The Verge

Image: YouTube TV YouTube TV added popular missing channels like MTV and Nickelodeon in 2020 after striking a deal with ViacomCBS, but now the streaming service is finally adding in the remaining stragglers like Nick Jr. and MTV2, according to WhatToWatch.The new additions include Nick Jr., Teen Nick, Nicktoons, MTV Classic, MTV2, Dabl, and BET Her. Generally these channels are spinoffs of more well-known offerings like BET and MTV, but Nick Jr.’s younger children’s programming will definitely have some parents breathing a sigh of relief. Dabl — which I had never heard of before today — is apparently ViacomCBS’s “lifestyle-oriented network” for licensing cooking and homemaking shows like Emeril Live and Martha Stewart Living. It’s probably great for a... Continue reading…

Sony has been announcing new games coming to PlayStation 5 all day as part of a spotlight on indie titles. Included in that list is Disco Elysium - The Final Cut, a “definitive edition” of the game, launching on March 30th.The Final Cut includes new quests, quality of life improvements, and voice work from professional actors across the world. The game, previously a PC exclusive, is heading to the PlayStation store, alongside Steam, GOG, Epic Store, Google Stadia, and the App store.Here’s the full list of other games announced today:Operation: TangoOperation: Tango is an asymmetrical co-op game from Clever Plays Studio in which players act as either a hacker or agent to solve puzzles. The game will launch for PlayStation 4 and PS5... Continue reading…

An El Salvadorian rescue team member navigates through a flooded street. Hurricane Iota hit the Nicaraguan coast on November 16th as a Category 4 storm. It was the second Category 4 to make landfall in Nicaragua within two weeks and again brought catastrophic rainfall into Honduras after Hurricane Eta. | Photo by Seth Sidney Berry / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images Greek letters will no longer be used to name tropical cyclones in the Atlantic, the World Meteorological Association (WMO) announced today. “The Greek alphabet will never be used again as it was distracting and confusing,” the WMO tweeted.The WMO also retired the names of three especially devastating hurricanes from the 2020 season: Laura, Eta, and Iota. The name Dorian, from the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season, was retired as well. The decision was made this week during a meeting of the WMO’s Hurricane Committee. They meet every year to determine which storms caused so much damage and death during the last hurricane season that they should be removed from rotating lists of storm names. 2019 names were also discussed this year because... Continue reading…

The start of Fortnite’s latest season began with a three-minute-long cinematic that set up season 6’s story, along with the game’s first narrative-driven single-player experience. It was like a short, animated action movie — which makes sense, since it was co-directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, the pair best known for their work on The Avengers movies.In a statement to The Verge, the Russo brothers said, “It’s been fantastic working with the team at Epic. Fortnite holds a unique place in pop culture, and we think Donald Mustard is a visionary storyteller, who continues to take us all into unexplored territory.”“We instantly had a shared vision.”The crossover isn’t too surprising, given the collaboration between Marvel and Epic in the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today let’s talk about platforms’ growing interest in building newsletter tools — and whether Facebook, against all conventional wisdom, might have an opportunity there.I.Newsletters made headlines today after Facebook announced a plan laying out some of its intentions in the space. In a blog post entitled “Supporting independent writers,” the company explained its point of view and sketched out the products it is now building. Campbell Brown, the company’s vice president for global news partnerships, and Anthea Watson Strong, a product manager for news, laid it out:

As part of its “Play at Home” initiative, Sony has announced the next 10 games it is giving away completely for free to PlayStation owners, including Horizon Zero Dawn and indie darlings, such as Enter the Gungeon and The Witness. Incredibly, all of these games will be yours to own on PS4 and PS5, with no PlayStation Plus subscription required.Horizon Zero Dawn will be free to own beginning on April 19th at 8PM PT / 11PM ET and through May 14th; the game is one of the few PS4 exclusives missing from the PlayStation Plus Collection, though that paid offer required both a PS5 and a PlayStation Plus subscription. Getting Horizon completely for free now may be good timing for PlayStation owners, too, as the highly anticipated sequel, F... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok will soon make personalized ads mandatory, meaning you’ll start getting ads in the app based on the kind of content you engage with, whether you want them or not.The app currently has a setting that allows users to choose whether they’ll be served ads based on their activity within the app. “Starting April 15,” reads a notice shown when opening the app, “your settings will change and the ads you’ll see may start to be based on what you do on TikTok.” Image: TikTok TikTok’s notice about ad changes. TikTok says it is “committed” to respecting the privacy of its users, according to a TikTok spokesperson. “We will continue to be transparent about our data privacy practices and help users understand their... Continue reading…

