The Verge

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images AMC will begin accepting Bitcoin payments for concessions and theater tickets as soon as the end of the year, marking the latest development in AMC’s hard lean into memestock superstardom.During the company’s second-quarter earnings call on Monday, AMC boss Adam Aron kicked off the Bitcoin bullet point by noting, unsurprisingly, that many of AMC’s new shareholders “are quite enthusiastic about cryptocurrency.” (If you’ve been following along with the memestock drama at home, this should come as absolutely no surprise.) He added that the company will have the technology systems in place to accept Bitcoin by the end of 2021. Bitcoin payments will have to be made online but will be widely supported across all of AMC’s US theaters.Bitcoin... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, one of Activision Blizzard’s shareholders released a letter saying that the company’s proposed remedies for the pervasive allegations of sexual assault and discrimination “do not go nearly far enough.” As first reported by Axios, the SOC Investment Group acknowledged Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick’s improved response over previous “tone-deaf” statements, but also said his statement did not adequately address “the deep and widespread issue with equity, inclusion, and human capital management at the company.”The SOC specifically cited the retention of union-busting law firm WilmerHale as one of the deficiencies in Activision Blizzard’s strategy. The letter stated that the firm “has no track record of uncovering wrongdoing”;... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Mercedes-Benz has confirmed that the EQS sedan, its flagship electric vehicle, will cost at least $100,000, as it began taking orders in Germany on Tuesday. The base model, which has a 90kWh battery pack and uses a single electric motor to power the rear wheels, starts at €106,374.10 — roughly $124,000. The more expensive dual-motor, all-wheel drive variant features a 107.8kWh battery pack and will start at €135,529.10 — or nearly $159,000.As buyers spec out their EQS, the prices can certainly go up from there. But even once they have the car, Mercedes-Benz will use the EQS to test whether customers are going to be interested in paying to unlock or accept other features made available by over-the-air software updates. For instance,... Continue reading…

T-Mobile plans to shut down Sprint’s legacy CDMA network on January 1st 2022, a move that Dish Network calls anti-competitive. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Department of Justice has “grave concerns” about the upcoming shutdown of Sprint’s legacy CDMA network, according to a recent letter spotted by Bloomberg, and is urging both Dish Network and T-Mobile to take “all appropriate steps” to reduce the impact on customers still relying on the network. Many of Dish’s Boost Mobile customers — which it acquired from T-Mobile as a condition of the Sprint merger — still rely on the older 3G network and stand to lose phone service when the Un-carrier decommissions it on January 1st, 2022. It’s been a sore spot in increasingly troubled relations between the two companies.This July 9th letter from the DOJ was shared by Dish as part of its second quarter financial filings yesterday. It’s addressed... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has announced a new policy to pay customers directly for claims of property damage or personal injury under $1,000 caused by defective products. The new policy begins on September 1st and will apply to all products sold on Amazon.com regardless of who sells them.Previously, if you wanted to file a similar type of claim, you had to work with the seller — which has raised questions of who’s really at fault for defective problems sold on the platform. But when this policy kicks in, Amazon customer service will help facilitate claims between a customer, the seller, and the seller’s insurance provider.The $1,000 figure accounts for “more than 80 percent of cases,” according to Amazon. The company won’t ask sellers for reimbursement... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter claims identity verification wouldn’t have prevented the torrent of racist abuse against Black players on England’s football team, which followed the team’s loss in the Euro 2020 championship game last month. According to an update posted by Twitter UK today, the majority of the accounts suspended for abusive content during the tournament were not anonymous.“Of the permanently suspended accounts from the Tournament, 99 percent of account owners were identifiable,” said Twitter. The company also said that, while the racist tweets came from around the world, the majority originated from the United Kingdom.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Encryption and consumer privacy experts break down Apple’s plan for child safety Continue reading…

