The Verge

Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images Google is expanding the scope of its AI-powered Smart Reply feature to suggest responses to comments in Google Docs. It will be rolling out in the coming weeks to all users and will be turned on by default, though you can disable it via Tools > Preferences > Show Smart Reply suggestions.It’s the latest territory claimed by Google’s AI Smart Reply and Smart Compose features. The latter is already available in Gdocs and elsewhere, while the former lurks most prominently in your Gmail inbox. Image: Google Smart Reply as it appears in comments in Google Docs. Reactions to these AI-powered features are varied. Some enjoy the convenience of using AI to offer up those little verbal platitudes that keep the wheels... Continue reading…

Spencer Elden, now 30, is suing over the iconic Nevermind album art. | Photo by Samir Hussein/Getty Images The iconic nude baby photographed for the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album is all grown up and suing the band, alleging the image violates child pornography laws. Spencer Elden, now 30, is seeking $150,000 from each of 17 named defendants, including record executives, Nirvana band members, and Courtney Love, the former wife and executor of Kurt Cobain’s estate, according to Variety.The lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by Variety, claims that the defendants knowingly exploited young Elden to increase attention and boost sales.“Defendants intentionally commercially marketed Spencer’s child pornography and leveraged the shocking nature of his image to promote themselves and their music at his expense,” reads the lawsuit.... Continue reading…

Samsung says the feature is “already pre-loaded on all Samsung TV products.” | Image: Samsung Samsung has revealed its TVs can be remotely disabled if the company finds out the units have been stolen. The feature is called the “Television Block Function” and Samsung says it was recently activated in South Africa after a number of Samsung TVs were taken from a company warehouse during a wave of protests and unrest last month.Samsung says the technology is “already pre-loaded on all Samsung TV products” and “ensures that the television sets can only be used by the rightful owners with a valid proof of purchase.” It’s not clear, though, from Samsung’s description whether the feature is only intended to combat large-scale theft, or if it will ever be used to help individual consumers.For the TV Block Function to work, Samsung... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In June, YouTube announced it would be bringing picture-in-picture to iOS. Now, it seems the much-demanded feature is finally available, though perhaps for a limited time only and only for YouTube Premium subscribers currently. Here’s how to get it.If you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber, open up a web browser and head to www.youtube.com/new. Scroll down to where “Picture-in-picture on iOS” is listed and click “Try it out.” You’ll be prompted to sign in to your account. Then, while watching a YouTube video, just navigate away from the app using the home button or by swiping up and picture-in-picture will start. Locking your phone screen while watching PiP will pause the video, but you can resume it via the lock screen media controls. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Activision Blizzard’s leaders have promised to work to make the company a safe place for women to work — but California has now accused the company of illegally “withholding and suppressing evidence” and shredding documents that it requested for its investigation (via Axios). California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) originally filed the suit in July, which accused the company of creating a frat-like culture where female employees faced “constant sexual harassment” and discrimination.The updated complaint can be read below, and you can read the original version here. Since the new version contains the same extremely disturbing details, it warrants the same content warning as the original.The amended complaint says... Continue reading…

Alaska Airlines airplanes. | Image: Alaska Airlines A cell phone caught fire in the cabin of an Alaska Airlines flight that had landed in Seattle from New Orleans on Monday evening. The phone was a Samsung Galaxy A21, Perry Cooper, a spokesperson for the Port of Seattle, told The Seattle Times.“After much digging, I can tell you that the phone was burned beyond recognition,” Cooper said in an email to The Seattle Times. “However, during an interview with one of our Port of Seattle Police officers, the passenger volunteered the phone was a Samsung Galaxy A21. Again, we could not confirm it by looking at the remains of the device.”Samsung did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge.An Alaska Airlines spokesperson tells The Verge that the plane’s crew used fire... Continue reading…

