The Verge

A worker installs solar panel at the Connexus Energy Athens Township solar-plus-storage project site in Athens Township, Minnesota, U.S., on Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018. | Ari Lindquist/Bloomberg via Getty Images 2020 was a big year for big batteries in the US, which is crucial for getting grids to run on more renewable energy. Power capacity — a measure of how much power a battery can instantly discharge — for large-scale batteries grew at an unprecedented pace in the US last year, according to an annual report released this week by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).2020 smashed the previous record set in 20182020 smashed the previous record set in 2018 for the biggest growth in power capacity in the US with 489MW of large-scale battery storage added. That’s more than twice what was added in 2018. By the end of last year, there was 1,523MW of large-scale battery power capacity in the US. For comparison, the largest solar farm in... Continue reading…

Facebook Facebook in the US is going to look slightly more like TikTok for some users. Today, the company announced that it’s testing Facebook Reels stateside, which will bring the short-form, TikTok-like videos to the platform. These will show up for some users in the News Feed and within Groups, where people can watch them together. (The company is already testing this in India, Mexico, and Canada, and the US limited rollout is just an extension of that test.) As part of this test, Instagram users will also be able to cross-post their reels to Facebook.People can watch and create reels from the Facebook app, and the feature is designed to give people a way to “express themselves, discover entertaining content, and to help creators broaden... Continue reading…

Shared electric scooter company Bird is branching out into new two-wheeled vehicles, namely electric bikes. A few months after it introduced its first shared e-bike, the company announced that it would also offer its own e-bike for sale.The bike, dubbed Bird Bike of course, has a 500W rear hub motor, a Gates carbon belt drive, pedal- and throttle-assisted power, and the relatively modest sticker price of $2,299. Design-wise, the bike looks very similar to VanMoof’s popular e-bikes, with a slightly elongated top tube and embedded front and rear lights.Bird, which was the first company to introduce shared electric scooters in a US city, has always flirted with the idea of e-bikes. The company first rolled out its Scoot-branded electric... Continue reading…

Title screen of The Vale: Shadow of the Crown. | Image: Falling Squirrel The Vale: Shadow of the Crown, an audio-based adventure game by indie studio Falling Squirrel, is available on Xbox and PC today for $19.99. The game was developed in collaboration with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and made for and tested by blind and low-vision players.Players navigate a medieval setting as Alex, the blind second heir to a kingdom, who is on her way to the borderlands when her caravan is attacked by enemy soldiers. Left on her own, Alex has to travel the land, find weapons, learn spells, and fight enemies without sight.Besides menus, which are presented in text and through audio description, the only visuals in The Vale are colored specks that float across a black screen. The behavior of the specks... Continue reading…

Three former Netflix engineers charged with insider trading | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged three former Netflix engineers with being part of a “long-running” insider trading scheme, the agency announced. The engineers and two close associates allegedly traded on confidential information about Netflix’s subscriber growth, generating more than $3 million in total profit.According to the SEC complaint, while employed at Netflix in 2016 and 2017, Sung Mo “Jay” Jun tipped information about the streaming giant’s subscribers to his brother Joon Mo Jun and friend Junwoo Chon, who used the info to trade ahead of Netflix earnings announcements. After Sung Mo Jun left Netflix in 2017, the SEC alleges, he continued to get confidential information about the company’s subscriber... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge One year after getting diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, a heart condition that causes an irregular heartbeat, a 70-year-old woman was back for another diagnosis: new-onset health anxiety triggered by her smartwatch. Despite not having concerning symptoms, the patient became more and more preoccupied with and worried about notifications from her watch. Over the one-year period, she took 916 ECG recordings through her device.That patient isn’t an outlier, says Lindsey Rosman, an assistant professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, who wrote about the case in a new paper. She was just one example of a pattern seen in cardiology clinics. “Patients with underlying... Continue reading…

