The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge 2021 has been a big year for lossless music now that Apple has gone in on the higher-quality streaming and Amazon is no longer charging an added premium for it. But one of the main challenges confronting lossless audio is how to play it wirelessly (at full fidelity) on wireless headphones and earbuds. Qualcomm thinks it has found a solution with the new aptX Lossless, which is part of the company’s Snapdragon Sound program announced earlier this year.With aptX Lossless (which is technically an extension of aptX Adaptive), Qualcomm says it’ll be able to stream CD-quality, 16-bit / 44.1kHz lossless audio over Bluetooth. The first devices to feature the new technology are expected to be available in early 2022. Snapdragon Sound leans on... Continue reading…

ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox have secured a victory in their legal fight against Locast, a nonprofit that re-streams their local broadcast stations at little to no cost, much to the consternation of those networks.Locast is a service that makes local broadcasts free — kind of, we’ll get to that — to those who may be unwilling to pony up for cable or live TV streaming services, or just don’t want to hook up an antenna in their living room. Those four networks are already broadcast over-the-air for free; Locast then uses a legal exemption in copyright law to re-transmit their broadcasts and put them online for people to more easily access. Locast doesn’t technically charge for its service, but it does ask for donations that start around $5 per... Continue reading…

Screenshots of Facebook’s fantasy sports. | Image: Facebook Facebook is adding fantasy sports-like prediction games that will let users guess what’s going to happen in sports, TV shows, and pop culture. The new games, called Facebook Fantasy Games, are rolling out first on the iOS and Android apps for users in the US and Canada.The first game available is Pick & Play Sports, a daily sports prediction game it made in partnership with Whistle Sports. (It was already available in the iOS app for me, so it might be for you, too.) In the “upcoming months,” Facebook plans to release additional games for TV shows like The Bachelorette and Survivor, sports leagues like Major League Baseball, and one made with BuzzFeed. Games will have public leaderboards, but you can also make your own public or private... Continue reading…

Photo by Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post via Getty Images As Congress pushes for more details of the January 6th attack on the Capitol, tech companies have found themselves caught between a new request from the select committee investigating the attack and ominous threats from Republicans hoping to stall the committee’s investigation.Pushing for new details about communications between Republican members of Congress and President Trump during the attack, the House select committee sent data requests on Monday ordering the preservation of phone records and other communications related to the January 6th attack. Requests went out to 35 companies, including Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft. Wireless providers like AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless also received the request.“A... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit has banned anti-vaccine and anti-mask subreddit r/NoNewNormal and has quarantined 54 other subreddits associated with COVID denial. A week ago, the company’s CEO said in a post that Reddit was meant to be a place of “open and authentic discussion and debate,” even for ideas that “question or disagree with popular consensus.” In today’s post, the company has clarified its rules with regard to health misinformation.The subreddit NoNewNormal has been cited by many in the Reddit community as a source of vaccine misinformation, and it was known for “brigading” other subreddit’s discussions by butting in on conversations about COVID or related policies in other communities. NoNewNormal was the source of 80 such brigades in the past... Continue reading…

The Bose Noise Cancelling 700 are one of the many deals available ahead of Labor Day. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The fast-approaching Labor Day holiday promises to bring plenty of great tech deals on notable favorites, including smart speakers, headphones, TVs, and tablets. While we regret to inform you that it is, sadly, not yet the weekend, there is a wide selection deals already available at retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, and B&H Photo, many of which are likely to run through the rest of the week and into the long weekend.Right now, there are savings to be had on devices like the Bose Noise Cancelling 700 and second-gen Apple Pencil, and we’ll be sure to bring you more as the week unfolds, both on-site and in your inbox via our Verge Deals newsletter. In the meantime, check out these early Labor Day deals on a wide swath of tech goodies.H... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Texas is one step closer to enacting a law that would make it more difficult for social media companies to moderate political content. Both Texas’ House and Senate approved the bill earlier this week, sending it to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk.The bill would make it unlawful for social media companies with more than 50 million users, like Facebook and Twitter, to censor users and content based on political views or geographic location. This includes moderation actions like banning, deplatforming, or demonetizing users and removing posts.The bill initially failed in a special session earlier this yearThe bill initially failed in a special session earlier this year when Democrats fled the state to stall the passage of controversial partisan... Continue reading…

