The Verge

Ever since Fortnite’s current season debuted in June, there has been the promise of a massive conflict with a group of aliens. Now developer Epic is finally teasing that big event in the form of “Operation: Sky Fire.” The live event will be taking place on September 12th at 4PM ET, and Epic says that players will “join a strike team and sneak aboard the Mothership to deliver IO’s final message to the invading aliens.” It will also be a one-time only thing: if you miss it, you’ll have to catch up on YouTube. As always, Epic is recommending players log in early to get a spot.The kinds of live events have long been a highlight of the Fortnite experience, dating back to the original rocket launch in 2018. Since then players have witnessed e... Continue reading…

Apple delays controversial child protection features | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple is delaying its child protection features announced last month, including a controversial feature that would scan users’ photos for child sexual abuse material (CSAM), following intense criticism that the changes could diminish user privacy. The changes had been scheduled to roll out later this year.“Last month we announced plans for features intended to help protect children from predators who use communication tools to recruit and exploit them, and limit the spread of Child Sexual Abuse Material,” Apple said in a statement to The Verge. “Based on feedback from customers, advocacy groups, researchers and others, we have decided to take additional time over the coming months to collect input and make improvements before releasing... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge One of the new features in Android 12 is the ability to automatically fit your phone’s color palette to that of your wallpaper. If you’ve been able to upgrade to Android 12, you may want to give it a try, especially if you’re into styling and colors.I tried it out on a Pixel 3 using Android 12 beta, and the results were interesting. When I used the sample wallpapers supplied by Google and enabled the “themed icons” feature (which is supposed to let your icons match the style of your wallpaper), I was treated to a new background color which appeared on the search field at the bottom of the screen, the Quick Tiles (the buttons you get when you swipe down from the top), and other elements.I was not all that impressed by the “themed... Continue reading…

Courtesy of Marvel Studios Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is an important film for Marvel for lots of reasons. It’s the studio’s first return to theatrical exclusive release after over a year and a half of delays due to COVID-19 (which included shifting Black Widow to Disney Plus as well as theaters). It’s the studio’s first film with an Asian lead, a long-awaited milestone that took over a decade for the company to actually accomplish. And it marks the “real” start of its Phase 4 films, advancing the future of the MCU with fresh stories post-Endgame.But Shang-Chi — and its less-than-ideal release timing, coming as theaters are seeing smaller turnouts as the delta variant continues to spike in the US — also highlights the MCU’s biggest problem: its... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Like hire more than 500 people to police an entire platform Continue reading…

Like Philips Hue, the new Philips Smart LED bulbs support millions of colors. | Image: Signify Signify, owner of the Philips Hue brand, today announced the global launch of its Philips Smart LED bulbs. The new lineup originates from Signify’s 2019 acquisition of Wiz, and carries the “Wiz Connected” logo on its blue packaging to differentiate it from Hue products. A similar collection of bulbs launched in the US at Home Depot stores at this time last year, only under a slightly tweaked “Philips WiFi LED” name.Signify assured The Verge during a press briefing that they’ve tested the multitude of Philips smart LED brands with consumers and they weren’t confused. That’s good, because Zigbee-based Philips Hue smart LED bulbs and Wi-Fi-based Philips Smart LED bulbs are not compatible. Image: Signify Some of the... Continue reading…

Noiseminded In 1982, Giallo master Dario Argento directed a slasher film called Tenebrae, or “darkness.” Tenebrae unfolds like many other Italian horror movies of the period, but in the years after, Argento told interviewers that it actually took place in a near-future where the human race has been depopulated by an unspoken tragedy. It’s a weird and arguably irrelevant addition to the film’s concrete plot — but one that recasts it as part of something bigger and stranger.I remembered this bit of trivia after finishing Nightslink, an enigmatic little game that was released in late August. Nightslink is about the nocturnal life of an anonymous man referred to as a “nightslink,” which might be a job title, a social role, or an epithet. The... Continue reading…