An iPhone 12 mini. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge In 2011, rumors swirled that Apple was working on a so-called “iPhone nano,” a new iPhone that would be smaller and cheaper than the top-of-the-line model at the time, the iPhone 4. While Apple never did release that rumored super-small phone, a Steve Jobs email we spotted while collecting the very best emails from the Epic v. Apple lawsuit confirms the company was indeed working on an iPhone nano at one point in time.Unfortunately, Jobs’ October 2010 email, which is an agenda for a strategy meeting, doesn’t reveal much about the device. There’s a bullet for an “iPhone nano plan,” a sub-bullet for its “cost goal,” and another sub-bullet indicating that “Jony,” presumably Apple’s former design chief Jony Ive, would “show model (and/or... Continue reading…

#4721 In May, the world watched as Epic Games dragged Apple to court, challenging the most profitable company in the world in the name of app fairness (and securing more Fortnite profits for itself). We’re still waiting for a verdict in Epic v. Apple, but we haven’t just been sitting around. We’ve also been digging through these companies’ dirty laundry, reading scores of internal emails and confidential presentations unearthed during the legal discovery process. It’s fascinating stuff.In fact, we found dirt on a variety of other companies as well: Microsoft, Sony, Google, Nintendo, Valve, Netflix, Hulu, and many others were caught up in discovery, and many details of their businesses, strategies, and conversations with Apple and Epic are... Continue reading…

Microsoft has unveiled a refreshed Xbox stereo headset, a $59.99 wired model that’s more affordable than its stellar $100 wireless headset that launched earlier in 2021. It’s launching on September 21st, and as is to be expected, it’s missing a few features. But much of its design is intact. You can twist the dial on the outside of the right ear cup to adjust the volume, and there’s a mute button on the back side of the flexible microphone — mirroring what you get with the wireless version. The stereo headset doesn’t appear to have the chat / game audio mixing dial on the left ear cup as the pricier model does, but that’s not a horrible loss given the price difference.This headset connects through your Xbox controller via its bold green... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A year after The Wall Street Journal reported Amazon had an interest in using empty mall spaces as fulfillment centers, the business paper is back with a rumor that Amazon is planning to open department store-style locations of its own. The reported plan is for stores that are smaller than your average 100,000-square-foot Macy’s or JC Penney location, with a footprint that’s only about 30,000 square feet, which is closer to the size of Kohl’s stores that already handle Amazon returns. Without specific information on what they might sell, they could stock clothing, electronics, and household items.While private equity firms did their part, Amazon is now in the odd position of replacing stores that it helped kill off. If the plans turn... Continue reading…

The iPad mini is Apple’s smallest tablet | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The latest iPad Mini is back at Cyber Monday-level pricing, offering the best deal possible for Apple’s most compact tablet. Walmart has it on sale today for $100 off, clocking in at $299 and matching the lowest price we’ve seen for one of the most powerful small-format tablets on the market. The 64GB Wi-Fi model is perfect for casual reading, consuming content, controlling smart home functions, or just browsing the web on the couch on a nice 7.9-inch screen. Apple is expected to release a new model this fall, but here’s a prime opportunity to save on the current version right now. Read our review.Yesterday saw the Steam release of Tetris Effect: Connected on PC, and if you plan on jumping in, it’s available for 25 percent off through... Continue reading…

Corsair Corsair impressed me last year with its $150 HS75 XB Wireless, an Xbox-exclusive wireless headset that looked and felt more like a high-end set of headphones than a gaming accessory. They also had great sound quality and an easy-to-learn button layout with the right amount of features. It wasn’t necessarily a flaw that they only worked with Xbox consoles, but no one likes to be excluded. The company has now released the HS80 RGB Wireless for the same $150 price with PlayStation compatibility, but these aren’t quite the successor that I was expecting or hoping for.This one works with the PS4, PS5, as well as PC with its USB-A wireless transmitter. Unlike most wireless headsets that use a dongle like this, I couldn’t get it to work with... Continue reading…

