The Verge

Etsy shoppers browsing the site for Asian artwork this afternoon may have been greeted with something else: recommendations for topless photos of Asian women. The issue was first pointed out by an Asian American artist on Twitter, who The Verge is not naming due to harassment concerns, who had erotica recommended above one of their listings.The Verge was able to find several listings where Etsy placed recommendations for erotic photos of Asian women above or below entirely unrelated products with “Asian” in the title. A cute black-and-white illustration of a girl in bed has a row of erotic photos placed above it as recommendations. A collage of illustrations of Asian women has a section beneath it titled “You may also like” that... Continue reading…

A still captured from Ninja Gaiden Black running on the Xbox One X. People who missed out on the first 3D-action Ninja Gaiden games released in the aughts (and that other one that we don’t really talk about from 2012) will have a chance to play all three this coming June in Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection, announced for Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4. But sadly, the first two entries in the trilogy will be based on the Sigma re-releases that originally came out on PS3 and PS Vita, not their definitive versions (Ninja Gaiden Black for the original Xbox and Ninja Gaiden II for the Xbox 360) because the team says their source code went missing.Citing a recent Famitsu interview (via Kotaku), a staffer from developer Team Ninja told the publication that “there are only fragments of the data that remain.... Continue reading…

Rec Room Gaming platform Rec Room is now a unicorn, valued at $1.25 billion during a recent funding round of $100 million. It appears to be one of the first, if not the first, virtual reality-focused startup to achieve unicorn status, a notable feat since Facebook’s landmark acquisition of Oculus VR for $2.4 billion in 2014 helped established the modern VR business.Founded in 2016, Rec Room is a free app that lets players build custom virtual spaces and games that can be played across various platforms. The Seattle-based company launched on Steam as a VR-focused platform, and in 2018, expanded to non-VR platforms. It’s now available on Xbox, PlayStation, iOS, and PC. CEO Nick Fajt said in an interview with The Verge that VR usage on the... Continue reading…

Tesla’s decision to remove the gear-selector stalk from the steering wheel and automate shifting between park, reverse, neutral, and drive (PRND) does not violate any federal motor vehicle rules, a spokesperson for the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency told The Verge.The gear selection via touchscreen is a backup while Tesla still works to fully automate the process. A video of the new touchscreen interface that will be available in refreshed versions of Tesla’s Model S and X surfaced earlier this week, causing a bit of a stir over the safety of using a touchscreen to control such basic, safety-critical functions.“A properly configured transmission shift control operated by means of a touch screen interface would not violate... Continue reading…

PUGB Mobile has passed yet another milestone with 1 billion total downloads worldwide, Tencent announced. Although that number excludes Mainland China, it still marks a significant presence for the already huge game.PUGB Mobile has long been considered one of the most popular games on the planet, following its 2018 release. In 2019, it passed the marker for highest-grossing mobile game. Along with the news, Tencent also announced a partnership with Godzilla vs. Kong. Players will be able to take part in an in-game event to go along with the upcoming movie, which includes a game mode and themed content. Tencent is also making classic map Karakin open to mobile players on April 7th.The developer continues to support the mobile game with... Continue reading…

The 6.7-inch Motorola G100 (left) and the 6.5-inch G50 offer big batteries and 5G connectivity. | Image: Motorola Motorola has unveiled the G100 and G50, two midrange phones headed first for European and Latin American markets. Both offer displays with fast 90Hz refresh rates for smooth scrolling and animations, 5G connectivity, and they embrace Motorola’s ethos of “more battery, more better” with huge 5,000mAh cells.The higher-end G100 is poised to compete with the likes of the Google Pixel 4A 5G with a Snapdragon 870 5G processor, 8GB of RAM, and a dual wide / ultrawide selfie camera for €499.99 (~$587). The G50, on the other hand, looks like a respectable, budget-friendlier device — its faster refresh rate, 6.5-inch screen is still a bit rare at its €229.99 (~$269) price.The Motorola G100 offers a large 6.7-inch 1080p LCD. Its 8GB of RAM is... Continue reading…