Lucid Motors is gearing up for the release of its first electric vehicle, the Lucid Air sedan, and at SXSW, the company revealed a unique detail of the upcoming automobile: it’ll be the first car to offer Dolby Atmos sound, thanks to its 21 speaker “Surreal Sound” system.In a four minute-plus video detailing the new sound setup, the company highlights its ability to not only merely adjust the placement of sound in the vehicle on a horizontal plane (i.e., shifting between left and right sides of the car or from the front to the back) but also vertically — allowing for music or ambient car signals to be targeted higher or lower inside the car.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge One year after Disney shut its doors indefinitely, laying off tens of thousands of staff, Disneyland will reopen on April 30th, the company announced today. That’s four days before Star Wars Day (“May the Fourth”) and apparently just in time for fans to grab the elusive Galaxy’s Edge spork. (The flagship “Rise of the Resistance” ride also barely opened at Disneyland’s Galaxy’s Edge before the pandemic began, so expect that to be popular.)Mind you, the COVID-19 coast isn’t completely clear yet: Disneyland and its neighbor, Disney’s California Adventure, will be operating at 15 percent capacity, CEO Bob Chapek tells CNBC. Masks will be required for everyone over the age of two, there’ll be some temperature screenings, Disney is also... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Keeping fit is hard for a lot of people, especially if you’re still avoiding health clubs (or were never a fan to begin with). A year after many of us started staying home, we’re still looking for ways to stay in shape and stay healthy.We asked the staff of The Verge what they were using to keep fit and healthy during the pandemic and got the following answers.Fitness videos and websitesYoga With AdrieneIf you’re looking to try yoga, I really recommend the 30-day challenges offered by Adriene Mishler’s YouTube channel, Yoga With Adriene. She’s very welcoming and makes my wife and I, who are absolute yoga beginners, feel like we are doing a great job whenever we show up to the mat. Plus, in later videos, her incredible dog, Benji, s... Continue reading…

Microsoft is planning to automatically add HDR support to more than 1,000 PC games. The software maker is now testing a new Auto HDR feature on Windows 10, which works just like it does on the latest Xbox Series S and X consoles. Enabling Auto HDR will add high dynamic range (HDR) to a large number of DirectX 11 and DirectX 12 games, as long as you have a compatible HDR monitor.“While some game studios develop for HDR gaming PCs by mastering their game natively for HDR, Auto HDR for PC will take DirectX 11 or DirectX 12 SDR-only games and intelligently expand the color / brightness range up to HDR,” says Hannah Fisher, a DirectX program manager at Microsoft. “It’s a seamless platform feature that will give you an amazing new gaming... Continue reading…

Portability and performance, for a price Continue reading…

The T-Mobile Tuesdays promotion is included on most of the company’s postpaid plans. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile has announced a new perk for its customers: a year of access to a version of Pandora with ad-free stations on weekends, along with a few other benefits, at no extra cost. This is not to be confused with Pandora’s paid premium service, but rather a version of the free service with a handful of extras. It starts on March 23rd as part of the company’s T-Mobile Tuesdays promotion, which is included on most postpaid plans.Beginning next Tuesday, customers can get access by logging into the T-Mobile Tuesdays app and redeeming the offer through their Pandora account. After — ironically — watching a short ad each week, they’ll have access to music stations without ads over the weekend. They’ll also get early access to SiriusXM podcast... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is addressing the criticism it’s faced for its role in human rights abuses by putting its values on paper in a new “corporate human rights policy” collecting “the human rights standards [it] will strive to respect.” Under the policy, Facebook is committing to providing an annual report on its impact on human rights and a fund for human rights defenders.The company plans on reporting its “most critical human rights issues, like risks to freedom of expression” to its board of directors. The fund for defenders is concentrated on offline support for activists and journalists, but Facebook’s director of human rights Miranda Sissons says it will continue to support digital security efforts like “thwarting unauthorized access” to... Continue reading…

