years, but Microsoft is putting the final nail in the Internet Explorer coffin on June 15th, 2022, by retiring it in favor of Microsoft Edge.“We are announcing that the future of Internet Explorer on Windows 10 is in Microsoft Edge,” says Sean Lyndersay, a Microsoft Edge program manager. “The Internet Explorer 11 desktop application will be retired and go out of support on June 15, 2022, for certain versions of Windows 10.”While the Long-Term Servicing Channel (LTSC) of Windows 10 will still include Internet Explorer next year, all consumer versions will end support of the browser.... Continue reading…

The electric version of the bestselling pickup truck is here Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Yesterday at Google’s I/O developer conference, the company outlined ambitious plans for its future built on a foundation of advanced language AI. These systems, said Google CEO Sundar Pichai, will let users find information and organize their lives by having natural conversations with computers. All you need to do is speak, and the machine will answer.But for many in the AI community, there was a notable absence in this conversation: Google’s response to its own research examining the dangers of such systems.Language models like Google’s come with a host of challenging risksIn December 2020 and February 2021, Google first fired Timnit Gebru and then Margaret Mitchell, co-leads of its Ethical AI team. The story of their departure is... Continue reading…

An explosive and stylish endless runner Continue reading…

Image: Sony The Last of Us Part II is getting a long-awaited PlayStation 5 patch on Wednesday that lets you play the game at a targeted 60fps frame rate, Sony announced.“Once patch 1.08 for The Last of Us Part II is installed on your PS5, you will find a toggle in the Display options that allows you to choose between a Framerate Target of 30 FPS or 60 FPS,” developer Naughty Dog said in a blog post. “This allows you to choose your preferred framerate to complement the rest of the enhancements that are part of the PS5 backward compatibility with PS4 games, such as an enhanced resolution, faster load times, and more.”You can catch a trailer for the patch at the top of this post, and in my opinion, it looks great. I’ll definitely be checking out the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apps lie at the heart of one of the most enduring conflicts in the trans community Continue reading…

Image: Roku Roku’s Streambar is one of the few double-duty soundbars out there that can also connect to your TV to stream TV shows and movies in 4K HDR from all sorts of services, like Netflix, Apple TV Plus, and more. If that sounds appealing to you, this compact 14-inch soundbar is just $100 at a variety of retailers today, costing $30 less than usual. The Streambar has four full-range drivers, and on its back is an HDMI port, an optical audio port, and a USB port. This soundbar can be wall mounted.Acer’s excellent 13.5-inch 2-in-1 Chromebook Spin 713 is $429 at Best Buy, down from $629. My colleague Monica Chin rates the Spin 713 as the best Chromebook you can currently buy because of its 3:2 aspect ratio QHD display, a backlit keyboard that’s... Continue reading…

Qualcomm’s 700-series Snapdragon chipsets are popular among midrange and premium midrange phone manufacturers. | Image: Qualcomm Qualcomm has announced a new 700-series chipset for mobile devices: the Snapdragon 778G 5G. It will start appearing in premium midrange phones from manufacturers including Motorola, Xiaomi, Realme, Honor, Oppo, and iQOO in the next few months, bringing with it some video capture and AI capabilities borrowed from the Snapdragon 888, the current chipset of choice for flagship Android phones. The company has also made a couple of other announcements today designed to get 5G connectivity into more tech.The Snapdragon 778G offers three image-signal processors, or ISPs — a feature Qualcomm touted in its flagship 888 chipset, and also appears in the higher-end 780G. This makes it possible to capture photos and video from three different... Continue reading…