A24 A24’s The Green Knight will make its virtual debut much earlier than expected — on August 18th, you’ll be able to buy a $20 ticket to stream the film through A24’s Screening Room platform.The one-night-only stream isn’t a full streaming release for rental or purchase, given that The Green Knight is still otherwise exclusive to theaters. (A regular digital release will come later on in the theatrical cycle.)As such, the screening is also far more limited than a typical rental: once you’ve purchased a $20 ticket, you’ll be able to stream the film during a four-hour window on August 18th starting at 9PM ET. The stream does come with a bonus Q&A with the cast and crew after the film, however.Based on the classic epic poem, The Green... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AI research company OpenAI is releasing a new machine learning tool that translates the English language into code. The software is called Codex and is designed to speed up the work of professional programmers, as well as help amateurs get started coding.In demos of Codex, OpenAI shows how the software can be used to build simple websites and rudimentary games using natural language, as well as translate between different programming languages and tackle data science queries. Users type English commands into the software, like “create a webpage with a menu on the side and title at the top,” and Codex translates this into code. The software is far from infallible and takes some patience to operate, but could prove invaluable in making... Continue reading…

The person in the white suit is wearing a prototype of NASA’s new xEMU in 2019, whose development has been delayed, an inspector general report found. | Photo by Joel Kowsky / NASA via Getty Images NASA’s development of new astronaut space suits will be nearly two years late and nix its effort to land humans on the Moon by 2024, an inspector general report released on Tuesday found. Those delays compound a daunting set of schedule challenges NASA already faces — from the development of its new human-rated lunar lander to getting its massive Space Launch System rocket off the ground.An audit from the agency’s Office of Inspector General said NASA is on track to spend more than $1 billion on space suit development by the time its first two suits are ready, which would be “April 2025 at the earliest,” the report said. “Given these anticipated delays in spacesuit development, a lunar landing in late 2024 as NASA currently plans is not... Continue reading…

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images After weeks of negotiations, the Senate approved a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure package Tuesday authorizing over $500 billion in new spending to improve roads, bridges, and other physical infrastructure like broadband and EV charging. It’s the largest domestic spending bill in over a decade.“It’s taken quite a while. There have been a lot of bumps in the road,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Tuesday.“It’s taken quite a while”Aside from more traditional infrastructure spending like roads, the bill seeks to bolster US broadband networks with an additional $65 billion. It also makes permanent a pandemic-era internet subsidy program called the Emergency Broadband Benefit fund, renaming it the Affordable Connectivity... Continue reading…

Nvidia’s A2000 is nearly half the size of the RTX 3090. | Image: Nvidia Nvidia is launching its new RTX A2000 GPU today, designed for professional workstations. It’s Nvidia’s smallest Ampere-based GPU so far and can easily squeeze into small form factor workstations. Like Nvidia’s old Quadro cards, the RTX A2000 is designed primarily for professionals who want to leverage ray tracing and Nvidia’s AI capabilities, and it’s the latest in a line of A-series GPUs.The RTX A2000 can deliver 8 teraflops of GPU performance, coupled with 3328 CUDA cores, 6GB of GDDR6 memory with ECC, and a memory clock of 6001Mhz. That makes it look more capable on paper than something like Nvidia’s RTX 3050 laptop GPU. It also only consumes 70 watts of power, so it’s very power-efficient. Image: Nvidia N... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The surge in COVID-19 cases around the United States, driven by the highly contagious and fast-moving delta variant of the coronavirus, is accompanied by a similar surge in virus misinformation, The New York Times reported.Rates of misinformation about COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccines increased dramatically from June to July, according to Zignal Labs, which tracks mentions of phrases on social media and by news outlets. False claims, including statements saying that the vaccines don’t work, immunity from infections is better than vaccination, and vaccines cause miscarriages, skyrocketed. The falsehood that the vaccines don’t work is up 437 percent, the analysis found.The spike comes after a lull in misinformation during May and... Continue reading…

