The Verge

Facebook, which never saw a social network it couldn’t copy, says its Nextdoor-clone Neighborhoods is now available across Canada and is coming soon to four US cities. According to CNET, the US locations being targeted are Charlotte, North Carolina; San Diego, California; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Newark, New Jersey.Like Nextdoor, Neighborhoods is all about corralling geographically-defined groups of users into a single space to discuss local goings-on. Facebook says users should be able to get to know neighbors, ask for recommendations for the best coffee shops or locksmiths, and organize local events. Users can also create splinter groups specific to their interests.“You can find vibrant local Facebook groups about your area, or... Continue reading…

Image: PlayStation Nike, Sony, and basketball player Paul George have collaborated on another pair of sneakers, the PG 5, with help from PS5 designer Yujin Morisawa. According to Sony, “the colors of the shoe are heavily inspired by the industrial design of the PS5” with the PlayStation’s signature circle, square, cross, and triangle shapes woven into the materials like a DualSense controller. There’s also a PlayStation logo on the tongue of the right shoe, while the left’s tongue has Paul George’s PG logo.The release comes a little over two years after Nike and PlayStation’s last sneaker collaboration, the PG 2.5, which drew inspiration from the design of the original PlayStation console. Earlier that year, the two companies worked together on the PG2,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge One of the Epic v. Apple trial’s big keywords is “cross-wallet play.”In Epic’s Fortnite, “cross-wallet” means you can buy in-game currency (known as V-Bucks) with real money on one device, then spend it on a different device. The latter platform doesn’t get a cut of your initial, non-virtual financial transaction, which is why Nintendo and Sony don’t support cross-wallet access on the Switch and PlayStation.Apple did support cross-wallet play before banning Fortnite last year — and on the trial’s second day, that fact became a serious pitfall for Epic. Apple continued a long cross-examination of Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, whose hours of testimony included a digression on whether Fortnite counts as a true metaverse or simply a big... Continue reading…

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge WhatsApp is again rolling out its payments service in Brazil, after the service was suspended by Brazil’s Central Bank in June of 2020 a few days after it launched there. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement in a video aired in Brazil, where he spoke about how the payment information added to WhatsApp will also be able to be used on Facebook and Instagram.According to David Marcus the head of Facebook Financial, the service returning to Brazil will be part of a “gradual rollout,” but it seems like the company is serious about it returning: it’s already posted a video promoting the service, and has published a page that states the underlying Facebook Pay system has been authorized by the Central Bank (Facebook is... Continue reading…

Image: Boost Mobile In what looks to be a first in terms of subscriber perks, Boost Mobile has announced that its $60 per month Unlimited Plus cellphone plan will come with access to to 24/7 telemedicine through K Health starting this summer.Specifically, Unlimited Plus subscribers will get all of the features of K Health’s usual $9-per-month offering. That includes the ability to text chat or hop on a video call with a doctor through the K Health app, which uses the app’s AI suggestions to identify symptoms and potential ailments, and receive actual treatment, including medications and other prescriptions.The service is free and available for all Boost Unlimited Plus subscribers and offered at a discounted price of $7.99 per month for all of Boost... Continue reading…

Basecamp’s CEO published a blog post about policy changes — it may have broken the company Continue reading…

Image: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum May Fourth is informally the Star Wars Day holiday, which random brands typically use to hawk their wares. Although it’s not as bad as the promotions that come out of the woodwork on April Fools’ Day, I think I’m drawing the line at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum adding an X-wing Starfighter from Star Wars to its collection. The museum announced today that the famous ship would be going on display in 2022, via a prop loan from the Disney-owned production company, Lucasfilm.The Smithsonian says the X-wing in question is from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and will be displayed outside the museum’s Albert Einstein Planetarium after undergoing “conservation in the Restoration Hangar in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.” ... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images An AT&T policy that bars employees from recording conversations with managers or colleagues is legal, according to a ruling from the National Labor Relations Board Monday. The board found that while AT&T violated US labor law in how it had applied the policy, the recording ban itself was not illegal.According to AT&T’s rules, “employees may not record telephone or other conversations they have with their co-workers, managers or third parties unless such recordings are approved in advance by the Legal Department.”In its decision, the NLRB overturned part of an earlier ruling which said that the policy’s potential to infringe on workers’ rights outweighed AT&T’s need to keep customer data private.The case centers on a complaint filed... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge HTC is planning to unveil two Vive virtual reality headsets at its ViveCon 2021 conference that’s happening on May 11th and May 12th, according to Protocol. While the original Vive and Vive Pro headsets were associated more with gaming, the high-end Vive Pro 2 and Vive Focus 3 Business Edition will reportedly be aimed toward the enterprise sector.No specs or images of either headset have surfaced, so it’s unclear if both will be tethered headsets that require a PC to use or if one will have a standalone, wire-free design to take on the likes of the Oculus Quest 2.The report from Protocol states that both headsets were mentioned in HTC company documents and were also briefly listed on European e-commerce site Alzashop. Before those... Continue reading…