Airplanes sit on the tarmac at Charlotte Douglas International Airport with the city skyline in the background on April 21, 2020 in Charlotte, North Carolina. | Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is giving out more than $35 million in grants so that airports in the US can cut down their pollution, the agency announced today. Gas-burning vehicles that shuttle travelers and their luggage around airports and other on-the-ground equipment create emissions that worsen air quality and add to the climate crisis. Electrifying those operations could make travel at least a little more sustainable while the technology to clean up planes’ pollution is still nascent.$5.9 million will go towards “zero-emission” vehicles$5.9 million will go towards “zero-emission” vehicles and charging infrastructure. Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in North Carolina will get the biggest chunk of that change:... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission proposed an over $5 million fine against conspiracy theorists and conservative activists John Burkman and Jacob Wohl for making hundreds of robocalls spreading 2020 election misinformation.In its proposal, the FCC said that the agency is weighing a $5,134,500 fine against Burkman and Wohl for making over 1,100 robocalls in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA. The violating pre-recorded calls told voters that their personal information would be “part of a public database” that would be used by “police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts” if they chose to vote by mail in the 2020 election.It’s the... Continue reading…

At CES 2021, LG Display announced that it intended to produce a 42-inch OLED TV panel sometime in 2021. You weren’t alone if, like me, you got really excited, and also expected one of these more compact OLED panels to have already launched. That’s not happening this year, according to sources speaking to The Korea Economic Daily, who say that the launch of LG’s planned 42-inch OLED TV has been pushed to 2022 instead, alongside the new 2022 TV lineup and debut at CES 2022.The delay doesn’t seem to have been caused by issues with production, according to The Korea Economic Daily. While its sources expected LG to launch the 42-inch in the second half of 2021 following mass production of the panels, they say the company switched the launch... Continue reading…

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge Samsung seems to be trying to discourage users from modifying the software on their new Galaxy Z Fold 3s, giving them a message that unlocking the phone’s bootloader will render the phone’s cameras unusable (via Android Police). This isn’t the first time we’ve seen phone manufacturers pull this sort of trick, but it seems to represent an escalation in Samsung’s fight against its users who want to gain complete control over their phones.An XDA Forums user confirms that after unlocking the bootloader, the Z Fold 3’s cameras were completely non-functional: facial recognition, loading the camera app, and trying third-party camera apps all failed for them. The user reports that re-locking the bootloader made the cameras work again. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is experimenting with a way to make it easier to find Spaces that you might be interested in. Some users on iOS or Android will now see if someone they follow is listening in on a Space right at the top of their timelines, according to the Spaces Twitter account.Twitter has already been surfacing Spaces in that top bar (where you might have also seen Fleets before Twitter shut them down), but previously, it only showed Spaces from people you follow who were hosting the social audio rooms. Now, though, you might also see when somebody you follow is tuning into one.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google-owned YouTube is starting to crack down on Discord music bots. The search giant has sent a cease and desist to the owners of the popular Groovy Bot, which lets Discord users play music from YouTube videos and is installed on more than 16 million Discord servers. Google wants the service gone within seven days, and Groovy is complying by shutting down its bot on August 30th.Google confirmed to The Verge that it took action in this case: “We notified Groovy about violations of our Terms of Service, including modifying the service and using it for commercial purposes,” a YouTube spokesperson writes, adding that its APIs are for developers who comply with its terms of service.“Groovy has been a huge part of my life over the past... Continue reading…

Image: Walmart Walmart plans to offer its logistics and delivery services to other companies as part of a new last-mile delivery business, the company announced on Monday. The service, called Walmart GoLocal, hopes to serve as a white label delivery offering for businesses big and small, and yet another way for Walmart to try to edge out Amazon.Details on Walmart GoLocal are fairly sparse, though Walmart does say the service will be “competitively priced” and that it has “already established a number of contractual agreements with national and enterprise retail clients.” Walmart tells The Verge pricing will be based on “the needs of the client and based on what they want to offer to their customers.” The GoLocal website offers a few more details:... Continue reading…