Daversa, the firm tasked with getting adults in the room in Silicon Valley, had no adults in the room, according to a recent lawsuit Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Google is expanding the VPN service that it provides as part of its Google One subscription to seven new countries: Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy, as spotted by 9to5Google.The company started offering VPN access to 2TB Google One cloud storage subscribers in the US late last year, as a free addition to the existing $9.99 / month plan. But today’s announcement sees a marked expansion of the service.There are a few limitations that separate Google One from more comprehensive VPN solutions. First off, you’ll only be able to use the service in one of the supported countries — the company’s support page notes that “you won’t be able to connect to VPN by Google One if you are traveling to an... Continue reading…

A view of the Houston skyline after heavy rains broke during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey August 29, 2017. Harvey, swirling for days off Texas and Louisiana, dumped more than 49 inches (124.5 centimeters) of rain on the region. | Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images We’re headed into ‘uncharted territory’ Continue reading…

Chinese tech giant Xiaomi has unveiled a quadrupedal robot named CyberDog: an experimental, open-source machine that the firm says “holds unforetold possibilities.”CyberDog is the latest example of tech companies embracing the quadrupedal form factor in robotics. The most notable example of the trend is Spot, a machine built by US firm Boston Dynamics. Spot went on sale last year for $74,500 and has been put to a range of uses, from surveying dangerous mines to helping doctors connect with patients remotely. It’s also been tested by both law enforcement and the military, though not as a weapon.Xiaomi says CyberDog has a “pet-like nature”It’s not clear what purpose Xiaomi envisions for CyberDog. In a press release, the company... Continue reading…

Democrats are calling on some of the largest gaming companies to better protect children by extending new UK design rules to children in the US. The regulations could ban companies from selling in-game loot boxes to minors, among other restrictions.In letters to a dozen major gaming companies, including Blizzard, Epic Games, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Riot, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-MA) pressed executives to extend new UK design regulations to children in the US.“It is imperative that Congress acts with urgency to enact a strong privacy law for children and teens in the 21st century,” the lawmakers wrote. “As we work towards that goal, we urge you to extend to American children and teens... Continue reading…

TCL has long been the flag bearer of Roku TVs. The company’s 6-series is one of the best-performing sets you can buy for under $1,000. It features a fantastic picture with the help of Mini LED backlighting — TCL beat Samsung and LG to implementing that technology — and quantum dot HDR color. The 5-series and 4-series Roku TVs are no slouches either in their respective pricing tiers.But now TCL is taking a step that could dramatically shake up the US TV market: it’s expanding beyond Roku and will release updated versions of its most popular TVs that come with Google TV on board. The software that debuted on Google’s 2020 Chromecast (and also runs on recent TVs from Sony) will now be offered on the latest 5-series and 6-series TVs.I... Continue reading…

Ten years ago, a handful of friends who wanted to build the next generation of tech coverage launched The Verge. Now, thanks to you, we’re the front page of the future with a massive audience around the world. In October, we’ll gather to look back on 10 years of The Verge while also looking ahead to the next decade.So we’re throwing a huge birthday bash in New York City this October 22nd and 23rd, and we hope you’ll join us. Seriously: you’ve never seen The Verge like this before.We’re throwing this party at Spring Studios, which has a long history of creative people coming together to show off the future of technology, art, and culture. We’re going to take over the whole space for two days and turn The Verge up to the max with digital... Continue reading…

Typically $150, Amazon and Walmart are both taking $20 off the recently-released earbuds. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The Beats name carries quite a bit of clout, which is perhaps the reason Apple is able to sell headphones and earbuds that fall under the Beats umbrella for a premium, regardless of their performance. The Beat Studio Buds are a great case in point. The fitness-focused earbuds lack wireless charging and suffer from lackluster noise cancellation, however, they typically command a higher price than some of the like-minded competition.Thankfully, they’re currently on sale at Amazon and Walmart for $20 off, the first discount the colorful earbuds have received since making their debut in June. Noted flaws aside, the Beats Studio Buds still tout a comfortable, stem-less design and satisfying sound for the price, along with USB-C charging and... Continue reading…