Lenovo A new Show Mode feature from Amazon is now rolling out to some Lenovo laptops. When you activate this, it will change your home screen to look like the home screen of an Echo Show smart display, in a similar fashion to the Show Mode feature on Amazon’s tablets. That means you’ll be able to do smart display things like controlling smart home devices, glancing at the weather and news headlines, and chatting with Alexa — you know, the kind of stuff you’ve always wished you could do on your ThinkPad.The feature is currently rolling out to Yoga, ThinkPad, and IdeaPad PCs that have Alexa built in, and it’s available in the US, UK, Germany, Japan, India, Ireland, Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, and New Zealand. Lenovo says... Continue reading…

Apple Watch | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Apple Watch Series 3 was first released in September 2017, bringing fitness improvements and a faster processor. Nearly four years later, in 2021, Apple is still selling the Series 3 as its entry-level Apple Watch model starting at $199, an $80 savings compared to the more recent Apple Watch SE. Only, as I’ve recently learned, “still selling” and “supporting in a reasonable manner” are two very different things, and updating an Apple Watch Series 3 in 2021 is a nightmare of infuriating technological hoops to jump through.Normally, updating an Apple Watch is an annoyingly long but straightforward process: you charge your Watch up to 50 percent, plug it in, and wait for the slow process of the update transferring and installing to... Continue reading…

Alex Castro/The Verge In a new blog post, Basecamp CEO Jason Fried apologized after the “policy changes” he announced last week ultimately led to a third of the company’s workforce opting to leave.“Last week was terrible. We started with policy changes that felt simple, reasonable, and principled, and it blew things up culturally in ways we never anticipated,” Fried wrote. “David and I completely own the consequences, and we’re sorry. We have a lot to learn and reflect on, and we will.”The blog post that started the software company’s terrible week was a list of new company policies that prohibited, among other things, “societal and political discussions” on internal forums.

Image: Google Google seems to be getting a little ahead of itself. This afternoon, as noticed by 9to5Google and others, the official Android account on Twitter tweeted a photo of the “Pixel Buds A-Series” and said the earbuds “have arrived.” Except... they definitely haven’t. Google has yet to properly announce the Pixel Buds A-Series, which are expected to be sold at a lower price than the standard $179 model.The tweet, which also mentioned the “quality sound and quick Bluetooth pairing” of Google’s latest buds, has since been deleted. Google has a history of, well, just tweeting out future products, but this does seem to have been an error. Google I/O 2021 is scheduled to start in two weeks on May 18th. But based on the mistaken... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images After months of promising his own social media network for banned posters, former President Donald Trump on Tuesday launched a new section of his website that’s essentially just a WordPress blog.The new “platform” is styled like a generic version of Twitter but hosted as a running blog of commentary from Trump. People can sign up for post alerts on the platform through their email and phone numbers and are allegedly able to like them, although that function doesn’t appear to work as of publication. Users are also allowed to share Trump’s posts on Facebook and Twitter. The Twitter sharing option doesn’t currently work, but Facebook’s does allow people to share Trump’s posts.The new “platform” is effectively a blog styled like a generic... Continue reading…