Paramount is delaying the rest of its 2021 film slate, moving Top Gun: Maverick from its Thanksgiving weekend release date to May 27th, 2022, close to three years after it was first announced. It’s also moving Jackass Forever to release on February 4th, 2022, instead of the originally planned October 22nd, 2021, via Deadline.Additionally, due to Top Gun: Maverick taking its former May 2022 slot, Mission: Impossible 7 is getting another delay: it’ll now be out on September 30th, 2022.The delays are due to concerns over the spike in COVID-19 cases caused by the delta variant of the virus. Deadline notes that Paramount, rather than risk releasing potential billion-dollar franchise starters like the Top Gun sequel seeing comparatively... Continue reading…

Apple Watch Series 6 | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple apparently has a growing wishlist of health features for future versions of the Apple Watch, some feasible and some far-fetched. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Apple’s plans include various types of monitoring, including blood pressure, temperature, sleep, and blood sugar. The details come just after reports that the release of the next Apple Watch is likely to be delayed because of manufacturing issues.Some of the planned features outlined by the WSJ involve adding new sensors to the Watch. Apple wants to develop a sensor that can act as a proxy for a blood pressure cuff without squeezing the wrist. Blood pressure measurement has been in Apple’s plans for years; the company filed a patent application in 2016 for a... Continue reading…

Here’s what Safety Mode settings look like. | Image: Twitter Twitter is launching a new feature called Safety Mode that will temporarily autoblock accounts sending harmful or abusive tweets to you. Safety Mode is launching in beta with a “small feedback group” of accounts on iOS, Android, and Twitter.com with English-language settings enabled and plans of expanding the group of testers “in the coming months.”“When the feature is turned on in your Settings, our systems will assess the likelihood of a negative engagement by considering both the Tweet’s content and the relationship between the Tweet author and replier,” senior product manager Jarrod Doherty said in a blog post. “Our technology takes existing relationships into account, so accounts you follow or frequently interact with will not be... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix Netflix has announced that the entirety of Seinfeld is coming to the streaming service starting on October 1st. The show hasn’t been available on a streaming service since it went of Hulu on June 23rd, according to Vulture, so there’s probably some pent-up demand.Not only will Seinfeld be available to view again, but it may end up looking better than viewers remember. When Netflix first announced that it was buying the show’s streaming rights, it said it would stream it in 4K for the first time.

EV startup Workhorse has been accused of touting fake preorders, accounting fraud, and hiding a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation from its investors in a new report published by short-selling research firm Fuzzy Panda. The report also contains allegations that Workhorse’s new electric vans are already breaking down for customers like Ikea.Workhorse announced just last month that it already needs to redesign the new C-1000 van based on early feedback, though the company said it was because customers wanted more payload capacity. The company also named a new CEO at the time, Rick Dauch, who came from automotive supplier Delphi, while its general counsel and vice president of finance announced they were leaving.The report... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is starting to roll out Super Follows, its new feature that lets users charge for subscriber-only content. Creators can set their tweets to go out to Super Followers only, and the tweets will appear in the timelines of just those subscribers. The feature, announced in February, is currently only available on Twitter’s iOS app and is limited to a test group of people in the US who applied to try it out. Image: Twitter An example of a creator making a tweet for Super Followers. iOS users in the US and Canada can Super Follow accounts that are in the initial test group. Super Followers are identified to creators by a badge that appears under their name when they reply to tweets. Twitter plans to roll out... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Great gifts for high schoolers and the college bound Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Last month Niantic sparked a backlash in the Pokémon Go community when it announced plans to reverse some of the changes it made last year to make the game more playable while staying at home. The company said it would set up a “task force” to figure out the best way to move forward and would announce its findings by today, September 1st.As announced last week, the first main point of action is that Niantic will keep the 80-meter interaction distance for pokéstops and gyms everywhere around the world, after first saying it’d revert to the pre-pandemic 40-meter distance first in the US and New Zealand. Niantic now says it realizes that altering mechanics like this in a real-time, region-specific manner is impractical, and will apply... Continue reading…