Congressional “Big Tech” hearings often follow a three-step formula.Step one: lawmakers demand that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai answer questions simply with “yes” or “no.” (Sample: “Is YouTube’s recommendation algorithm designed to encourage users to stay on the site?”)Step two: the aforementioned CEOs inevitably say something else, either to inject some legitimate nuance or to dodge obvious, unflattering answers with vague platitudes. (Sundar Pichai’s response to the above question: “Content responsibility is our number one goal.”)Step three: lawmakers point out that they’re avoiding the question and mock them. (Sample, from Rep. Billy Long of Missouri: “I’m going to ask you a... Continue reading…

Photo: NBC / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Chrissy Teigen, a prolific tweeter the company once called the mayor of Twitter, quit the social media platform Wednesday night. In a series of now-deleted tweets, Teigen said Twitter “no longer serves me as positively as it serves me negatively, and I think that’s the right time to call something.”The model and media personality who is married to singer John Legend was a witty presence on Twitter, and she had 13.7 million followers on the platform, which she joined more than a decade ago. Teigen tweeted about everything from her kids to her cooking projects to personal challenges in her life, including a miscarriage she suffered last October. She was famously blocked on Twitter by former President Trump (who was himself banned from... Continue reading…

The New York Times has entered the NFT game, selling the chance to own “the first article in the almost 170-year history of The Times to be distributed as an NFT” — and it’s sold for right around $560,000. While the Paper of Record isn’t the first brand (or even the first news organization) to sell one of the digital tokens, it’s certainly been one of the more successful.The auction for the NFT was announced in a column by Kevin Roose, which acts as both an NFT explainer and a sales pitch for why someone should buy the article. The author is also able to talk about what the process of actually minting an NFT and putting it up for auction is like.

If you’re watching Thursday’s House hearing on misinformation, where Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai are testifying, you might have noticed a clock-like device prominently displayed over Dorsey’s right shoulder. (It’s hard to miss — besides Dorsey, a window, and some houseware, it’s basically the only other thing in frame.) But the device doesn’t seem to be showing the time — or at least, I haven’t seen that. So what is it?It’s a bitcoin clock. Specifically, Coinkite’s $399 BlockClock mini. If you’re even tangentially aware of Dorsey’s love of bitcoin, this will not come as a surprise. Image: Coinkite The BlockClock mini. Dorsey is a huge fan of bitcoin:

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Porsche is adding its all-electric Taycan sports car to its subscription service. For as little as $2,500 a month, you can burn rubber in a 522-horsepower, 390-kW Taycan 4S with rear-wheel drive. The 4S normally retails for around $103,800.The German automaker’s subscription service, Porsche Drive, first launched in October 2017 as a pilot program in Atlanta, Georgia. It has since grown to eight other cities, including San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, Monterrey, Irvine, Houston, and Phoenix. As a subscriber, you can get access to up to seven different models for a month-to-month subscription or for as little as a day.“Think of Porsche Drive as sports car-as-a-service, a convenient digital way to access the Porsche experience,”... Continue reading…

Image: Shane Luis YouTuber Shane Luis has tweeted some amazing photos of a new-in-box game development kit for the Nintendo 64’s Disk Drive (64DD), a very rare peripheral never released outside of Japan that played games off proprietary floppy disks. You can (and should!) read look through the whole thread starting with this tweet, but I’m going to share some of the photos here in this article.Here’s what the box looks like — nothing flashy.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is trying a new tactic in its endless PR battle against stories of its exhausting and exploitative working conditions: outright denial. It’s not working.When replying to a tweet from Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) complaining about the company’s union-busting tactics and the fact that some of its workers are forced to “urinate in water bottles,” Amazon’s official Twitter account responded: “You don’t really believe the peeing in bottles thing, do you? If that were true, nobody would work for us.”But people do believe these stories and for a very simple reason: there are numerous accounts of it happening, documented by employees and journalists around the world.Indeed, after Amazon sent out its ill-judged tweet, reporters who cover the... Continue reading…

