The Verge

Nerf maker Hasbro has heard you loud and clear, Adam Savages of the world: you want to be able to shoot foam projectiles for days, without carrying around a belt full of magazines or constantly stooping down to reload.Today, the company’s announcing Nerf Hyper, a new line of blasters that not only shoots harder (up to 110 feet per second) than any stock blaster but also features the company’s fastest reloads yet, thanks to a smaller foam projectile that takes up so little space, you can fit 40 of them inside a pistol-sized blaster. That’s unheard of in Nerf. You can clip on (or carry around) 50 or 100 round canisters to quickly top them up, much like a paintball gun. Image by Hasbro The Hyper Rush-40, with the... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The PlayStation 5 is Sony’s latest gaming console and just like Microsoft’s Xbox Series X / S it’s in high demand and limited supply. If you are looking to buy a PS5, you have a shot at securing the $500 model with a disc drive right now at Target, while supplies last.After you secure your PS5 (or if already own one), you should consider picking up a few items that will help you get the most out of your next-gen console. One such accessory is an additional DualSense controller in the event one controller’s battery dies and you want to keep playing but prefer not to be tethered by the charging cable.A one-year subscription to PlayStation Plus is also good to pick up if you have yet to renew your membership or are new to the service.... Continue reading…

Image: Valve Steam’s Remote Play Together feature, which lets you stream local multiplayer games with friends over the internet, will no longer require every player to have a Steam account. The new functionality, which is currently in beta, lets Steam users invite a friend to their game with a link, after which they’ll be prompted to install the Steam Link app if they don’t have it already.There are limits to the new feature. Games will need to already support the Remote Play Together feature for it to work (there are filtering options to find these titles), and only one friend without a Steam account can join a multiplayer session. If you want to add more, they’ll need to have accounts.To try the feature out, head to your friends list in the... Continue reading…

Zoom has previously supported AI-generated closed captions for paid accounts. | Image: Zoom Zoom plans to roll out support for automatic closed captioning to free accounts this fall as part of its efforts to make the service more accessible, the company has announced. If you’re a free account holder who needs access to the feature before then, Zoom is allowing users to manually request access to the Live Transcription feature via a Google Form linked to in its announcement.Automatic transcriptions aren’t an entirely new Zoom feature. The service has previously offered AI-powered live transcription for all its paid accounts. Otherwise, meeting hosts have had to manually add their own captions, or use a third-party service. But now the feature will become available to the millions of people that rely on Zoom’s services for... Continue reading…

The basic TV option reportedly appears at setup. | Image: Google / 9to5Google Google TV, the search giant’s latest attempt at TV software, will include a new “Basic TV” mode that strips out a TV’s smart features in favor of providing simple access to live TV and HDMI inputs, 9to5Google reports. It’s a potential boon to anyone that ever wanted to dumb-down their smart TV because they prefer an external streamer or because they value privacy.Google TV debuted on the new Chromecast, where it offered a new interface built on Google’s existing Android TV software, but will soon be offered as built-in software for TCL and Sony’s upcoming TVs.According to 9to5Google, you can select the “Basic TV” mode at setup. Doing so strips out the operating system’s apps, content recommendations, and Google Assistant support. It’s... Continue reading…

A new update to popular podcast player Overcast includes a major overhaul of its Apple Watch app. The Apple Watch support is notable at a time when third-party app development for the platform is not necessarily in a great spot, though the Watch itself continues to grow in popularity.Overcast’s update reorganizes the app UI from top to bottom, adding some features that otherwise were only able to be accessed through the phone version. The main screen has large buttons for settings and syncing above a scrolling list of your shows and access to the “now playing” screen.That screen now includes a button on the bottom right that takes you to more detailed info on the podcast and lets you adjust its playback speed, as well as giving you... Continue reading…