Photo by Michael Bezjian/Getty Images for Gamers’ Choice Awards Tim “TimTheTatMan” Betar, one of the most popular streamers on Twitch, is leaving to stream exclusively on YouTube Gaming. His move comes just days after another big streamer, Ben “DrLupo” Lupo, announced that he’d be switching from Twitch to YouTube as well. Betar’s first stream will take place on September 2nd.In moving from Twitch, Betar is leaving behind the 7 million followers he’s accrued on the Amazon-owned platform. But he won’t be starting from scratch on YouTube, where he already has 3.8 million subscribers. YouTube declined to comment on the terms of its deal with Betar.

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA - AUGUST 30: The downtown skyline is shown after Hurricane Ida passed through on August 30, 2021 in New Orleans, Louisiana. | Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images A new gas plant still isn’t enough to solve the city’s power problems Continue reading…

Yet another big game is jumping into the world of virtual concerts. League of Legends creator Riot is partnering with “virtual entertainment” company Wave for an upcoming event centered on the game’s in-universe heavy metal band Pentakill. The concert is set to take place on September 8th at 1:30PM PT / 4:30PM ET, and it’s tied to the band’s upcoming album release. You can watch it right here.From the sound of it, the Pentakill show will be a bit more involved than other virtual concerts. It’s described as “an interactive journey through the full concept album,” which will release after the show. (Riot has been teasing Pentakill’s third album over the past little while.) Wave says that viewers will be able to “influence the performance... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge HBO Max is now available on Vizio SmartCast TVs, meaning users will no longer have to use casting workarounds to access the streaming service.Prior to today’s announcement, Vizio TVs lacked a native app within SmartCast, Vizio’s smart TV interface. Instead, they’d have to cast its content to their televisions using Apple AirPlay or by casting with Google. The addition of the app directly from the apps menu should make accessing HBO Max far more intuitive for SmartCast users.To mark the launch of the app on its sets, Vizio will also introduce a custom homescreen carousel to showcase HBO Max’s new teaser freebies. HBO Max no longer offers free trials, though it recently announced a limited sampling of the pilot episodes of more than a... Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red CD Projekt Red announced that the free next-gen upgrades for Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, meant for the PS5 and Xbox Series X, have target release dates for late 2021 (PDF). The company has been promising that the updates were on their way, but now we have a somewhat more specific window for when they might arrive — and it’s still within this calendar year.For Cyberpunk 2077, the upgrade is a big opportunity to bring players back after its December 2020 launch, which was something of a fiasco. Releasing a free update to the game that takes advantage of the next-gen consoles’ power could be a way to get players to jump back into it. From Cyberpunk 2077’s launch, PS5 and Xbox Series players have been able to play the game... Continue reading…

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge Google’s custom chips could expand past the Pixel 6 to Chromebook laptops and tablets as early as 2023, according to a new report from Nikkei Asia on the company’s expanding emphasis on designing its own processors.The company is already preparing to release its first major custom chip this fall, with the Pixel 6’s upcoming Tensor SoC. The report also lines up with rumors from 2020 that Google was planning in-house Chromebook chips after it debuted the concept on Pixel phones — something we now know is happening in a few weeks.But the Nikkei Asia report does note a few additional details, including the aforementioned 2023 timing; a confirmation that, like the Tensor chip, the Chromebook CPUs will be based on Arm; and that Google is... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft is holding a special Surface hardware event on September 22nd. The software maker has started sending media invites for this fall hardware event, although it will be online-only and not in person. Microsoft’s invite says “the company will talk about devices and Windows 11,” and we’re expecting to see a successor to the Surface Duo and a new Surface laptop.Leaked images of Microsoft’s upcoming Surface Duo 2 device appeared online in July, and we’re expecting to see the official announcement of this Android-powered dual-screen hardware on September 22nd. The leaked images suggest the biggest change will be a triple camera system, complete with telephoto, ultrawide angle, and standard lenses. The Surface Duo 2 is also rumored to... Continue reading…