Intel Arc is the company’s first big foray into dedicated gaming GPUs, coming in Q1 2022, but we got another preview at some of additional details for the upcoming graphics cards at the company’s Architecture Day 2021 event — including a first look at Intel’s AI-accelerated super sampling, now known as XeSS.XeSS looks set to take on Nvidia’s own Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) tech, will make its debut alongside the first Arc GPU architecture, known as Alchemist, in early 2022. Much like DLSS, it will upscale games from a lower resolution to provide smoother frame rates without a noticeable compromise in image quality.Intel is also using dedicated Xe-cores in its upcoming GPUs to power its XeSS technology, with dedicated Xe Matrix... Continue reading…

Intel has spent much of 2021 announcing plans for its future: a new IDM 2.0 strategy, new naming schemes for its process nodes, and new desktop GPUs. At Intel’s Architecture Day 2021, we finally got a preview of how some of those changes are coming together in new chips, starting with the upcoming Alder Lake lineup later this year.As the company has been teasing since last year’s Architecture Day, Alder Lake will feature Intel’s latest hybrid architecture: instead of simply offering the next generation of powerful Intel CPU cores, it’ll offer a mix of both performance and efficiency x86 cores, both of which Intel previewed as part of its announcements.Additionally, Alder Lake will be the first chip released on Intel’s newly renamed... Continue reading…

General Motors and AT&T are partnering to bring 5G connectivity to “millions” of vehicles over the next decade. The improved connectivity will mean better software performance, enhanced navigation, and faster music and video streaming capabilities, company officials said.Starting with model year 2024, all Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC vehicles will come equipped with 5G. In addition, all of GM’s current model year 2019 and newer vehicles, which are equipped with 4G LTE, will experience “faster connectivity speeds and many of the same performance benefits of future 5G-equipped vehicles” thanks to GM’s fifth-generation cellular network architecture.In other words, cars made in 2019 and beyond will have improved data speeds and software... Continue reading…

Dell Dell has announced a 14-inch portable USB-C monitor that’s priced at $349.99 and will be released globally on August 31st. It has a 1080p LED-backlit IPS panel (60Hz refresh rate, 6ms response time) and you can use it as a secondary display for your USB-C laptop.The monitor, which Dell refers to as the C1422H, has narrow bezels and a minimalist design that makes it look as if it came off an XPS laptop. It features a built-in stand that tilts between 10 and 90 degrees. The portable monitor weighs less than two pounds, and it can reach a peak brightness of 300 nits.There’s a USB-C port on each side of the base, both of which can receive and pass through power; they can also handle a video feed via DisplayPort 1.2 alt mode. You can get... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A group of disgruntled investors is pursuing a formal claim against the cryptocurrency platform Binance for allegedly causing millions in damages through an unanticipated outage earlier this year. Filed in an international business arbitration court, the case represents the largest investor action ever brought against a cryptocurrency platform, and a major test of the rights of investors speculating in digital currency markets.The case stems from a widespread service outage on May 19th, which coincided with a massive drop in the price of Bitcoin. Binance wasn’t the only platform affected, as a mass selloff clogged blockchain transactions and overwhelmed reserves, but the complex financial products offered by the platform made the damage... Continue reading…

Third time is maybe the charm Continue reading…

Since the PlayStation 5 debuted, we’ve seen lots of novel uses of its DualSense controller. Game developers have utilized the haptic vibrations to simulate weather like falling rain or blowing wind, while the added resistance in the triggers makes firing a weapon or making an exhausted NBA star sprint all the more immersive. Often these features help make seemingly small interactions feel more notable — and my favorite new example is the cats in Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut on the PS5.The new version isn’t really a director’s cut, at least in the typical sense, but rather an enhanced version of the open-world samurai game that originally launched as the last big PS4 exclusive in 2020. That game married a fairly standard open-world... Continue reading…