The PUBG universe is expanding with a new mobile title for iOS and Android called PUBG: New State, which catapults the battle royale ahead in time for a more futuristic take on the massive multiplayer genre.Set in 2051, PUBG: New State takes place years after the current PUBG games (which are set in approximately modern times) on a new map called Troi and promises to bring with it a slew of near-future weapons and vehicles, like drones and deployable combat shields. Based on the early images, it’s a similar vibe to fellow shooter Call of Duty’s semi-futuristic military tech from games like Black Ops 3 and 4.The new game is also set to dive deeper into the lore of the overall PUBG universe, which is apparently a thing that... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Australian government has passed a new law requiring Google and Facebook to negotiate with news outlets to pay for their content or face arbitration.“This is a significant milestone,” said Josh Frydenberg, the Liberal party’s deputy leader who spearheaded the new law. “This legislation will help level the playing field & see Australian news media businesses paid for generating original content.” The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says the law will address “a significant bargaining power imbalance between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook.”The new code has seen fierce oppositionThe new code has seen fierce opposition from the two tech giants. The most vocal of the two has been... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Activating the Google Assistant by saying “Hey Google” has been broken for months, according to a report from 9to5Google. Google tells The Verge it’s now working on a fix, saying that it’s “aware of the issues some users have been encountering” and will help its partners “address these and improve the overall experience.”There are a good number of users reporting the issue — a post on Google’s Issue Tracker has almost a thousand stars. Reading through the thread, it’s clear that many users with different smartwatch models are all reporting the same issue going back to November 2020. They say the assistant isn’t completely unusable, as users are still able to trigger it with a long button-press, but if the voice-activation feature... Continue reading…

DARPA Wired has done an amazing piece on Margaret McKinnon, a researcher who survived a traumatic plane crash, then went on to become a leader in the field of memory and trauma. The article starts off with a harrowing recounting of the accident, but then goes on to explain her research around it, as she gathered other survivors from the crash to conduct a study on how people remember a disaster — one which she participated in.

In just over a week, CBS All Access will become Paramount Plus, a rebranded version of the streaming service launching on March 4th.Paramount Plus will use combined franchises and assets from Viacom and CBS (who remerged in 2019) to offer more than 20,000 episodes of television and films from a number of networks. These networks and studios include BET, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures. Every announcement made today can be read on ViacomCBS’ site.The streaming service will launch at two separate pricing tiers: an ad-supported version that includes full breadth of Paramount movies, Paramount Plus originals, a “massive portion of library,” according to streaming CEO Tom Ryan, and current seasons of CBS shows for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia has shared its Q4 2021 earnings, and despite the company’s GPUs being in extremely low supply, it didn’t seem to hurt how much money the company made. In fact, it reported a record $5 billion in revenue, which is up 61 percent year-over-year. What’s more impressive is that Nvidia expects to make another $5 billion in revenue during Q1 2022.This positive outlook is surprising given that Q1 is generally slower than other quarters, even for the biggest tech companies, as it follows the rush of people buying lots of products during the holiday period. It’s generally a slower period in general for product releases across tech and gaming. Also, let’s not forget the GPU shortage is still happening. Nvidia reiterated that sparse supply... Continue reading…

Image: Nickelodeon A Rugrats reboot is headed to the new streaming service Paramount Plus this spring, ViacomCBS announced today. The show is described as a “reimagining of the classic ‘90s hit,” and you can see a preview of the new CG-animated style in this trailer:But even though the animation might look different, many of the characters should sound the same — Tommy Pickles, Chuckie Finster, Angelica Pickles, Susie Carmichael, and Phil and Lil DeVille will all be voiced by their original voice actors.The new show is produced by Nickelodeon Animation Studio, according to a press release.“Rugrats is one of the most iconic cartoons recognized by fans around the globe, and this original version is one we are taking great care and pride in creating for... Continue reading…

Photo: Nickelodeon ViacomCBS has announced a new studio based entirely around Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra.Avatar Studios will create “original content spanning animated series and movies,” according to a press release. Avatar and Korra original creators, Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, are joining Nickelodeon as co-chief creative officers of Avatar Studios. The first project is an animated theatrical title set to begin production soon. More information will be announced soon, according to the company.Having exclusive Avatar and Korra content is pretty key for Nickelodeon and ViacomCBS’ new streaming service, Paramount Plus. While the company’s business strategy is to license out a number of its shows and films on a... Continue reading…