Logitech is known mostly for its consumer-facing products, but it’s making a big play to appeal more broadly to businesses that take privacy seriously. It’s launching a range of mice and keyboards that will include a new Logi Bolt USB-A dongle that aims to reduce latency in crowded workplaces and greatly boost security.These accessories can securely connect to computers and mobile devices via Bluetooth Low Energy — no dongle necessary. Though the Bolt USB dongle is also based on Bluetooth, it will enable a far more secure tether (security mode 1, level 4). Opting for Bluetooth should make the Bolt far less prone to hacking than Logitech’s Unifying 2.4GHz receiver, which was vulnerable to the “MouseJack” hack.In Logitech’s white paper... Continue reading…

NASA kicked off test flights of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft — colloquially referred to as “flying cars” — with Joby Aviation, the Northern California company that recently went public. The test flights are part of a national campaign by NASA to observe these experimental aircraft in action and determine whether they are safe for passengers.Joby, which was founded in 2009, is the first eVTOL company to participate in NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Campaign. The test flights commenced Monday, August 30th, at the company’s airfield in Big Sur, California, and will run through September 10th, the agency said.But NASA won’t just be a passive observer as Joby’s six-rotor aircraft whiz through the... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple has announced the first US states that will support iOS 15’s new ability to store driver’s licenses and state IDs in the Wallet app. Arizona and Georgia will lead the way, with Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Utah following after that. No timetable is given for exactly when the new feature will be adopted by these states, however: Apple only says that consumers can expect “more information at a later date.” And the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has again confirmed it will open select airport checkpoints and security lanes to Apple’s mobile IDs once states begin making them available.Adding a state ID or driver’s license to Apple’s Wallet app works similarly to the way you currently add a credit... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Four Democratic members of Congress are calling for an investigation into whether an alleged secret 2018 agreement between Google and Facebook concerning digital advertising violated federal antitrust law. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Mondaire Jones (D-NY) wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Acting US Attorney General Nicholas Ganjei of Texas asking them to determine whether federal charges might be warranted.“If the reports are accurate, the behavior appears to be a clear violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act (Sherman Act), which criminalizes “mak[ing] any contract” “in restraint of trade or commerce,” the letter states.“The behavior... Continue reading…

No Man’s Sky’s latest update is adding alien settlements for you to discover as you explore its procedurally-generated universe. The appropriately titled “Frontiers” expansion was first teased last month, and represents the game’s seventeenth major update since its launch five years ago. It’s available to download today, free of charge, like the rest of No Man’s Sky’s updates.A brief trailer released by developer Hello Games gives an idea of what players can expect from these settlements, which come complete with aliens wandering their streets. Players will be able to become the Overseer of a settlement, and build it up from a small collection of buildings into a larger town. Once you’re in control, citizens will ask for help with their... Continue reading…

Many of us would agree that online protection is more vital than ever before, but trying to remember a random string of letters and symbols for every site you frequent — or don’t — isn’t always easy. Password managers like 1Password are a great way to store your login credentials and beef up your security, however, one that can also save you plenty of time.Thankfully, Verge readers can save 50 percent on their first year of 1Password for a limited time, whether they opt for an individual plan or a family subscription. The individual plan normally runs $2.99 a month and comes out to be around $36 per year, yet our exclusive discount brings the annual price down to $18. The family plan, meanwhile, will run you $2.50 a month instead of $5,... Continue reading…