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Dell has released a security patch that fixes a security vulnerability affecting many Dell computers going back to 2009, along with instructions on how to install it if your computer is affected (via threatpost). The vulnerability, found by security research firm SentinelLabs, is present in a driver used by Dell and Alienware’s firmware update utilities, and it allows an attacker to gain full kernel-level permissions in Windows.If you have a Dell computer, there’s a good chance it could be vulnerable — the list of affected computers on Dell’s website has over 380 models on it, including some of the latest XPS 13 and 15 models, and the G3, G5, and G7 gaming laptops. Dell also lists almost 200 affected computers that it considers to be... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tinder wants to give you more info on what you and a match have in common, so it’s launching a new quiz feature to help out. The quizzes, called Vibes, will pop up once a week and ask an assortment of goofy questions, from “_____ is not picnic food” to “Are you always 20 minutes early or 10 minutes late?” If another person gave the same answers as you, those answers will appear on their profile or, if you match, in your chat together.Vibes isn’t turning Tinder into a full-on OkCupid rival for endless, silly personality quiz questions. The answers are temporary, vanishing after a few days. So you’ll have to return to the app and answer new questions the following week if you want to participate again. Image: Tinder ... Continue reading…

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney was asking Apple to open its phones to other app stores as early as 2015, according to new emails made public as part of the companies’ antitrust trial. Under the subject line “iOS as an open platform,” Sweeney emailed Apple CEO Tim Cook directly to make the case for allowing other app stores to distribute software on iOS.“The App Store has done much good for the industry,” Sweeney wrote to Cook, “but it doesn’t seem tenable for Apple to be the sole arbiter of expression and commerce over an app platform approaching a billion users.”In particular, Sweeney asked to “separate iOS App Store curation from compliance review and app distribution,” essentially suggesting that Apple could maintain its security... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia appears to be getting ready to launch its RTX 3080 Ti graphics card later this month. Over the past few weeks, RTX 3080 Ti cards have reportedly been spotted on shipping pallets, in retail boxes, and now in the hands of someone. VideoCardz has been at the center of tracking down Nvidia’s rumored RTX 3080 Ti card, and it reports the GPU will be launched on May 31st, alongside the RTX 3070 Ti.The RTX 3080 Ti will reportedly include 12GB of GDDR6X memory, a 2GB increase over what’s found on the RTX 3080. A wider 384-bit bus is rumored, matching the RTX 3090 — and an increase to the memory bandwidth over the RTX 3080. What this all means in terms of performance isn’t exactly clear yet, but it certainly looks like the RTX 3080 Ti will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit had a bit of a blip on Tuesday afternoon, going down for almost an hour. According to Reddit’s status page, the issues started around 1:56PM ET. At 2:17PM ET, Downdetector reports spiked, with around 45,000 users reporting problems connecting to its homepage and subreddits. Staff here at The Verge were also unable to load the site, with some getting a blank homepage and others experiencing slow loading times and getting kicked off of pages.The status page now indicates that Reddit has implemented a fix and is monitoring the results. While the status page still shows that there’s a partial outage, we were all able to successfully load and browse the site. Downdetector reports are also dropping, indicating that more... Continue reading…

A shopper walks down an aisle of in-wall air conditioners at a Lowe’s home improvement store August 2, 2006 in Arlington Heights, Illinois. | Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images “Super” greenhouse gases will soon be phased down in air conditioners and refrigerators in the US. The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday proposed new rules to cut the use of the “super” pollutants used as refrigerants, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), by 85 percent over 15 years. Consumers likely won’t notice much of a difference with their appliances, but lawmakers are anticipating big benefits for the planet.The EPA plans to determine a baseline for HFC production and consumption, and then set limits on companies making and importing HFCs. Those caps would become stricter over time. This is the agency’s first major new regulation taking on climate change under the Biden administration, and it makes good on a bipartisan commitment... Continue reading…

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Uber announced that it was teaming up with delivery startup Gopuff to expand its delivery business. Gopuff, which acquired liquor store chain BevMo last year, will make its inventory of convenience and grocery store items available to Uber as part of this new deal. The companies plan to roll out their new offerings to customers in 95 cities starting this June and nationwide later in the year.Gopuff specializes in delivering “essential” or “instant need” items, which is defines as “liquor, local favorites, beauty and pet products, snacks and [over-the-counter] medication.” The company will handle the logistics and delivery of the items, with Uber taking a cut of the transaction through its app. Gopuff, which was founded in 2013,... Continue reading…