Image: @supergremplin Vine creator Dom Hofmann’s new project, explained Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s rumored AR/VR headset is designed to rely on another device, and may have to offload more processor-heavy tasks to a connected iPhone or Mac, according to a report from The Information. Apple is reportedly working on a custom chip for the headset, an SoC that’s intentionally missing capabilities found in Apple’s other processors.While the new chip reportedly doesn’t have Apple’s neural engine, which handles AI and machine learning, it’s reportedly designed to be better at wirelessly sending and receiving data, and compressing/decompressing video than traditional chips, which makes sense if the headset is designed to stream data from another device rather than doing the heavy processing itself.A stripped-down SoC for augmented... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Roblox is taking its first steps to introduce voice chat by opening up a feature it’s calling “Spatial Voice” to select developers in an invitation-only beta, the company announced Thursday.“With Spatial Voice, Roblox creators will begin to test developing experiences where conversations can happen in a realistic way, mirroring how we listen and respond to the world around us each day,” Roblox’s chief product officer Manuel Bronstein said in a blog post. Based on this limited description, it sounds like Spatial Voice will attempt to reflect the way voices carry in the real world and require you to be close proximity to another player to speak to them.Adding voice chat raises concerns about moderationAdding voice chat of any kind into... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is set to release Amazon-branded TVs as soon as October in the US, according to Insider. The TVs will have Alexa, screen sizes “in the range of 55 to 75 inches,” and will be designed and manufactured by third parties such as TCL, Insider reports. The company is also developing a TV designed in-house, Insider says, but it’s unclear when that might be released.Amazon already has many irons in the fire with TVs — it partners with Best Buy to sell Toshiba and Insignia TVs that run Amazon’s Fire TV software, offers an AmazonBasics-branded TV in India, and has the Amazon Fire TV Stick and Amazon Fire TV Cube, which you can hook up to your TV. But this rumored new Amazon-branded TV could indicate that the company is stepping up its... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro The launch of Super Follows marked the beginning of the end for truly free content on Twitter, and the start of whatever Patreon-infused future lays ahead for the microblogging app. Supporting creators directly with monthly payments isn’t a bad thing, but as app researcher Jane Manchun Wong spotted on Thursday, the way they currently work on iOS is a little weird — each Super Follow subscription is an individual App Store in-app purchase (via MacRumors).You can see for yourself by pulling up the App Store on an Apple device or the web. Twitter currently only lists 10 in-app subscriptions of various prices, each associated with Super Following an individual creator. Wong speculates only 10 are shown because the App Store isn’t designed... Continue reading…

Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is grounded until the Federal Aviation Administration completes and signs off on an investigation into the company’s high-profile test flight carrying Richard Branson, the agency said Thursday. During that July flight, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo veered out of its approved airspace on its descent toward land, the FAA said.The company “may not return the SpaceShipTwo vehicle to flight until the FAA approves the final mishap investigation report or determines the issues related to the mishap do not affect public safety,” an FAA spokesperson said on Thursday. SpaceShipTwo, a winged suborbital space tourism plane that launches to the edge of space from a carrier aircraft, landed its crew of Branson and... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman shared more details Thursday about what to expect from the rumored bigger screens coming to the next Apple Watch.Gurman has previously reported that the next watch, which he says will be called the Apple Watch Series 7, will be offered in 41mm and 45mm screen sizes. In his new article, he reiterated those sizes and added that the larger model’s screen will measure 1.9 inches diagonally, up from 1.78 inches on the bigger Series 6, and offer about 16 percent more pixels with a resolution of 396 x 484, up from 368 x 448. Both Series 7 watches will also have thinner borders around their screens, Gurman says.Apple is working on new watchfacesApple is also working on new watchfaces. One, called Modular Max, will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is planning to expand its in-house moderation team for Amazon Web Services, according to a new report from Reuters. Citing two sources, the report says Amazon is planning to develop a proactive threat monitoring capability within AWS, which will seek out prohibited content on AWS servers and remove it before it’s reported by users.Reached for comment, Amazon did not confirm or deny the accuracy of the report, but said it does not plan to pre-review content before it is posted on the platform. “As AWS continues to expand, this team (like most teams in AWS) will continue to grow,” a representative said in a statement.“Companies need to proactively monitor what’s on their platforms”The company has long maintained an Acceptable Use... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Streamers took a day off Twitch on September 1st to bring attention to the persistent hate raids that have plagued the platform in the past weeks. While skeptics panned the idea, suggesting that the walkout participants weren’t influential enough to effect significant traffic changes, according to data compiled by Gamesight, a gaming analytics company, Twitch did see a drop in viewership. Gamesight.io In this graph shared with The Verge, Gamesight measured the number of active channels (meaning the number of live channels) and hours watched every day for the last nine days at noon Pacific Time. According to Gamesight’s data, the number of active channels and viewer hours at 12PM PT on September 1st was at its... Continue reading…

