The Verge

A nurse administers a COVID-19 vaccine on May 17, 2021 in Rajasthan, India | Photo by Rebecca Conway/Getty Images But they might help Continue reading…

Eufy’s home security camera | Image: Anker / Eufy Last night, a number of Eufy home security camera owners discovered they were able to access smart camera feeds and saved videos from users they had never met, due to an apparent security glitch. First reported by 9to5Mac, the issue came to light in an extended Reddit thread, in which users from around the world detailed their experiences.“Basically I could see every camera, their front door and backdoor bells, master bedroom, living room, garage, kitchen, their motion recordings, everything,” one Eufy owner noted. “I was wondering what was going on as it still had my email and name as signed in and noticed that some unknown email, I’m guessing of the Hawaii owner, was in my shared guest account.”“For a security product to become... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google is rolling out a new feature for the Google Phone app that announces who’s calling when the phone rings, according to 9to5Google. If it’s rolled out to you, you can set whether you want the app to announce caller ID every time the phone rings, only when you’re wearing a headset, or never, 9to5Google says.iOS has had a feature like this for some time, and it seems like Google’s version for the Phone app works similarly to Apple’s implementation. On my iPhone, I find caller ID announcements to be really useful — it’s very handy to know who’s calling before I even look at my phone. Caller ID announcements are also a great accessibility feature, allowing people with visual disabilities to more easily know who is calling them.Sadly,... Continue reading…

Consumers lost over $2 million in cryptocurrency to scammers impersonating Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk over the last six months, the Federal Trade Commission reported Monday.“Promises of guaranteed huge returns or claims that your cryptocurrency will be multiplied are always scams,” the commission said in its Monday report.“Promises of guaranteed huge returns or claims that your cryptocurrency will be multiplied are always scams”For years, scammers have posed as Musk in order to fraud social media users out of cryptocurrency. They use deceptive tactics on sites like Twitter, often using the same avatar images as Musk’s own account and slightly misspelling his username. Pretending to be Musk, the scammers will ask victims to send... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Public health experts and communities around the country are still struggling to make sense of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new mask guidelines. Last week, the CDC said it no longer thinks people who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 need to wear masks in most situations. But cases of COVID-19 are still high in many places, and less than 40 percent of people in the United States are fully vaccinated.In efforts to clarify and explain the agency’s thinking, CDC director Rochelle Walensky focused on the risk COVID-19 poses to each individual person who decides to wear a mask or not wear a mask. People who are vaccinated can decide to skip a mask knowing that they’re safer, and people who aren’t vaccinated should... Continue reading…

California EV startup Canoo has finally announced pricing for the electric van it announced back in 2019. The “lifestyle” van, as Canoo calls it, will start at $34,750 and cost as much as $49,950 for the most capable model, before additional equipment or tax incentives.Canoo has also started accepting $100 deposits for the van as well as for the electric pickup truck it revealed in March and the delivery van it debuted late last year. Pricing was not given for the pickup, though Canoo has said the base price for the delivery van will be $33,000. Canoo’s lifestyle van is slated to go into production sometime in 2022, though it won’t start production on the other two vehicles until at least 2023.All three vehicles are built on the same... Continue reading…

Nreal Epic Games has sued smart glasses maker Nreal for infringing on its Unreal Engine trademark. Epic, which filed the case late last week, claims it’s “no coincidence” that Nreal’s name “looks and sounds virtually identical” to Unreal’s branding. As Nreal plans a US launch later this year, Epic wants to recoup damages and scuttle its application for a trademark.Epic argues that on top of “Nreal” sounding a lot like “Unreal,” both companies are competing in the same space. The China-based Nreal makes an augmented reality headset known as the Nreal Light, which projects 3D objects into real space, and it’s developed a demo game called Nreal Tower. Its glasses shipped in Korea last year, and Nreal has gradually expanded their availability,... Continue reading…