The British Royal Navy has apparently been testing using jet suits to board ships like a scene out of some scrapped Christopher Nolan film, according to a new video released by UK-based Gravity Industries. Business Insider writes that the tests were conducted over three days on the HMS Tamar, a Royal Navy Batch 2 River-class offshore patrol ship.Royal Marines used Gravity Industries’ Jet Suit to conduct a “visit, board, search, and seizure” operation or VBSS. Basically a marine launched from a fast boat tailing the HMS Tamar, flew through the air like a slightly askew Iron Man, and landed on the larger ship, dropping a rope below so their fast boat buddies could climb up and “visit” the simulated enemy vessel.The whole thing is very... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic pushed Microsoft to open up its Xbox network for free multiplayer gaming just weeks before the Apple and Fortnite battle. In the weeks leading up to Epic Games’ decision to circumvent Apple’s 30 percent cut on Fortnite in-app purchases, CEO Tim Sweeney sent an email to Xbox chief Phil Spencer teasing something big and asking whether Microsoft could time free multiplayer with Fortnite season 14.“Epic has certain plans for August that will provide an extraordinary opportunity to highlight the value proposition of consoles and PCs, in contrast to mobile platforms, and to onboard new console users,” said Sweeney. “While I can’t share details with any third party at this point, I give you Epic’s assurance that our efforts will be... Continue reading…

Japreece Dean of the Minnesota Lynx handles the ball against the Atlanta Dream. | Photo by Dale Zanine/NBAE via Getty Images For its upcoming 25th season, the Women’s National Basketball Association will broadcast games on Twitter, Facebook Watch, Oculus, and the Paramount Plus streaming platform, the league announced.Twelve games will air on Twitter, and tweets from fans will be included as part of the broadcast. Facebook will stream 20 WNBA games on its Watch platform and its Oculus Quest and Quest 2 VR headsets, and three games will be shown on Paramount Plus.ESPN’s platforms will show 25 regular-season games, three on ESPN, 12 games on ESPN2, and nine games on ABC. The WNBA’s All Star Game will also air on ESPN, and ESPN networks will cover 19 post-season games during the playoffs. All regular-season and post-season games that air on ESPN will also... Continue reading…

After four years of support, the S8 and S8 Plus will no longer receive security updates. | Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Four years after its launch, the Samsung Galaxy S8 has received its last security update. The Galaxy S8 was a well-timed success story for Samsung, launching in the spring of 2017 with a bold design that drew attention away from the well-documented Galaxy Note 7 battery problems of the previous six months.The S8 marked a design shift for Galaxy devices, with a wider-aspect edge-to-edge screen with minimal bezels that made it one of the best-looking phones we’d seen at that point. It wasn’t just a good-looking device, either; it offered excellent hardware and a great camera, combined with a remarkably restrained software implementation. Best of all, the batteries did not catch fire.Samsung has one of the best support policies in the... Continue reading…

A routine mammogram | Photo by: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, as people avoided doctors’ offices and hospitals canceled nonessential appointments, routine cancer screenings plummeted. Now, we’re starting to see the consequences.ProPublica tells the story of Teresa Ruvalcaba, a factory worker in Chicago who ignored searing pain in her chest for six months. She was busy with work and afraid of catching COVID-19 at the doctor’s office, and when she finally went to the emergency room, she was diagnosed with advanced inflammatory breast cancer. It was one of the most severe cases oncologist Pam Khosla had seen in a decade.Cancer death rates have dropped over 30 percent since the early 1990s, a decline fueled by early detection and new... Continue reading…

Will Smith has a new fitness show coming to YouTube. | Image: YouTube YouTube announced a new slate of original series today that includes some huge stars at the top of the lineup. Will Smith will star in a six-part reality series about fitness and “returning his body into the best shape of his life,” and a four-part series will go behind the scenes with Alicia Keys as she records a new album.The new lineup of originals also includes a third season of Liza Koshy’s Liza on Demand; a new special focused on Asian American chefs, celebrities, activists, and creators that counts LeBron James and Michelle Kwan as executive producers; and a new special called Barbershop Medicine that explores the intersection of race and socioeconomic status that came out of the #YouTubeBlack Voices Fund that was announced last... Continue reading…