I want to preface this post by saying I will never pretend to understand why corporations do some of the things they do. I was simply minding my own business, looking for information on BMW’s new concept scooter on the German automaker’s press site, when... well, here, look:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has announced that it has 50 million users subscribed to or trying YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, which is a marked increase from the 30 million subscribers it reported in December 2020. This seems to mark a continued trend in people looking to make the jump from the free versions of YouTube and YouTube Music, even as more services are competing in the space.Google doesn’t break down that 50 million number any further, so we don’t really know how many people are subscribed to YouTube Music or Premium and how many are using the services’ free one-month trial. However, its blog post spends a lot of time talking about music, hailing YouTube as the fastest-growing music-subscription service. Variety also compared Google’s numbers... Continue reading…

It hasn’t even been two months since Amazon CEO Andy Jassy took the reins from founder Jeff Bezos, but the company’s new chief executive is already facing a potential scandal. Two anonymous sources have accused Jassy of stepping in to overrule the company’s own HR department when it recommended that an executive be fired for discrimination — and Amazon didn’t initially deny it, reports Protocol. Amazon is now suggesting to The Verge that it’s not true, a day after we first published this post.The story goes that in 2019, a Black female Amazon employee accused AWS Outposts general manager Joshua Burgin of discrimination, and HR issued a report recommending he be fired. But Jassy fielded a personal request from Burgin’s boss, Charlie... Continue reading…

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images General Motors, parent company of Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick, said it was temporarily halting production at six of its North American factories as a result of the global chip shortage. It’s the latest major automaker to be affected by the tight supply of essential computer chips.Four of GM’s US-based plants will be affected: Fort Wayne, Indiana; Wentzville, Missouri; Spring Hill, Tennessee; and Lansing, Michigan. Four other factories in Mexico and Canada will also go dark for several weeks as GM works to shore up its supply of chips. The halt in production will affect GM’s most profitable vehicles, including pickup trucks and SUVs.“The situation remains complex and very fluid”“During the downtime, we will repair and ship... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple will start asking for permission to enable Personalized Ads in iOS 15, the company’s method of serving relevant ads in the App Store and Apple News by analyzing what you read, purchase, and search for on your device (via 9to5Mac). The company used to collect that information by default, but now it plans to ask for permission. Apple required other developers to seek users’ permission with the debut of App Tracking Transparency, so it seems like it’s showing that it will hold itself to a similar standard.The Personalized Ads pop-up should show up when you open the App Store if you’re running the most recent iOS 15 beta. In the pop-up, Apple writes that the ads will help you discover relevant apps, products, and services while... Continue reading…

Image: Audi Automakers love concept cars that tease a future in which very rich people ride around in autonomous vehicles that look like luxurious living spaces. The latest is Audi’s Grandsphere, a spacious electric sedan with an interior that looks like it was designed by a Kardashian.The car is designed to be adjustable based on the preferred driving style. If you want the car to drive itself, the steering wheel and pedals retract, leaving you sitting in a minimally designed living room setting with wood trim and wool textures. Instead of a screen, the car’s operating system is projected on the surface of the wood dashboard under the windshield. And when you’re ready to drive yourself, the manual controls simply appear.Grandsphere is Audi’s... Continue reading…