Hank being a good boy with an AirTag sleeve fitted to his existing dog collar. One seemingly obvious use for Apple’s new $29 AirTag tracker is for pets. As a new dog owner, I wanted to add an AirTag to my dog’s existing leather collar, but the options currently available are lousy.AirTags are small, but they’re not that small. Most AirTag holders currently available from Apple and its partners assume I’m okay with dangling a 0.39-ounce (11-gram) pendant off my medium-sized beagle’s neck. I’m not, which is how I came up with the idea for a DIY neoprene sleeve that keeps the IP67 water- and dust-resistant AirTag snuggly attached to Hank’s existing collar.I’m not going to suggest that AirTags are the best way to track your pets — they’re not. But they’re relatively cheap, unlike dedicated GPS / GSM pet trackers... Continue reading…

For the next two weeks, the virtual realm of Roblox is getting a dose of high fashion. Currently, fashion house Gucci is hosting an artsy garden space, which will be available for Roblox users to explore starting today through to May 31st. The space was conceived as a virtual counterpart to a real-world installation called the Gucci Garden Archetypes, which is taking place in Florence, Italy.Both the virtual and IRL spaces are described as multimedia experiences, which are divided into a series of themed rooms with names like “urban romanticism” and “Tokyo tribe.” It all sounds pretty surreal. Here’s the official description of what you’ll be doing in the digital version:

If you live in a major metropolitan area with great high-speed internet, you will be forgiven for forgetting Redbox exists. But the company that rents new releases from big red kiosks at grocery stores is still alive and kicking, and Variety is reporting it intends to go public after it was acquired by the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Seaport Global Acquisition Corp. The new company is reportedly valued at $693 million.Redbox has had success operating completely counter to Netflix, Disney Plus, HBO Max, and all the other behemoth streamers that rely on set-top boxes, new TVs, and solid internet to function. According to Redbox, around 70 percent of its customers would be classified as “late adopters.” They’re people who... Continue reading…

The Razer Viper comes included in the Power Up bundle. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge At Walmart, the Power Up Bundle from Razer, which contains its Viper ambidextrous mouse, the Kraken X Lite headset, and Cynosa Lite keyboard, is $69 (via Slickdeals). This kit was originally priced at $160 but usually sells for around $100. This could be a great gift for anyone looking for affordable accessories to complement their PC build. You can spend a lot on the best gaming mice, gaming headsets, and on a keyboard. But if you or the recipient of this kit isn’t picky, this should be a good fit.Mesh Wi-Fi routers from Amazon’s Eero 6 lineup are discounted both at Amazon and at Best Buy. Just one router is $103 instead of $129, but if you want a Wi-Fi router and an extender to cover more space with Wi-Fi signal, that’s $159, down... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Faced with new competition from Apple, Amazon today announced that it will no longer charge an added fee for the “HD” tier of Amazon Music that lets customers stream audio at CD quality and above. From now on, lossless audio will be available to all Amazon Music Unlimited subscribers at no extra charge. Billboard was first to report the development.This makes Amazon the first company to offer lossless music at the industry’s standard $9.99 subscription rate. Amazon Music Unlimited is even cheaper ($7.99 per month) for Prime customers. And yes, the high-quality audio will also now be available for customers paying that price. Family plans are eligible for Amazon Music HD at no added cost, but student plans are exempt. Before Amazon... Continue reading…

Apple Apple Music is getting two big updates next month: support for high-quality, lossless audio and for spatial audio through Dolby Atmos. But even more surprising, the features will be available for free to all subscribers, including those on family and student plans. The company says it’ll have 75 million lossless audio songs in its catalog by the end of the year and 20 million to start.Apple has confirmed to The Verge that lossless audio is exclusive to Apple Music and thus subscription-only. The company won’t offer music purchases in lossless quality, nor will there be any way to upgrade owned tracks to lossless with the paid iTunes Match service.To turn on lossless audio, subscribers must run the latest version of Apple Music and can... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Thiago Prudêncio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The iOS app for conservative-leaning social media platform Parler is back in the Apple App Store today, after what the company says were “months of productive dialogue with Apple.”“The entire Parler team has worked hard to address Apple’s concerns without compromising our core mission,” Parler interim CEO Mark Meckler said in a statement emailed to The Verge on Monday. “Anything allowed on the Parler network but not in the iOS app will remain accessible through our web-based and Android versions. This is a win-win for Parler, its users, and free speech.”Parler, which bills itself as a free speech alternative to Facebook or Twitter, was banned by Apple, Google, and Amazon following the January 6th insurrection at the US Capitol. The... Continue reading…