Paramount Plus is getting another Star Trek show, the company announced at its kickoff event: Star Trek: Prodigy, the animated kid-friendly spinoff of the iconic franchise. Prodigy was originally set to debut on Nickelodeon, but it will instead air all ten episodes of its first season on Paramount Plus before eventually heading over to the cable channel at a later date.In addition to the shift in location, Paramount also announced more details on the upcoming series, which will feature a group of teens adventuring on an abandoned starship throughout the Star Trek universe. Kate Mulgrew will return to voice Captain Kathryn Janeway, her character from Star Trek: Voyager. But Prodigy — the first Star Trek show intended for kids — will... Continue reading…

Image: Paramount Pictures Paramount is dramatically shortening the space between theatrical and streaming releases for some of its biggest films, with the company announcing that Mission: Impossible 7, A Quiet Place Part II, and Paw Patrol: The Movie will debut on Paramount Plus just 45 days after they first hit theaters.The rapid jump to streaming mirrors moves by other companies, like Universal (which has a deal with AMC to offer films as paid digital rentals just 17 days after they hit theaters) or Warner Bros., which is debuting all of its 2021 blockbusters day-and-date on HBO Max with their theatrical bows.Paramount also promised that future films from the studio will stream exclusively on Paramount Plus after their theatrical runs, including Snake Eyes,... Continue reading…

Frasier is coming back — this time to Paramount Plus.Kelsey Grammer will play the famous psychiatrist that found a legion of fans when the show aired on NBC in the ‘90s in a new revival series. Details about the series are limited right now, but the show will exist exclusively on Paramount Plus. It’s unclear if characters like Niles, Roz, and Daphne will return for the show. The show was first rumored in 2018. What remains unclear is if the entire Frasier library will be available on Paramount Plus exclusively.Frasier is just one of many shows ViacomCBS announced today as part of its upcoming Paramount Plus lineup. A series based on The Italian Job, Flashdance, Fatal Attraction, and more are also heading to the platform. Paramount... Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red Cyberpunk 2077’s next big patch has been delayed following developer CD Projekt Red’s disclosure that it fell victim to a ransomware attack earlier this month. The next big patch, 1.2, is now scheduled for a release sometime in the second half of March.“While we dearly wanted to deliver Patch 1.2 for Cyberpunk 2077 in the timespan we detailed previously, the recent cyber attack on the studio’s IT infrastructure and extensive scope of the update mean this unfortunately will not happen — we’ll need some additional time,” CD Projekt Red said via the Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account.

Niantic Pokémon Go creator Niantic has published a blog post detailing some of its anti-cheat efforts, and it seems the company has been busy. Since the start of 2020, Niantic has issued over 5 million “punishments” to players caught cheating, with over 20 percent of those being permabans. Doing the math, that’s over a million people who have gotten the boot in just over a year. This includes bans from Pokémon Go, Ingress, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.The post did contain some encouraging news about the player base: apparently over 90 percent of people stopped cheating after they received their first warning. That’s a wonderful thing to hear, because it’s relatable; I also like to live just on the edge until someone tells me to knock it off.... Continue reading…

A series based on Michael Caine’s 1969 Italian Job is in the works for Paramount Plus.The original film was remade in 2003 and starred Mark Wahlberg, Charlize Theron, Ed Norton, and Jason Statham. Donald De Line, one of the producers of the 2003 remake, will work on the show in some capacity, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The series is just one of several shows that will head to Paramount Plus, ViacomCBS’s new streaming service. The other shows announced include Love Story, Fatal Attraction, Flashdance, and The Parallax View, according to the Reporter.These new shows join a series of shows already announced for the streaming platform. The Offer, a limited series based on the making-of process behind The Godfather; Lioness, a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Ever since LastPass announced that it was tweaking its free tier to only allow a single category of device — mobile or computer — there’s been a lot of interest in finding alternatives among LastPass users. Luckily, once you do find an alternative, it’s pretty easy to pull your data from LastPass and upload it to another password manager.What follows are instructions on how to download your LastPass data, and where to find instructions from several popular password managers that will help you upload that data to their services.Export your LastPass dataLastPass allows you to export your data as a CSV or an XML file. If you’re planning to move that data to another service, then CSV is the far better choice. Since CSV stands for... Continue reading…