Image: Lofelt Haptic feedback on Android phones is usually terrible, at least compared to devices that have Apple’s Taptic Engine. You know it, I know it, and a haptics company called Lofelt apparently knows it, too. Today, though, Lofelt, in partnership with Qualcomm, announced that it’s making its VTX haptic framework available to OEMs, with the hope that these manufacturers will start putting better haptics into more Android devices.The framework will allow OEMs to utilize high-definition haptic vibration on phones running the latest Snapdragon 8-series and 7-series without any hardware tweaks. The system is “tightly integrated with Snapdragon and fully validated by Qualcomm,” according to Lofelt. While the framework is technically compatible... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Most people in the United States don’t want their digital data used to control the spread of COVID-19, a new study found. More than half of the people in the study remained wary of sharing their data in different scenarios, including a smart thermometer company sharing information with public health officials, or using the Google and Apple exposure notification app to track infections.“I was surprised a bit about the degree of skepticism when the potential benefits are so high,” says study author David Grande, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.Grande and his team collected survey responses from 3,547 US adults during July 2020 about their attitudes toward the use of digital... Continue reading…

Spotify is hosting virtual, prerecorded concerts starting in May. Spotify is entering the virtual concert business, just as in-person concerts are becoming more of a possibility. The company announced today that people can now buy tickets to five different concert streams, which will air throughout May and June. Initial artists include The Black Keys, Jack Antonoff of Bleachers, and Leon Bridges. The streams all are prerecorded but can only be viewed at a given time through the web browser. The shows aren’t available on demand, and they aren’t accessible through the Spotify app.Tickets cost $15, and viewers must have a Spotify account to watch the show. (Viewers can set up a free Spotify account during the ticket-buying process if they don’t already have one.) You can check out the FAQ page for more... Continue reading…

China’s Zhurong rover has beamed back its first images from the surface of Mars after landing on a vast plain called Utopia Planitia. The rover plunged through the Martian atmosphere last Friday, bundled together with a lander after separating from China’s Tianwen-1 probe.The new images released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA) show the two robots meticulously executing their first post-landing steps: the lander extended a tiny ramp to help Zhurong put its six wheels on the Martian surface for the first time. And Zhurong unfolded its four wing-like solar panels and a communications antenna, as seen from one of the rover’s navigation cameras. Image: CNSA A shot of the backside of Zhurong taken by... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After two and a half weeks in court, Apple is taking aim at one of the central elements of Epic’s antitrust case. In a filing Tuesday night, Apple asked the court to dismiss one of the 10 counts alleged in the initial complaint, arguing Epic had failed to establish any evidence for the charge that Apple had violated the essential facilities doctrine by failing to provide access to software distribution tools on iOS.“At trial, Epic adduced no proof in support of this claim,” Apple’s filing reads. “On the contrary, Epic’s principal expert expressly disclaimed any opinion on essential facility, and (in response to a direct question from the Court) rejected the notion that iOS should be treated as a public utility. The Court should enter... Continue reading…

Soon you’ll be able to fight to the death in Fortnite while representing your favorite NBA team.Today, Epic revealed the latest collaboration for its battle royale game, which includes new purchasable characters that can don the jerseys of all 30 NBA clubs. They’ll be available in the in-game shop starting May 21st, along with basketball-related emotes and tiny basketball net backpacks. As part of the crossover, two NBA stars — Donovan Mitchell and Trae Young — have also hand-picked Fortnite lockers that players can purchase starting next week.This is just the latest in Epic’s push to bring the world of sports into Fortnite. In 2018, there was a collaboration with the NFL, and this year nearly two dozen soccer clubs were featured in... Continue reading…

An early look at the next game from Dishonored developer Arkane Studios Continue reading…

Photo by JC Olivera/Getty Images Summer Game Fest is back this year, and it will start on June 10th with an event called “Kick Off Live!” that’s billed as a “spectacular world premiere showcase” with “more than a dozen” world premieres and announcements. The show, which will begin at 2PM ET, will be hosted by Geoff Keighley, who you might also know as the host of The Game Awards.Kick Off Live! is just the first of many events that will be part of Summer Game Fest. Some of the publishers confirmed to be participating in Summer Game Fest include 2K, Activision, Blizzard, Capcom, Epic Games, Sony PlayStation, Riot Games, Square Enix, Ubisoft, and Microsoft Xbox.This first event will also feature a performance by Weezer, “who will debut a brand new, stream safe game... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase is experiencing a “partial” outage this morning for its entire site and application. Additionally, both Coinbase and Binance are reporting issues specifically focused around withdrawals of Etherium and ERC-20 tokens this morning due to “network congestion.”“We’re seeing some issues on Coinbase and Coinbase Pro and we’re aware some features may not be functioning completely normal. We’re currently investigating these issues and will provide updates as soon as possible,” Coinbase commented in a statement. The outage comes in the midst of a massive cryptocurrency plunge over the past week — and particularly the past 24 hours — that has seen the price of some of the most popular... Continue reading…