Microsoft is launching the personal version of Microsoft Teams today. After previewing the service nearly a year ago, Microsoft Teams is now available for free personal use amongst friends and families. The service itself is almost identical to the Microsoft Teams that businesses use, and it will allow people to chat, video call, and share calendars, locations, and files easily.Microsoft is also continuing to offer everyone free 24-hour video calls that it introduced in the preview version in November. You’ll be able to meet up with up to 300 people in video calls that can last for 24 hours. Microsoft will eventually enforce limits of 60 minutes for group calls of up to 100 people after the pandemic, but keep 24 hours for 1:1 calls. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch is announcing a big change to subscription prices — but not for users in the US. Most countries outside of the US will be getting lower prices that will be localized to their specific country, starting with Turkey and Mexico on May 20th. Those lower prices will mean less money for streamers, but Twitch believes they’ll translate to more subscribers and higher earnings in the long run.Right now, the most affordable Twitch subscription, which lets fans pay streamers and get perks like custom emotes, currently costs $4.99, a price that is currently translated into local currencies around the world. That translated price can be prohibitively expensive to some Twitch users, however, Mike Minton, Twitch’s VP of monetization, told The... Continue reading…

Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 3 from last year. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Samsung seems ready to ditch its own Tizen operating system in favor of Google’s Wear OS for its upcoming smartwatches, according to a new report from SamMobile. The company reportedly has as many as three smartwatches on the way soon, including one with a rotating bezel, and two others with sportier designs.Although Samsung’s smartwatches are often recommended as the best options for Android phone users, the company has opted for its own Tizen operating system over Google’s Wear OS. But rumors of the company’s upcoming switch to Wear OS have been circulating for a couple of months now. Back in February, leaker IceUniverse said its new watch would make the switch from Tizen, and in March, XDA Developers reported on mentions of “WearOS”... Continue reading…

Image: HDCYT on YouTube The creators of the classic “Charlie bit my finger - again !” video are now auctioning it off as an NFT, but with a twist. At the end of the auction, which will begin on May 22nd, the original video will be deleted from YouTube forever, according to a press release, where it currently has over 880 million views. The auction will kick off on the video’s 14th anniversary.Since NFTs exploded onto the cultural landscape earlier this year, we’ve seen plenty of early-to-mid 2000s memes being sold on the blockchain, with many of them fetching higher prices than I would’ve ever have imagined. A non-exhaustive list includes:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AT&T announced this morning it’s spinning off its media business WarnerMedia and merging it with TV company Discovery, creating a major new player in the media world to compete with firms like Netflix and Disney that are leading the charge in streaming content.The deal will bring a lot of familiar names in the TV and film world under one roof. WarnerMedia owns HBO, CNN, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, and the Warner Bros. movie studio, which is responsible for such huge franchises as Harry Potter and Batman. Discovery operates numerous cable networks, including HGTV, Animal Planet, Food Network, and TLC. Both companies also have their own streaming platforms: HBO Max and Discovery Plus.The boards of both AT&T and Discovery have approved... Continue reading…

The Cell Alpha. | Image: Syng Christopher Stringer, an ex-Apple designer who worked on everything from the HomePod to the original iPhone during his 22 year-stint at the company, has unveiled his new startup’s debut speaker. It’s called the Cell Alpha, a futuristic Death Star-shaped connected speaker with an emphasis on spatial audio. It costs $1,799, or $1,969 if you want the model with a floorstanding base.The Cell Alpha has woofers on its top and bottom arranged into a “force-balanced” configuration. These are paired with three mid-range drivers that are distributed around its equator, where they’re presumably joined by a small thermal exhaust port — the Cell Alpha’s only known weakness. Jokes aside, Stringer’s company Syng claims this three-driver configuration... Continue reading…

A screenshot of the teaser in Apple Music’s web app. | Screenshot: Apple Music Apple is teasing a major Apple Music announcement. “Get ready,” a post in the service’s Browse tab reads, “music is about to change forever.” Tapping the image reveals an animated video, though it just consists of the music streaming service’s logo spinning in place. The teaser, first reported by MacRumors, is believed to refer to Apple Music’s rumored lossless and hi-res music streaming features.A launch of the new higher quality streaming is believed to be imminent after code referencing “Lossless” and “Hi Res Lossless” streaming tiers appeared in the service’s Android and web apps. According to code in the Android app, the lossless tier will support music streaming at 24-bit/48Hz (a small step up from regular CD-quality... Continue reading…