Museum Alive includes three exhibits that bring extinct creatures back to life. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Remember dioramas? They were the friggin’ best. I’d jump on any excuse to grab a shoebox, fire up the hot glue gun (okay, Dad handled that), and strategically place plastic tigers and shrubs in their tiny cardboard habitat. I might have learned something, too, but that was beside the point. I was a tiny god with a world of my own creation in my hands.That’s not unlike the sense of wonder I felt just now watching a miniature prehistoric habitat spring to life on my dining room table. That little bit of magic happened courtesy of Museum Alive, an augmented reality iPhone app available today featuring narration by none other than Sir David Attenborough. It’s an extension of his Natural History Museum Alive film and includes three... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit seems to be recovering after what its status page called a “major outage”. For about an hour, users who tried to load the site as it was down were met with a blank white page.The site seems to have gone down after GameStop stock shot up 100 percent in late hours of trading on Wednesday. One of Reddit’s most controversial communities, r/WallStreetBets, has championed the stock and was intensely active after the surge. At the moment, it’s unclear if the two are related, but the subreddit seemed to be getting a lot of heavy traffic right before Reddit began crashing. Screenshot: The Verge Beautiful, minimalistic design. As of 5PM ET, the site seems to be reliably accessible, if a bit slow to respond. D... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The much-anticipated results of the FCC’s Auction 107 are in, with Verizon and AT&T spending big as anticipated on the coveted C-band spectrum. Verizon in particular spent nearly twice as much as AT&T, with a total spend of $45.4 billion. AT&T’s total bid adds up to $23.4 billion. T-Mobile is in a distant third at $9.3 billion, which was also expected thanks to the strong midband spectrum holdings that the company already had following its acquisition of Sprint.There’s nothing outright surprising here: we’ve known for a while that the total bidding added up to over $80 billion, and that Verizon and AT&T in particular would be the top bidders. Those two carriers’ nationwide 5G networks currently rely on narrower low-band frequencies that... Continue reading…

President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday addressing growing concern over a global semiconductor shortage hampering the production of goods like automobiles and smartphones.The White House’s executive order directs the federal government to conduct 100-day reviews of supply chains in four sets of products, including computer chips and large capacity batteries, like those used in electric vehicles, according to administration officials.“This is about making sure the United States can meet every challenge we faced in this new era of pandemics, but also in defense cybersecurity, climate change, and so much more,” Biden said at a press conference Thursday. “The best way to do that is by protecting and and sharpen and America’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Yuzo Koshiro / Twitter It’s not hard to listen to your favorite video game soundtracks online. Just load YouTube or some other music streaming services, and search there. But that experience pales in comparison to hearing (and seeing) that music played through the hardware it was originally composed on.Legendary gaming composer Yuzo Koshiro has been posting nostalgia bombs on Twitter, playing songs that he made for games like Streets of Rage, Streets of Rage 2, and the 8-Bit Game Gear and Sega Master System versions of Sonic The Hedgehog. And he’s playing them using an NEC PC-88, the 39-year-old PC that was a popular gaming platform in Japan, as well as Koshiro’s machine of choice for creating music.

Image: Microsoft/343 Industries Showtime’s upcoming Halo TV series is getting a new home — the live-action adaptation of the popular sci-fi shooters will now debut exclusively on the relaunched Paramount Plus streaming service when it arrives at the beginning of 2022, Deadline reports.There have been a few attempts at adapting Halo to live action (including the less-than-stellar Halo: Nightfall), of which the Showtime series is the latest. It’s been in the works since 2018 and promises to actually focus on the star of the series: Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, the armored star of the series more commonly known as Master Chief (played by American Gods’ Pablo Schreiber.) The show will also see Jen Taylor return to reprise her role as Cortana, Master Chief’s AI... Continue reading…

Image: Joe Weisenthal GameStop is up... again, by a lot. Before market close on Wednesday, the video game retailer’s shares started to soar, and GME just closed at $91.71 — up nearly 104 percent for the day.It’s the highest the stock has been since it fell back down to Earth at the beginning of the month following the unprecedented, Reddit-fueled rally that sent it as high as $483 a share. Over the course of the afternoon, trading on the stock was halted twice.