Gimbal, meet selfie stick. | Image: WinFuture DJI appears to have another smartphone gimbal on the way with a telescoping selfie stick built into its handle, according to WinFuture. The Osmo Mobile 5, which is an apparent successor to last year’s Osmo Mobile 4, is likely to make its first appearance at DJI’s September 8th launch event where it will reportedly earn a European price of €159, which roughly translates to a tax-inclusive price of $188.The Osmo Mobile 5 reportedly folds down to around 17cm (6.7 inches), but can be extended when you need to get closer to your subject, or further away from yourself. From the pictures, it doesn’t seem to extend quite as much as a traditional selfie stick, but it should be enough to give you a little extra flexibility with your shots. When... Continue reading…

Image: Telegram Telegram, the messaging app that’s becoming more and more like a fully-fledged social media network, is expanding support for video live streams with its latest update. Version 8.0 of the app, which is available now on both iOS and Android, allows live streams to be watched by an unlimited number of viewers, up from the previous limit of 1,000. Other new features include more options when forwarding messages, and a shortcut to switch between channels.Increasing the maximum number of viewers like this opens the door to Telegram becoming a full-on mobile live streaming platform, complete with the ability for as many as 30 users to broadcast at once. “The power to run your own TV station is here, right in your pocket,” is how Telegram puts... Continue reading…

VanMoof S3 e-bike in Amsterdam | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge VanMoof just raised another $128 million in funding, after announcing a $40 million investment round in September 2020. That brings Amsterdam-based VanMoof’s total haul to $182 million raised in the last two years, excluding crowdfunding rounds in 2018 and 2019, making it “the most funded e-bike company in the world,” according to VanMoof.The company claims to have almost 200,000 bikes on the road currently, with the goal of getting 10 million people on VanMoof e-bikes in the next five years. Such aggressive expansion goals require significant capital.Improve the quality and reliability of the bikeVanMoof’s new funding round has been earmarked to expand production and to “reinvent the way in which hardware and software components are... Continue reading…

Windows 11 is launching on October 5th. | Image: Microsoft Microsoft is starting to drop PCs from its Windows Insider testing program that are ineligible to upgrade to Windows 11. If you’ve been helping Microsoft test Windows 11 on a machine that doesn’t meet the minimum hardware requirements, you’ll likely see a message in Windows Update warning that you’ll need to reinstall Windows 10.“Your PC does not meet the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11,” says Microsoft’s warning. “Your device is not eligible to join the Windows Insider Program on Windows 11. Please install Windows 10 to participate in the Windows Insider Program in the Release Preview Channel.”Windows 11 testers in both the Dev and Beta channels have started receiving the message on incompatible PCs this week, just as... Continue reading…

A render of the unannounced phone from the leaked manual. | Image: Samsung (via SamMobile) A user manual for Samsung’s Galaxy S21 FE (aka “Fan Edition”) has been published online by SamMobile, giving us another look at the unannounced midrange counterpart to the company’s Galaxy S21 flagship. As you’d expect from a manual, the document spends more time outlining how to use the phone than it does describing its specs, but it’s a guide for what’s to come.For starters, images included in the manual appear to confirm that previously leaked renders are accurate. That means we’re looking at a similar design to the Galaxy S21, albeit seemingly with a less premium finish. Three cameras are shown on the S21 FE’s rear while on the front there’s an in-display fingerprint scanner and a hole-punch notch for a selfie camera. ... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge The number of government-led internet shutdowns has exploded over the last decade as states seek to stifle dissent and protest by limiting citizens’ access to the web.Nearly 850 intentional shutdowns have been recorded over the past 10 years by nonprofit Access Now’s Shutdown Tracker Optimization Project (STOP), and although the group acknowledges that data on incidents before 2016 is “patchy,” some 768 of these shutdowns took place in the last five years. There were 213 shutdowns in 2019 alone, with this figure ticking down to 155 in 2020 as the world adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic (which delayed elections and led to lockdowns that kept populations at home more often). And already in the first five months of 2021 there have been 50... Continue reading…