Image: Charmin/Made By Radio Yes, the brands are truly at it again: Charmin is selling its own, toilet paper-themed NFTs, which, of course, it’s branding as NFTP (non-fungible toilet paper).The NFTs even come with a “physical display,” in case you want to “hang your NFTP in your bathroom alongside your IRL rolls.” No, actually, I wouldn’t want to do that — especially if it’s a screen that’s showing one of the flashing, glitchy GIFs that switch between showing a roll of toilet paper and the brand’s bear mascots. That would just be distracting.Charmin is only selling one NFT for each of its five designs, so they’re quite limited — just like real-life rolls of Charmin were a year ago. The one silver lining is that Charmin does say it’ll be donating the proceeds from... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge The relatively unknown brands that hawk products on Amazon’s Marketplace platform now make up the majority of the company’s online retail sales, across categories as disparate as pet products and USB cables and foam head pillows. And as a new report from The New York Times illuminates, these brands — many of them created to sell a singular product on Amazon — are now hot commodities in a fast-moving consolidation trend occurring in the world of e-commerce.Here’s roughly how it goes down: a savvy entrepreneur wants to use Amazon to sell products, so they do some research, source suppliers, and launch a product line under a new brand name. The product — be it pet deodorizer under the name Angry Orange or a line of hiking accessories sold... Continue reading…

Image: Steven Crowder’s YouTube channel YouTube has pulled a video from conservative commentator Steven Crowder for violating its COVID-19 misinformation policy. A clip from the video where Crowder made racist comments about Black farmers was widely criticized on Tuesday.“This video violates our COVID-19 misinformation policy, which prohibits content claiming that the death rates of COVID-19 are less severe or equally as severe as the common cold or seasonal flu,” YouTube said in a statement to The Verge. “As a result, the video was removed from Steven Crowder’s channel.”The video was flagged by YouTube’s automated systems when it was uploaded, was immediately blocked from running ads, and was never monetized, YouTube tells The Verge. YouTube has removed other videos that... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch announced in an email to streamers that the site has added new tools today to help creators see where they stand with takedown requests and copyright strikes. Twitch also added tools to let streamers mass delete their recorded streams. It’s a smart move because it gives streamers better tools to play on the right side of copyright law. (If you don’t, and you rack up enough copyright strikes, you get permabanned.)Although, it might make you wonder why the site didn’t have this particular functionality in the first place. As the email makes clear: these new features are a direct consequence of the flurry of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedowns streamers received last year.Now, in the event that a streamer gets hit... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon will offer its health program, Amazon Care, to other companies and its employees based outside of Washington state, the company announced today.The platform includes virtual meetings with doctors through the app and in-person care at a patient’s home. It can dispatch nurses to someone’s door to draw blood or perform a physical examination. Amazon launched the program for its Seattle-area employees in 2019.Now, it’s opening the program to other companies based in Washington state. This summer, it will make the virtual piece of Amazon Care available to other companies and Amazon employees anywhere in the United States. It will also eventually open the in-person care in Washington, DC, Baltimore, and other cities.“Amazon Care... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft EA Play, EA’s games subscription service, will be available as a perk for Xbox Game Pass subscribers on PC beginning Thursday, March 18th, at 5PM ET, Microsoft and EA announced on Wednesday.EA Play has been included with Xbox Game Pass for consoles since November, and it was originally going to be available for PC subscribers in December. But on the day it was supposed to become accessible, Microsoft announced that EA Play wouldn’t be coming to Xbox Game Pass for PC until 2021.EA’s subscription service will be available at no additional charge for Xbox Game Pass PC or Ultimate subscribers. If you want to play an EA game through Game Pass once the EA Play perk is available, you’ll need to have the Xbox app for Windows 10 and the EA... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge | Photo by Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images The Senate majority leader is reviving his plan to give people discounts for swapping their gas car for an electric one Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Amazon and US labor regulators are reportedly negotiating a settlement for workers who protested Amazon’s COVID-19 safety standards. The Intercept reports that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) found merit in a retaliation complaint from Chicago warehouse employees. According to text messages obtained by The Intercept, the NLRB said on March 10th that “Amazon has stated its intent to settle.”Workers have requested, among other things, that Amazon contact employees and “make clear that their rights will not be violated again.” The complaint alleged that Amazon unlawfully retaliated against workers after they launched a series of safety strikes last year, asking for the company to cover COVID-19 medical costs and offer more... Continue reading…