Image: Suez Canal Authority There’s a giant cargo ship stuck in the Suez Canal. I’m sure you’ve heard, but in case you haven’t, welcome to the first major spectacle the internet has collectively rubbernecked to this degree since those llamas cavorted around an Arizona town in... 2015? Really? Woof.Anyway, the whole internet loves the stuck boat, especially since it also appears to have charted a very phallic course into the canal before it drifted into its current position. Sure, it’s causing hundreds of other ships to bottleneck, and sure, that will probably inevitably cause some headaches for an already-strained global supply chain. Yes, oil prices are up, and there may be another run on toilet paper as a result, but for now, let us just have this moment, okay?... Continue reading…

Images: 9to5Google Google is reportedly working on a new feature for Assistant called Memory, a combination of a to-do list, a notes app, a Pocket-like reading list, and Pinterest-style collection board into a single overarching digital locker integrated into the broader Google Assistant app. 9to5Google first revealed the feature, which is currently in “dogfood” testing for Google employees.According to 9to5Google, Memory can save a huge variety of content, including “articles, books, contacts, events, flights, hotels, images, movies, music, notes, photos, places, playlists, products, recipes, reminders, restaurants, screenshots, shipments, TV shows, videos, and websites.”While Assistant already has a Memory feature for saving information (like a bike... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony and Sucker Punch’s PlayStation 4 hit Ghost of Tsushima is being adapted into a movie with John Wick director Chad Stahelski at the helm, Deadline first reported on Thursday. Sony confirmed the film’s development in a blog shortly after.The game, which stars samurai warrior Jin Sakai as he fights a huge Mongol army to protect the island of Tsushima, is heavily inspired by classic samurai films like those from Akira Kurosawa, so it seems like natural fit for the big screen.“We’re excited to be partnering with Chad and 87Eleven Entertainment, to bring their vision of Jin’s story to the big screen,” said Asad Qizilbash, head of PlayStation Productions, in a statement to Deadline. “We love working with creative partners like Chad, who... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Without maintenance, an NFT’s art could disappear Continue reading…

Image: Xiaomi Xiaomi’s upcoming Mi Mix handset will include a camera with a liquid lens, the company teased in a pair of Weibo posts today. As its name implies, the lens typically includes a layer of liquid, and the lens’s focus and focal length are changed by applying an electrical voltage. Xiaomi says the lens will allow one camera to take everything from telephoto to macro shots as well as offer fast autofocus. The phone is due to be unveiled on March 29th.Liquid lenses have been around for a number of years, but they’re typically found in industrial applications where traditional lenses with moving mechanical parts might wear out too quickly. But their compact size and versatility make them an appealing prospect for smartphones. In theory, one... Continue reading…

Vivo has announced its latest international flagship phones, the X60 series. The highest-end model is the X60 Pro Plus, which is coming first to India, while the X60 and X60 Pro are also launching in the UK and several other markets. Vivo previously launched the X60 series in China but with substantially different specs to these new global models.Vivo’s main focus with the X60 series is the cameras. The company has started a new partnership with Zeiss that it says includes the use of T* optical coating and swirly bokeh simulation based on the lens maker’s classic Biotar design. These kinds of collaborations tend to be more marketing hype than genuine selling points, but the X60 Pro Plus’ formidable camera bump at least looks the part. ... Continue reading…

The oft-forgotten Final Fantasy VIII has made its way to smartphones, just a few decades after it originally debuted.Today, Square Enix launched the classic roleplaying game on both iOS and Android; it’s available for $16.99 right now, but that price will jump to $20.99 starting on April 5th. Final Fantasy VIII first launched on the original PlayStation back in 1999, though this version is the more recent remaster, which hit consoles like the Xbox One, PS4, and Switch in 2019. The game is also available on Steam. In addition to improved visuals, the remaster includes some quality-of-life tweaks, like the option to speed up combat and world exploration.“We decided to take on the challenge to focus on ‘love’”And while Final Fantasy VII... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s Xbox Series S and Series X consoles. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you have been keeping up with the news, you probably know that the Xbox Series X and S consoles are some of the most difficult things to buy currently. If you are looking for another opportunity to buy either console, Walmart will have both the Series X and S available at 3PM ET today.Unlike previous restocks at Walmart, the retailer is limiting purchases for both consoles by paying for the gadget with an Xbox All Access plan.Once you’ve secured your next-gen Xbox, you’ll likely be looking into some new accessories that will take advantage of your new console.You could always buy some new games for your console, although the pool of true next-gen games for Series X / S is a bit thin. There’s a ton of third-party titles worth... Continue reading…