Photo: Sean O’Kane / The Verge Starship Technologies is expanding its footprint, deploying dozens of its pint-sized six-wheeled delivery robots on college campuses this fall.Starship is adding four new schools to its operational domain: University of Illinois Chicago; University of Kentucky; University of Nevada, Reno; and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Daytona Beach, Florida, campus. The company, which originated in Estonia but is now based in San Francisco, also has robots in George Mason University, Northern Arizona University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Purdue University.Currently, the company operates on 20 college campuses in 15 states with a global fleet that totals 1,000 robots. This expansion would add 85 more robots to that fleet. Starship... Continue reading…

Twitter has announced the results of an open competition to find algorithmic bias in its photo-cropping system. The company disabled automatic photo-cropping in March after experiments by Twitter users last year suggested it favored white faces over Black faces. It then launched an algorithmic bug bounty to try and analyze the problem more closely.The competition has confirmed these earlier findings. The top-placed entry showed that Twitter’s cropping algorithm favors faces that are “slim, young, of light or warm skin color and smooth skin texture, and with stereotypically feminine facial traits.” The second and third-placed entries showed that the system was biased against people with white or grey hair, suggesting age discrimination,... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Samsung has announced the Exynos W920, a new processor designed for smartwatches and other wearables. The company says it’s the world’s first wearable-specific chip to be built on a 5nm process, helping improve performance and efficiency.The Exynos 920 has two Cortex-A55 cores and a Mali-G68 GPU. (For context, Qualcomm’s high-end Snapdragon 888 has four Cortex-A55 cores that are used for low-power tasks.) Samsung is claiming 20 percent better CPU performance and ten times better GPU performance than its previous wearable chip. The W920 also includes a Cortex-M55 processor that’s dedicated to driving an always-on display, further reducing power consumption.We likely won’t have to wait too long to see this chip used in a commercial... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Twitter and Square CEO Jack Dorsey, a noted superfan of Bitcoin, claimed on Monday that the cryptocurrency will eventually unite the world. Yes, really.On Monday afternoon, an amendment to the Senate’s infrastructure package that would have expanded the government’s involvement in cryptocurrency was blocked. Shortly after that, Dorsey tweeted that “#Bitcoin will unite a deeply divided country. (and eventually: world).”

Countach LP 5000 S | Image: Remi Dargegen / Lamborghini The official announcement that “the new Lamborghini Countach is coming” aims directly at anyone who had a picture of the iconic sports car on their wall as a kid. With a body covered in angles and show-stopping gull-wing doors, it was the perfect dream car for anyone who didn’t have a driver’s license or plans to back out of a parking space. Image: Lamborghini Lamborghini Countach teaser And now the Countach is back, or at least it will be at some point in the future. On its website and in a teaser video, Lamborghini says “the future is our legacy” — whatever that means. While we’re not anticipating a full EV from Lamborghini until after 2025, Roadshow points out leaks revealing that this revived model will... Continue reading…