Facebook Facebook is trying to clean up its Groups experience and limit the reach of potentially problematic users and communities. The company announced multiple changes to groups today, including plans to put users who break rules on probation, further limit the reach of civic and political groups, and require more moderation in groups that have violated Facebook’s rules.Group members who break Facebook’s rules will suffer various new consequences. Initially, people with repeat violations will be prevented from posting or commenting in any group for a certain period of time. A spokesperson tells The Verge this time could be either seven or 30 days, depending on the number of violations and the severity of them. They also won’t be able to... Continue reading…

Image: Warner Bros. Entertainment The recent trailer for the upcoming movie adaptation of Mortal Kombat makes the film look extremely violent. In one scene, Mortal Kombat icon Sub-Zero slices an opponent’s arm with a sword, freezes the resulting blood splatter into a dagger, and uses that blood dagger to stab his foe. But in an interview this week, producer Todd Garner told The Verge that the movie’s violence isn’t nearly as over-the-top as it is in the classic game series.“Compared to the game, we’re like Bambi,” says Garner. “We’re like a G-rated movie compared to the game. The game is just incredibly operatic in terms of the violence, and the Motion Picture Association of America would never let us do that much violence.” Image: Warner Bros.... Continue reading…

The Galaxy A52 and A72 feature quad rear-camera arrays, though the A72 includes a telephoto rather than depth-sensing camera. | Image: Samsung At its second Unpacked event of the year, Samsung officially unveiled three of its next A-series phones: the Galaxy A52, A52 5G, and A72. While the company isn’t sharing US pricing or availability yet, it has confirmed European pricing: €349 for the A52 (about $415), €429 for the A52 5G (about $510), and €449 for the A72 ($534).Key specs across the board include IP67 water and dust resistance, brighter screens with faster refresh rates, and a 64-megapixel main camera with optical image stabilization. All three models include a microSD card slot for expandable storage and will ship with a charging brick in the box — features that you won’t find in the S21-series flagships.The A52’s display will offer a 90Hz refresh rate, while the A52... Continue reading…

Image: Verizon B&H Photo is offering the best price we’ve seen on the OnePlus 8 in the onyx black colorway. Originally $800, it’s just $450 for the unlocked Verizon variant, which is the only version that supports UWB 5G and sub-6GHz 5G when connected to Verizon’s network. Alternatively, it works with AT&T and T-Mobile’s networks if you’re with either of those. This model originally sold for more than the base OnePlus 8 because of its Verizon 5G compatibility, but at this point, B&H’s deal knocks its price down below that of the base.This model has a 6.5-inch OLED screen that has a 90Hz refresh rate. It features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 processor, with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. We’re close to OnePlus announcing its latest phone, the OnePlus 9,... Continue reading…

Twelve months of turnips, K.K. Slider, and more Continue reading…

I never play Animal Crossing: New Horizons on mute. I love hearing the grass crunching under my character’s shoes, the cutesy language that all of the villagers speak, and, of course, the sound effects tied to all of the emotes, like the signature piano noise that plays right before you’re about to get messed up by a bunch of angry bees.But what makes the game really worth listening to closely is the music — specifically K.K. Slider’s tunes. He’s the king of cool, a crooning pup star among a bunch of normies that inhabit your island. And for the kind of dreadful year that 2020 was shaping up to be when New Horizons released, hearing K.K. Slider’s work was a beam of positivity that took me and my apartment over completely.If you’ve... Continue reading…