Let’s talk about some big changes announced to the platform where many of us get a lot of work done: Google Workspace, home to the suite of cloud-based tools that includes Docs.The relative stagnation of Docs in a rapidly evolving world of productivity tools has been an ongoing fascination for me. When I’m writing for myself, I use slick, modern tools like Notion, Bear, and (more recently) Substack. But when I write for others, it’s most often in Docs, which launched 15 years ago and looks more or less the same as it has since the late 2000s.For casual users of Docs, the entire conversation can end hereCreate a new document in any other digital writing tool and you see an infinite canvas; in Docs you see a picture of an 8.5 x 11-inch... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Zoom is announcing an expanded live events product today that’s launching this summer. Zoom Events builds on Zoom’s previous paid event marketplace, OnZoom, by layering in features that can support larger multiday events and non-video activities like chat.Zoom says it’s still building out Zoom Events in the lead up to its launch, but as it stands, it’s both a rebranding of the more small-business focused OnZoom, with new features that serve Zoom’s original pre-pandemic customers — enterprise companies. Like OnZoom, with a paid Zoom Meetings or Zoom Webinar license you’ll be able to host live events, organize them in a hub, sell tickets, and track stats like ticket sales or attendance. Image: Zoom An early... Continue reading…

Mini LED, major improvement Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge As of June 1st, 2021, all of the new images and videos that you save to Google Photos will count toward your free 15GB of storage. If you don’t take a lot of photos, that may not be much of a problem. And if you own a Pixel phone, your photos still won’t count against your total storage. (However, be aware that those photos will be Google’s “high-quality” compressed images, not the originals.) But if you like to take a good number of photos, be prepared to have to pay for Google One storage.You could decide to just shrug and go for a subscription: Google One is not all that expensive, and it compares reasonably well to other photo services. But if you decide that you’d like to move your photos to a different service — or that you simply... Continue reading…

Image: Deezer Music streaming service Deezer has revamped its Apple Watch app to let you listen to music without an internet connection, the company has announced. Previously Deezer’s Apple Watch app has only been able to control music playback on a paired iPhone, but now paid subscribers can download songs for offline listening when they’re away from their phones.Offline listening has previously been available with Apple Music as well as Pandora, but similar functionality is yet to appear in Spotify’s Apple Watch app. Spotify recently added the ability to stream music from Apple Watch without needing a paired iPhone, but the feature still requires a cellular or Wi-Fi connection. Meanwhile, Google just teased that Spotify users will soon be able to d... Continue reading…

Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge IFA 2021’s physical event has been canceled just weeks after promising it would return as an in-person show in Berlin in September. The event’s organizers cited “global health uncertainties” relating to the Covid-19 pandemic for the cancellation, including the emergence of new variants of the virus and concerns about the speed of vaccine rollouts around the world.This will be the second year IFA has not taken place as normal in Berlin. Last year the show took place in a mostly-virtual format, with companies like Samsung and LG making announcements online coinciding with the dates the show would have normally taken place. IFA is the largest consumer tech show of its kind held in Europe each year.“There simply are now too many... Continue reading…