A player uses the Ping System in Apex Legends to alert their team of the presence of a “Shield Battery”. | Image: Electronic Arts Electronic Arts is pledging to open the patents for some of its accessibility-related tech, including the much-celebrated Apex Legends ping system, the company announced today. EA says it won’t file infringement lawsuits against people or companies for using tech that falls under patents listed in the pledge.The ping system in Apex Legends, which allows people to play the team-based game without hearing or speaking, has been praised both as an impressive alternative to voice chat and as a great accessibility feature for players with a variety of disabilities. A patent that covers the system (US 11,097,189) was issued the same day as EA’s announcement of the pledge.Along with the ping system patent, EA is opening patents for the tech... Continue reading…

Paradox Games Gamescom doesn’t officially start until Wednesday, but Xbox got a head start on the festivities with an announcement of all the new games coming to Xbox Game Pass.Xbox has been laser focused on its subscription platform. During E3 2021, Microsoft announced a ton of new games including all the forthcoming Microsoft Studios releases that will have day-one Game Pass availability.Here are the games from today’s showcase coming to Game Pass.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Looking back at a decade without Jobs — Apple’s biggest decade ever Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft revealed a colorful new custom Xbox Series X / S controller to celebrate Forza Horizon 5 during its Gamescom 2021 Xbox stream. Much of the controller is a translucent yellow, but it also features blue and pink as accent colors, with “paint splotches” splashed across the front, pink buttons with blue letters, and the blue and pink control sticks. The controller also has black grips that look to have a rubberized texture, which will differ from the bumpier texture used on other Series X controllers.The new controller costs $74.99, which is a $15 increase from the $59.99 price of standard controllers, but it also comes with some exclusive Forza Horizon 5 DLC. You can preorder it from Microsoft’s online store now, and it will be... Continue reading…

Microsoft had a good showing at this year’s iteration of E3, and the company returned to show off its upcoming slate of games at Gamescom 2021. There were the usual suspects — like Forza and Flight Simulator — along with a few surprises like cloud streaming coming to Xbox consoles. (Curiously, Halo Infinite did not make an appearance.) And the company continues to put a big focus on its Game Pass subscription service.If you weren’t able to check out the nearly 90-minute-long event live, here are the best trailers and biggest announcements you missed.xCloud coming to Xbox consoles this holidayMicrosoft revealed that it’s bringing its cloud gaming service xCloud to both the Xbox One and Series X / S this holiday season, which will let... Continue reading…

Microsoft has revealed the next major additions coming to Microsoft Flight Simulator later this year, including the Volocopter VoloCity air taxi; updated maps for the Germany, Austria, and Switzerland regions; and a competitive online multiplayer racing mode.First up is a new series of “Local Legends” planes that are being added to Flight Simulator, which will offer planes that are famous in a specific region that might not be as well known. The goal is to have these planes roll out alongside Flight Simulator’s world updates, so the first Local Legend plane will coincide with the upcoming World Update VI (featuring Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and offer a hyper-realistic re-creation of the Junkers JU-52. The world update will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft its bringing its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service to Xbox One and Xbox Series S / X consoles this holiday. The integration of xCloud will let Xbox owners simply click play on an Xbox Game Pass game and stream it immediately, allowing players to try games before they commit to the often hourslong process of downloading big titles.More than 100 Xbox Game Pass titles will be available as part of this initial xCloud integration, and Xbox players will be able to try games as they wait for them to download fully. This xCloud integration also lets Xbox players jump into multiplayer games as soon as friends send an invite, avoiding having to wait for the install to complete. Image: Microsoft xCloud... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In August 2020, Google decided to add a tab for its Meet videoconferencing platform to Gmail. Not a big deal for the desktop version — although you can still choose to get rid of it if you don’t intend to use Meet at all — but it could be a real issue for the mobile app, because it expanded the bottom margin of the app and gave you approximately three fewer lines to work with. So we provided directions for how to get rid of the Meet tab on your phone.Now Google has added the ability to access its Chat and Rooms features directly from Gmail. As a result, many people are finding that the tabs are back at the bottom of their mobile screens, once again taking up precious space. Gmail with the Chat and Rooms tabs. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok announced it’s piloting a new in-app shopping experience on Tuesday as part of its ongoing partnership with Shopify (via The New York Times). TikTok Shopping allows select merchants from the US, Canada, and the UK to use a new shopping tab and product links to sell products from Shopify storefronts.The shopping tab is basically a dedicated section of a TikTok profile with a scrollable list of products that you can click through to be taken directly to a merchant’s Shopify storefront. Product links offer similar integrations by allowing merchants to link directly to a product from a TikTok post. In its current form, this isn’t really a full-blown monetization option for creators. The new shopping features require a TikTok for... Continue reading…

