The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla is building a factory in Texas to make some of its cars, but when it’s up and running, the cars made there may have to go on a roundabout journey to get to Texan buyers (via The Drive). Because of state laws banning car companies from selling directly to consumers, Tesla could end up shipping the cars from its Austin factory to other states, before they’re sent back to their Texan buyers. The state’s lawmakers were debating legislation that would have prevented the situation, but they’ve now missed their chance to pass it before they have to go on break until 2023 — the factory is expected to be completed by the end of 2021.Laws preventing automakers from selling their vehicles directly to consumers aren’t unique to Texas, nor are... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Unredacted documents in Arizona’s lawsuit against Google show that company executives and engineers were aware that the search giant had made it hard for smartphone users to keep location information private, Insider reported.The documents suggest that Google collected location data even after users had turned off location sharing, and made privacy settings difficult for users to find. Insider also reports that the documents show Google pressured phone manufacturers into keeping privacy settings hidden, because the settings were popular with users.Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit against Google last May, alleging the company illegally tracked Android users’ location without their consent, even if users had... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Unredacted documents in Arizona’s lawsuit against Google show that company executives and engineers were aware that the search giant had made it hard for smartphone users to keep location information private, Insider reported.The documents suggest that Google collected location data even after users had turned off location sharing, and made privacy settings difficult for users to find. Insider also reports that the documents show Google pressured phone manufacturers into keeping privacy settings hidden, because the settings were popular with users.Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit against Google last May, alleging the company illegally tracked Android users’ location without their consent, even if users had... Continue reading…

NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover captured these clouds just after sunset on March 19th, the 3,063rd Martian day, or sol, of the rover’s mission. The image is made up of 21 individual images stitched together and color corrected so that the scene appears as it would to the human eye. | NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured images of clouds on Mars— as described in its blog post: “wispy puffs filled with ice crystals that scattered light from the setting sun, some of them shimmering with color.”According to NASA clouds are rare in the thin atmosphere of Mars, but usually form at its equator during its coldest time of year. Scientists noticed that last year — two years ago in Earth time— there were clouds beginning to form earlier than expected, so this year they were ready. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS A gif of clouds drifting above Mount Sharp on Mars, taken by NASA’s Curiosity rover on March 19th. The images are not only stunning, they’ve provided new insights to the Curiosity team at NASA. The... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge US soldiers stationed in Europe may have accidentally exposed information about the United States’ nuclear weapons stockpile when they used flashcard apps to help them remember details about the information, according to a report from open-source intelligence outlet Bellingcat.Foeke Postma, a researcher with Bellingcat, wrote that the soldiers used study apps such as Chegg, Cram, and Quizlet to create flashcards where they stored information about bases in Europe where US nuclear weapons were likely located, secret codes, passwords, and other details about security. It appears that they forgot to set the settings for the apps to “private,” so that their usernames and photos were public-facing, and since some of the soldiers used the... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Fitbit may soon add snoring and noise detection to its devices, a move that will likely please the spouses and partners of the snoring population and be of interest to people for whom snoring is a sign of a possible health condition.According to a report in 9to5 Google, which decompiled the latest version of the Fitbit app in Google’s Play Store, the feature allows a Fitbit’s microphone (in devices that have one) to listen to “ambient noise including your potential snoring,” after you’ve fallen asleep. Not only would the feature be a major drain on the device’s battery, the idea of a sleep tracker monitoring noise “throughout the night,” as the release notes state, is a little creepy.The 9to5 Google report says the feature is called... Continue reading…

Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images Our COVID-19 vaccines have passed their first tests with flying colors. They work unbelievably well, and they’re helping to slow the spread of disease in countries where they’re widely available. Now, scientists are turning to the next key question: how long will they work that well?In people who were sick with COVID-19 and then got vaccinated, new research shows that they probably work for years. That group has powerful memory cells in their bone marrow that produce new antibodies when they’re needed. And they work so well that they can even block variants of the virus, studies show. These people may not even need vaccine boosters to stay protected long term.Protection may be different for people who got vaccinated but never had... Continue reading…