With CBS All Access morphing into Paramount Plus in just over a week, the company is announcing a new subscriber milestone for its streaming platforms: nearly 30 million global subscribers.The company also has 19.2 million subscribers domestically across its platforms, CBS All Access and Showtime. Pluto TV has 43 million monthly active users globally, and 30.1 million domestically. ViacomCBS CEO made the announcement ahead of today’s Paramount Plus event as part of its fourth quarter earnings. The last time CEO Bob Bakish previously reported subscriber numbers in November, noting that CBS All Access and Showtime had a combined subscriber base of 17.9 million subscribers domestically, up 73 percent year over year.Comparatively, some... Continue reading…

Singularly focused but cool under pressure Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tubi, the free streaming service run by Fox Entertainment, has struck a deal with Toei Animation to bring some of the studio’s work to the platform. The deal includes six One Piece TV specials that will come to the streaming service as well as episodes from anime shows including One Piece, Slam Dunk, and Dr. Slump.Dr. Slump is an anime adaptation of a manga done by Akira Toriyama, the creator of Dragon Ball (which the show sometimes crosses over with). According to the press release, the version on Tubi will be the first time the show has been available to stream in the US with English subtitles. Looking up the show online shows how hard it’s been to access, with fans talking about a not-well-done DVD release. Having it available to... Continue reading…

AMD’s Radeon RX 6800 XT GPU | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge AMD has announced a new hardware event for next month, where the company plans to unveil the next GPU in its Radeon RX 6000 line of cards. The presentation will air on March 3rd at 8AM PT / 11AM ET.Like other GPUs in the RX 6000 series, this new model will use the RDNA 2 architecture, including real-time, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and variable rate shading. AMD’s announcement of a new GPU presentation comes just one day before sales kick off for Nvidia’s affordable RTX 3060 GPU at select retailers.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Woot is offering the best sale price we’ve seen yet on the Beats Solo Pro noise-canceling headphones. Normally $300, the light blue and dark blue color options are $150 new. These headphones come with a one-year manufacturer warranty directly through Apple. The lowest price we’ve seen previously is around the $170 mark, depending on the color you’re interested in. The Solo Pro headphones are compatible with Android and iOS, but they shine brighter on iPhone, since they have the H1 wireless chip and “Hey Siri” hands-free controls. The downside for Android owners used to USB-C is that they recharge through a Lightning connector.If you’re looking to cover all of your audio needs, Ultimate Ears’ huge Hyperboom Bluetooth speaker is $59 off... Continue reading…

Image: BioWare After putting a pin in short-term updates and expansions to focus on a “longer-term redesign” of the game, EA announced today that it will be canceling its planned revamp of the game Anthem, called Anthem Next. But the company plans to keep Anthem’s live service running “as it exists today.”“In the spirit of transparency and closure we wanted to share that we’ve made the difficult decision to stop our new development work on Anthem (aka Anthem NEXT),” BioWare executive producer Christian Dailey said in a recent blog post. “We will, however, continue to keep the Anthem live service running as it exists today.”BioWare does have other projects in the works, including Dragon Age 4. According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, the small team... Continue reading…

An unprecedented winter storm swept across Texas and left many of its residents without power and water for multiple days in Houston, Texas in February, 2021. Many residents are still unable to drink their water until a plumber can address the cracks in their pipes, which were caused by freezing temperatures. | Photo by Callaghan OHare for The Washington Post via Getty Images Unlike millions of Texans who received boil water notices from utility companies, families who rely on private wells have been left to figure out for themselves whether their water is safe to drink in the wake of last week’s deep freeze.“There’s no warning put out there.”“There’s no warning put out there in the press for what these homeowners who have their own water supply, what they should be doing in these scenarios to protect themselves and their family,” says Jackie Young-Medcalf, executive director of the nonprofit Texas Health and Environment Alliance.Bacteria and contaminants can find their way into cracks in pipes that burst after freezing. As a result, millions of people on public water systems were told by utilities to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Lyft is admitting that some part of traditional taxi services are worth emulating today by letting people in select Florida cities book Lyft rides with just a phone call. The new “Call A Lyft” feature should be “perfect for seniors and folks without access to the Lyft app,” says Lyft.Calling 631-201-LYFT (631-201-5938) between 8AM-8PM ET on Monday through Friday will let a potential rider book a ride. Lyft says that it will tell riders the full price before confirming and send texts to track the ride once it’s paid for and booked. It should be familiar to anyone who’s ever called a cab, though Lyft notes drivers are not expected to offer assistance getting into a car and wheelchair accessible rides aren’t available at launch. Call A... Continue reading…