Apple Maps’ built-in ratings and photos system is rolling out to the US and Canada, letting users add their own information to points of interest on the map (via MacRumors). The system uses a thumbs up / thumbs down rating, and currently exists alongside Apple Maps’ existing integrations like Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Foursquare.According to Apple, the feature started rolling out in the US and Canada on Monday, so there aren’t many places that have ratings yet. However, an Apple spokesperson told The Verge that the feature launched with iOS 14 and has been available in other countries like Japan or Australia for some time. That makes it possible to see how they show up by looking at point of interest cards abroad, where we can see the... Continue reading…

Bungie has officially taken the wraps off of the next major expansion for Destiny 2: The Witch Queen, which will continue the story of the sci-fi space series and see players finally face off against Savathûn, the titular Witch Queen.Savathûn (the sister of Oryx, the main villain in the original game’s Taken King expansion) is a foe that’s been teased for over seven years, with her machinations behind many of Destiny’s previous major events (including the corruption of the Dreaming City). The addition of the Witch Queen marks the first time that players will be able to face off against her in person, though. And, as the trailer has revealed, she won’t be alone: Savathûn has managed to harness the player’s own powers of Light to empower... Continue reading…

Military personnel on an inflatable boat ship past a destroyed house on the Ahr river in Rech, Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany, on July 21, 2021, after devastating floods hit the region. | Photo by CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP via Getty Images Climate change raised the risk of deadly floods that swept through Western Europe in July, new research confirms. As people around the world continue burning fossil fuels and pumping out greenhouse gas emissions, the threat of similar disasters grows.Already, single-day rainfall events in the affected region are between 3 to 19 percent more intense than they would be without human-caused climate change. Global warming also makes extreme rainfall events like the one that triggered mid-July floods in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg between 1.2 and nine times more likely to occur in the region.At least 220 people died in Germany and Belgium because of swollen rivers and floods that raged through entire towns, knocking... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Somehow, it is 2021 and Hulu is only just now adding HDR support — to some of its original shows and movies.The addition was quietly added to Hulu’s support page this week, noting that customers can now “stream select Hulu originals in high-dynamic range (HDR), HDR10, HDR10+, and Dolby Vision on select devices.” A new HDR badge will appear on content that supports it.HDR content with Hulu will be available on the usual streaming suspects to start: HDR-compatible Roku models, Fire TV hardware that supports HDR, Apple TV 4K, HDR-compatible Chromecasts, and Vizio TVs with HDR. Notably missing are mobile devices or consoles, although presumably Hulu will continue to expand HDR support over time.The actual list of shows and movies that... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge You can now buy the Oculus Quest 2 again following a nearly monthlong pause in sales to outfit the headsets with new silicone covers.Facebook halted sales because the foam part of the facial interface that shipped with the original Quest 2 headsets caused skin irritation for some users. So on July 27th, the company announced it would stop selling the Quest 2 until August 24th and that it was participating in a joint voluntary recall with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) over the issue. The CPSC said that it received about 5,716 reports of incidents of skin irritation and “approximately 45 reports of consumers that required medical attention.”If you’re a current Quest 2 owner, you can request a free silicone mask to... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Waymo is going to start shuttling a wider group of passengers around in its autonomous vehicles in San Francisco, California — though they’ll have to sign nondisclosure agreements, and there still will be a human safety driver behind the wheel.It’s the second city where the company has expanded its nascent autonomous vehicle offering, as the Google sibling has been performing fully driverless rides rides without a safety driver in parts of Phoenix, Arizona for more than a year now. Waymo is one of a handful of companies trying to get a commercial service off the ground built around autonomous vehicles, like Argo AI (which is backed by Ford and Volkswagen) and Cruise (which is backed by General Motors).Waymo has been testing... Continue reading…