If you have an iPhone, you owe it to yourself to get accessories that allow for fast charging. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Memorial Day is Monday, May 31st, but many of the best deals in commemoration of the holiday are already live ahead of the weekend. We’ll always give you the most essential deals you need to know about in this column. But if you’re hungry for more (like, way more), my colleague Brandon Widder compiled the best Memorial Day deals on video games, headphones, TVs, and other odds and ends you might find interesting.Here are a few of the highlights.Load up on fast charging accessories for your iPhoneIf you own an iPhone 8 or a more recent iPhone model, it supports fast charging. But to obtain fast charging speeds, you’ll need the right hardware. Conveniently, we’ve worked with Daily Steals to secure a deal on a bundle that includes... Continue reading…

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Saturday that deliveries of the automaker’s Model S Plaid would be delayed until June 10th because the car needs “one more week of tweak.”“This car feels like a spaceship,” tweeted Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX. “Words cannot describe the limbic resonance.”The company has been teasing the Plaid since 2019, and Musk tweeted on May 20th that Tesla would hold a delivery event June 3rd at its factory in Fremont, California.

Image: Venmo Venmo has added new privacy controls for friend lists following a jaw-dropping incident where BuzzFeed News was able to track down President Joe Biden’s Venmo account because of the app’s leaky privacy protocols. App researcher Jane Manchun Wong discovered earlier on Friday that Venmo was working on the new controls.“We’re consistently evolving and strengthening the Venmo platform for all of our customers. As part of these ongoing efforts, we are enhancing our in-app controls providing customers an option to select a public, friends-only, or private setting for their friends list,” a Venmo spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge.To find the new controls, tap the hamburger icon while on the main feed, then tap “Settings,”... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple is delaying the launch of its upcoming Podcasts subscriptions until June, the company announced in an email sent to creators Friday (via 9to5Mac). The service was previously set to launch this month.Apple’s Podcasts subscriptions will allow people to subscribe to participating podcasts to get extra perks like ad-free listening or early access to episodes. In April, Apple said the subscriptions would launch in 170 countries, and that initial partners include Pushkin Industries and NPR.The shifted launch comes as some creators using Apple Podcasts have recently run into some issues, such as being unable to log in to Apple’s Podcast Connect portal or seeing a delay in the availability of new episodes. In its email sent Friday, Apple... Continue reading…

Photo by: Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images You have reached a significant moment, perhaps not in history, or even in the grand scheme of your life’s long arc toward love and fulfillment, but a significant moment nonetheless. Do I need to spell it out for you? It’s 5PM. On a Friday. Heading into a long weekend.

Illustration by Alex Castro Twitter could be adding some new emojis to augment its formerly star-shaped, currently heart-shaped Like button, according to app researcher Jane Manchun Wong. The assets Wong found — which have been reliable predictions of future features in the past — show “cheer,” “hmm,” “sad,” and “haha” emoji reactions, though some currently only have a placeholder emoji.Facebook has had a similar set of reactions since 2016. But Wong’s leak shows that Twitter could be taking a slightly different path when it comes to which moods it wants users to express: while it has laughing and sad expressions in common with Facebook, Twitter may also include a makes-you-think and cheer option. Twitter doesn’t seem to have the “angry” expression that Facebook... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Earlier this month, Facebook-owned WhatsApp said that users would lose functionality over time if they didn’t accept its new privacy policy by May 15th. In a reversal, Facebook now says that plan has changed, and users who don’t accept the updated policy actually won’t see limited functionality (via TNW).“Given recent discussions with various authorities and privacy experts, we want to make clear that we will not limit the functionality of how WhatsApp works for those who have not yet accepted the update,” a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. WhatsApp tells The Verge that this is the plan moving forward indefinitely.The new policy has been a source of controversy for monthsThe rollout of the policy has been a... Continue reading…

Image: West Midlands Police Police in the United Kingdom raided an industrial unit outside Birmingham under suspicion it was housing an indoor marijuana growing operation, CNBC reported. They were surprised to discover instead an extensive Bitcoin mining setup which was illegally siphoning electricity from a mains supply.Prior to the raid, police observed multiple people going in and out of the building throughout the day, and spotted extensive ventilation and wiring. They also claim a drone was able to detect high amounts of heat coming off the building. Because indoor cannabis farms use systems of grow lights, heating, and ventilation to cultivate plants where they might not usually flourish, police believed they were looking at “classic signs” of a clandestine... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter relaunched its verification program last week, allowing anyone to apply for a blue check mark, but the company is pausing accepting new applications because of the volume of applications it has already received.“We’re rolling in verification requests,” the company said in a tweet. “So we gotta hit pause on accepting any more for now while we review the ones that have been submitted. We’ll reopen requests soon! (we pinky swear)”When it officially opened the program for applications on May 20th, the company cautioned that the timeline for requests could stretch out. “Once you submit your application, you can expect an emailed response from us within a few days, but this could take up to a few weeks depending on how many open... Continue reading…