Two companies that have built their businesses on computer accessories are coming together. Targus, a company best known for its laptop cases and bags, today announced that it’s acquiring Sanho. You might not be familiar with Sanho itself, but it’s more likely you’d recognize the company’s Hyper and HyperDrive lineup of USB-C accessories that are sold on Amazon, at Best Buy, and elsewhere.Targus CEO Mikel Williams said the deal “allows for Targus to add capability and support to Hyper’s growing tech brand, and gives Hyper access to new channels, customers and a global footprint of sales and marketing resources.” Williams added that “Hyper has a strong and exciting brand that has excellent reach into the Apple community and, importantly,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Robinhood ran into issues processing cryptocurrency trades this morning, during a spike in the price of Dogecoin that sent users flocking to the app. The website DownDetector shows the outage starting around 9:30AM ET and reducing in severity about an hour later. Robinhood confirmed that it experienced a “partial outage” in crypto trading and said the issues had been resolved as of 11:15AM ET.The outage was particularly noticeable since it came during a spike (and subsequent dip) in Dogecoin prices. Coins were priced at around $0.40 USD at the beginning of the day. Around 8AM ET, they spiked past $0.50 USD and reached as high as $0.60 USD near 10AM ET.

Image: Instagram Instagram now has a captions sticker for Stories, which will automatically transcribe speech in videos. The sticker will be available only in “English and English-speaking countries” for now but will eventually roll out to other languages and countries. Instagram says it will also start testing automated captions in Reels soon.Captions have been available in IGTV and the Threads app, and Instagram says it’s adding them to Stories and Reels to make them more efficient and inclusive to watch. The feature should be a welcome addition for people who are deaf or hard of hearing, are not native English speakers, or just generally watch videos without sound. The edit option lists each word of the captions separately. You can... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Epic Games v. Apple trial started on Monday, and if you wanted to follow along and listen to Epic CEO Tim Sweeney talk about the “metaverse,” your options were limited. In theory, there’s public access to the trial, like most court proceedings, but since the courthouse is still closed for lockdown, the only access was through the court’s teleconference line that was briefly overrun by screaming teens.But for anyone looking for more user-friendly options, there’s good news. A surprising, small community of streamers has decided to rebroadcast the trial on streaming platforms — places built for the people who play Fortnite rather than the antitrust policy wonks in the courtroom. For yesterday’s proceeding, I found a handful of... Continue reading…

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd. The Bad Batch has arrived today as the latest Star Wars spinoff series for Disney Plus. It’s a different, smaller show than preceding animated shows like The Clone Wars or Rebels, focusing on a single squad of clone troopers, Clone Force 99 — the titular “Bad Batch” — and its struggle to find a place in the galaxy following the rise of the Empire.Unlike the other clone troopers, the Bad Batch’s members were cloned with an emphasis on specific genetic abnormalities. Hunter, for example, has improved senses, while Wrecker is far larger and stronger than the average clone.The Bad Batch was first introduced in the resurrected seventh season of Dave Filoni’s animated The Clone Wars series (which was brought back after its original... Continue reading…

In the Earth. | Photo: Neon An unsettling film that evades the genre’s usual tropes Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Shopify’s Harley Finkelstein on competing with the tech giants during the pandemic Continue reading…

Disney has finally showed off a first look at its “real” retractable lightsaber, which the company started teasing in April, with a new video showing the saber in action — and it looks very, very cool.As rumored, the new toy lightsaber doesn’t require any awkward plastic prop blades, instead featuring a retractable light-up blade that extends out from the (otherwise fairly normal-looking) hilt — just like the crackling energy blades in the films and shows.The announcement doesn’t go into too many details on how the retractable sabers actually work, but some clever minds on the internet have managed to piece together a rough idea from Disney’s patent filings. The broad strokes are that the new blade works almost like a modified,... Continue reading…

You probably knew already that it’s May 4th, or the Star Wars-themed May the Fourth (be with you) day. Lots of retailers are discounting their Star Wars stuff, and it’s led to some of today’s best deals — that is, if you like Star Wars or are at least curious about it. Best Buy, Amazon, and Walmart are offering each Star Wars film in UHD Blu-ray for $17, down from around $30. It’s a good deal if you care about owning physical copies and have a device like an Xbox One S, Series X, a PS5 with a disc drive, or just a standard 4K Blu-ray player that can get the most from this kind of disc.Each of these films also includes the film in 1080p (so it’ll work in non 4K Blu-ray players), as well as a digital code. Speaking of digital, if all you... Continue reading…