Motorola is adding Nheengatu and Kaingang to its language menus in Android. | Image: Motorola Motorola has added support for two new indigenous languages spoken in Latin America as part of a larger effort to make technology more accessible. Beginning today, Kaingang and Nheengatu will be among the language options available on Motorola Android devices. Any Motorola phone updated to Android 11 will be able to access the new language options, not just its most expensive models.“We believe that this initiative will raise awareness towards language revitalization, not only will impact the communities that we’re working directly with, but right now we’re in the process of open sourcing all that language data from Android into Unicode,” Janine Oliveira, Motorola’s executive director for globalization software, said in an interview... Continue reading…

Qualcomm has announced its latest 7-series processor, the Snapdragon 780G, which trickles down features from the company’s flagship Snapdragon 888 chipset, while still offering manufacturers (and, by extension, consumers) a more affordable phone.The 780G takes the new top slot in the 7-series lineup, replacing the 765G / 768G (the latter being largely a frequency-boosted version of the former). Obviously, there’s the usual boost in performance: the 780G features Qualcomm’s Kryo 670 CPU, which the company says offers a 40 percent boost in performance, and a new Adreno 642 GPU for up to 50 percent faster graphics compared to the 765 model.But the 780G also enables some new functionality, like the Spectra 570 triple ISP (image signal... Continue reading…

Image: Tesla When Tesla announced a redesigned Model S sedan and Model X SUV earlier this year, one of the biggest changes to how those cars work was quite literally hard to see: Tesla decided to remove the gear-selector stalk from the steering wheel and is going to try to automate shifting between park, reverse, neutral, and drive (PRND). The company said there would be an option on the touchscreen as a backup, but it wasn’t until today that we had a sense of exactly what that looks like.Instead of touchscreen “buttons” for each drive mode, drivers will have to tap-and-drag on a small car icon on the top-left corner of the new horizontal touchscreen. (In fact, that car icon was visible in the photos Tesla released for the refreshed Model S and... Continue reading…

Other laptops with the RTX 3070 perform nearly as well Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Slack became a public messaging platform this morning with the wider rollout of a new cross-organizational direct messaging feature, and now it’s already taking steps to mitigate the dangers of operating such a platform without well-thought-out moderation protections.The company says in response to concerns the feature could be used to send abusive messages or harassment with relative ease, it’s now disabling the option to send a message alongside an invite. That way, if someone knows your email address, they can’t spam your inbox with potentially abusive messages.“After rolling out Slack Connect DMs this morning, we received valuable feedback from our users about how email invitations to use the feature could potentially be used to... Continue reading…

Microsoft is announcing today that Xbox Party Chat will be free for Xbox owners soon. The software maker has started testing a new Xbox dashboard update with testers today that unlocks Xbox Party Chat, multiplayer in free-to-play games, and the Looking For Groups (LFG) feature.Xbox Party Chat is a surprise addition to Microsoft’s announced plans to remove the paywall for free-to-play multiplayer games. The removal came after Microsoft was forced to reverse a price hike to its Xbox Live Gold subscriptions earlier this year. Microsoft is also renaming its Xbox Live service to just Xbox network, which is part of dashboard changes the company is currently testing.

Microsoft is giving the File Explorer inside Windows 10 a visual overhaul with new icons. The software giant has started rolling out a test build of Windows 10 that includes changes to the system icons you’ll find in File Explorer, including the Recycle Bin, Documents folders, and devices like disk drives.“Several changes, such as the orientation of the folder icons and the default file type icons, have been made for greater consistency across Microsoft products that show files,” says Amanda Langowski, Microsoft’s Windows Insider chief. “Notably, the top-level user folders such as Desktop, Documents, Downloads, and Pictures have a new design that should make it a little easier to tell them apart at a glance.” Image:... Continue reading…

Nintendo has a new tool that lets show off your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island with a poster or even a trailer. While you’ve always been able to take screenshots and video clips from the game using the Switch’s built-in tools and share those with your friends and on social media, the new Island Tour Creator lets you add some Animal Crossing-themed flair to what you’ve captured.Nintendo made an example island tour video in this tweet. It includes a voiceover and even New Horizons’ iconic theme song, and the trailers you make will have them, too, which I thought was a nice touch.