Photo by Nhat V. Meyer/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images The lawyers of Elizabeth Holmes, ex-CEO of disgraced blood testing startup Theranos, have 112 questions for prospective jurors at Holmes’ fraud trial — including how often they check social media and whether they subscribe to Netflix.As The Wall Street Journal reported, Holmes’ attorneys have just filed a proposed jury questionnaire for her upcoming fraud trial. The extremely detailed 45-page document outlines every possible way Holmes fears a jury could be biased, and part of that apparently involves gauging exactly how online each juror is. Among other questions, jurors are asked:

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge The Verge is deeply invested in doing service journalism; we report on companies’ misdeeds, we review expensive products to tell you whether they’re worth your hard-earned money, and speak to industry leaders to get their insights on the issues affecting their companies and their customers.It is in that vein that we brainstormed some ideas for social media theme parks in Florida.See, the Sunshine State passed a law this week that blocks social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter from “knowingly” deplatforming politicians and even algorithmically ranking content, with fine ranging from $25,000 to $250,000 per day (The law, which is a mish-mash of broad speech regulations, has already been challenged in court by the tech... Continue reading…

In this photo illustration, screens display the old and new logos of MGM Studios. | Photo by Ozge Elif Kizil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images Amazon just dumped an $8 billion-plus chunk of change on MGM, a studio best known for James Bond and its logo of a roaring lion. The acquisition offers an opportunity for Amazon to spin the spy films into a big perk for its streaming services. But it’s hard to believe that dropping billions for the studio’s content library is actually going to prop up Amazon’s streaming services — at least on its own.Amazon already has a fully functioning studio arm that produces content for its Prime Video service. While it’s got a few hits here and there — Jack Ryan immediately comes to mind — Amazon has, for the most part, struggled to reach the Stranger Things-level of viewer enthusiasm that its rivals often enjoy. The company also owns IMDb TV, a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch has received a “batch” of new takedown notices from music publishers over copyrighted songs in recorded streams (known as VODs), the company said in an email to streamers today. The notice may be worrying for some streamers who were affected by the waves of takedowns that hit last year, because if a user gets three copyright strikes on their channel, they will be permanently banned from the platform, according to Twitch’s policies. With this advance warning, it seems Twitch is trying to get ahead of a sudden flurry of takedowns and give streamers some time to remove potentially offending VODs.“We recently received a batch of DMCA takedown notifications with about 1,000 individual claims from music publishers,” Twitch said in an... Continue reading…

Our favorite smartwatch, the Apple Watch Series 6, is $70 off at multiple retailers this weekend. | Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Memorial Day weekend has officially arrived. Numerous retailers, including GameStop and Walmart, have already kicked off their Memorial Day sales online, offering customers a chance to save on a variety of electronics ahead of the three-day weekend. The holiday remains a great way to save on mattresses and camping equipment — it’s the unofficial start to summer, after all — but if you’re a gamer or prefer electronics over home goods, there are plenty of bargains to be had on headphones, TVs, and games throughout the long weekend.We’ve seen discounts on many of these items before, sure, but if you’re still looking for a good deal, it’s hard to go wrong with the highlights below. Also, with Amazon Prime Day now reportedly set for June... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge New patent applications submitted by Tesla in 2020 but published Thursday have revealed a bit more information about the Cybertruck, which is currently slated to start shipping at the very end of this year or in early 2022. One includes (in rather grainy detail) a bunch of screenshots of the new UI Tesla has been working on. Another details how the company plans to integrate solar panel tech onto the retracting tonneau cover for the truck bed — something CEO Elon Musk said might be an option. And there even appears to be an application for what could be Tesla’s so-called “armor glass,” which memorably failed during an onstage demo in 2019.We’ve seen glimpses of Tesla’s new user interface before, at the Cybertruck reveal event and when... Continue reading…