Jan Thijs The first trailer for The Wheel of Time TV series has arrived, giving an early look at Amazon’s upcoming adaptation of Robert Jordan’s epic 14-book fantasy series ahead of its November 19th release date on Amazon Prime Video.The trailer sets the stage for the series, establishing some of the basic tenets of Jordan’s world, with a specific focus on Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), a member of a group of female magic wielders known as the Aes Sedai, who are capable of wielding the One Power to accomplish feats like controlling the elements and healing others.The trailer also shows off a first look at The Wheel of Time’s younger cast: Madeleine Madden as Egwene al’Vere, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon,... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Twitter is planning new features to give people more privacy options, according to Bloomberg. The social network’s plans reportedly include the option to archive old tweets so they’re not visible to other users after a given period of time (like 30, 60, or 90 days or a full year). They also include possible options to limit who can see which tweets you’ve liked, to let people remove themselves from a conversation on Twitter, and to let people remove followers without outright blocking them.Bloomberg describes the new features as a suite of “social privacy” changes that are aimed at making people more comfortable engaging on Twitter. Internal research at Twitter apparently found that many users don’t even understand whether their... Continue reading…

You want me to believe this is flesh and blood? Absolutely not, but they did a great job with the fabric effects. | Image: Apple Update, September 2nd, 12:03PM ET: The “actor” Brett Goldstein has addressed the conspiracy theory that Ted Lasso’s Roy Kent is a CGI creation head-on by publishing a statement on Instagram. In it, Goldstein notes (quite accurately) that “there’s a fucking load of mad shit happening on the internet today, as usual” before reassuring viewers that he is “a completely real normal human man” who does “normal human basic things like rendering and buffering and transferring data.” Glad to have that sorted out. (The original story follows below.)

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Samsung has announced new sizes for some of its best TVs, giving more choices to consumers who want the option of either a small or massive flagship TV. Samsung has added 43-inch and 98-inch sizes to its QN90A lineup of “Neo QLED” 4K TVs and an 85-inch option for its The Frame TV. The Neo QLED TVs have Samsung’s flagship panels, which use Mini LED backlights to improve contrast and picture quality. These kinds of flagship-class panels used to be limited mostly to the 55- to 77-inch range, but they seem to be making their way to size classes that used to be reserved for budget TVs.Samsung hasn’t yet announced pricing for these TVs. At the moment, the 50-inch QN90A sells for $1,400 (with an MSRP of $1,500), and the 85-inch model can be... Continue reading…

Locast has announced that it is suspending its TV streaming service starting today, following a court ruling earlier this week in a lawsuit from ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, which jointly sued the nonprofit service shortly after it launched.“As a non-profit, Locast was designed from the very beginning to operate in accordance with the strict letter of the law, but in response to the court’s recent rulings, with which we respectfully disagree, we are hereby suspending operations, effective immediately,” an email to Locast users sent out this morning reads. Locast was launched in 2019 as an internet-based alternative to over-the-air television, rebroadcasting local, free over-the-air signals over the internet to users in those... Continue reading…

You pretty much always know what to expect from a Roland Emmerich movie: namely, that a good chunk of the planet is going to be destroyed. The director of films like 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow is now taking that to its logical extreme with Moonfall, a movie about the Moon... falling.According to the synopsis, the movie is set when “a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it.” It stars Halle Berry as a NASA exec who seems to know how to stop it, but the only people who believe her are a former astronaut (Patrick Wilson) and a conspiracy theorist (John Bradley). “These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving... Continue reading…