Image: Signify If you’ve got a home full of Hue lights, there’s an easy new way to set the mood for your next party. Signify, which makes the Philips Hue line, is partnering with Spotify so that your lightbulbs can automatically sync up with whatever music you have playing, changing color and flashing along to the beat.There are already plenty of ways to sync your lights to music — including Signify’s own Hue Sync app — but those methods typically require letting an app or some external hardware listen in on everything you’re playing. This new partnership avoids that by letting the Hue Bridge tap directly into Spotify to see what’s playing once you’ve linked your accounts.A Hue Bridge and color bulbs are requiredThat close partnership is also... Continue reading…

The Hue light tube beneath a TV. | Image: Signify The Philips Hue line of smart bulbs is growing today with the addition of a bunch of new lights, strips, and lamps. There’s a bunch of stuff, so here’s a quick rundown:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Earlier this week, I started a search on Amazon and mistyped, entering just two letters in: “iv.” Amazon then helpfully compiled a list of suggested search results, almost all of which were for the horse de-worming version of the drug ivermectin. That drug is at the center of one of the more recent and more mind-boggling parts of the anti-vaccine misinformation story, a false cure touted by hucksters and others out to make a quick buck.This evening, Amazon spokesperson Craig Andrews tells The Verge that “Amazon’s autocomplete responses are driven by customer activity. We are blocking certain autocomplete responses to address these concerns.”Like Facebook, TikTok, and Reddit, Amazon has not gotten a lid on limiting the spread of... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Amazon is working to solve a frustration with smart home speakers by introducing a feature called Adaptive Volume, which will make Alexa respond louder if it detects that you’re in a noisy environment. According to the company, the mode is meant to make sure that you can still hear Alexa’s responses over any background noise (like the sound of a dishwasher, people talking, or music playing on another device). Amazon says that the feature is currently available to US customers, and that you can activate it by saying “Alexa, turn on adaptive volume.”Amazon doesn’t mention adaptive volume working in the opposite direction, becoming quieter if there’s no background noise, but there are other ways to reduce the volume dynamically. One of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Apple has pledged another $30 million to racial justice, on top of the $100 million it promised last year in the wake of George Floyd’s death.It includes funding for a wide array of causes, including a Global Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) Equity Innovation Hub at California State University Northridge in Los Angeles, with the intent to create regional hubs at other universities, and an expansion of its work to bring community coding centers to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by adding 11 additional schools to the roster.Last August, we calculated just how small the donations from Big Tech were compared to their immense profits, and today’s $30 million doesn’t really change the calculus there. At the rate... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google may be working on a new wireless charging stand for its Pixel phones, according to a leaked image of a retail inventory backend mentioning a “Google Pixel 23W WL Stand” published by Android Police. The name suggests the charger could support 23W wireless charging, and if Google does end up releasing this stand, it seems likely that the upcoming Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro would support 23W charging as well. Image: Android Police Android Police’s image seemingly revealing the existence of a new Pixel Stand. That wireless charging speed, if accurate, would be more than the iPhone 12’s maximum 15W wireless charging with a MagSafe charger and surpass the 10W wireless charging offered by the original Pixel Stand... Continue reading…

This image showed up on Banksy’s site, was sold as an NFT, then was taken down. The artist’s team says it’s fake. | Image: Internet Archive The NFT space continues to be weird and occasionally wonderful, but today’s story is going for some sort of award: a collector paid over $300,000 in Ethereum for an NFT from someone claiming to be Banksy after the image appeared on the famed street artist’s website. Then, Banksy’s spokesperson said that the artist had no involvement with NFTs, and stories came out declaring it a fake. Finally, the NFT’s seller spontaneously refunded the collector, seemingly with no note. Oh, and to really muddy the waters, the collector who bought the NFT goes by the name of Pranksy.Pranksy told the BBC that he heard about the auction, which was being held on the NFT marketplace OpenSea, from someone in his Discord. (The BBC doesn’t identify Pranksy by... Continue reading…