Image: LG LG today announced the pricing for its 2021 lineup of 4K OLED TVs. The most buzz-worthy part for home theater enthusiasts is the new G1 series, which includes LG’s new “OLED evo” panel with a brighter picture than any of the company’s past OLEDs. But the G1 doesn’t come cheap: it’s $2,199 for a 55-inch model, $2,999 for a 65-inch, and $4,499 if you want a 77-inch screen. LG says the G1 sets also “have an unbelievably thin bezel with included wall mounting leaving virtually no gap from screen to wall.” You’re paying for both the superior picture and that gallery-like aesthetic here.Stepping down from the G1, you get the C1 series, which succeeds last year’s highly praised CX series. All sizes of the C1 TVs still come with the full suite... Continue reading…

Image: Psyonix If you have been looking to play Rocket League on the go but don’t own a Nintendo Switch, Psyonix’s massively popular vehicular soccer game is finally coming to mobile devices. The developer announced a new free-to-play version called Sideswipe that will arrive on iOS and Android later this year.Rocket League Sideswipe looks to be largely the same as the main version of Rocket League, but it will bring a new perspective that accommodates mobile devices. According to the press release, players will compete in two-minute 1v1 or 2v2 matches. Another big change to Sideswipe is a switch to touch controls.‘Rocket League’ coming to mobile devices is no surpriseSideswipe will be free to play, just like the main version, which switched to... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Update March 24th, 1:43PM ET: In response to this article and others, Slack has issued a statement signaling it plans to remove the optional message feature attached to its Slack Connect DM invites. Here is Slack’s full statement:

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Pharmacies using prescription delivery service ScriptDrop will deliver medications to customers through Uber, the company announced today. Uber will be the default delivery service for ScriptDrop pharmacies in 37 states and will eventually expand to others.The service lets pharmacies offer prescription deliveries for patients. The tool can integrate with whatever organizational software the pharmacies normally use to keep track of prescriptions.“Being able to combine ScriptDrop’s integrated interface with Uber’s technology means that pharmacies of all sizes will be better equipped to improve prescription adherence and serve the most vulnerable of their communities,” Amanda Epp, ScriptDrop CEO, said in a statement.The COVID-19... Continue reading…

Photo by Patrick Pleul / picture alliance via Getty Images You know what I haven’t seen in more than a year? The inside of a pub. Or a bar. Or, indeed, any kind of inn, hostelry, saloon, roadhouse, taproom, tavern, or beer hall where money can be exchanged for the sweet relief of drink. Google, though, hasn’t forgotten and has apparently decided to taunt me with a new tag in its Photo app dedicated to the stuff.As first spotted by 9to5Google, if you open up the Google Photos app right now, it should have a new Memories collection at the top of the screen. These are thematic groupings of photos selected by machine learning, and while previous collections have focused on children or food, this one — appropriately titled “Cheers!” — is dedicated to booze.Click the image, and you’ll be shown a... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Here’s the situation: you’re typing a report for work, and you suddenly have to write the phrase “Jones née Berkowitz.” Or you are adding a phrase in Spanish and need to use the word “años.” How do you add the special characters to the letters?Special characters (also known as diacritical marks) may be more common in certain languages, but there are plenty of circumstances in which English speakers may need to use them. But because they are so rare in English, native English speakers may not have learned how to add those marks to documents, emails, or other writings on their Macs.Here’s how:For access to more common diacritical marks, you just need to hold down the key for the letter you want to use until a small numbered menu... Continue reading…

