The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Apple Watch Series 5 is seeing some big discounts at Best Buy. You can get a good deal on a standard GPS-enabled model, but I think the best deals are on the options with cellular capability. The 40mm Apple Watch Series 5 (silver aluminum case with a black-and-white Nike band) is $319, down from $500, and it supports GPS and cellular networks if you pay to put it on your monthly plan. The bigger 44mm version of this colorway costs $349, which is also a good deal. Prices go up from there, but it’s a smart way to save compared to the cost of a newer Apple Watch Series 6.In case you were wondering exactly how the Series 5 differs from the newer models, including the Apple Watch SE, check out this comparison post to help you decide. In... Continue reading…

Samsung’s flagship Chromebook is less expensive and better than before Continue reading…

Photos: Coco Van Oppens Photo In Monster Hunter, Milla Jovovich plays an outsider. Her character, a US Army ranger named Artemis, is mysteriously transported from our world to a fantastical realm filled with giant and dangerous monsters. American soldiers aren’t something you’ll find in any of Capcom’s Monster Hunter games. But Jovovich believes Artemis helped provide an important perspective — almost serving as a stand-in for a player jumping into their first experience with a Monster Hunter game.“When my character gets transported into the Monster Hunter world I was able to see it with the same eyes as when I first saw the game,” she tells The Verge. “I was just like ‘Whoa, it’s so beautiful.’ We really wanted people to feel like that when they watch the movie,... Continue reading…

The teaser image for the March 8th event. | Image: OnePlus OnePlus CEO Pete Lau is teasing a “moonshot” announcement on March 8th, when the company expected to reveal details about its next flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 9. “Something new is on the horizon” a teaser site reads, alongside a photograph that looks an awful lot like the famous “Earthrise” photograph from the Apollo 8 mission. That photo was taken with a Hasselblad camera, the 180-year-old Swedish company rumored to be partnering with OnePlus on its upcoming phones.In the past, manufacturers have also used photographs of the Moon to advertise the capabilities of their phones’ zoom cameras for astrophotography, indicating that this could be a key feature of the OnePlus 9 lineup.The tease comes days after tipster Ishan Agarwal told... Continue reading…

Skydio’s X2 drone is aimed at enterprise and military customers. | Image: Skydio Skydio has become the first US dronemaker with a valuation of more than $1 billion, a signal of deeper investment in American-made drones after the US government blacklisted Chinese manufacturers. The California-based Skydio raised $170 million in a Series D funding round led by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, as first reported by The Financial Times.Skydio’s drones are best known for their self-flying tech, which allows the aircraft to autonomously navigate obstacles and track users on the ground. The company released its first drone in 2018, the $2500 R1, aiming the product at consumers. It followed this up with the smarter and much cheaper $999 Skydio 2 in 2019, and last year announced its first drone aimed specifically at enterprise... Continue reading…

A stealthy look for the elusive console Continue reading…

Scan documents directly into Mail, Finder, and other Mac apps. | Image: Apple The iPhone’s Notes app has a powerful document scanning feature built right into it, and today I learned that this scanner can be controlled directly from a paired Mac in a variety of apps. It’s an incredibly useful tip for Mac users as it cuts out the awkward middle steps of having to transfer it from phone to computer, or grabbing it from the Mac’s Notes app after it syncs. Shoutout to TikTok account @keyboardshortcuts for bringing it to my attention.Besides Notes, the iPhone’s scanner can be accessed from a number of different Mac apps, including the Finder, Mail, Messages, and Pages 7.2 and later. To use it, control-click (or right-click) in the window you want to scan the document into, select “Import from iPhone or iPad,” and then... Continue reading…

The first electric power sports vehicle to emerge from the new collaboration between Polaris and Zero Motorcycles will be a battery-powered Ranger utility side-by-side. The companies didn’t provide any details about the vehicle’s range, battery pack, or price, but they did say that production on the new UTV (or utility terrain vehicle) was expected to start in December 2021.Ranger is the number one-selling brand in the Minnesota-based Polaris’ lineup of utility vehicles. More details are forthcoming, a spokesperson said, but the goal is to “build a better Ranger with more torque, more power, more hauling, the capabilities needed to give customers the advantage. Electric allows Polaris to do this.”Polaris and Zero Motorcycles signed a... Continue reading…