Peloton Tread | Image: Peloton In May, after a series of accidents linked to multiple injuries and one death, Peloton announced recalls for its Tread Plus treadmill and a redesigned version of the Peloton Tread. The more serious incidents involved the Tread Plus, which remains on the shelf. However, the new Tread has since received tweaks to keep the screen from loosening and falling off. Now Peloton says the $2,495 Tread will go on sale across the US, Canada, and the UK starting on August 30th.Unlike the 32-inch screen on the treadmill we reviewed in 2019, this cheaper Tread has a 23.8-inch HD touchscreen with built-in speakers so you can interact with your trainer during a workout and track progress when you’re done. It also has a smaller footprint at 68 inches by... Continue reading…

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge OnlyFans founder and CEO Tim Stokely says banks were behind the online fundraising platform’s recent ban on sexually explicit content. “The change in policy, we had no choice — the short answer is banks,” Stokely told the Financial Times in an interview published today.Stokely named three major banks that refused service because of “reputational risk” associated with the UK-based OnlyFans’ sexual material: Bank of New York Mellon, Metro Bank, an JPMorgan Chase. He said BNY Mellon specifically had “flagged and rejected” every wire transaction involving OnlyFans, threatening its ability to pay creators.Last week, Bloomberg reported more generally that “banking partners and payment providers” had pressured OnlyFans — a platform previously... Continue reading…

The Frame camouflages itself as wall art when you’re not using it as a TV. | Samsung The Frame, Samsung’s HDR-compatible QLED that pulls double duty as wall art, is one of the more unique TV designs that didn’t die in the concept phase or on the showroom floor of CES. Designed to look like a framed and matted photograph, the 120Hz screen hides in plain sight when switched to an Art Mode that displays still imagery instead of a black void when turned off. It’s a stunner of a TV in many ways and, for a limited time, Best Buy and Amazon are offering the 55-inch model for $200 off, the second-lowest price we’ve seen this year on the high-tech piece of home decor. It’s the perfect way to convince your friends you’re a person of culture and refinement while still being a techie nerd who loves large screens.If you use the... Continue reading…

Photo by David Lee/Riot Games/Riot Games Inc. via Getty Images The 2021 League of Legends’ World Championship, the end-of-year tournament for arguably the biggest esport in the world, has been moved from China to a currently undisclosed location in Europe, Riot Games announced. The move happens just weeks before the competition is set to begin.In a video, John Needham, global head of esports at Riot, said that travel restrictions and COVID protocols made it a challenge to hold the event in China. The move was first reported Monday by Upcomer.“After considering all potential options, we concluded that moving Worlds to Europe provided the best opportunity for the most teams and their best players to compete,” Needham explained. “We’re not ready to announce where in Europe Worlds will be held this... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Some of the biggest Gamescom 2021 announcements are likely to happen during the Xbox stream. The stream will be a 90-minute blast that, according to Microsoft, will focus on “previously announced games” from its internal Xbox Studios and outside partners, as well as new titles coming to Xbox Game Pass. It’s possible that we’ll hear more about Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, and more. I’m personally crossing my fingers for more Elden Ring news.The stream will be presented in 1080p resolution at 60 frames per second, according to the Xbox blog, so don’t fret if things aren’t looking their best during the debut. Though, if you’d rather wait until a higher-res video is available, a 4K / 60 frames per second video will be released... Continue reading…

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole The hidden costs behind your favorite apps, games, and more Continue reading…