It appears that Leica has found a new mobile camera partner, following Huawei’s sanctions-induced retreat from the international smartphone market. Sharp just announced the Aquos R6 in Japan, and its Leica-branded lens sits in front of what is now the largest camera sensor on any phone.The 20-megapixel 1-inch sensor is similar in specs to what you’d find in Sony’s high-end RX100 compact cameras. It’s only the second 1-inch sensor ever to make its way into a smartphone, and the first to make its way into a phone from an traditional phone manufacturer — Panasonic released the Android-powered CM1 back in 2014, but it wasn’t exactly a mainstream device. The closest any current phone gets to a 1-inch sensor is Xiaomi’s new Mi 11 Ultra, which... Continue reading…

The first project from Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata’s new studio JP Games will finally be released next month, the company has announced. The Pegasus Dream Tour is a mobile RPG themed around the Paralympic Games, and it’s the first video game ever to carry the official Paralympics license. It was initially announced more than two years ago, but the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and there’d been radio silence on the project ever since.JP Games describes The Pegasus Dream Tour as an “avatar RPG” set in Pegasus City. You can create a character based on a selfie from your phone, and train them in various para-sports. The game features illustrated versions of nine real-world... Continue reading…

Photo by Indraneel Chowdhury/NurPhoto via Getty Images Some of Microsoft’s board members concluded that Bill Gates should step down last year as an investigation was being conducted into an affair with an employee, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. Gates ultimately resigned from the board in March 2020, which the WSJ says was before the investigation had been completed.The board reportedly hired a law firm in 2019 to investigate the matter following a Microsoft employee alleging in a letter that she had had a sexual relationship with Gates over many years. The employee, who was an engineer at the company, is said to have asked that Melinda French Gates, who was married to Bill at the time, read her letter, though it’s unclear whether that actually happened. Gates and French... Continue reading…

Dev Patel stars as Sir Gawain in The Green Knight | A24 So since The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t dark enough (honestly give us something, show writers), I also started watching Mare of Easttown (HBO Max) and over the weekend watched The Woman in the Window (fine, gritty anti-heroines are my thing, I guess). Mare is so far reminding me a lot of Broadchurch, another not-very-uplifting but great show, and Kate Winslet is going all-in on the accent and the look.But wow what a disappointment The Woman in the Window was. It has an all-star cast (Amy Adams, Julianne Moore, Gary Oldman, Brian Tyree Henry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Anthony Mackie) and a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Letts, based on AJ Finn’s 2018 novel (which BY THE WAY, read the bonkers backstory about that guy). It follows the... Continue reading…