Lime is getting back to its roots. The scooter company formerly known as LimeBike says it will invest $50 million to grow its shared electric bicycle network, including adding a new model of bike and doubling the number of cities in which it operates.Lime got its start with shared bikes, only to quickly pivot after Bird first introduced the concept of dockless electric scooters in 2017. The company dropped the “bike” from its name and started phasing out its bikes in 2019. But the following year, Lime acquired bike-share company Jump from Uber, and suddenly, bikes were back on the menu.50 new cities by the start of 2022Now, the company is doubling down on shared electric bikes, with plans to launch in “a dozen” new cities in North... Continue reading…

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Hollywood Foreign Press Association In a year of ongoing movie delays and stalled television productions, it’s no surprise that this year’s Golden Globes winners were dominated by streaming services — in particular, Netflix.However, before getting into the winners of the evening, it’s impossible to ignore that this year’s Golden Globes were surrounded by a number of important controversies. Last week the Los Angeles Times published an in-depth feature investigation into the questionable ethics involving all 87 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the voting body that selects Golden Globe winners every year. Some members were flown to Paris and put up in expensive hotels on Netflix’s dollar for on-set visits to Emily in Paris, which was nominated for... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge A cybersecurity firm found that bots were promoting GameStop stock on social media before and after the stock’s frenzied rise last month, Reuters reported. Massachusetts-based PiiQ Media says social media bots promoted Dogecoin, GameStop, and other “meme” stocks in posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. The firm estimated that tens of thousands of bots participated, but it’s still unclear how much influence they had or didn’t have on the rise and fall of GME and other stocks.Shares in GME skyrocketed in January as Reddit users on r/wallstreetbets rallied around the stock in an attempt to squeeze hedge funds that had bet against the video game company. PiiQ told Reuters it detected “patterns of artificial behavior” in... Continue reading…

George Floyd died in police custody in May 2020 | Getty Minneapolis is hiring social media influencers to share “city-generated and approved messages” during the trials of four former city police officers charged in the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, according to the Minnesota Reformer. The Minneapolis city council approved the plan on Friday, which calls for six influencers to be paid about $2,000 each to spread the city’s messages with Black, Native American, Hmong, and Latino communities.The goal is to “address/dispel incorrect information” by using “trusted messengers,” part of a program the city refers to as its Joint Information System to share “timely and relevant information” with the public during the trials.“Through the Communications and Neighborhood and Community Relations... Continue reading…

MyHeritage An AI-powered service called Deep Nostalgia that animates still photos has become the main character on Twitter this fine Sunday, as people try to create the creepiest fake “video” possible, apparently.The Deep Nostalgia service, offered by online genealogy company MyHeritage, uses AI licensed from D-ID to create the effect that a still photo is moving. It’s kinda like the iOS Live Photos feature, which adds a few seconds of video to help smartphone photographers find the best shot.But Deep Nostalgia can take photos from any camera and bring them to “life.” The program uses pre-recorded driver videos of facial movements and applies the one that works best for the still photo in question. Its intended purpose is to allow you to upload... Continue reading…

Photo by VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images Awards season in Hollywood begins Sunday, February 28th, with the 78th Golden Globe Awards, hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The Golden Globes, usually considered a harbinger of who may take home awards at other shows like the Oscars, will look a bit different this year thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. The hosts and presenters will be in different locations in the US and around the world.Streaming services have finally come into their own at the Globes, with Netflix leading the pack of with 20 total nominations for its television shows; Hulu has six total nominations, Apple TV Plus has two, and Disney Plus has one. In the motion picture categories (the Globes honor films and TV shows), Netflix leads the way with 22... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Despite its relentless promotion of 5G phones and the fact that it spent more than $45 billion bidding on a new faster spectrum, Verizon support now is advising people on Twitter to turn off their phones’ 5G access to preserve battery life.In a Sunday morning tweet, Verizon support helpfully suggested that “one way to help conserve battery life is to turn on LTE” if users found their batteries were “draining faster than normal.” That step would, of course, turn off 5G in a phone that has it available. It’s also worth pointing out that you don’t actually “turn on LTE” when doing this step — LTE is always enabled as a fallback for the 5G network. But Verizon is obviously being cautious so as not to actually tell its customers to “turn... Continue reading…

Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Samsung’s latest Chrome OS laptop, the Galaxy Chromebook 2, is now available for purchase at Best Buy. The Chromebook 2 was first announced at CES in January and features a new QLED display, 360-degree hinge, and a striking red paint job. It starts at $549.99 for a Celeron model and goes up to $699.99 for a Core i3 version, putting it at the higher end of Chromebooks.That price is the most significant thing about the Chromebook 2 because it’s considerably less than the Galaxy Chromebook that debuted a year ago. The older Chromebook had an 4K OLED screen and came with a stylus — neither of which you’ll fine with the new model — but it also cost just under $1,000 when it came out. In our review, we found despite the gorgeous screen and... Continue reading…

Supporters of former President Donald Trump flew a US flag with a QAnon symbol outside the Capitol on January 6th. | Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images The teaser video for Q: Into the Storm, an upcoming documentary series from HBO about the QAnon conspiracy movement has a lot of deplatforming experts concerned; it looks more like a preview for a spy thriller than a careful examination of the umbrella group of conspiracy theories.The breathless tone might be effective at building hype, but it has many disinformation experts concerned. Ben Collins, one of the leading journalists covering online radicalization, tweeted that the trailer was “being marketed in a way that could recruit more people.” Promoted by HBO as a series that “charts a labyrinthine journey to unmask the mastermind behind QAnon,” critics pointed out that the trailer felt a lot like “a recruitment video for Q.”

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, which only needs one dose and can be stored in regular refrigerators. It’s the third COVID-19 vaccine to get sign-off from the agency.The vaccine can be administered to people 18 years and older. It protects against serious disease, and clinical trials did not flag any dangerous safety problems. In the United States, it was 72 percent effective against severe and milder COVID-19. It was slightly less effective in South Africa, where a variant form of the coronavirus is widespread. Early data also suggested that the shot might prevent asymptomatic infections, but researchers need more data before they can say that for sure.The Johnson & Johnson... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is finalizing its Xbox Game Streaming app for Windows PCs, which includes access to streaming games from the company’s xCloud service. We’ve managed to get access to the latest version of the Xbox Game Streaming app for Windows, an unannounced and unreleased app. Once released, the app will let Windows users stream games from their Xbox Series S / X consoles, and from xCloud.Currently, you can’t stream games from the new Xbox consoles to Windows PCs, as this is unsupported in the existing Xbox Console Companion app. This new app will solve that, and also bring xCloud streaming to Windows PCs for the first time. We first got a look at this xCloud app for Windows last year, and it has improved a lot since then.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A federal judge on Friday gave final approval to a $650 million Facebook class action privacy settlement and ordered the 1.6 million members of the class in Illinois who submitted claims to be paid “as expeditiously as possible.”Chicago attorney Jay Edelson sued Facebook in Cook County Circuit Court back in 2015, alleging that the platform’s use of facial recognition tagging was not allowed under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The lawsuit claimed that Facebook’s Tag Suggestions tool, which scanned faces in users’ photos and offered suggestions about who the person might be, stored biometric data without users’ consent in violation of the Illinois law.The case became a class action lawsuit in 2018. In 2019, Facebook m... Continue reading…

Sony PS5 | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony’s latest gaming console, the PS5, is one of many gaming gadgets that are pretty hard to find in stock right now due to mostly online-only sales. If you are trying to get your hands on one, Best Buy has restocked the PS5 and PS5 digital edition right now, while supplies last.Similar to today’s Xbox Series X / Series S restocks, the retailer is releasing small waves of PS5 stock right now.After you secure your PS5, you should consider picking up a few items that will help you get the most out of your next-gen console. I strongly suggest buying a one-year membership to PlayStation Plus and purchasing an extra DualSense controller. A one-year membership to PS Plus also gives you access to the PlayStation Plus Collection, a digital... Continue reading…