Photo by Aurora Samperio / NurPhoto via Getty Images Opening statements from Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey have been published ahead of Thursday’s misinformation hearing in the House — and they show all three CEOs taking on an unusually sensitive issue for tech platforms. All three statements are worth reading, with Dorsey focusing on internal tools like Birdwatch and Pichai warning of the dangers of a full repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.But the most detailed proposal came from Zuckerberg, who talked at length about his preferred changes to Section 230. Instead of repealing the law entirely — as President Biden called for during the campaign — Zuckerberg’s proposal would make Section 230 conditional on companies maintaining a system to remove... Continue reading…

We’ve seen electric pickup trucks, electric school buses, and even a few electric 18-wheelers. But where are the electric aerial work platform trucks, known colloquially as bucket trucks? Con Edison may have an answer. The energy utility for New York City, and one of the largest energy companies in the US, is teaming up with a Canadian manufacturer to add battery-powered bucket trucks to its fleet by 2022.ConEd’s fleet isn’t exactly enormous — the utility owns around 300 bucket trucks — but the company hopes to send a signal to manufacturers that the time has come to electrify these types of vehicles.“This represents an important step in Con Edison’s journey toward fleet electrification”“Medium- and heavy-duty trucks are more... Continue reading…

And it’s coming to the US this week Continue reading…

Image: Disney You have just two days left to lock in Disney Plus at its current price. Beginning on March 26th, Disney Plus subscribers based in the United States will have to pay $7.99 a month or $80 per year to access the robust library of movies and TV shows available on the streaming service. The company originally announced the pricing change in December of last year.The new pricing for Disney Plus is a $1 increase, while the Disney Bundle, which includes streaming access to Disney Plus, Hulu, and ESPN Plus, will also be impacted, increasing from $12.99 per month to $13.99 per month for ad support, or from $18.99 per month to $19.99 per month for the plan with ad-free Hulu.This is the first time Disney Plus has received a price hike, but it’s... Continue reading…

In the original Pokémon Snap, players were strictly daytime photographers. The game, released in 1999 for Nintendo 64, was essentially a rail shooter, but in the photography sense; players drifted slowly throughout an area while trying to take as many good pictures as they could. New Pokémon Snap keeps the original game’s spirit alive but with a few welcome tweaks — including the ability to revisit locations at night.New Pokémon Snap is set in the Lental region, where players have been enlisted by a local professor to help investigate “luminous” pokémon and photograph creatures in the area. Each picture you take is judged against a variety of standards on a one to four-star scale; once your trip is over, photos are broken down by their... Continue reading…

Realme says the slogan printed on the rear panel glows in the dark. | Photo: Realme Officially launching in the UK today, the Realme 8 Pro is a budget device that’s one of the first to use the new Samsung ISOCELL HM2 108-megapixel sensor in its main camera. While similar high-res sensors have been more common in pricier phones like the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra, this chip is designed for lower-cost devices like the 8 Pro.This 108-megapixel chip isn’t the same one used in the S21 Ultra or even last year’s S20 Ultra. It’s a smaller sensor — 1/1.52-inch versus 1/1.33-inch — with slightly smaller 0.7μm pixels. However, it uses the same binning approach to improve light-gathering abilities by combining neighboring pixels into a less noisy 12-megapixel image.The Realme 8 Pro offers a 6.4-inch OLED screen, a Snapdragon 720G... Continue reading…

Unfit to dethrone Asus’ Zephyrus G14 Continue reading…

Competitive games like Magic: The Gathering and League of Legends are absolutely dripping with lore. While they might not tell a story in the traditional sense, they have surprisingly robust fantasy worlds. Usually, you can only catch this in brief snippets through flavor text or character bios. But increasingly, game studios are attempting to build on these fictional worlds through more traditional storytelling, whether it’s comics, short stories, or TV shows.The latest example is Dota: Dragon’s Blood on Netflix, which fleshes out the world of Valve’s long-running Dota 2 via an eight-episode anime. The good news is that it’s a fun, albeit brief, fantasy romp you can enjoy even if you haven’t played the game. The bad news is that it... Continue reading…