When EA announced it was remaking Dead Space, it wasn’t really clear what “remake” meant. Would the company be completely rebooting the beloved space horror series? Or would it be more like a remaster that upgraded the original’s 13-year-old graphics for the Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and modern PCs? Star Wars: Squadrons studio EA Motive offered a little bit more detail in interviews. But it was still hard to gauge what the remake was supposed to accomplish — since compared to remakes of ’90s games like System Shock, where designers are updating limited graphics and unfamiliar control schemes, Dead Space still feels eminently playable today.Now, the Dead Space remake’s developers have helped fill in some of the gaps. Motive held a l... Continue reading…

Image: Rivian Rivian’s R1T electric pickup truck is finally set to ship next month after a series of delays — roughly three years after it debuted at the 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show. Ahead of the launch, though, MotorTrend got to spend a handful of days with the all-electric adventure truck, and the team there came away impressed by its performance. What’s more, they offer one of the best looks at the R1T’s interior, which borrows as much from Tesla as it does from other high-end off-road-focused vehicles.None of this is exactly surprising — Rivian has actually been quite open about the development of the R1T since its debut, regularly posting its own articles, photos, and videos along the way — but the truck features two large, crisp displays on the... Continue reading…

Photo by Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images LinkedIn is shutting down its ephemeral Stories product, the company announced Tuesday. The company plans to “remove the current Stories experience by the end of September,” according to Liz Li, senior director of product. The Snapchat-style video Stories were first launched in February 2020 in internal testing.Part of the reason for the shutdown is that LinkedIn learned users just didn’t want disappearing video. “In developing Stories, we assumed people wouldn’t want informal videos attached to their profile, and that ephemerality would reduce barriers that people feel about posting,” Li said. “Turns out, you want to create lasting videos that tell your professional story in a more personal way and that showcase both your personality... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has barred employees from creating a Slack channel to discuss pay equity. A member of the employee relations team, Apple’s version of HR, said that while the topic was “aligned with Apple’s commitment to pay equity,” it did not meet the company’s Slack Terms of Use.“Slack channels are provided to conduct Apple business and must advance the work, deliverables, or mission of Apple departments and teams,” the employee relations representative told employees.The company’s rules for the in-office chat app say that “Slack channels for activities and hobbies not recognized as Apple Employee clubs or Diversity Network Associations (DNAs) aren’t permitted and shouldn’t be created.”But that rule has not been evenly enforced. Currently,... Continue reading…

Illustraion by Alex Castro / The Verge As streamers prepare to walk off Twitch, hate raids and abuse are escalating to dangerous levels Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In an email to employees today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that even though “we are welcoming back tens of thousands of Googlers on a voluntary basis,” the company will extend its voluntary return to work policy until at least January 10th, 2022. After that date, the current plan is to have countries and locations make mandatory return to work decisions depending on local conditions.The most recent plan shared publicly would’ve pushed Google employees back to the office at some point in September, but that won’t happen. Whenever its offices expect to have employees there in-person, Pichai reiterated that there would be a 30-day heads up first.The letter didn’t directly cite the Delta variant, but waves of infection have again... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The next Apple Watch is experiencing manufacturing issues that could lead to the product being released later than expected, according to separate reports from Nikkei and Bloomberg. The potential delay is reportedly due to complexities in the smartwatch’s new design, which is rumored to include flat sides and bigger screens.Sources told Nikkei that small-scale production for the next Apple Watch had begun but that it encountered “critical challenges in reaching satisfactory production performance.” Bloomberg reported similar details. Production has now been “temporarily halted” while Apple and its suppliers work to solve the manufacturing issues ahead of eventual mass production, Nikkei says.The next Apple Watch is expected to be... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Samsung’s new Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 phones add a bunch of clever new features designed for foldable phones as part of its One UI 3.1.1 update, but if you already own a Fold 2, Z Flip, or even the original Galaxy Fold, you’ll still be able to get some of the new additions without shelling out for a new phone. Available on all five foldable models is the new Drag and Split feature, which — as the name implies — allows you to tap and drag on a link to open it side by side with the original webpage or message.Samsung’s larger Fold models will also be getting the adjustable app windows for its multitasking mode, allowing you to adjust the height and width of the individual apps when you have multiple apps open at once. The... Continue reading…