The path to WandaVision hasn’t been an easy one for Kevin Feige and the Marvel Studios team. Well, at least the path to Wanda Maximoff.Wanda Maximoff, one of the most powerful characters both in the MCU and the comics, found herself the child of divorced parents. There was Disney on one side that wanted to use the character in its Marvel Cinematic Universe films, and 20th Century Fox on the other that technically owned her rights. Marvel’s team found a way to make the character work, but something always felt off.Following Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, and everything becoming one giant family, things have changed — and so much of how this can benefit the MCU became clear in WandaVision’s penultimate episode.[We’re seven... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Update February 26th, 2021 12:05PM: Best Buy still has both consoles in stock, but the retailer is releasing small waves of inventory every few minutes, so if you’re unable to buy one immediately, it’s worth trying again in a few minutes.Best Buy has restocked both of Microsoft’s next-gen consoles the Xbox Series X and Series S. Like some other gaming gadgets released late last year, these consoles are extremely difficult to buy, but if you move quickly, you have another chance to buy one right now.Whether you buy the digital-only Series S or the more powerful Xbox Series X which includes a disc drive, you may want to consider picking up a few accessories that will help you get the most out of your new gadget, such as an extra... Continue reading…

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio This week, NASA released a grim four-minute timelapse of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, a mesmerizing display of last year’s record-breaking string of tropical commotion.2020’s season “smashed records with an unprecedented 30 named storms, marking the fifth year in a row with above-average hurricane activity,” NASA said in a blog accompanying the video.The agency’s Scientific Visualization Studio used a complex algorithm to process and merge hordes of data from an array of weather satellites in orbit, combining it with estimates and observations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center and National Hurricane Center.The product is a fascinating four-minute and 26-second look at... Continue reading…

DC Comics and Fortnite developer Epic Games are joining forces on a new Batman and Fortnite-themed crossover comic book. The six-issue miniseries, titled Batman / Fortnite: Zero Point, will debut on April 20th. Two issues will then launch in both May and June before the series concludes with a final issue on July 6th.Longtime Fortnite fans might have perked up at the mention of the Zero Point, a reality-warping ball of energy that is hovering over the middle of the Fortnite island and is the catalyst for this season’s many brand crossovers. (Just yesterday, Ellen Ripley and the Xenomorph from the Alien series were added to the game.) It seems the Zero Point will play a key role in this comic miniseries, according to this plot summary:

Netflix is constantly looking for its next big franchise hit — a new Stranger Things or The Witcher. And the trailer for Shadow and Bone teases that the upcoming fantasy series could be next.The first trailer for Netflix’s adaptation of the series showcases the series’ main protagonist, Alina, a map maker who discovers that she harbors a special power that can prevent the world from being swallowed up in darkness threatened by a terrifying sea-of-sorts called the Fold.Shadow and Bone is Leigh Bardugo’s fantasy series that has swept readers by storm. The book, which introduces readers to the Grisha universe — a world inhabited by special people who practice a form of spell work known as small sciences — has become immensely popular on... Continue reading…

During today’s Pokémon Presents presentation, the company unveiled new gameplay footage for New Pokémon Snap, the long-awaited sequel to the N64 classic. The new footage showed off the lush and colorful settings that you will explore across the Lental region.New Pokémon Snap will have players assuming the role of a pokémon photographer who will collaborate with the region’s pokémon expert, Professor Mirror, and his assistant Rita to observe pokémon in their natural habitats. Gameplay remains similar to its predecessor but introduces some new mechanics, such as a photo-sharing feature that will allow you to share your photos online, plus a ranking system so you can compete with other players across the globe.The new footage is just one... Continue reading…

A virtual symposium on the internet’s most important law Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast The Vergecast, our chat show to discuss this week in tech news featuring our reporters and editors.This week, co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn start off the show with Verge reporter Allison Johnson to discuss the state of 5G in America: T-Mobile bringing back their unlimited 5G plan with no throttling, the results of the C-band spectrum auction, and whether Dish is serious about building a 5G network.