Roku is putting much of its massive Quibi content haul to work beginning Friday.On August 13th, nearly two dozen Roku Originals will debut on the Roku Channel. Many have not previously premiered elsewhere, including a Josh Groban-hosted series called Eye Candy that’s based on the Japanese show Sokkuri Sweets, cleaning competition show Squeaky Clean, the second season of pay-it-forward series Thanks a Million, and 10-part docuseries What Happens in Hollywood about power dynamics in the entertainment industry.Additionally, Emmy-nominated Quibi comedy the Mapleworth Murders will also debut on the service this week. The full list of 23 Roku Originals hitting the service on Friday include:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch’s suspensions are about to get a little clearer for streamers: starting on Monday, the company announced that it will include the name and date of the content that violated platform rules when it issues a ban.It’s not quite a clear and simple explanation of what precisely a streamer might have done to get a suspension — Twitch doesn’t seem to be willing to provide that level of detail on any violations of its policies — but it could potentially help streamers figure out what they did wrong and what to avoid in the future.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s been a rocky couple of weeks for Peacock. NBC positioned its streaming service as the place to go if you wanted to stream the Olympics without a cable subscription — something that should have been an easy win for the upstart platform. Instead, Peacock’s coverage was wonky and confusing, and the service hasn’t given viewers much of a reason to stick around after the Games. With its biggest draw behind it and little in the way of internet-breaking titles headed to the platform anytime soon, it’s unclear what comes next for NBCUniversal’s biggest streaming bet.Peacock had 54 million sign-ups and 20 million-plus active accounts as of the end of July, just over a year after launch, parent company Comcast said during its second-quarter... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google announced updates to its Titan security key lineup on Monday, simplifying it by removing a product and bringing NFC to all its keys. The company will now offer two options: one has a USB-A connector, one has USB-C, and both have NFC for connecting to “most mobile devices.” The USB-A key will cost $30, and the USB-C key will cost $35 when they go on sale on August 10th.One of the biggest changes in Google’s new lineup is an updated USB-C key, which has added NFC support. Google’s previous USB-C option, made in collaboration with Yubico, didn’t support the wireless standard. Now, the choice between USB-C and A is easy, as there aren’t features that one has that the other doesn’t. It’s simply a matter of what ports your computer... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix The next season of the hit anime JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure will premiere exclusively on Netflix in December, the company announced on Monday. The premiere month announcement arrives alongside a new trailer for the season, which is officially titled JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Stone Ocean.The season follows a woman named Jolyne Cujoh, who is sentenced to 15 years at a maximum security prison for a crime she claims she is innocent of. I won’t try to summarize everything else that happens in the wild-looking trailer — I’ve never seen the show or read the manga myself, so I just can’t do it justice.Stone Ocean is the latest in Netflix’s growing anime slate. Sailor Moon’s latest movie hit the streaming service in June, and that same month, the... Continue reading…

Sony officially owns AT&T’s Crunchyroll.Sony’s deal to acquire Crunchyroll was first announced in December 2020 and sees Crunchyroll join Funimation, Sony’s existing anime streaming property, under one roof. The ultimate goal of the unification of the two anime properties under a single roof is to develop “a unified anime subscription experience as soon as possible,” said Tony Vinciquerra, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, in a statement.The deal is priced at $1.175 billion, and AT&T — which had been reported by The Information to be shopping the service around for $1.5 billion — will use the funds to help pay down the debt it amassed from its spending on streaming. In a radical shift away from its streaming strategy,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The company bans surveys that include diversity data Continue reading…

36 SpaceBee smallsats launch to space aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket in January 2021, during SpaceX’s Transporter-1 mission with 107 other satellites on board. | Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images Elon Musk’s SpaceX is acquiring the small-satellite data provider Swarm Technologies, scooping up the startup’s roughly 30 employees and its network of 120 tiny satellites. The deal, struck last month, is extremely rare for SpaceX, which normally manufactures its rocket and satellite hardware in-house or hires subcontractors.Swarm revealed the acquisition plans in an August 6th filing with the Federal Communications Commission that requested approval to shift ownership of its satellite and antenna licenses to SpaceX. The merger agreement, in which Swarm will become a direct and wholly owned subsidiary of SpaceX, was inked on July 16th, the filing said.SpaceX benefits from “access to the intellectual property and expertise developed by... Continue reading…

Netflix is tripling down on its reality TV programming by renewing its most popular shows and opening up casting for future programming to anyone over the age of 18 in the US, Canada, United Kingdom, or Ireland, the company announced Monday.Anyone interested who meets that criteria can submit a one-minute video on Netflix’s new dedicated reality TV site. The application can be used for multiple shows on Netflix’s current slate, from baking competitions like Nailed It! to saucier romantic options like Love is Blind. (Netflix also offers the option to apply to all of its shows at once if you prefer a more “spaghetti meets wall” approach.) Image: Netflix Netflix will let you apply for shows across a broad spectrum... Continue reading…