The FTC has voted to ban SpyFone | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced it had banned spyware maker SpyFone and its CEO Scott Zuckerman from the surveillance business. The commission called SpyFone a “stalkerware app company” that allegedly harvested and shared data about people’s movements, phone use, and online activity via a hidden device hack.“The company’s apps sold real-time access to their secret surveillance, allowing stalkers and domestic abusers to stealthily track the potential targets of their violence,” the FTC said in a statement. “SpyFone’s lack of basic security also exposed device owners to hackers, identity thieves, and other cyber threats.”In addition to the ban, the FTC ordered SpyFone to delete illegally harvested data and notify... Continue reading…

Frank Masi/NETFLIX Red Notice, Netflix’s next big action movie swing, has gotten its first trailer, showing off the fast (and dare I say, furious) antics of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He plays the FBI’s top profiler as he hunts down the world’s two most wanted criminals — played by Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot.Based on the trailer, it seems Johnson’s Agent John Hartley actually catches Reynolds’ character, Nolan Booth — dubbed “the world’s greatest art thief” — fairly early on, forcing the two to partner up in order to catch Gadot’s character, “The Bishop.” She’s described as “the world’s most wanted art thief,” which is apparently a different thing than being the world’s greatest art thief. This is also, broadly, the plot of Hobbs & Shaw, a movie that... Continue reading…

Nintendo Nintendo sneakily announced Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain, a new educational puzzle game for the Switch that sees the revival of a franchise that previously appeared on the DS handheld (and later ported to Wii U’s Virtual Console). It’ll release on December 3rd, 2021 for $29.99, and in it you’ll race through puzzle mini games and challenges to flex your smarts.In addition to single player modes, the game will support couch multiplayer and online play. Nintendo is even implementing a ghost data system, so you can test your skills against people who have gotten higher scores.

Image: Fujifilm Today is Fujifilm’s September X Summit event, and the company has announced a slew of new hardware including several cameras and lenses for both the GFX and X systems. Leading the way is the new GFX 50S II, the company’s latest medium format camera. More importantly, at $3,999 body-only, it’s Fujifilm’s cheapest way into the GFX system yet. For comparison, the GFX 100S costs $5,999 and the GFX 50S still goes for $5,499. So dropping under $4,000 could mean big things for the lineup.The GFX 50S II has a 51.4-megapixel sensor that’s 1.7x larger than what you’d get in a full-frame camera, 5-axis in-body image stabilization good for 6.5 stops, improved autofocus (compared to the 50S), and a body that’s the same size as the GFX 100S. At 1.98... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook-owned WhatsApp has been fined €225 million ($267 million) for breaking the European Union’s data privacy rules. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced the decision in an 89-page summary (PDF), noting that WhatsApp did not properly inform EU citizens how it handles their personal data, including how it shares that information with its parent company.WhatsApp has been ordered to make updates to its already lengthy privacy policy and change how it notifies users about sharing their data. This will bring it into compliance with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which governs how tech companies gather and use data in the EU. GDPR came into effect in May of 2018, and WhatsApp was one of the first... Continue reading…

Though expensive, the AirPods Max feature fantastic sound and noise cancellation. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Apple’s notoriously expensive AirPods Max headphones are, in some ways, more of a luxury purchase — but today you can live it up for just a little less thanks to the Woot’s ongoing “Sounds of Summer” sale. Well, if you’re an Amazon Prime member that is.Now through the end of the month (or while supplies last), Prime members can save $80 on a pair of the AirPods Max, regardless of color. Woot’s current deal includes a one-year limited warranty from Apple and brings the price down to a cool $470, one of the lowest prices we’ve seen on Apple’s excellent noise-canceling headphones in recent months.Despite their price, the AirPods Max are some of the best noise-canceling headphones you can buy right now. The Max can easily block out... Continue reading…