At a special live-streamed event today, The Pokémon Company revealed something fans having been waiting a long time for: an open-world Pokémon adventure. The next major entry in the franchise will be called Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and it looks to be a huge evolution of the long-running RPG formula. The developers describe it as a “pre-make,” which offers “a new challenge and a new frontier for the Pokémon world.”The story takes place in the Sinnoh region, at a period that appears to be long before other Pokémon games, and will include a number of iconic monsters like Piplup, with your choice of starters including Rowlet, Oshawott, and Cyndaquil. It’s expected to launch worldwide on the Switch in early 2022.Here’s the basic premise:

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will be remade for Nintendo Switch. The Pokémon Company announced the news today during a special Pokémon Presents broadcast. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will launch in late 2021.Diamond and Pearl launched in 2006 for Nintendo DS. The game introduced the Sinnoh region, home to pokémon such as Bidoof, Luxio, Drifloon, and Arceus. The updated versions have a cute, chibified look, though both are “faithful remakes” of the originals. A trailer released alongside the news today teases familiar locations and faces in the Switch version, as well as some quality of life upgrades. Pokémon Home developer Ilca is working on both games alongside longtime Game Freak director Junichi Masuda .There’ve... Continue reading…

Image: Square Enix Yesterday, Square Enix announced that it plans to release an enhanced version of Final Fantasy VII Remake for PS5, and there is a free next-gen upgrade available if you own the game digitally or physically. You can purchase a physical copy of the game right now for $30 at Amazon. Note that if you plan to take advantage of this deal, you will need to own a PS5 with a disc drive to claim your free PS5 copy.Although the game will be free on PlayStation Plus beginning March 2nd, Sony confirmed that the PS Plus version will not be eligible to receive a free upgrade. So, you’ll either need to buy the next-gen version, which starts at $70, or buy the PS4 version, the latter of which I think is the better deal.While on the topic of next-gen,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to adopt a program that provides emergency discounts of up to $50 per month toward broadband internet service for low-income households. The Emergency Broadband Benefit Program also provides up to $75 per month for households on Native American land and a one-time discount of up to $100 on a tablet or computer for those who qualify.The $3.2 billion for the program was approved by Congress in December as part of a $900 billion coronavirus relief package. The subsidies are available to households that already participate in an internet provider’s low-income or pandemic relief program, subscribers to its Lifeline program, households with children receiving free or... Continue reading…

Citizen Citizen, the app that turns everyone into a crime reporter, now wants to track helicopters. The company announced today that it’s introducing helicopter tracking to the app, which will explain to users why there are flying vehicles overhead.The team tells The Verge it employs a 24/7 group to review 911 communications, and now they’ll review data about police helicopters, too. Like any other info on Citizen, users can add their own videos and comments about the incident while Citizen verifies it on its end. When possible, the team will include a “related incident” for a helicopter spotting that’ll better explain the situation. That way, if the helicopter pertains to a missing person report, for example, that report will be linked.The... Continue reading…

Capcom finds itself in an interesting position with Monster Hunter Rise, its new title for the Nintendo Switch. 2018’s Monster Hunter World was a huge triumph, bringing the series to a Western audience accustomed to home consoles and PCs and becoming one of the company’s bestselling games ever. But in doing so, it had to abandon some of the biggest factors behind Monster Hunter’s Japanese success: portability and local multiplayer.Since Capcom started work on Monster Hunter World, though, the Switch has become a global hit, and on paper it sounds like it should be a perfect system for the series. It’s much more capable than the PSP and 3DS hardware that made Monster Hunter a social phenomenon in Japan, while offering the flexibility to... Continue reading…

Final Fantasy VII Remake, the modern retelling of the 1997 PlayStation classic, will be free for PlayStation Plus subscribers beginning March 2nd. It is important to note the PS4 version of Final Fantasy VII Remake available for users with an active PS Plus subscription will not be able to receive a PS5 digital version of the game, which was announced yesterday at Sony’s State of Play event.Final Fantasy VII Remake launched last April exclusively on PlayStation 4 and serves as the first of an unknown number of entries in an episodic retelling of the original game. The game is also backward compatible on PlayStation 5, but yesterday's State of Play confirmed that a next-gen version of the game will release on June 10th and will take... Continue reading…