Fossil’s Gen 6 smartwatch. | Image: WinFuture Fossil’s upcoming Gen 6 smartwatch has leaked thanks to a retailer listing spotted by WinFuture. Notably, it appears to be Fossil’s first smartwatch with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 Plus processor, which launched last year but has so far only appeared on a handful of devices. The new watch follows Fossil’s Gen 5 lineup, which dates back to 2019, and received new LTE-equipped models this year.The Gen 6 will be Fossil’s first Wear OS smartwatch since Google announced it was collaborating with Samsung on the third-generation of its operating system. But based on currently available information, the wearable is unlikely to launch with the new software. When Google announced its Wear OS 3 update plans in July it said that Fossil’s... Continue reading…

Facebook Facebook is bringing the office to VR with Horizon Workrooms Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is censoring words and phrases customers can engrave on products in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, according to a new report by the Brussels-based CitizenLab. The iPhone-maker has always said it filters engraving requests to avoid racist language, vulgarities, or intellectual property violations, but CitizenLab says the company’s restrictions of political references in Hong Kong and Taiwan particularly go above and beyond legal requirements.“We found that part of Apple’s mainland China political censorship bleeds into both Hong Kong and Taiwan,” write the report’s authors. “Much of this censorship exceeds Apple’s legal obligations in Hong Kong, and we are aware of no legal justification for the political censorship of content in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge You’ll likely be able to verify yourself twice on Tinder before you can do it once anywhere else Continue reading…

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Nvidia warned earlier this year that the great GPU shortage would last throughout 2021, and now the company expects supply issues to continue well into 2022. Speaking on Nvidia’s Q2 fiscal 2022 earnings call this week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he expects supply constraints for the majority of next year.“I would expect that we will see a supply-constrained environment for the vast majority of next year is my guess at the moment,” said Huang according to a transcript of the call, spotted by Videocardz. Nvidia has committed to securing long-term supply commitments, but demand is still higher than supply right now during a global chip shortage.Nvidia’s warnings of a GPU shortage well into 2022 might not seem as bad as they sound,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has admitted for the first time that the company’s planned acquisition of British chip designer Arm may take longer than the initially-scheduled 18 months. The acquisition, which would bring together two of the most powerful chip companies in the world, is facing scrutiny from regulators in the US, UK, and China.“Our discussions with regulators are taking longer than initially thought, so it’s pushing out the timetable,” Huang told The Financial Times. “It’s not one particular delay,” he added. “But we’re confident in the deal, we’re confident regulators should recognize the benefits of the acquisition.”“Our discussions with regulators are taking longer than initially thought”Huang was previously unwavering... Continue reading…

The Jabra Enhance Plus. | Image: Jabra Jabra’s Enhance Plus are a new pair of true wireless earbuds aimed at helping people who experience “mild-to-moderate” hearing loss. They’re meant as a half-step towards a more traditional hearing aid solution, for people who might not be ready to wear a device all day. The Enhance Plus will be released first in the US at the end of the year, and will be sold through licensed hearing care professionals at a price that’s yet to be announced.Although Jabra is perhaps best known for its true wireless earbuds like the Elite 85T, its parent company GN Group has a long history in the hearing aid business. Now Jabra is also getting involved. It announced a new hearing aid lineup in June, and last year it added a hearing test feature to its... Continue reading…

Oppo has held a “Future Imaging Technology Launch Event” online today to make some camera-related announcements, following the reveal of its “next-generation” under-display selfie camera earlier this month.Oppo is known for demonstrating camera tech in prototype form long before it hits the market. The company was the first to demonstrate periscope telephoto cameras and under-display cameras, for example, both of which are increasingly common on high-end devices. The first new announcement is a telephoto lens with continuous optical zoom. Unlike periscope telephoto lenses used today, the lens elements move throughout the 85-200mm-equivalent zoom range meaning that the images should be crisp at every focal length without... Continue reading…

Half a decade ago, dronemaker DJI realized its miniature aerial steadicams might be handy to carry around on foot — but it’s not the only company monopolizing on the shrinking tech. Rival FeiyuTech now has a DJI Pocket competitor that ups the ante by letting you detach the entire motorized gimbal, so you can stick a lightweight self-balancing camera to your car, helmet, wrist, or any magnetic surface up to three feet away.It’s called the FeiyuTech Pocket 2S, and it’s on crowdfunding site Indiegogo right now for $399, or a little less if you take advantage of its early bird discounts.According to the company, the camera shoots up to 4K footage at 60 fps with a Sony IMX 317 sensor, and can do up to 3 hours of continuous recording at... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Netflix is beginning to roll out support for Apple’s spatial audio feature on iPhone and iPad, the streaming giant said to 9to5Mac on Wednesday. A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the rollout to The Verge, saying that the rollout begins Wednesday and that users should expect to see it over the next few days. You may have it already — some users on Reddit are reporting that it’s working for them.Apple’s spatial audio, which you can only take advantage of with the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max on an iPhone or iPad, is designed to make you feel more immersed in what you’re listening to with an impressive surround sound effect. If you want to give spatial audio a shot and don’t have it on Netflix yet, you can try it out on other services like... Continue reading…

The new Paint design in Windows 11. Microsoft is redesigning its Paint app in Windows 11. The app will be updated with a new command bar that borrows most of the same options and tools as what exists in the ribbon interface for Paint on Windows 10. It’s the first major update to Paint in years, and it even includes a dark mode.Microsoft’s head of Windows and devices, Panos Panay, teased the new Paint redesign on Twitter today. The teaser video includes a brief look at improvements to the font picker, brushes, and a dark mode for Paint. The tools look a lot more usable now, with a quick picker that shows all the different brushes and their effects. Microsoft’s font tool for Paint also floats now, with options for size, alignment, and more.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook announced plans to delay employees’ return to the office until 2022 earlier in August, but CNBC writes that some Facebook contractors employed by Accenture have been working in person since a week before. This might not be a surprise as The Verge previously reported that some of Accenture’s contractors in Texas were instructed to return to office work as early as October 2020.A Facebook spokesperson tells The Verge that the 2022 return to office plan applies to a majority of all full-time and contingent office employees in the US, regardless of if they’re employed by Facebook or a contracting firm:

Can you spot the Alan Walker logo? If there’s one company I trust to do a good job with utterly ridiculous computer ideas, it’s Asus. Last fall, the company worked with cyberpunky fashion designer Acronym to make possibly the weirdest-looking gaming laptop I’ve ever seen (the ZPHYRS G14 ACRNM). This year, it’s partnered with popular DJ Alan Walker to create a less avant-garde, more musical version of the same device. This is the Zephyrus G14 Alan Walker Edition, a laptop for gamers, DJs, and (ideally) gamer DJs.The insides of this laptop are nothing ROG fans haven’t seen before. There’s only one configuration, selling for $1,999.99, which includes an AMD Ryzen 5900HS processor and a low-end GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics card, as well as a QHD 120Hz screen, 16GB of RAM,... Continue reading…

Blizzard With one more tournament and the playoffs to go, here’s an overview of the league’s fourth season Continue reading…