Walmart’s unannounced cloud gaming service, codenamed Project Storm, has been detailed in new confidential emails. An exhibit in the Epic Games v. Apple trial reveals Walmart’s efforts to pitch its cloud gaming service to Epic Games and get Fortnite on board.“I played Walmart’s demo on an Android phone (with an Xbox controller) and the experience felt like playing on PS4 and superior to playing on Android or iOS,” said Epic Games co-founder Mark Rein in an email thread from April 2019. Rein also excitedly shares a photo of a game clip with the rest of the Epic Games executive team, showing how Walmart was planning to sell this in stores to let a phone attach to a controller. “They’re going to sell the clip for a crazy low amount, they... Continue reading…

Image: Scroll Twitter’s acquisition spree continues today with Scroll, a $5-a-month subscription service that removes ads from participating news sites (including The Verge). Twitter is working on building out a new kind of subscription plan that will include Scroll, the recently acquired Revue newsletter service, and other homegrown Twitter services. In a blog post announcing the deal, Scroll CEO Tony Haile says that one reason he sold his company is because “Twitter’s ambitions are larger than people suspect.”The Scroll service is an ingenious hack that uses third-party cookies or browser extensions to tell websites to not serve ads to you. It’s not quite an ad-blocker per se but instead sends a portion of your subscription fee to the participating... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is adding a new Reading Progress feature to Microsoft Teams, designed to help students improve their reading fluency. Reading Progress works by allowing students to record themselves reading a passage of text, and offering teachers the ability to assess accuracy rates, mispronunciations, and more.Typically, students practice reading fluency in front of a teacher where they’ll read a passage out loud and the teacher will mark it accordingly. Teachers will measure the speed, accuracy, and expression of reading as part of this process. Microsoft accelerated its work on this feature during the pandemic, when it became clear it would be difficult for teachers to measure reading fluency remotely.“With the pandemic, if you think... Continue reading…

Moment’s cold shoe and 1/4” threaded MagSafe mount is $59.99. There is nothing better than tech that just works. The satisfying joy that comes with transferring files via AirDrop, the relief when a new pair of wireless earbuds automatically pop up on a phone screen and ask to be connected without opening the Bluetooth settings. These moments are still rare, but when they happen it feels like I’m actually living in the future promised to me. One of seamless connection and endless possibilities.And the iPhone’s MagSafe (not to be confused with the old MacBook MagSafe, RIP), it just works. Moment’s MagSafe accessories are stainless steel disks with a matte finish. Moment lenses can be attached via Moment Cases. Even with a metal and glass... Continue reading…

Adobe Flash Logo. | Image: Adobe Microsoft will start fully removing Adobe Flash from Windows 10 this summer. The Windows 10 “Update for Removal of Adobe Flash Player,” which permanently removes Flash as a component of the operating system, will become mandatory starting in July. Updating to Windows 10 version 21H1, expected to start rolling out this month, will also remove the software.The update that removes Adobe Flash will also be available for older operating systems like Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Embedded 8 Standard. Microsoft announced the timeline in an update to a blog post.Microsoft has already been removing support from EdgeMicrosoft has already been removing Flash support from its Microsoft Edge browser with an update that many people... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Phil Schiller, the Apple executive in charge of the App Store, raised the possibility of the company cutting its 30 percent commission rate to 25 or even 20 percent back in 2011 in response to competition. Schiller floated the idea in an email to then Apple CEO Steve Jobs and head of Apple services Eddy Cue. The email has been made public as part of the company’s legal battle with Epic Games. Bloomberg was first to report on the email exchange.“Do we think our 70/30 split will last forever?” Schiller’s email begins. “I think someday we will see enough challenge from another platform or web based solutions to want to adjust our model.” Schiller goes on to suggest that if Apple were to ever change its fee structure, that it should do so... Continue reading…