Uniqua, Pablo, Tasha, Tyrone, and Austin, The Backyardigans | Amazon When you are a parent, you quickly learn that your kids will inevitably get into shows or videos or learn songs that slowly chip away at your sanity because you will hear them over and over and over. Anyone who knows what “Baby Shark” is will know exactly the kind of hellscape I’m talking about.But once in a while, a kids’ show comes into your family’s life and you miss it when your kid ages out of it — like Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood or Sesame Street. For our family, that show was The Backyardigans; my now-teenager voraciously watched episodes of the show that ran on Nickelodeon from 2004 to 2013 (we watched the DVDs), and would actually get up and dance when the music started. We looked forward to new episodes about the hijinks of... Continue reading…

NASA/JPL NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter ended its sixth flight test on Mars earlier than planned last week after bugging out mid-flight, the rotorcraft’s chief pilot wrote in a blog post on Thursday. The four-pound mini helicopter was aiming to fly farther than any of its previous excursions to test out its scientific reconnaissance capabilities, as the latest trial in an extended test campaign to demonstrate a new mode of transportation on another world.Last Saturday, Ingenuity powered up and rose 33 feet from the Martian surface to travel a distance of roughly two football fields along a preprogramed flight path, all the while snapping photos of a “region of interest” on Mars during flight. As it buzzed along at about nine miles per hour toward... Continue reading…

Burlington, Vermont, Church Street downtown with restaurants and tourists | Photo by: Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Burlington, Vermont has been running on renewable electricity since 2014 Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple’s AirPods Pro cleverly solve one of the trickiest parts of earbud design with a unique button — even if it’s not technically a button at all.Officially referred to as the “force sensor” (a title that makes the button sound far more interesting than it actually is), it’s technically nothing more than an indented portion of the AirPods Pro’s stems, with some fancy hardware that measures not just capacitive touch but also pressure. But the faux-buttons solve one of the most annoying things about earbuds: how to control them.A smart solution for a more recent problemThe issue of controlling truly wireless earbuds is a relatively new one. Older in-ear headphones often included a row of buttons on their wires, which allowed for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As the COVID-19 pandemic scales down in the United States, debates around the origins of the virus — and speculations that it came from a lab in China, not an animal — rumbled back to life. And they’re diverting attention to the wrong places. Focusing on where the virus came from is a distraction from the rest of the urgent work governments and health agencies around the world need to do in order to end this pandemic and prepare for the next one. We don’t need a consensus on the origins of COVID-19 in order to take steps to strengthen global public health.That doesn’t mean finding out where the coronavirus came from isn’t important. It’s one of the pieces of information that could give us tools to prevent a similar situation from... Continue reading…

Mistakes were made | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Come make bad decisions with us Continue reading…

The Base Station Pro can recharge up to three devices simultaneously. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Memorial Day is Monday, May 31st, but many of the best deals are already kicking off. Stay tuned for an upcoming post that’ll show you everything that’s worth checking out on sale, whether you’re interesting in headphones, TVs, video games, or something else. Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that Amazon Prime Day appears to be coming soon, according to Bloomberg. This hasn’t been confirmed yet by Amazon, but if you’re a Prime member, maybe go ahead and mark June 21st and June 22nd in your calendar. Until then, we’ve got some great deals highlighted below.Nomad’s Base Station Pro is half offFor those still looking to fill the Apple AirPower-shaped hole in their hearts, Nomad’s Base Station Pro is a wireless charging pad that makes for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has raised the alarm over a “sophisticated” ongoing cyberattack believed to be from the same Russia-linked hackers behind the SolarWinds hack. In a blog post, Tom Burt, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for customer security and trust, said the attack appears to be targeting government agencies, think tanks, consultants, and NGOs. In total, around 3,000 email accounts are believed to have been targeted across 150 organizations. Victims are spread across upward of 24 countries, but the majority are believed to be in the US.According to Microsoft, hackers from a threat actor called Nobelium were able to compromise the US Agency for International Development’s account on a marketing service called Constant Contact, allowing... Continue reading…

The current AirPods Pro from 2019. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple’s second-generation AirPods Pro will launch next year, following the release of an updated pair of standard AirPods this year, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The new AirPods Pro will reportedly feature upgraded motion sensors to allow for fitness tracking, while the entry-level AirPods will have an updated design similar to the Pro models along with a shorter stem.In a previous report from last year Bloomberg said that the upcoming AirPods Pro could ditch the stem entirely in favor of a more compact design similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Plus or Google’s Pixel Buds. However, at the time Bloomberg noted that design challenges meant these plans could change. Its latest report says Apple has “tested” this design, which... Continue reading…