Its built-in stylus is useful and enjoyable, but the Stylo 6 is too slow to recommend Continue reading…

Image: LastPass A security researcher is recommending against LastPass password manager after detailing seven trackers found in the Android app, The Register reports. Although there is no suggestion that the trackers, which were analyzed by researcher Mike Kuketz, are transferring a user’s actual passwords or usernames, Kuketz says their presence is bad practice for a security-critical app handling such sensitive information.Responding to the report, a spokesperson from LastPass says the company gathers limited data “about how LastPass is used” to help it “improve and optimize the product.” Importantly, LastPass tells The Register that “no sensitive personally identifiable user data or vault activity could be passed through these trackers,” and users... Continue reading…

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Nvidia has started to roll out support for Resizable BAR, a feature of PCI Express that can boost frame rates in certain games by up to 10 percent. The new RTX 3060 graphics card is the first to include Resizable BAR, which allows certain CPUs to access the full graphics frame buffer, instead of being limited to reading just 256MB blocks. Support for other 30-series GPUs will be available in late March.You’ll need the right CPU, motherboard, and graphics card to utilize this new feature, and Nvidia is working with both AMD and Intel to provide chipset support. AMD’s Zen 3 CPUs are supported, alongside Intel’s 10th Gen processors and the company’s upcoming 11th Gen S chips. Image: Nvidia Nvidia’s Resizable BAR... Continue reading…

The repairability score can be seen on the lower right of the product page. | Screenshot: Apple.com Apple has added iPhone and MacBook repairability scores to its online store in France to comply with a new French law that came into effect this year. MacGeneration reports that the rating takes into account features like how easily a device can be disassembled and the availability of repair manuals and spare parts. Links to each product’s final score, with details for how they were calculated, are available on this support page.The ratings for Apple’s products vary between products and generations. Its iPhone 12 lineup all have scores of six out of 10 for example, while the previous year’s iPhone 11s are rated lower at between 4.5 and 4.6. The improvement, according to the detailed scoring assessment, is due to the newer iPhones being... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony will allow the PlayStation 5 to make use of expanded SSD storage from this summer, according to a report in Bloomberg. The functionality is said to be coming in a firmware update that will activate the PS5’s M.2 expansion slot, which is currently disabled. Sony told The Verge ahead of the PS5 launch that the feature was “reserved for a future update.”Bloomberg’s sources say that the firmware update will allow for an increase in the speed of the PS5’s cooling fans. The PS5 has an extremely fast built-in SSD, and any compatible third-party drive will need to be equally fast in order to store and run PS5 games; that’s going to generate some extra heat.The PS5 comes with an 825GB SSD right now, leaving users with only 667GB of usable... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony has confirmed that Japan Studio, its internal video game developer based in Tokyo, will essentially wind down and refocus around a single team. In a statement to IGN, Japan Studio said as of April 1st it would be “re-centered to Team Asobi, the creative team behind Astro’s Playroom, allowing the team to focus on a single vision and build on the popularity of Astro’s Playroom.” In other words, get ready for more Astro games.Astro’s Playroom is a well-received title packaged with every PlayStation 5 console. It’s a 3D platformer designed to show off the advanced haptic feedback of the new DualSense controller. Before that, the same team developed Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, widely considered to be the standout exclusive PlayStation VR... Continue reading…

Image: Square Enix Square Enix just announced Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, a PS5-enhanced version of FF7 Remake that includes graphical improvements like “improved textures, lighting, and background environments.” But some users on ResetEra noticed one other potentially huge graphical upgrade: Cloud’s famously skinny arms may have gotten a bit beefier.Did Cloud get more swole for next-gen, like the PS5 itself?Clearly, this warranted a full investigation.Check out this image, from user Tyaren: Image: ResetEra user Tyaren And this GIF, from user Rickenslacker: GIF: ResetEra user Rickenslacker Convincing, right? These two images make a strong argument. But my Verge colleagues and I weren’t totally sure.... Continue reading…