An aerial view of homes destroyed by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California on February 11, 2019, three months after the deadly wildfire. | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Thousands of Californians have fled their homes this week, as the Caldor, Dixie and other fires continue to blaze across the state. Despite the best efforts of firefighting teams, the Dixie Fire already torched the small mountain town of Greenville in early August, robbing many residents of a home to which to return.The exodus sparked by each blaze has become an eerily familiar scene as fire seasons in the Western US grow more intense with climate change. Each community that loses part, or all of itself brings to mind the carnage left behind by the Camp Fire in 2018. That’s when Paradise, California was nearly wiped off the map, and surrounding communities suffered similar losses.“Paradise is worth being remembered”Journalist Lizzie... Continue reading…

Roli’s Lumi keyboard and app is like Guitar Hero for learning the piano. | Image: Roli UK music startup Roli, best known for its squishy keyboards like the Seaboard Rise, has filed for administration and is reforming as Luminary. The new company will focus on the Lumi keyboard and app, which are designed to teach beginners to play the piano.The news was reported by Insider, which notes that Roli has struggled with generating revenue and growth. The company reported pre-tax losses of £34.1 million ($47 million) from income of £11.4 million ($16 million) in the 18 months leading up to the end of June 2019. The company’s CEO and founder Roland Lamb told Insider that a limited market for its products had combined with pandemic difficulties to force the closure of Roli.“Ultimately what happened was the pro-focused products... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Podcasts continue to be very popular, and more and more people are getting involved in them. Even if you’re not a podcast creator, at some point, you may find yourself being interviewed on or contributing to someone else’s podcast. In that case, it’s not enough to be ready to talk about your topic — you also want to make sure your voice comes through loud and clear.We asked The Verge’s senior audio engineer Andrew Marino if he had any audio tips for people who are about to participate in a podcast. Here are his answers to our questions.Is it better to use my phone’s mic or use my Bluetooth headset?If this is a live show, the quality of the call is important, as there can be no editing later on, so you want to get good sound. (We’ll... Continue reading…

Image: Marvel Studios Ryan Meinerding has spent much of the last 15 years bringing some of the world’s most iconic superheroes to life. After starting as an illustrator on the original Iron Man, he worked his way up to head of visual development at Marvel Studios and has spent more than a decade figuring out how to bring comic book characters into live-action films. So it was a nice change of pace when he learned about What If...?, an animated anthology that takes those very same characters but remixes them in new, and often strange, situations.“I don’t think anyone could have come up with an animated project that I would’ve been more interested in working on,” he tells The Verge. “The endless possibilities that are created by having the multiverse, by being... Continue reading…

The Galaxy Z Flip 3 in Samsung’s stylish new case. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Galaxy Z Flip 3 is a totally normal phone with One Weird Trick: it folds. As Dan Seifert explained in our full review, it’s the beginning of a new phase for foldables, one where buying a folding phone is something that could appeal to anybody, not just techies.Samsung is promoting the phone in the ways Samsung usually does, touting features and spec improvements. But it’s also doing another thing: promoting the phone as something stylish. A full-on music video ad with BTS joins online vertical video ads that are as focused on the clothing and pockets the phone fits in as the phone itself. In essence, it’s the latest in a long time of tech companies trying to make the case that their phones are fashion.That’s nothing new, but it’s... Continue reading…

Schaeffler’s Free Drive system converts pedal power into electrical power. | Image: Schaeffler We don’t often write about bicycle components, but it’s not everyday that an innovation like the Schaeffler Free Drive is announced for pedal-assisted e-bikes. The so-called “bike-by-wire” system, first spotted by Electrek, dispenses with the need to string a chain or belt between the pedals and motor. It’s an all-electric drive system that allows for entirely new bicycle designs with fewer moving parts.The Free Drive system works by converting the rider’s pedaling power into electrical energy via a small generator housed between the pedals. It then delivers this energy to the rear wheel (or wheels) via cables strung inside or outside the frame of the bike, rather than sending it mechanically through a chain or belt. Excess energy... Continue reading…