A built in Micro HDMI port lets the tablet work as an external monitor. | Image: Lenovo Lenovo’s Yoga Pad Pro is a new 13-inch Android tablet that can easily double as an external monitor, Gizmochina reports. It will be available to buy in China for 3,299 yuan (around $517) on May 31st.It’s not tricky to get most tablets on the market to work as a second monitor, but for the most part you’re limited to using them with specific devices. Apple’s iPads can be used as external monitors thanks to their built-in Sidecar feature, for example, but this only works if you’re using them with a Mac. But the Yoga Pad Pro has a full-on Micro HDMI port built into its grip, meaning you can plug basically any HDMI device into it and use the Yoga Pad Pro as a 13-inch monitor. And yes, that absolutely includes a Nintendo Switch. ... Continue reading…

Here’s something you don’t see every day: a brand-new Sony product launching first on Indiegogo. Motion Sonic is, in the words of Sony’s campaign, “effects gear to control sound in sync with your motion for playing music.”The Motion Sonic device itself is a small capsule that can slot into differently shaped rubber wristbands, sort of like a Fitbit. There’s a band that attaches to your wrist for use cases like playing guitar, and another wraps around the back of your hand and is better suited to playing keys.What it actually does is allow you to link hand motions to specific musical effects. For example, you could set it to add a delay effect when you move fingers from left to right, or to bend pitch as you roll your wrist. These... Continue reading…

Photo by Amy Sussman/FilmMagic Merle Dandridge, an actor who’s had a long career in television and theater, will be reprising her role of Marlene in HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation, according to Variety and Deadline. Dandridge’s casting is particularly notable because actors in video games are rarely presented with the opportunity to play their characters in live action outside of the motion capture stage.Marlene is integral to how lead characters Joel and Ellie join together and head off on their zombie road trip in the first place. It’s unknown how much of the game’s story will carry over to the television adaptation, but Dandridge’s situation is unique. Both Troy Baker’s Joel and Ashley Johnson’s Ellie were recast for executive producer and writer Craig Mazin’s... Continue reading…

In 2018, we marveled over the Spyra One, an attempt to crowdfund a modern Super Soaker that could blast veritable bolts of water; refill itself from a pool; and maintain a digital ammo gauge of your shots, thanks to a heap of electronics, a self-pressurizing tank, and a battery you recharge via a standard USB-C port. The big catch: you had to be willing to risk north of $133 on an unproven Kickstarter that wound up shipping a year behind schedule.Spyra TwoBut not only did Spyra eventually manage to ship those blasters (11,000 of them, according to the company) it’s now got a new version coming next month that sounds like a huge improvement in practically every way. The new Spyra Two fires faster, further, has twice the battery life,... Continue reading…

Tesla is starting to use the camera above the rear-view mirror in the Model 3 and Model Y to help make sure people pay attention to the road while using Autopilot, the company’s advanced driver assistance system.Until now, the main way Tesla’s cars measure driver attention is through torque sensors in the steering wheel that look for resistance — a crude way of ensuring drivers keep their hands on the wheel. If it doesn’t register enough feedback, the car performs a series of escalating visual and audible warnings.The change comes after regulators and safety experts spent years begging Tesla to add better driver monitoring to its cars. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has even admitted that crashes involving Autopilot stem from complacency. But... Continue reading…

Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage Marvel has confirmed that Oscar Isaac will star in the Disney Plus Moon Knight series, bringing the Star Wars star to another highly lucrative side of the Disney empire. Moon Knight is one of several Marvel characters who seem to be inspired by DC Comics’ Batman, and is certainly more of an obscure character to adapt, but as the company pivots into the next phase of movies and now shows, weirdness is on the menu.Moon Knight, or Marc Spector, is a mercenary possessed by an ancient Egyptian moon god named Khonshu. That possession is what gives him his superpowers but also multiple conflicting personalities, including a taxi driver, wealthy playboy, and masked vigilante. Marvel and Isaac’s announcement — “WE ARE MOONKNIGHT” — seems to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Four women who used to work for Google have won class-action status for their gender equity lawsuit against the search engine company, allowing them to represent some 10,800 women, Bloomberg reports.The lawsuit alleges that Google pays men more than women for the same work, in violation of California’s Equal Pay Act, and that Google paid its female employees nearly $17,000 less per year than male counterparts in the same roles. The women filed the suit in 2017, claiming they were put into lower career tracks than their male colleagues— so-called “job ladders” that resulted in them receiving lower bonuses and salaries. The women have since left Google.“This is a significant day for women at Google and in the technology sector, and we... Continue reading…