Image: Activision The latest Call of Duty game collection may now be too big to fit the base 500GB PlayStation 4 hard drive (via IGN). According to the official Call of Duty blog, if you want to have the latest Call of Duty: Warzone update and the full Black Ops: Cold War and Modern Warfare package on your PS4, you’ll have to uninstall content you don’t use.The games make that somewhat easy to do by letting you remove certain modes — for example, if you only want to play Warzone, you could uninstall Black Ops’s single player, Zombie, and arcade modes, but it seems a bit ridiculous that you can’t fit three (or really, two and a half) games on an entire game console. That’s especially true since Activision sort of treats these three games as one thing:... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Telegram is updating its messaging app with options for auto-deleting messages, expiring invite links, and new unlimited groups, the company shared in a blog post. Much like Signal, Telegram received a burst of new users in the confusion over WhatsApp’s privacy policy and now the company is adopting features that were already part of its competitors’ apps, features which offer more security and privacy.Auto-deleting messages were already possible in Telegram’s encrypted Secret Chats, but this new update for iOS and Android adds the option to make messages disappear in any kind of chat. Auto-delete can be enabled inside of chats, and set to delete either 24 hours or seven days after messages are sent. Auto-delete won’t remove every... Continue reading…

Full-size image here. | Image: 343 Industries We got our first look at Halo Infinite, the next game in Microsoft’s huge franchise, back in July, and the results were... underwhelming. The graphics and visuals weren’t quite as impressive as you might expect from a next-generation game (the demo was running on a PC “that is representative of the experience that players will have on Xbox Series X”), and one vacant-looking enemy even became the infamous Craig meme. The game was delayed to 2021 a few weeks after the demo aired “to ensure the team has adequate time to deliver a Halo game experience that meets our vision.”On Thursday, though, developer 343 Industries shared new screenshots of Halo Infinite in 4K from an in-development PC version of the game, and the graphics look much... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is once again releasing an update to prevent a charging problem from killing MacBooks — this time it’s to fix a problem where 2019 and later MacBook Pros, and 2020 and later MacBook Airs were being damaged when connected to third-party USB-C hubs and docks (via MacRumors).It’s unclear how widespread the issues are, but a poll on Reddit had 74 out of 221 respondents report that their M1 Air or Pro had failed after using a hub. As with all polls, it’s best to take the results with a grain of salt, but there’s an indication that some people were experiencing issues.Most of the issues seemed to come from using a third-party dock, and while some of them seem to be from pretty obscure brands, there are a few recognizable ones that are... Continue reading…

Image: Square Enix Final Fantasy VII Remake’s soundtrack will be available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, and other music subscription services tomorrow, February 26th, Square Enix announced on Thursday. It will have an eye-popping (ear-popping?) 156 tracks, according to a press release.The game’s soundtrack was an excellent reimagining of the original game’s iconic music, and I frequently listen to it via random YouTube videos. The official arrival on streaming services should make listening to it much easier.

Image: Square Enix Square Enix announced two mobile games set in the Final Fantasy VII universe today. One is a battle royale game aiming for a 2021 release, and the other is Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, a compilation of all the games and stories set in the Final Fantasy VII universe (Final Fantasy VII, Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core, and Dirge of Cerberus). The latter is slated to launch sometime in 2022 on Android and iOS.According to a press release, Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis is a chapter-structured single-player experience that covers the entire timeline in one of the most popular installments in Square Enix’s RPG franchise. The compilation will feature all the events from each game, in addition to new story elements focusing on... Continue reading…

The enhanced version of Final Fantasy VII Remake for the PS5 wasn’t the only Midgar-related news today. Square Enix also revealed an even bigger surprise: a battle royale for mobile devices that’s set three decades before the original game. It’s called Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier, and it’s slated to come to both Android and iOS devices later this year.We don’t know much more about the game just yet, but, as the title implies, it’s centered on Soldier, a group of enhanced fighters that plays an important role in FFVII’s story. A multiplayer battle royale seems like a strange way to tell a story like that, but the trailer at least shows some iconic FFVII locales and what looks like fast-paced combat involving both weapons and... Continue reading…