Image: Yahoo Yahoo and AOL, formerly known as Verizon Media, have officially been acquired by their new owners and renamed as simply “Yahoo.” Verizon announced it was selling the properties to Apollo Global Management in May in a deal said to be worth $5 billion, around half of the nearly $9 billion the telecom giant originally paid for them, and a fraction of the hundreds of billions the two companies were worth at their peaks.Verizon originally purchased AOL in 2015 for $4.4 billion, and acquired Yahoo in 2017 for $4.5 billion. After completing its Yahoo acquisition, Verizon placed both brands under the woefully bland “Oath” brand. “#TakeTheOath” proclaimed AOL CEO Tim Armstrong. The media divisions, which include properties like Yahoo Sports, T... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge “Quick phrases” is a new feature currently under development for Google Assistant that could one day let you skip having to say “Hey, Google” for common phrases like “What time is it?” or “Turn the lights on,” 9to5Google reports. The feature is yet to be officially announced, and it’s unclear when it might launch or exactly which devices might support it.The feature emerged back in April under the codename “Guacamole.” At the time it was called “Voice shortcuts,” and its capabilities seemed limited to silencing alarms and timers, or responding to incoming phone calls. But the new menu discovered by 9to5Google shows a much broader range of tasks, or “salsas” as Google is nicknaming them. These salsas include the ability to ask about the... Continue reading…

Samsung Samsung has announced a 200-megapixel image sensor intended for smartphone cameras, by some distance the highest resolution phone camera sensor ever made. The ISOCELL HP1 has 0.64μm pixels and can bin 16 of them at once for the equivalent of a 12.5-megapixel sensor with 2.56μm pixels.Samsung calls the HP1’s pixel-binning technology “ChameleonCell.” The four-by-four 12.5-megapixel setting is intended for low-light usage, but it can also capture full 200-megapixel resolution photos, or use a two-by-two binning technique for 50-megapixel images.The two-by-two binning mode also lets the HP1 capture 8K video. Samsung says it’s capable of shooting 8K without cropping, although standard 8K (7,680 x 4,320) is less than 50 megapixels.Samsung... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge While vocal app developers accused Apple last week of spinning a lawsuit settlement into an App Store change that was barely a change at all, the company appears to be making a true, if small concession today: Apple says it will let developers of “reader” apps (think Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon’s Kindle app) directly link their customers to their own sign-up website, where they could potentially skirt Apple’s in-app payment system (and its 30 percent cut) entirely, in those cases where they haven’t already.In a press release, Apple claims that the move will close an investigation by the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), and that it’ll only apply to those sorts of “reader” apps right now — a category that was originally designed by... Continue reading…

The Tesla Roadster. | Image: Tesla Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the upcoming Tesla Roadster “should ship in 2023” in a tweet on Wednesday. He blamed the ongoing supply chain shortages for the long timeline. “2021 has been the year of super crazy supply chain shortages, so it wouldn’t matter if we had 17 new products, as none would ship,” Musk said.

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images Richard Branson’s July flight to the edge of space is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration for veering out of its designated airspace mid-flight, the FAA said on Wednesday after a report from The New Yorker. The mission’s two pilots were alerted to yellow and red light warnings mid-flight that, according to sources in The New Yorker, should’ve prompted them to abort the mission. The flight continued and ultimately landed safely.Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo spaceplane air-launched from its carrier aircraft on July 11th carrying founder Branson and three company employees over the firm’s New Mexico spaceport, Spaceport America. The rocket plane soared 53.5 miles high, skimming the edge of space for a few minutes of... Continue reading…

Image: Starship Technologies Crossing city streets filled with SUV drivers in a hurry is tricky for any pedestrian, but what about a robot that’s less than two feet tall? Starship Technologies is flooding college towns with autonomous electric delivery bots that trundle goods to your location in their locked storage compartment. While the safety of human pedestrians around large vehicles with autonomous capabilities is still being debated, this time, the roles were reversed. As shown in a video posted to TikTok by rach,ipsa, even a couple of lights plus cameras, radar, ultrasonic sensors, and neural networks weren’t enough for this robot to avoid getting clipped by a Ford Escape.