US wireless carriers plan to shutter their old 3G networks next year. Major US wireless carriers are gearing up to shut down their old 3G networks — a process that has been fraught with delays and miscommunication as companies alert customers with older phones that it’s time to upgrade. To that end, Verizon and AT&T have published guides to which devices will stop working after their 3G networks go offline next year. Here’s what you need to know.Verizon has delayed its CDMA 3G network shutdown several times but is now firmly committed to shutting the network down by December 31st, 2022. All 3G basic phones and smartphones will lose service, but some 4G devices will be impacted as well — namely, those that don’t support VoLTE (Voice over LTE). A few connected devices are affected, too; take a look at V... Continue reading…

You don’t need a PS5 for this trick. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The DualSense controller for PS5 has great haptic feedback for games like Returnal and Demon’s Souls. But today I found out that it’s also good at humming along to tunes on Spotify when plugged into a PC.While browsing Reddit, I stumbled across an ancient thread from six months ago where a user explained that, by plugging in a DualSense and tweaking a few settings, the device’s built-in haptics motors will do their best to play your music from the Spotify app on Windows 10. If you press your ear to the controller, it’s like listening into the world’s smallest rave ever, perhaps with a few Astro Bots in attendance.I assume you just ran to go get your controller to try this out — because that’s the same reaction that I had. Okay, but... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony showed off 14 minutes of Horizon Forbidden West gameplay on a PS5 in a new State of Play presentation on Thursday. In the footage, protagonist Aloy fought against some giant animal-like machines and some human enemies on a beautiful post-apocalyptic beach settlement.The presentation revealed that Aloy has some new tools to get around in Forbidden West, like a diving mask to let her dive underwater and a Breath of the Wild-like hang glider. And much like in the first game, it looks like you’ll still be slinging a lot of arrows against your enemies, both human and machine. Image: Sony Aloy and Erend in Horizon Forbidden West. Horizon Forbidden West, a sequel to the hugely successful Horizon Zero Dawn, is... Continue reading…

Photo by Janie Osborne/Getty Images A company looking to build a massive solar project in Butte, Montana claims it would provide 300MW of renewable power and cost $250 million, Gizmodo reported. That’s according to Madison River Equity LLC, whose parent company also manages cryptomining outfit Atlas Power. As Gizmodo reports, Madison would build the solar array, then sell it to Atlas, which hopes to use it to power its cryptocurrency mining operations. If the solar farm, dubbed the Basin Creek Solar Project, is actually built, it could be one of the largest in the US, but it raises questions about the impact of such projects, and about crypto’s impact on energy.While the project would theoretically allow Atlas’ mining and other data center operations to run on renewable... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Two tech industry organizations have sued Florida over its newly passed rules for social networks. NetChoice and the CCIA — which represent Amazon, Google, Intel, Samsung, Facebook, and other tech giants — say SB 7072 violates private companies’ constitutional rights. They’re asking a court to prevent the law from taking effect, calling it a “frontal assault on the First Amendment.”SB 7072, which Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed earlier this week, restricts how large social apps and websites can moderate user-generated content. It makes banning any Florida political candidate or “journalistic enterprise” unlawful, lets users sue if they believe they were banned without sufficient reason, requires an option to “opt out” of sorting... Continue reading…

After three years of production, Ian Hubert, king of the one-minute Blender tutorial, has uploaded the first episode of his sci-fi series, Dynamo Dream. And it’s been worth the wait. The series is a mix of live-action and CGI that follows a salad merchant on a seemingly normal day through the dense streets of the Sunset District, a futuristic metropolis filled with fax machine drones, giant mutant crabs blocking traffic, and flying assassin bots.The episode is visually stunning and seems to be endlessly filled with details. Every frame can be paused and observed, each containing hints to an expansive world that stretches beyond the camera’s frame. The world is convincing and surprisingly charming.While bearing resemblance to other... Continue reading…