Spotify Spotify is broadening the number of people who can offer subscription podcasts and have their shows play on its service. Today, the company announced that all US-based podcasters can use Anchor, its podcast creation and distribution platform, to sell subscriptions for exclusive episodes that’ll be available both through a private RSS feed and within the Spotify app, which doesn’t otherwise support private shows over RSS.Along with the expanded rollout, Spotify says it’s also adding more pricing options — 20 up from three — and is giving podcasters the ability to download their paying subscribers’ email addresses. This means they can stay in better touch with the group and also take that list elsewhere if they ever leave Anchor.... Continue reading…

Movies Anywhere is best known as the service that syncs together purchased movies across different retailers (so that you can, say, watch movies you bought on iTunes through Google Play, or vice versa). But the service also has a fairly robust app of its own, which is getting a new machine learning-powered list feature to automatically generate lists that sort your library based on what movies you like.The feature, aptly named “My Lists,” offers two options: automatically generated lists — like gathering all the Star Wars movies together or creating a list of the romantic comedies you own — and standard user-created lists. Users will be able to edit the automatic playlists (to add or remove movies that they feel fit the collection), and... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Building a career on pushing buttons and seeing what happens Continue reading…

One of the first things you might notice when you get Android 12 on your phone is that a standout Android feature is no longer where you expect it.I’m talking about the device control panel Google added into the operating system with last year’s Android 11 release. The panel offers a handy set of commands that lets you access and adjust any smart lights and other connected gadgets set up in your home.On Pixel phones, at least, that panel used to come up when you’d press and hold your phone’s power button. With Android 12, though, it’s no longer part of the power button menu. But don’t despair: it isn’t gone entirely. It just takes an extra step and a teensy bit of preparation to reach it.Reposition your Android 12 device control panel... Continue reading…

After it leaked over the weekend, Sony Pictures has released the first official teaser trailer for the upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home, the third Spider-Man movie to be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.I will just say up front that if you consider the basic premise of No Way Home to be a spoiler, you probably shouldn’t watch this trailer. There are already reveals in it that big Spider-Man and Marvel fans might want to save for the theater, though I’m not sure how practical that’ll be in the lead-up to release.

President Joe Biden plans to host a meeting on Wednesday to discuss how companies are improving cybersecurity after the waves of recent security breaches and ransomware attacks, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy will be attending, according to Bloomberg. Google, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, and the energy firm Southern Company have also been invited, and Southern Company CEO Tom Fanning is also set to attend, Bloomberg reports.While it’s not clear exactly what the president and any attendees plan to discuss, there will surely be a lot to talk about given incidents like the massive Solarwinds hack, the Kaseya ransomware attack, or the Colonial Pipeline shutdown resulting from a cyberattack.Apple,... Continue reading…

Spotify’s Wear OS app. | Image: Spotify Support for offline playback in Spotify’s Wear OS app is rolling now, the company confirmed to The Verge. As spotted by Android Central, some users on Reddit report that they are already able to use the feature, so if you’ve been waiting for it, you might want to check and see if it’s already rolled out to you.There’s a couple caveats to offline playback on Wear OS, though: according to a Spotify blog, your watch will need to be on Wear OS 2.0 or newer to be able to use the feature, and only Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to download and albums and playlists for offline listening. Both paid and free users can download podcasts for offline playback, though.Spotify revealed on August 11th that its Wear OS would be getting... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is testing adding voice and video calls to the main Facebook app, Bloomberg reports. The features are currently part of the standalone Messenger app, which Facebook originally spun out of its big blue main app in 2011 and officially removed in 2014.Voice and video calls are two of several Messenger features that Facebook has introduced in its other products like Portal video cameras and Oculus virtual reality headsets. The company hasn’t shared if it plans to bring other parts of Messenger back into the fold, but Messenger’s director of product management did tell Bloomberg that “you’re going to start to see quite a bit more of this over time.”Messenger features in everything might make Facebook a harder knot to untangleF... Continue reading…