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images Officials in Puerto Rico are reportedly investigating an incident involving YouTube star Jake Paul, after he was seen in a now-deleted video riding in a vehicle on a beach that’s a nesting area for turtles this time of year, the New York Post reported.“I have ordered an investigation to determine the circumstances surrounding the use of two motor vehicles on beaches that are presented to be in Puerto Rico,” secretary of natural and environmental resources Rafael Marchargo said in a statement (h/t TMZ). “Some media have published today a video of the influencer Jake Paul in a motor vehicle on the beach, an activity that is prohibited, apart from law enforcement agencies.“Although the video does not establish where or when it was carried... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images After launching its Android app a week ago, social audio platform Clubhouse said Sunday it will roll out to more countries in the coming week. The Android app will be available in Brazil, Japan, and Russia on Tuesday, India and Nigeria by Friday, and the “rest of the world” throughout the week.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AT&T and Discovery are in talks that would combine AT&T’s media business with Discovery’s reality-TV dynasty to create a massive new entertainment entity, Bloomberg reports, citing sources. Neither company confirmed the deal, but if it came to pass, the combined company would be a potentially significant competitor for streaming brands like Netflix and Disney.But as Bloomberg notes, AT&T only recently added some major entertainment brands to its portfolio when it acquired Time Warner for $85 billion, a deal that was finalized in 2018. And while AT&T’s streaming channel HBO Max has performed relatively well since its somewhat messy launch last May, it’s still not quite as robust as older streamers like Netflix. In January, Discovery... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has launched an ad-supported, free video streaming service called MiniTV within the Amazon India app, TechCrunch reports. It’s a different offering than its separate Amazon Prime Video service, as MiniTV is contained within Amazon’s traditional shopping app, rather than its own standalone app.Only available to users in India, MiniTV’s catalog includes mostly older content which its content partners made originally for YouTube and other platforms. The lineup includes beauty and fashion content, tech news, and cooking shows, and Amazon’s partners for the channel include Indian web content studios Pocket Aces and TVF, and list of well-known Indian comedians.The company says it’s planning “new and exclusive videos” in the coming... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Just ahead of Google I/O, which gets underway on Tuesday, a new leak purporting to be a preview of what’s coming during the annual developers’ conference gives some insight into what Android 12 might look like. A new video from Jon Prosser shows what appear to be slides from a presentation of Android 12.The first slide sets up what to expect: “A beautiful new experience,” “Stronger privacy and security protections,” and “All of your devices work better together.”The usual caveats about leaked materials apply, of course; there’s no guarantee this is what the final interface will look like, or how much may be announced during I/O. But the most interesting slide in Prosser’s video shows what appears to be a new user interface for... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Cloudflare, which you may know as a provider of DNS services or the company telling you why the website you clicked on won’t load, wants to replace the “madness” of CAPTCHAs across the web with an entirely new system.CAPTCHAs are those tests you have to take, often when trying to log into a service, that ask you to click images of things like busses or crosswalks or bicycles to prove that you’re a human. (CAPTCHA, if you didn’t know, stands for “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.”) The problem is, they add a lot of friction to using the web and can sometimes be difficult to solve — I’m sure I’m not the only person who has frustratingly failed a CAPTCHA because I didn’t see that corner of a... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Anyone who’s spent more than five minutes on social media can tell you that most platforms have plenty of trolls, reply-guys and other people who may just be unpleasant to interact with. On big platforms like Twitter, Faecbook, and Instagram, the option to block another user allows you to keep someone out of your feed. Blocking is far from a perfect solution, but at least it gives users a way to continue to use the platforms and avoid (some) nasty interactions.But as Will Oremus writes for The Atlantic, the year-old audio chat platform Clubhouse has a different mechanism for blocking, one that affects more than just the blocker and the blockee (I know, but what would you call it?):

Colonial Pipeline said Saturday that all of its systems are back to operating normally, including the pipeline it shut down a week ago amid a ransomware attack. The pipeline is now servicing all its markets including Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, the company tweeted. Colonial carries 45 percent of the fuel supplies for the eastern United States.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook has reportedly upheld a ban on many organizations in Myanmar that have joined forces to resist the military coup that occurred back in February, according to Rest of World. The bans were put in place back in 2019, when organizations like the Arakan Army, and many of its allies, were classified as terrorist organizations by the democratically-elected government.Things have changed in Myanmar since then. After the military coup and government takeover by the Tatmadaw (carried out after an election which the military claims was fraudulent), the political situation has become extremely complex. There is, however, one thing that is seemingly clear: the Arakan Army is no longer classified as a terrorist organization, either by the c... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has previously confirmed that it’s exploring a paid subscription model for some features, and app researcher Jane Manchun Wong tweeted Saturday that she’s discovered how much it will cost and what it will be called. Twitter Blue, Wong says, will cost $2.99 per month, and will include an Undo Tweets feature and bookmark collections. Wong says it appears Twitter is working on a tiered subscription model, which she posits could mean a less-cluttered, premium experience for the highest-paying subscribers.