Disney Plus is getting a ton of new shows in the next few months, with Disney releasing the schedule of premiere dates for new original shows for March through July.Along with shows like The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, which has already been announced for March 19th, the new list also gives concrete release dates for notable series including The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers on March 26th; Star Wars: The Bad Batch on May 4th (also known as “Star Wars Day”); High School Musical: The Musical: The Series season 2 on May 14th; Loki (which had been originally slated for May) on June 11th; and the Monster’s Inc. spinoff Monsters at Work on July 2nd.The list doesn’t include a few major shows that have been announced for 2021, though,... Continue reading…

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Health care company One Medical gave COVID-19 vaccines to people who were ineligible under local guidelines, including friends and family of company leadership, NPR reported. Health departments in Washington state and California said they stopped distributing doses to One Medical after finding out that the company was not sticking to eligibility rules.The company was given vaccine doses in a few states, including Washington and California. Internal messages obtained by NPR show that doctors raised concerns about patients jumping the line for vaccinations ahead of people who where higher priority for the shots. Now, Alameda County, California and the Washington State Department of Health have refused to give the company more doses.In... Continue reading…

Image: iRobot iRobot, maker of the robotic Roomba vacuums, has confirmed to The Verge that a software update has been causing issues for some users of its i7 and s9 robots and that it’s working on another one to prevent future issues. The catch? It might be a bit before things get sorted out, with iRobot expecting the update to roll out “over the next several weeks.”According to users on Reddit and Twitter, the recent 3.12.8 firmware update has been causing navigation issues. One user described their robot cleaner as acting “drunk” after the update: spinning itself around and bumping into furniture, cleaning in strange patterns, getting stuck in an empty area, and not being able to make it home to the dock. What’s more, some other users are... Continue reading…

The next Spider-Man movie starring Tom Holland will be titled Spider-Man: No Way Home. The movie will be out only in theaters on December 17th, 2021.The announcement was revealed on Twitter on Wednesday.

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Facebook said it plans to invest an additional $1 billion in the news industry over the next three years as a sign of commitment to journalism, following the company’s unprecedented showdown with the government of Australia that involved briefly disabling the ability to read and share news for Australian Facebook users and publishers. The announcement was made as part of a blog post from global policy chief Nick Clegg published on Wednesday.“Facebook is more than willing to partner with news publishers. We absolutely recognize quality journalism is at the heart of how open societies function — informing and empowering citizens and holding the powerful to account,” Clegg writes. “That’s why we’ve invested $600 million since 2018 to... Continue reading…

Loki, the Tom Hiddleston-starring series about Asgard’s god of mischief, will land on Disney Plus on June 11th, Marvel Studios announced today.The series was described by Marvel Studios as a “crime thriller” in December during Disney’s big streaming investor day. It follows Loki as he faces off against the Time Variance Authority, otherwise known as as the TVA, following the events of Avengers: Endgame. The first trailer for the series was also released in December, and it saw Loki enter a bunch of different worlds.Marvel Studios is in a position where there are new shows all the time. WandaVision, Marvel Studios’ first big Disney Plus show, is nearing its end. The show has seen an incredible amount of success, trending weekly on... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Hyundai is finally recalling some 76,000 Kona EVs built between 2018 and 2020 after more than a dozen reported fires related to the electric SUV’s battery pack. It’s the second recall of the Kona EV, but the first global recall, and it will cost Hyundai around $900 million to perform.Hyundai is also recalling some Ioniq EVs and electric buses built between November 2017 and March 2020 that use the same LG Chem cells. In total, the automaker is recalling 82,000 vehicles. Hyundai and LG Chem have decided to completely replace the batteries in these vehicles instead of trying to solve the issue through software updates, according to the Financial Times.The recall is starting in South Korea, but Hyundai Motor North America told The Verge i... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by William Joel | Video by Daniel Valls The cyberpunk dystopia is here! (If you weren’t aware: I’m sorry. You’re living in a cyberpunk dystopia.) The latest sign — aside from corporations controlling many aspects of everyday life, massive widespread wealth inequality, and the recent prominence of bisexual lighting — comes in the form of robot dogs deployed to do jobs human police used to. Yesterday, as the New York Post reports, the NYPD deployed Boston Dynamics’ robot “dog” Spot to a home invasion crime scene in the Bronx.The video was taken by videographer Daniel Valls, of FreedomNews.tv. You can hear a voice say “that thing is creepy” as the robot prances past the camera. The Post reports that a spokesperson for the NYPD said the robot is in a test phase, presumably to... Continue reading…