Image: Unagi Unagi, maker of stylish electric scooters, is bringing its nascent subscription service to more cities. After testing out its $40-a-month service in small parts of New York City and Los Angeles, the Oakland, California-based company is expanding its service area in both cities, while also bringing it to seven new markets, including San Francisco, Austin, Seattle, Phoenix, Miami, and Nashville.Helping fuel its growth, the company also just closed its first round of fundraising for $10.5 million, led by the Ecosystem Integrity Fund with participation from Menlo Ventures, Broadway Angels, and Gaingels, among others. Flush with cash, Unagi plans on adding more cities in the months ahead and is eyeing a launch in Europe as well.“We... Continue reading…

Intel has hired Apple’s former “I’m a Mac” actor Justin Long to create new ads praising PCs. Long starts each commercial with “Hello I’m a... Justin,” with the typical white background you’d find on Apple’s Mac vs. PC ads from the 2000s. Naturally, the ads focus on Mac vs. PC again, with Long mocking Apple’s Touch Bar, lack of M1 multiple monitor support, and the “gray and grayer” color choices for a MacBook.One even goes all-in on Apple’s lack of touchscreens in Macs or 2-in-1 support by mocking the fact you have to buy a tablet, keyboard, stylus, and even a dongle to match what’s available on rival Intel-based laptops. Another ad also points out that “no one really games on a Mac.”The return of Justin Long in Mac vs. PC ads for... Continue reading…

A rover on the Moon has metal wheels that can flex around rocky obstacles, then reshape back to their original form. On Earth, surgeons install tiny mesh tubes that can dilate a heart patient’s blood vessels all on their own, without mechanical inputs or any wires to help.These shape-shifting capabilities are all thanks to a bizarre kind of metal called nitinol, a so-called shape-metal alloy that can be trained to remember its own shape. The decades-old material has become increasingly common in a wide range of everyday applications. And in the next decade, the metal will face its most challenging application yet: a sample return mission on Mars.Nitinol, made of nickel and titanium, works its magic through heat. To “train” a paper clip... Continue reading…

On March 18th, a four-hour version of director Zack Snyder’s original vision for Justice League will hit HBO Max.Early reviews are mostly littered with praise for the movie, calling it a win for fans of Snyder’s other superhero films (Batman v Superman, Man of Steel). Others acknowledge that, hey, at least it’s better than the original film released in 2017, which was spliced together by Joss Whedon after Snyder had to step back from the project to cope with the sudden death of his daughter. Whether the movie lives up to people’s expectations or not, the very existence of it — the marketing behind it, what it represents to fandom as a whole — is a turning point for online fandom.A quick reminder of what the last four years have... Continue reading…

Unless AMD actually sells them for $479, of course Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Yaseen Aslam and James Farrar, the two lead claimants in the successful tribunal that fought Uber for employee rights in the UK, say the company is continuing to flout the law. After it lost a final appeal with the UK’s Supreme Court in February, Uber announced yesterday it would give its 70,000 drivers minimum wage, holiday pay, and pensions. But Aslam and Farrar say the details of Uber’s new policy mean it’s still short-changing workers.The issue is that Uber has only committed to paying drivers at least minimum wage for the time “after accepting a trip request.” This, says Aslam and Farrar, contradicts the Supreme Court ruling, which found that working time for Uber drivers included any period when individuals were logged in to the... Continue reading…

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge Samsung has warned that it might not be able to ship a Galaxy Note phone in 2021 after all, citing difficulties in launching two flagship phones in one year, in comments at its annual shareholders meeting reported on by Bloomberg.“[The] Note series is positioned as a high-end model in our business portfolio,” said mobile chief DJ Koh. “It could be a burden to unveil two flagship models in a year so it might be difficult to release [a] Note model in 2H. The timing of [the] Note model launch can be changed but we seek to release a Note model next year.”The comments came as Samsung sounded the alarm about a global semiconductor shortage, saying that its business will likely be affected next quarter. The potential delay or cancellation of... Continue reading…