One of Google’s cryostats, which keeps a quantum computer cold enough to reduce errors. | Image: Google Google is aiming to build a “useful, error-corrected quantum computer” by the end of the decade, the company explained in a blog post. The search giant hopes the technology will help solve a range of big problems like feeding the world and climate change to developing better medicines. To develop the technology, Google has unveiled a new Quantum AI campus in Santa Barbara containing a quantum data center, hardware research labs, and quantum processor chip fabrication facilities. It will spend billions developing the technology over the next decade, The Wall Street Journal reports.The target announced at Google I/O on Tuesday comes a year and a half after Google said it had achieved quantum supremacy, a milestone where a quantum computer... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nintendo has hit a milestone with the ever-growing library of retro games included in its Nintendo Switch Online service. The next batch will take the number of available games past 100, with five new titles resulting in a total of 104.In keeping with recent form, the latest additions are, well, not necessarily blockbuster releases. Here’s the list:

phil schiller wwdc 2013 Phil Schiller is one of the biggest names at Apple, and at the Epic v. Apple trial, his job was to make Apple feel small. Over two days of testimony including several hours of cross-examination, he didn’t always succeed — but he left the stand without facing some of Epic’s harshest lines of attack.Schiller, whose title is simply “Apple Fellow,” has spent more than 30 years with the company. In his testimony, he recounted joining Apple in the ‘90s and watching Steve Jobs reorganize the then-failing computer maker. He reminisced about the iPod and name-dropped largely forgotten competitors like Handango and BlackBerry Messenger. In court, Epic Games has portrayed Apple as a scolding, disingenuous bully that locks users into a walled... Continue reading…

Image: Google Spotify’s product lead for cars and wearables teased an exciting new feature coming to Wear devices during Google’s Developer Keynote on Tuesday: the ability for the streaming services’ 356 million users to download music directly to their watch, and listen to it at times when they don’t want to carry their phone (via XDA Developers). The feature isn’t included in the redesign that was just released, but Spotify says that it’s currently in the works.The announcement came alongside Google’s reveal that it would be merging Wear OS with Samsung’s Tizen. During Tuesday’s I/O keynote, Google promised that the updated OS would bring faster performance and longer battery life, which are currently still issues for Wear OS watches.

Amouranth during an ASMR stream. | Image: Amouranth / Twitch Twitch has removed the ability for Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa, one of the most popular streamers on its platform, to run ads on her videos — even though it’s unclear that she broke any of the site’s rules. Siragusa said in a tweet that it’s because her streams are “not advertiser friendly.”Siragusa is known for streaming herself chatting and gaming while wearing swimsuits. She’s hugely popular, with more than 20,000 subscribers — putting her among the site’s top 20, according to TwitchTracker. She’s also been the target of relentless criticism because of her appearance, including sexist attacks from Twitch users who argue that the success of some women on the platform is unearned or illegitimate.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A group of Jewish Google employees is calling on the company to increase its support of Palestinians amid Israel’s deadly bombing campaign in Gaza. The conflict started with Israel’s attempt to evict Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, and escalated when militants fired rockets toward Jerusalem and Israel responded with airstrikes.In an internal letter, Google workers ask CEO Sundar Pichai to put out a statement condemning the attacks, including “direct recognition of the harm done to Palestinians by Israeli military and gang violence.” The letter currently has 250 signatures. (An external version of the note can be found here).The request is coming from a new employee resource group which formed last year in response to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has extended its moratorium on law enforcement use of its facial recognition software “until further notice,” according to Reuters. The ban was set to expire in June.As early as 2018, Amazon employees had pushed Amazon to scale back the project, arguing that documented racial bias in facial recognition could exacerbate police violence against minorities. Amazon defended the project until June 2020, when increased pressure from widespread protests led to the company announcing a yearlong moratorium on police clients for the service.Rekognition is offered as an AWS service, and many of Amazon’s cloud computing competitors have similar technology. Microsoft announced that it would also not be selling its facial recognition services... Continue reading…

Photo composite by Amelia Holowaty Krales and Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Google unveiled Android 12 at its opening I/O 2021 keynote, and now you can try the new update yourself as part of the first public beta. The Android 12 public beta is currently available for Google’s Pixel phones (Pixel 3 and up) and will also come to devices from OnePlus, Lenovo, Asus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, Tecno, TCL, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE. You can enroll your Pixel phone on Google’s Android beta site or find specific instructions for other supported phones on the Android Developers page.Android 12 brings a cornucopia of new features, but the most exciting are the new visuals. Along with new animations, widgets, and a modified lock screen, Android 12 also offers theming, with the ability to change the colors used across the OS just... Continue reading…