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge The Verge’s Infrastructure Week focused partly on how dire the broadband problem currently is for Americans. On Monday, we showed you a map of the worst counties for broadband in the US — and on Friday, we closed the week by showing how satellite services like Starlink aren’t enough to close that gap.But even for the people who do have high-speed internet access, many of them have done desperate things to secure access to it. Our team resides all around the US, and they’ve shared some personal tales below about their experiences getting (or failing to get) high-speed internet.But we also want to know what lengths you’ve gone to for internet access. Did you have to plead with an unwilling internet service provider to branch out its... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge President Biden on Friday revoked several of former President Trump’s executive orders, including one that would have changed legal protections for social media sites and other online platforms.Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act limits how much online platforms can be held liable for content users share on their platforms. The Trump order, titled “preventing online censorship,” would have allowed federal authorities to hold companies like Twitter, Google, and Facebook responsible if they were found to be infringing on users’ speech by deleting or otherwise modifying users’ posts.Trump signed the order last May, just as Twitter started applying labels to his tweets as “misleading.” Trump was eventually banned from... Continue reading…

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images This week, the FDA authorized the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for people 12-15, a moment that many families have been eagerly waiting for since the vaccine rollout began in the US. As shots became available, parents rushed to get their kids the vaccine. But the decision has also contributed to ongoing discussions about how to best distribute vaccines around the world.In Santa Barbara, one 14-year-old got a vaccine for his birthday. In Colorado, schools are setting up vaccine clinics. In Los Angeles, high-schoolers were eager for their shot at experiencing a normal life again.“I have a large family, one that I haven’t been able to see in over a year. I’ve missed out on being with my friends, spending time with family, going to school and... Continue reading…

Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket launches from New Zealand on Saturday, as seen on the company’s live video feed. | Rocket Lab Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket failed to reach orbit after suffering an unexpected engine shutdown mid-flight on Saturday, losing the mission’s payload of two satellites, the company said. The launch from New Zealand was Electron’s 20th, and marked the company’s second mission failure in less than a year.Electron, a roughly six-story tall rocket with two booster stages, lifted off from Rocket Lab’s Launch Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula in New Zealand at 7:11AM ET on Saturday, aiming to send a pair of Earth observation satellites for BlackSky into orbit. Two and a half minutes into flight, the rocket’s second stage booster successfully separated from its first stage and ignited for a few seconds before shutting down, indicating a problem... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro On Tuesday, a noted Palestinian-American journalist reporting live from protests near Jerusalem was suddenly and mysteriously silenced on Twitter — with every single tweet replaced by the message “@MariamBarghouti’s account is temporarily unavailable because it violates the Twitter Media Policy.” It was a mistake, the company quickly admitted, and her tweets were quickly restored.But it turns out that one part of the incident was not a mistake. While Twitter may have taken action on this person’s account in error, there actually is one particular situation where Twitter reserves the right to make your tweets disappear. And — if you ask me — it’s super, super dumb.

Apple will keep its mask mandate in place at its US retail stores | Getty Images Despite new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Apple will keep its mandatory mask policy in place at its US retail stores for the time being, Bloomberg reported. The company informed stores that it is continuing to evaluate COVID-19-related health and safety measures, but that the policy requiring customers and employees at its Apple stores would stay in effect.The CDC announced Thursday that people who had been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus could do away with wearing masks indoors and outdoors, and did not have to continue social distancing. There are some exceptions to the CDC guidance, which recommends people continue masking on public transit, airplanes, and trains, and in health care settings... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge When you’ve been through tough times — and we all have — sometimes you just need a distraction or something that just makes you feel good to get you through it. We asked the staff of The Verge what they’ve treated themselves to in order to help make all the upheavals and lockdowns of the past year just a bit more bearable.These are some of the things that made them smile over the past year. Hopefully, you’ve got something that made you smile as well.World of Warcraft subscription Nothing feels like an escape more than a world of Orcs, Mages, and Warriors. I’ve played World of Warcraft off and on throughout the years, but — faced with hours of Netflix, in-home workouts, and utter boredom during the pandemic — I decided it was time to... Continue reading…

This week brought some unexpected bargains by way of an eBay sitewide code that can knock up to $100 off a pricey purchase, such as a 4K TV, as well as an excellent Humble Bundle with 100 percent of proceeds going toward COVID-19 relief in India and Brazil. There are more, including a day-long sale on AT&T-locked Microsoft Surface Duo phones and more, so take a spin through this dispatch to see what we thought stood out from the rest in deals world this week.Microsoft’s Surface Duo is just $600 at WootWe featured a popular deal on the Surface Duo earlier this week, which had the foldable phone selling for $690. That was a great promotion, especially because it was for the version that worked on Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T. That deal is... Continue reading…