Joby Aviation, the electric aviation company based in Northern California, is the latest futuristic mobility company to go public via a reverse merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. To celebrate, the company is releasing the first footage of its electric aircraft in flight.Joby, which is backed by Toyota and recently acquired Uber’s flying taxi division, is merging with Reinvent Technology Partners, a “blank check” company run by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Zynga founder Mark Pincus. The new company, which will have a post-money valuation of $6.6 billion, will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.As part of the deal, Joby will get $1.6 billion in cash, $690 million of which will come from Reinvent’s... Continue reading…

The other day, I saw a game named Valheim atop the Steam Early Access sales charts, with overwhelmingly positive reviews. Polygon seemed to like the $20 Viking-themed survival game, and I thought friends might like it, too. I wasn’t ready to commit quite yet — I waffled a while before giving it a go. Know who bought it while I was making up my mind? One million other people.On February 10th, just eight days after launch, indie developer Iron Gate announced that Valheim had already sold 1 million copies. Five days after that, Valheim reached 2 million sales. On Friday February 19th, two days after we originally published this post, it hit 3 million sales. We're now at 4 million as of February 24th.Here are a few other facts you might... Continue reading…

This lens-shaped webcam has some tricks up its sleeve, but at a high cost Continue reading…

Johnson & Johnson vaccine vials at the Klerksdorp Hospital in South Africa. | Photo by Phill Magakoe / AFP via Getty Images The one-dose COVID-19 vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson protects against severe disease and has no serious safety concerns, according to a new analysis published today by the US Food and Drug Administration. The report takes the vaccine one step closer to authorization by the agency, meaning the United States could have a third shot available in a matter of days.The FDA has spent the last three weeks reviewing data submitted by Johnson & Johnson. The company ran its clinical trial in the United States, South Africa, and Latin America. The vaccine was over 80 percent effective at preventing severe cases of COVID-19 in both South Africa and the United States. No one who was 28 days out from their dose of the vaccine was hospitalized with... Continue reading…

Image: Aspyr Media Star Wars: Republic Commando, the mid-2000s cult classic tactical first-person shooter, will get a new life on modern consoles when an HD remaster releases on April 6th for PS4 and Switch for $14.99.Aspyr Media is handling the new version. The studio previously released a remaster for Star Wars Episode 1: Racer for the PS4 and Switch and is also working on a remaster of Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse, which is set to launch on March 16th.Star Wars: Republic Commando was originally released on the Xbox and PC in early 2005 and was developed and published by Lucasfilm Games, then known as LucasArts. Set during the Clone Wars, players assume the role of a squad leader consisting of four elite clone troopers as the squad... Continue reading…

When Diablo II launched in 2000, it was praised for its grittiness, injecting a sense of realism into an otherwise dark, fantastical realm. With Diablo III, things went in a more expressive direction, with a style that art director John Mueller describes as “painterly.” Now, with the upcoming Diablo IV, Mueller says the goal is to blend those two approaches. “With technology the way it is now,” he tells The Verge, “we can have the best of both worlds.”One of the challenges with a game like this is creating a world that feels dark and foreboding, yet also one that players want to spend hours and hours exploring. Diablo games are the kind that players typically lose themselves in, scouring dungeons for the best loot and teaming up with... Continue reading…