Slack is starting to roll out a new feature that lets anyone using the service DM each other. Announced back in October, Slack Connect DMs will let Slack users privately message employees outside of their company. It’s designed for companies working with partners or clients, but you could even use it to message friends at other companies.This new DM feature builds on Slack’s work with Connect, which started appearing last year. Slack Connect is primarily designed to let businesses collaborate together through shared channels, and cross-organizational DMs is the next big part of Connect. DMs work by sending a special link to start a conversation and may require Slack admin approval depending on how your organization has set up Slack.P... Continue reading…

Image: Supreme Supreme, the streetwear brand notorious for slapping its name on everything from feature phones to a literal brick, is turning its attention to film photography. Tomorrow’s drop includes a reusable Yashica MF-1 35mm film camera, available in either black or red and subtly adorned with a Supreme logo. It’s made of plastic, which isn’t particularly flashy, but it’s also got a built-in flash, which is.Like many of Supreme’s other branded accessories, there’s nothing particularly special about the camera this is based on. This specific model appears to have its origins as a 2019 Kickstarter, and reviews have generally been mixed. “Neither totally awful but not that great,” was one blog’s conclusion, while another more negative review called... Continue reading…

Photo by Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Amazon is well-known for its technological Taylorism: using digital sensors to monitor and control the activity of its workers in the name of efficiency. But after installing machine learning-powered surveillance cameras in its delivery vans earlier this year, the company is now telling employees: agree to be surveilled by AI or lose your job.As first reported by Vice, Amazon delivery drivers in the US now have to sign “biometric consent” forms to continue working for the retailing giant. Exactly what information is being collected seems to vary based on what surveillance equipment has been installed in any given van, but Amazon’s privacy policy (embedded below) covers a wide range of data.Data includes vehicle location, speed,... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Scooter-sharing giant Lime is updating its app to make renting one of the company’s battery-powered two-wheelers a little easier. Customers can now take advantage of new features like app-less riding, 10-minute reservations, and vehicle configurations to take some of the bite out of scooter-sharing.Customers who don’t have the Lime app on their phone can still ride by taking a photo of the scooter’s QR code and paying through Apple Pay or Google Pay. Lime says it will be a useful tool for first-time riders who don’t want to commit or don’t have space on their phones. The functionality works by temporarily downloading a portion of Lime’s normal app. It uses the Instant Apps feature on Android, while on iPhones it makes use of the new... Continue reading…

The bitcoin payment option appears underneath the typical “Order With Card” button. | Screenshot: Tesla.com Tesla now accepts bitcoin as payment for its cars in the US, CEO Elon Musk announced on Twitter. The option to pay using the cryptocurrency now appears on the company’s US website, where it’s available alongside the traditional card payment option. Musk said that the option to pay with bitcoin will be available to other countries “later this year.”As well as confirming the availability of the new payment option, Musk offered some details on how Tesla is handling the cryptocurrency. “Tesla is using only internal & open source software & operates Bitcoin nodes directly,” he said in a followup tweet, “Bitcoin paid to Tesla will be retained as Bitcoin, not converted to fiat currency.”

Image: Apple Goldman Sachs’ credit card policies were called into question when Basecamp designer David Heinemeier Hansson and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak claimed that their female partners received lower Apple Card credit limits simply for being women. But a recently concluded New York State Department of Financial Services investigation has found Apple’s banking partner did not discriminate based on sex (via Bloomberg).NYSDFS investigators conducted a statistical analysis of almost 400,000 New York applicants that showed that the models and algorithms Goldman Sachs uses to filter applicants “did not consider prohibited characteristics of applicants and would not produce disparate impacts”. The regulator also stressed that the idea that spouses... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Qualcomm is reportedly working on an Android-powered, handheld gaming console that’s similar to a Nintendo Switch, according to Android Police and XDA’s editor-in-chief Mishaal Rahman. The device would be powered by Qualcomm’s silicon, and could hit store shelves by next year — if it ends up being a real product at all.According to the article, which cites images seen by Android Police, the device would feature detachable, Joy-Con-like controllers, an SD card slot, Android 12, and (of course) 5G. Also noted, and corroborated by Rahman, is a huge 6,000mAh battery. While the physical dimensions aren’t clear, Rahman tweeted that the screen could be 6.65-inches, with a resolution of at least 1080p (the Switch’s screen is 6.2-inches and runs... Continue reading…