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Acer just announced a new iteration of its Chromebook Spin 713 2-in-1 laptop, and we’ve already reviewed it. Perhaps by coincidence (or not), the previous model has received a big price cut at Best Buy. You can get the starting model for $329, and it offers much more than many other Chromebooks in this price range. My colleague Monica Chin currently rates this 2020 Spin 713 as the best Chromebook that you can buy. Check out their buying guide to see how it stacks up to the competition.The Spin 713 has a 13.5-inch 2K (2256 x 1504) 3:2 aspect ratio display that can show more content at once than comparatively squished 16:9 screens. Its battery life and build quality are great, and its 10th Gen Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB... Continue reading…

Instacart In the crowded food- and grocery-delivery space, Instacart is hoping that shaving off a few minutes makes all the difference. To that end, it’s creating a new “priority delivery” option that debuts today in select markets and promises to have orders fulfilled in “as fast as 30 minutes.”While 45- and 60-minute deliveries are already available to many Instacart customers, “priority delivery” is, according to the company, debuting in more than 15 cities (though it only names six: Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, San Diego, San Francisco, and Seattle). It’s intended use case is for quick errands, rather than the bulk, groceries-for-the-week function Instacart tends to thrive on. With that in mind, even in participating stores, the 30-minute... Continue reading…

You played us all, Charlie | Image: HDCYT on YouTube It’s hard to describe the absolute chaos around NFTs (non-fungible tokens) right now; tech reporters’ inboxes are flooded with the latest and stupidest additions to this trend of digital certificates for memes and other pieces of digital memorabilia. Disaster Girl sold for around $500,000, Keyboard Cat went for about $64,400, and Nyan Cat brought in around $590,000. But most NFTs aren’t all that noteworthy, and we can’t possibly write about every single one (despite this sentence, my inbox will now be flooded with NFT pitches for the next two months). But despite our attempts to be judicious and write about newsworthy topics, we can’t win them all.We wrote about the Charlie Bit Me NFT auction because it had a twist the others did... Continue reading…

What appears to be an official photo of the Sony WF-1000XM4s. | Image: WinFuture We heard earlier this month that Sony may be planning to launch its next noise-canceling true wireless earbuds, the WF-1000XM4s, as early as June, and thanks to new leaks published by WinFuture, we might now know almost all of the specs for the upcoming buds.Like the very good previous-gen WF-1000XM3s, the new WF-1000XM4s will offer active noise cancelation (ANC), but thanks to a new “Sony V1” processor, ANC performance will be improved, WinFuture reports. The headphones will also support Sony’s LDAC codec, which lets you listen to high-quality audio over Bluetooth, WinFuture says.And it sounds like the new 1000XM4s will have a very good battery life, like the 1000XM3s. WinFuture says you’ll be able to get eight hours of battery on a... Continue reading…

Image: Kellog’s Kellogg’s — legal guardian of such cereal mascots as Tony the Tiger and Toucan Sam — has partnered with DoorDash-owned Chowbotics to launch a new cereal-mixing robot at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Florida State University (via Gizmodo). The Kellogg’s Bowl Bot offers a vending machine-type experience for one of the simplest breakfast foods, and charges anywhere from $2.99 to $6.50 for the privilege.The Bowl Bot could be best thought of as an extension of Chowbotics’ earlier “Sally” fresh food and salad robot. You interact with it via a touchscreen to select through your dairy bases (milk or yogurt), combinations of cereals and granolas, and toppings like fresh fruit or cocoa nibs. Kellogg’s also offers custom pre-designed... Continue reading…

A truck drives down the street during a power outage in McKinney, Texas, U.S., on Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021. Blackouts left almost 5 million customers without electricity that day, while refineries and oil wells were shut during unprecedented freezing weather. | Cooper Neill/Bloomberg via Getty Images Hundreds more people died in Texas during the February deep freeze and blackouts than the state’s official count shows, according to an investigation by BuzzFeed News. The outages left millions of people without power as indoor temperatures dropped to deadly lows.The way authorities typically count death tolls from disasters tends to drastically low-ball the actual lossesTexas has so far acknowledged 151 winter storm-related deaths. BuzzFeed News, on the other hand, found that an estimated 700 people lost their lives from the combined catastrophes of the storm and power outages. The news outlet conducted a thorough analysis of data that showed how many more people died around that time than would normally be expected. It’s the most... Continue reading…