Photo by Robert Reiners/Getty Images Riot Games announced Saturday that the final two matches of the League of Legends US Championship Series (LCS), which are slated for later this month, will no longer be held with fans at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, “due to the rise of COVID-19 cases in the United States.” The matches will instead be held at the LCS Arena in Los Angeles. Current ticket holders will be issued full refunds.“We scheduled the LCS Championship as a road show with fans and made the decision to move forward based on the very promising roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine in the Spring,” Riot Games said in its announcement, adding that it had been monitoring the recent uptick in cases. “Given the current state of affairs, we cannot in good... Continue reading…

Several record labels are suing an ISP for copyright infringement | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A group of major record labels has filed a new lawsuit against Charter Communications alleging that the company has failed to address its subscribers’ copyright infringement of musical works. And it’s not the first time the labels have sued Charter for its subscribers’ alleged behavior.In a complaint filed in US District Court in Colorado July 26th, Universal Music, EMI, Sony Music, and Warner Music, along with several subsidiaries, claim that Charter, which provides internet services as Spectrum, “has insisted on doing nothing despite receiving thousands of notices that detailed the illegal activity of its subscribers, despite its clear legal obligation to address the widespread, illegal downloading of copyrighted works on its Internet... Continue reading…

Much more utility than your average controller Continue reading…

Vaccine misinformation appears rampant on a social media site for doctors | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A social media site for doctors is seeing “hundreds of comments”— many with false claims and conspiracy theories— on posts about the COVID-19 vaccine and the pandemic, according to a new report from CNBC. Doximity is limited to healthcare professionals in the US— it verifies members before they can join— and no one who posts to the site is anonymous.Doximity also doesn’t allow users to post articles or stories; instead it posts items from medical and science publications and mainstream news articles. Each user has a feed of aggregated content that is customized for them, based on the user’s preferences including area of medical practice.But Doximity members can comment on articles, which is where the misinformation and conspiracy... Continue reading…

Twitter has hired a grievance officer in India | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has appointed two new executives in India in an attempt to comply with the country’s new information technology laws, a company lawyer told the Delhi High court at a Friday hearing. First reported by Bloomberg, one of the new executives is a chief compliance officer who will also serve as grievance officer, and the other is a nodal officer, both required by the country’s Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code which took effect in May.Twitter made the appointments a week after the Indian government found the social media platform’s efforts to comply with the new rules were insufficient. Under the rules, social media companies are required to remove content within 36 hours of receiving a legal order. The country... Continue reading…

Nomad It’s time for another roundup of this week’s best deals. You may have already seen some of these if you’ve been keeping up with our deals coverage every day, but I’m sure there are some surprises in here. Before that, though, check out our newly-published Back to School gift guide. The beginning of August marks when many people who attend school realize how little time they actually have to prepare for the school year ahead. If that describes you or someone you know, I hope that our guide helps you. Otherwise, carry on to see what we’ve brought you this weekend.Get a Nomad case for your MacBook or iPad for half offNomad is offering Verge readers an exclusive discount on some of its polyurethane (PU) leather cases and sleeves for the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify still hasn’t added AirPlay 2 support to its iOS app — but despite the delay, it’s still “working to make [it] a reality,” the company tells The Verge. Some doubt was cast on AirPlay 2 inclusion when MacRumors spotted a forum post where a Spotify forum moderator claimed that “audio driver compatibility issues” might mean the feature wouldn’t be added for the foreseeable future. Spotify now claims that’s wrong.The Verge received the following statement from Spotify regarding AirPlay 2:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is working on a new night mode for Xbox consoles. The software giant has started testing this night mode with Xbox Insiders in the Alpha Skip-Ahead ring today, and it allows Xbox owners to dim their screens, controller LED brightness, and even the Xbox power button.The night mode has a lot of customization, including different dimming levels and an optional blue light filter. Microsoft is also allowing Xbox owners to dim the LED brightness on their controllers in this night mode and dim the Xbox power button light or turn it off. You can also set an Xbox to switch to the system dark mode and disable HDR when the night mode is enabled. The Xbox night mode lets you dim a controller LED brightness. This Xbox... Continue reading…