Sony has announced that the PlayStation 5 will get DVR functionality in Japan by way of a new app that’ll work with its Nasne tuners. The app will be called Torne (pronounced to-ru-ne) and should be available later this year.Torne was originally a TV tuner add-on for the PS3 that was released in 2010 and allowed you to save broadcast shows to your console’s hard drive and transfer them to a PSP or PS Vita. It was followed by Nasne, which added its own storage and worked more like a NAS drive, with the recordings available through a mobile app.Sony stopped selling Nasne in 2019, but last year Japanese peripheral manufacturer Buffalo announced that it’d take over the product and release Buffalo-branded versions, with the first models... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Starting April 1st, users setting up a new iPhone in Russia will see a screen that allows them to automatically install apps that are officially sanctioned by the Russian government, in compliance with Russian law (via Engadget).The law in question was passed back in 2019, and requires smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and smart TVs sold in Russia to come pre-installed with specific apps made by Russian companies by April 1st, according to Russian news site Vedomosti. (The law was originally set to go into effect in July 2020, but was pushed back to April 2021). Vedomosti also says that apps won’t be installed if users don’t want them. Apple confirmed to The Verge that it will comply with the law by giving the users the option... Continue reading…

Image: Cricut Cricut is changing its recently announced plan to require a subscription to get the full use of its crafting machines for precisely cutting paper and other materials. Following backlash from crafters and fans who rely on its machines, Cricut CEO Ashish Arora apologized for the decision, and announced that the company will postpone the requirement for a subscription and give unlimited uploads to all users with a registered Cricut device purchased before December 31st, 2021 — for the lifetime of their machine.Without an upload limit, crafters will be able to use Cricut and its required Design Space app as usual. They can create designs in the app or third-party software like Procreate, and then format it to be cut out of materials like... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber will classify around 70,000 drivers in the UK as workers and give them some benefits after losing an appeal at the Supreme Court level in February, following a years-long legal battle over their employment status. Drivers will still not be considered full-time employees, but will accrue holiday time and receive a minimum wage while driving fares, and will be enrolled in a pension plan starting on March 17th.Although the U-turn by Uber is seen as a big win for drivers, there are some notable caveats. Most importantly, drivers will only earn a minimum wage after accepting trip requests, and will not be paid an hourly rate. This potentially goes against the February Supreme Court ruling, which, in a press summary, states that “time... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Huawei has a plan to compete in 5G without being able to sell its 5G phones everywhere. Today, the technology company announced that it intends to seek royalties from companies like Apple and Samsung in exchange for the use of its patents, according to Bloomberg. Huawei believes it can strike licensing deals despite sanctions in the US, and it plans to use its earnings to invest even further into research and development.Huawei obtained patents on new technology during the development of the larger 5G standard — alongside companies like Qualcomm and Ericsson — that are needed for interoperability between different 5G networks, according to CNBC. “Huawei has been the largest technical contributor to 5G standards,” Huawei’s head of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple announced today that Apple Maps has been updated with vaccine locations from VaccineFinder, a site run by Boston Children’s Hospital that provides information on vaccine eligibility and availability. People can search for nearby vaccination sites in Apple Maps or ask Siri, “Where can I get a COVID vaccination?” Over 20,000 locations are now listed, with more to be added in the coming weeks. Image: Apple Vaccination sites in Apple Maps Each vaccine site listing in Apple Maps includes the operating hours and contact information for the site, with a link to the provider’s website to find vaccine availability and make an appointment.With the new feature, Apple joins a number of other tech companies offering... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has once again reiterated that VR support for Xbox was not a focus for the company, following reports earlier today that hinted it was working on a VR headset compatible with the Xbox Series X / S.The rumor first surfaced after IGN Italy reported that some Italian Xbox users received messages, which translated to “[a]n update for the VR headset is available” and “[u]pdate VR headset,” when connecting the recently released Xbox Wireless Headset to their Xbox Series X or Series S consoles. My colleague, Cameron Faulkner, reviewed the Xbox Wireless headset and did not encounter this pop-up message while using the headset on an Xbox Series X console in the US.“VR for console is not a focus for us at this time.”A Microsoft... Continue reading…