A photo of Mars captured by China’s Tianwen-1 probe in February. | Photo: Xinhua via Getty Images China landed its first pair of robots on the surface of Mars on Friday, state-affiliated media confirmed on social media, becoming the second country to do so successfully after overcoming a daring, seven-minute landing sequence. The country’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft ejected the rover-lander bundle for a Martian touchdown at around 7PM ET, kicking off a mission to study the Red Planet’s climate and geology.The mission marks China’s first independent trek to Mars, about 200 million miles away from Earth. Only NASA has successfully managed to land and operate rovers on the planet in the past. (The Soviet Union’s Mars 3 spacecraft landed on the planet in 1971 and communicated for about 20 seconds before unexpectedly going dark.) China’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As part of iOS 14.5, Apple’s App Tracking Transparency forces developers to ask permission for something they used to be able to do for free: track iOS users. Today, Twitter is joining the ranks of other developers and adding a prompt that asks users to enable tracking on iOS (via MacRumors).Twitter’s main justification for listening to its request is straightforward — having the feature enabled allows it to serve “better” ads. The company includes a link to settings so you can make those changes, but read Twitter’s explanation before you decide:

Photo illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images If you’re hoping to turn a dollar on that extremely explicit hentai you picked up in college, you won’t be selling it on eBay. As first noticed by Adult Video News, eBay is banning the sale of most sexually explicit materials starting June 15th, 2021.Everyone has a different definition of what constitutes “sexually explicit” and eBay’s is extremely PG. While the policy is confusing in that it appears to conflate nudity and sexually explicit content, it carefully defines nudity as “showing any part of male or female genitalia, anus, or female breasts where the areola or nipple is visible.” It goes on to say that those same bits don’t get a pass if they’re covered by see-through material or confined by tight clothing. The policy also... Continue reading…

Photo by T.J. Kirkpatrick-Pool/Getty Images Venmo has a major privacy flaw that’s been well-known for years: there’s no way to keep your list of Venmo contacts private. That means you can see the contact list of any user on the platform, a flaw that’s so large that BuzzFeed News was able to track down President Joe Biden’s Venmo account in less than 10 minutes.BuzzFeed News didn’t just find the president, though; the publication also discovered accounts for many people in Biden’s inner circle, and, because of the nature of this flaw, all of their contacts as well:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Ireland’s health service, the HSE, shut down all of its IT systems on Friday following a “significant” ransomware attack which has disrupted COVID-19 testing and other patient services, the BBC reports. The country’s COVID-19 vaccination program does not appear to have been affected.A government official tells news station RTE that an international cyber criminal group is responsible for the attack. “This is not espionage. It was an international attack, but this is just a cyber criminal gang looking for money,” says Minister of State for Public Procurement and eGovernment Ossian Smyth.Micheál Martin, the country’s Taoiseach (prime minister), says Ireland will not be paying any ransom.

Image: Roblox Massively popular game creation tool Roblox is now a massively popular experience creation tool Roblox, possibly in response to the ongoing Epic v. Apple trial.Roblox allows a variety of user-created projects on its platform, and until earlier this week, these were all grouped under a tab called “Games” on Roblox’s website. Roblox creators could create and manage “games” through an editor, and individual games had a user limit called “max players.”That’s all changed now. The “Games” tab now reads “Discover” on the web, although it still points to an address of “roblox.com/games.” Developers can create and manage “experiences,” and experiences have “max people” allowed. The word “game” has been replaced by “experience” across nearly the... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge If you want a space gray Apple accessory, such as a Magic Mouse, Keyboard, or Trackpad, now is the time to get one because they’re being discontinued. On Apple’s store page, they’re currently for sale but with a “while supplies last” message (via MacRumors). Apple confirmed to The Verge that it will no longer sell the space gray accessories after stock runs out, but the silver variants will still be available.The message is the same one that appeared on the iMac Pro before it was listed as “out of stock” for good. Now that Apple’s space gray desktop isn’t around, it seems that the company’s decided to stop making the space gray accessories. It’s a bit odd, given that Apple kept the color around when it introduced the M1 MacBooks, where... Continue reading…