Photo by Ronny Hartmann / AFP via Getty Images Amazon informed US warehouse employees on Friday that it is once again requiring them to wear masks to work in response to the spread of the more contagious COVID-19 delta variant (via CNBC and Bloomberg). The company says it offers access to vaccines to over half a million of its employees, but it will require employees to mask up, regardless of their vaccination status.Amazon confirmed the mask mandate in an email statement to The Verge:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge More and more, I find myself wondering why we built a world in which so much civic discourse takes place inside a handful of giant digital shopping malls.So let’s talk about Facebook’s decision to disable the pages and personal accounts associated with the Ad Observatory project at New York University, which took data that had been volunteered by willing Facebook users and analyzed it in an effort to better understand the 2020 election and other subjects in the public interest.In one corner, you have academic researchers working to understand the platform’s effects on our democracy. In the other, you have a company battered by nearly two decades of privacy scandals and regulatory fines, forever terrified that a Cambridge Analytica... Continue reading…

Image: Razer Razer announced today that its lit-like-a-gaming-PC N95 mask has a new name and a beta program set up ahead of the planned fourth quarter launch. The futuristic-looking Project Hazel has been christened the Razer Zephyr, and you can sign up to be a beta tester right now on Razer’s site.Razer has not provided any additional information on the timing of the Zephyr’s release or when beta testers can expect to receive their masks. Based on the video Razer shared alongside its announcement, beta testers might get a different mask design from what’s been shared up until this point.The Zephyr seems a tad wider and rounder than Razer’s original Project Hazel, and there’s a grille at the bottom of the mask that’s a lot more visible than... Continue reading…

Image: FCC The Federal Communications Commission has launched a new map designed to show consumers what kind of cellular coverage they can expect in a given area from AT&T, T-Mobile, US Cellular, and Verizon. It’s been a long time coming, and it doesn’t address home internet availability, but it looks like an improvement over the agency’s woefully inadequate and inaccurate past attempts to show gaps in the nation’s broadband coverage.As Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel pointed out on Twitter, it shouldn’t have taken this long for this map to be available. The law requiring that these maps be made, known as the Broadband Deployment Accuracy and Technological Availability (DATA) Act, was signed in March 2020, and the lack of details about broadband... Continue reading…

An employee wearing a protective face mask inspects Sapphire Technology Ltd. AMD graphics processing units (GPU) at the Evobits crypto farm in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2021. The world’s second-most-valuable cryptocurrency, Ethereum, rallied 75 percent this year, outpacing its larger rival Bitcoin. | Photo by Akos Stiller / Bloomberg via Getty Images The Securities and Exchange Commission issued its first charges against the decentralized finance industry Friday, accusing two people of illegally selling over $30 million of securities in unregistered offerings.The SEC’s Friday order found that two executives from the Blockchain Credit Partners company used the Ethereum blockchain to sell cryptocurrencies to investors while misleading them about the company’s profitability. Specifically, investors purchased cryptocurrencies using digital assets like ether. The company then promised to pay investors over 6 percent in interest and that the funds would go toward physical investments like car loans to create additional income. The SEC determined that these “real-world” investments... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon Amazon is updating its Halo fitness band today with the ability to share live heart rate information with third-party devices and fitness apps over BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy). The company is currently partnered with NordicTrack for its iFit service, along with Openfit and CLMBR.Live heart rate has been available to view since launch in the Live tab of the Halo app, but connecting it to display in other apps and devices is just as easy. Amazon says you can turn on heart rate sharing by going to the Halo app’s Settings, selecting Heart Rate Sharing, switching it to on, and then following the on-screen prompts to share your heart rate with the other app or device. Image: Amazon Halo live heart rate data overlaid in... Continue reading…