Photo by John Lamparski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images T-Mobile has released more information about its most recent data breach, and while the company’s findings fall short of the reported 100 million records, the numbers are staggering.While saying its investigation is still ongoing, the company confirmed that records of over 40 million “former or prospective customers” who had previously applied for credit and 7.8 million postpaid customers (those who currently have a contract) were stolen. In its last earnings report (PDF), T-Mobile said it had over 104 million customers.The data in the stolen files contained critical personal information included first and last names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, and driver’s license / ID numbers — the kind of information you could use to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook has released a report to show what content was most widely viewed by Americans in the last quarter, and the list includes a post from President Biden, a video from 5-Minute Crafts, and arguments about whether you should put sugar on spaghetti. Facebook’s report comes as a response to frequent reports that some of the platform’s posts with the most interaction are from right-wing sources that critics say could have a radicalizing effect on users. Facebook says that the report shows what people actually see on the platform, as opposed to what content on Facebook gets the most interaction, and that it’ll be creating these reports on a quarterly basis in the future. However, the picture the report paints is, by Facebook’s own... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is updating its API v2 so that developers can look up its Spaces social audio rooms, the company announced Wednesday, which could allow them to share information about Spaces more easily outside the Twitter app.Twitter has been rapidly improving Spaces, but before now, you could only see them on Twitter’s own apps. But starting Wednesday, “all developers using the new Twitter API v2 will be able to look up live or scheduled Spaces using criteria like Spaces ID, user ID, or keyword,” Twitter says, which sounds like it means that a developer can use that information to point you to a Space from within their own app.You can still only attend a Space on Twitter, thoughThis doesn’t appear to mean that developers will be able to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Last week, the Senate approved a massive infrastructure package making serious investments in building out the US’s roads and bridges. It would be the largest domestic spending bill in almost a decade, and nearly every powerful lobbying shop circled Washington for months trying to shape its language.But one industry was surprisingly thrown into the fight last minute: cryptocurrency. When the Senate finally announced the bill text earlier this month, it included a provision that could impose devastating new tax requirements for wallet developers and miners. Suddenly, the cryptocurrency industry and its few lobbying shops faced one of its largest regulatory threats ever. They needed all of the digital foot soldiers they could get to help... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) have asked new Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan to investigate Tesla’s marketing of its advanced driver assistance system, Autopilot. The Senators are particularly concerned with how Tesla has been charging customers thousands of dollars for what it refers to as “Full Self-Driving capability,” despite the fact that buying that package does not make the company’s cars fully autonomous.“Tesla’s marketing has repeatedly overstated the capabilities of its vehicles, and these statements increasingly pose a threat to motorists and other users of the road,” the senators wrote in a letter published Wednesday. “Accordingly, we urge you to open an investigation into potentially... Continue reading…

Photo by John Moore/Getty Images The US military created a vast database of biometric data — one report suggests it had a goal of 25 million entries — as part of its effort to track terrorists in Afghanistan. Now that the US has withdrawn from the country, reports from The Intercept and Reuters suggest the Taliban could potentially use it to target allies left behind.As The Intercept notes, the collection of biometric data was primarily billed as a military project, but Afghan civilians who worked for US embassies and the broader coalition government were reportedly also included in the database. The biometric information that could be on file for those people varies: the Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment (HIIDE) used by the military collects... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge It’s been almost a year since Apple first debuted the iPhone 12 lineup, and introduced its MagSafe accessory system. So where are all the MagSafe chargers?Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of accessory developers making cases, wallets, car mounts, desk stands, and even magnetic Qi chargers and battery packs that work with MagSafe — but almost no actual MagSafe accessories.And that’s a big difference because of how Apple has designed the MagSafe standard. Anyone can wirelessly charge an iPhone 12 device using a Qi charger at Apple’s standard rate of 7.5W. Magnets, being a physical phenomenon, are even more universal, meaning that device manufacturers can easily stick an iPhone 12 and a Qi charger together. (Many already have.) ... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The memory machines that Apple, Facebook, and Google have built to remind us of our favorite moments can, like any algorithmic creation, serve up subpar output. Instead of evoking recollections of those times we felt like we were living our best lives, they can invoke the low points of our existence — a miserable job, a rotten commute, a bad breakup, or the death of a loved one.Apple Photos, Facebook, and Google Photos provide tools to manage what their “memories” features can push out to you. But these settings to control what pictures and posts get algorithmically bubbled up to your screen aren’t always easy to find — even, in some situations, after these apps have presented a gut-punch of a reminder.Here’s how to control, at least... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Waymo announced plans to build a hub for its autonomous semi-trailer trucks on a nine-acre site near Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas. The Alphabet-owned company also said it is partnering with rental truck company Ryder on fleet management as it looks to grow the delivery and logistics portion of its business.The hub in South Dallas will be Waymo’s “primary operations center” in the state for its fleet of autonomous trucks. The hub will be built to accommodate “hundreds of trucks and personnel” as the company gets closer to launching a full-scale freight-hauling operation using its fully autonomous vehicles — though Waymo has yet to say exactly when that will be.“primary operations center”Currently, Waymo is testing the fifth generation of... Continue reading…