Disney Disney has filed a motion to have Scarlett Johansson’s lawsuit against the company moved to private arbitration, the latest in the ongoing saga of her complaint against the company over Black Widow’s streaming release.Disney’s lawyers filed the motion Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court on the grounds that Periwinkle Entertainment, which negotiated her deal, agreed that any claims related to her role in the Marvel film would be handled in confidential arbitration. But the motion also took several swipes at Johansson’s complaint that argued Marvel, compelled by its parent company Disney, breached an agreement when Black Widow debuted on Disney Plus through Premier Access the same day that it premiered in theaters. The Hollywood Reporter... Continue reading…

Image: @_snoopytech_ on Twitter A leaked video seems to show off the rumored Fitbit Charge 5, just over a week after we saw renders of it hit the internet. The video shows off some of the features of the new wearable, including daily readiness and stress management scores, as well as ECG capabilities. The leaker also reveals that the device will cost $179.The $179 price tag is $50 more than a Charge 4 costs now, but the new version features a color screen instead of a monochromatic one, and adds support for ECGs. Like the Charge 4, the Charge 5 will also have built-in GPS, according to the video.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Oculus has begun rolling out a set of new software features for Quest and Quest 2 virtual reality headsets. The v32 update introduces some small, but important tweaks to the in-headset user experience, as well as to the Oculus Move health tracking app. The feature that most piqued my attention is an option to automatically sync saved photos and videos captured within VR to the Oculus mobile app for iOS and Android.In an earlier update, Oculus let you upload files from a headset through the Browser app within VR, an improvement over the original method of plugging the headset into a PC. But this update goes a step further in removing friction for viewing or sharing content, as it lets you do it without a headset on. To sync items from... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google announced changes to how it calculates and displays app ratings on the Play Store on Monday that could make them more useful and relevant to users and developers (via 9to5Google). In place of one rating for an entire app, which can come in a variety of forms and levels of relative goodness depending on the device, Google plans to break things down with specific ratings for the country your device is registered in and specific ratings for the form factor of the device you’re using to browse the Play Store.There are some clear-cut reasons why this change might be helpful. First, not every app offers the same features or functionality everywhere because of national laws, and one universal law — Android fragmentation. If I’m a... Continue reading…

Graphic by James Bareham / The Verge Pressure from payment processors is leaving OnlyFans creators with nowhere to turn Continue reading…

Photo: iFixit The Playdate is one of the most interesting pieces of new gaming hardware in years, with a fun, colorful design that evokes old handhelds like the Game Boy and a unique crank for interacting with games.And thanks to the good folks at iFixit (to whom Panic sent a Playdate specifically for disassembly purposes), we’ve now gotten a good look inside at the upcoming handheld — and how that crank actually works.Most of the internal pieces more or less track with what you’d expect from a diminutive console: a 2.74Wh battery (about a quarter of the size of an iPhone 12), an LCD display, and an easily replaced headphone jack. Photo: iFixit But the star of the show is, of course, the crank, which uses a Hall effect sensor.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The hacker that stole around $600 million worth of crypto coins from Poly Network has now finished returning them after starting the process nearly two weeks ago (via CNBC). Poly Network says in a blog post that it’s now beginning the process of returning the stolen assets, which include Ethereum, Binance tokens, and Dogecoin, to their rightful owners. Poly Network says that there’s still work for it to do — it’s working on getting approximately $33 million worth of assets unfrozen and is continuing to restore the functionality of its Poly Bridge service, which lets users transfer crypto between blockchains.After the attack, the hacker said that he’d stolen the funds to keep them safe, saying that putting the coins in a “trusted... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As the Michigan governor’s race heats up, a handful of candidates are turning to TikTok to build followings ahead of the 2022 election. Two Republicans have already found sizable audiences, but they’re also testing TikTok’s limits on misinformation, espousing possible 2020 election fraud and spreading false vaccine information on the platform.Garrett Soldano and Ryan Kelley are both running in Michigan’s Republican primary for governor, hoping to replace current Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Soldano, a chiropractor from Kalamazoo County, is one of the leading fundraisers, raising more than all other candidates combined, according to Michigan Live last month.Both candidates have built large followings on TikTok, Soldano and Kelley boasting... Continue reading…