Photo: Skydio US dronemaker Skydio has begun shipping its first enterprise drones today with prices starting at an enterprise-worthy $10,999. Skydio is best known as a pioneer of self-flying drone tech, but in recent years has shifted its attention away from a consumer market dominated by Chinese giant DJI to courting enterprise customers instead.This switch is partly due to geopolitics. The US government blacklisted various Chinese drones over spying fears last year, meaning law enforcement, military, and federal customers are looking more to US firms instead. The switch helped boost Skydio to a $1 billion valuation, no doubt assisted by the higher prices such business can command.Skydio’s enterprise drones are available with thermal and color... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A new document released as part of Epic’s legal battle with Apple has revealed how much Epic paid developers to give away their games for free following the launch of the Epic Games Store in December 2018. The document, which was spotted by writer Simon Carless, covers the 38 games given away free between December and September the following year. We already know that Epic is spending millions on its giveaways, but the new document reveals how much that translates to on a per-game basis.Epic CEO Tim Sweeney previously revealed that the company pays a flat fee to each developer to give away their games, rather than paying per download. Over the period covered by the document, Epic paid over $11.6 million in total for the games. In... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Both Apple and Epic have released their opening presentations on why they feel they should win this week’s trial, which is set to determine the future of the App Store. In the documents, which you can look through below, each company lays out its case.The lawsuit started when Apple removed Epic Games’ Fortnite from the App Store after Epic bypassed Apple’s system for in-app purchases. But it’s turned into a much deeper examination of Apple’s walled-garden approach to technology, and whether some of the walls the company puts up might violate antitrust law.We took a deeper look at the companies’ legal strategies in advance of the trial, but you can see the same arguments play out in these presentations. Epic uses metaphors of brick... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge General Motors has finally revealed its plan to fix the issue at the center of last year’s Chevy Bolt recall, which the automaker issued in response to a handful of battery pack fires. Affected customers have to bring their Bolts to a dealer so the battery packs can be inspected, and GM says some of the modules that make up the pack may be replaced if any “anomalies” are found. But dealers will also install “advanced onboard diagnostic software” on all of the affected vehicles.That software, GM says, will be able to “detect potential issues related to changes in battery module performance before problems can develop.” The company says the software will be standard on all new Bolts moving forward.Following last year’s recall, GM... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s no secret that Sony held back PS4 cross-platform play for years, but new confidential documents and emails reveal just how much Sony was against letting people play the same games with their friends on other platforms. Sony initially blocked cross-platform play for both Rocket League and Minecraft, despite Nintendo and Microsoft both enabling players to play across Xbox and Switch. The issue really blew up when Sony blocked Fortnite crossplay in 2018, and players were angry. It now appears that Sony may have been holding out to offset potential revenue losses.In the months leading up to Sony’s decision to block Fortnite crossplay in 2018, Epic Games had pleaded with Sony to enable crossplay, emails in the Epic Games v. Apple case... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After a meteoric rise to popularity in 2018, Fortnite generated more than $5 billion in its first year for Epic Games, new financial documents reveal. The document, made public as part of Epic’s court battle with Apple over the latter’s App Store practices, shows that the game brought in more than $9 billion total for Epic in 2018 and 2019.The document doesn’t break down how much Epic specifically profited from Fortnite, but the company reported more than $5.5 billion in profit from the two-year period. In the document, the company provided predictions for 2020, but since Epic doesn’t usually publicly provide financial statements, it’s hard to tell how accurate the predictions ended up being.The revenue from Fortnite far outshone any... Continue reading…

An internal Epic document from June 2020 shows plans to “announce the first-ever sports event in Party Royale” An internal presentation at Epic Games showed ambitious promotional plans for the game, including a basketball mini-game and a planned “Party Royale” featuring Zion Williamson and LeBron James. Made public as part of the ongoing Epic v. Apple trial, the document comes from a quarterly business review performed in June 2020.In addition to detailing the game’s revenue and promotional outlook, the presentation lays out a new kind of “experimental” venture to be built inside of Fortnite, including plans to implement a basketball mini-game as part of a broader NBA partnership.One slide describes the project as “a Fortnite version of arcade basketball,” which would allow players to take to the courts as an alternative to the traditional... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge PlayStation is now partnering with Discord, the popular online communication service, with a promise to “bring the Discord and PlayStation experiences closer together on console and mobile starting early next year.”Details on what that would actually entail are slim, and Sony’s announcement just says that the two companies are “hard at work connecting Discord with your social and gaming experience on PlayStation Network.” Whether that means a full-fledged Discord app coming to PlayStation consoles or a more limited integration (like connecting PSN and Discord accounts to more easily chat with friends off platform) has yet to be announced.As part of the new partnership, Sony is also investing an unspecified amount of money into Discord... Continue reading…