I’m not sure I could’ve solved the intricate mystery of Twelve Minutes on my own. The interactive thriller — which boasts a star-studded cast including James McAvoy, Daisy Ridley, and Willem Dafoe — forces players to relive the same short span of time repeatedly. Over that time you’ll die repeatedly at the hands of Dafoe, but during each loop you’ll also pick up some tiny new breadcrumb of information to help explain what’s happening. It can be frustrating, with fiddly controls and an ending that goes completely off the rails. But as a group experience, it’s a lot of fun; even though it’s technically a single-player game, I found myself sharing ideas and theories with my partner, and it was helpful having an extra pair of eyes to spot... Continue reading…

Bugs and design flaws Continue reading…

Pinterest’s new hair pattern search feature. | Image: Pinterest Pinterest is launching a search tool to help people narrow their hair inspiration searches by hair pattern. When users search for hairstyles, new filter options — for coily, curly, wavy, and straight textures, as well as shaved / bald and protective styles — will appear under the search bar.The filters should be particularly useful for people of color looking for styles tailored to their hair textures, and Pinterest says they were created with Black, brown, and Latinx people in mind. “Just the simple idea that I don’t have to work twice as hard to find a hairstyle because of my hair type is a game changer,” says Naeemah LaFond, an editorial hair stylist and global artistic director of the Amika hair care brand, who advised Pinterest... Continue reading…

In an aerial view. an empty water trough in the desert that has been recently visited by wild burros is seen on July 7, 2021 near Yucca, Arizona. Large portions of the West are now classified as being in exceptional drought, the most extreme drought category. | Photo by David McNew/Getty Images Major semiconductor manufacturers looking to expand in Arizona will likely be spared from water cuts induced by an unprecedented water shortage in the Southwest, at least for now. As part of the scramble to end a shortage of another kind — the global dearth in semiconductor chips — both Intel and TSMC plan to open new facilities in Arizona. But they’re setting up shop just as one of the worst droughts in decades grows worse across the Western US.Federal authorities officially declared a shortage on the Colorado River for the first time ever this week, which will trigger water cuts in several states and Mexico starting January 1st, 2022. The shortage is at the Hoover Dam’s Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US and a huge source of... Continue reading…

Photo by Steve Pfost/Newsday RM via Getty Images Everyone in the United States who got a COVID-19 vaccine will need a booster shot to keep protection from fading, the Biden administration said today. Vaccinated Americans will be offered boosters eight months after their initial shots. Plans are that the first round will be offered in September and will go to nursing home residents, health care workers, and others vaccinated early.“Current protection against severe disease, hospitalization, and death could diminish in the months ahead, especially among those who are at higher risk or were vaccinated during the earlier phases of the vaccination rollout,” federal health officials said in a joint statement.The current proposal only includes the Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna vaccines.... Continue reading…

Nintendo Nintendo announced a ton of new information for the hotly anticipated Pokémon Legends: Arceus during today’s Pokémon Presents showcase. In addition to covering a new battle system, new regional pokémon, and the new skills trainers will need to catch ‘em all, Nintendo also released a brand-new, beautiful trailer.Pokémon Legend: Arceus takes place in the Hisui region — a natural paradise filled with different ecosystems and stuffed all kinds of regional pokémon. Your goal is to help the Galaxy Expedition Team study and catalog the pokémon of the region by compiling the very first Pokédex.Nintendo offered a glimpse into Pokémon Legends: Arceus’ battle system, which combines classic pokémon gameplay with a couple of new twists. One new... Continue reading…