Photo: Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard on Tuesday said it was laying off about 50 people across various divisions dealing predominantly with live events and esports as part of a restructuring. The company cites the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on both the viability of live productions for its esports leagues and the changing viewership habits of its core audience over the past year.“Players are increasingly choosing to connect with our games digitally and the e-sports team, much like traditional sports, entertainment, and broadcasting industries, has had to adapt its business due to the impact the pandemic has had on live events,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson told Bloomberg in a statement.According to Bloomberg, laid-off employees will receive... Continue reading…

Photo by David Lee / Riot Games / Riot Games Inc. via Getty Images Riot Games is closing an investigation into whether CEO Nicolo Laurent harassed or discriminated against former employee Sharon O’Donnell, saying it found “no evidence” of the claim. “After review of the results of the investigation,” Riot said in a statement, “there is no evidence that Nicolo harassed, discriminated, or retaliated against Ms. O’Donnell. The Special Committee has also expressed its full confidence in Nicolo’s leadership, that no action against him is warranted, and that he will continue to operate as CEO.”The Washington Post reported the news earlier today, and Riot posted an overview of the investigation’s conclusions as well as a letter from Laurent. The Post also reports that Riot asked a court to speed up legal... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Teenage Twitter hacker Graham Ivan Clark has pleaded guilty to last summer’s unprecedented bitcoin scam attack that involved the takeover of dozens of high-profile accounts on the social network, according to paperwork filed in Florida court on Tuesday. Clark, who was 17 when accused of leading the scam, will spend three years in prison as part of his plea deal. The Tampa Bay Times reported the news earlier today.Clark has already been credited with 229 days of time served since his arrest last summer. As part of the deal, Clark is also being sentenced as a “youthful offender,” which lessened his prison time and also opens up the possibility that he can serve some of his sentence at a boot camp, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Clark... Continue reading…

Photo by Altan Gocher / DeFodi Images via Getty Images The Wikimedia Foundation is creating a new paid service for companies that draw on Wikipedia data. The foundation announced the news today via an article in Wired, and it’s planning to launch later in 2021. Wikimedia Enterprise, as it’s called, won’t change how current Wikipedia services work. Instead, it will offer new options for companies that use its content, a category including giants like Google and Facebook.Wikimedia is still finalizing how Wikimedia Enterprise will operate. But broadly, it’s like a premium version of Wikipedia’s API — the tool that lets anybody scrape and re-host Wikipedia articles. Enterprise customers could get data delivered faster or formatted to meet their needs, for instance, or get new options for... Continue reading…

A deposit of sediments, called a delta, captured by NASA’s Perseverance rover on March 5th at the Jezero Crater. | Image: NASA / JPL Vast amounts of ancient Martian water may have been buried beneath its surface instead of escaping into space, scientists report in the journal Science. The findings, published Tuesday, may help untangle a clash of theories seeking to explain the disappearance of Mars’ water, a resource that was abundant on the planet’s surface billions of years ago.Through modeling and data from Mars probes, rovers, and meteorites, researchers at the California Institute of Technology found that a broad range — between 30 to 99 percent — of the Red Planet’s earliest amounts of water could have vanished from the surface through a geological process called crustal hydration, where water was locked away in the rocks of Mars.Evidence of past water on Mars... Continue reading…

Tugboats guide a container ship of Maersk Line at the Yangshan Deepwater Port, operated by Shanghai International Port. | Photo by Ji Haixin / VCG via Getty Images Pressure from some of their biggest customers is pushing companies like global shipping giant Maersk to pollute less when they transport goods. It’s a sign that individual companies’ commitments to tackling climate change can influence others along the entire supply chain.One of the latest trends in retailOne of the latest trends in retail has been for companies to pledge to essentially eliminate their greenhouse gas emissions. In order for them to have any chance of meeting those goals, they’ll need to work with the companies that move their products. That means cleaning up the global shipping industry, which is responsible for close to 3 percent of the world’s total emissions.Maersk said last month that it’s significantly... Continue reading…

Image: Xbox Xbox is announcing the next round of games coming to Game Pass, and it’s a pretty stacked deck with games like Undertale and Octopath Traveler, both of which are coming to Xbox for the first time.Coming to all the Game Pass platforms (cloud, console, and PC) are: