The Verge

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Rad Power Bikes just announced a $150 million investment to expand its retail footprint and improve its maintenance and repair services. It’s one of the largest investments in an e-bike company to date and reflects the growing demand for electric-powered transportation.Investors in this round include Morgan Stanley’s mutual fund, Counterpoint Global; Fidelity Management and Research Company; The Rise Fund, the global impact investing platform managed by TPG; and funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, as well as existing investors like Durable Capital Partners LP and Vulcan Capital.“I think overall it’s a really exciting moment for the direct-to-consumer e-bike space and for e-bikes just in general”“I think overall... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge It’s no secret Apple is hard at work on augmented and virtual reality devices, with a report from Bloomberg in January claiming Apple is working on an ultra-high-end, pricey headset that could hit stores in 2022. Now, a new report from The Information sheds new light on what to expect from the potential headset, including a rendering — said to be based on “internal Apple images of a late-stage prototype from last year” — of what the device might actually look like.The Information’s report corroborates several details from Bloomberg’s, including the fabric mesh material that the company is said to be using in order to lighten the weight of the device — and the high price tag. The new report claims the price could reach approximately... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Clearview AI’s facial recognition amounts to mass surveillance and the company should delete the faces of Canadians from its database, Canada’s privacy commissioners said Wednesday.Commissioner Daniel Therrien said what Clearview does — scraping photos from social media and other public sites for use by law enforcement — is “illegal” and creates a system that “inflicts broad-based harm on all members of society, who find themselves continually in a police lineup.”The commissioners released a report that follows a yearlong investigation by several Canadian privacy agencies into Clearview’s practices, which found the company had collected highly sensitive biometric information without consent and that it “used and disclosed Canadians’... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Will people saddle up for the ride? Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge A college student Googled his remote instructor and found an obituary Continue reading…

Microsoft Viva is Microsoft’s new push for helping businesses with remote work and a big bet on this new way of life becoming the norm. It’s designed to act as a portal for both employees and businesses to navigate the complexities of working from home. Microsoft is launching Viva today, with parts of the platform rolling out throughout 2021.“We have participated in the largest, at scale, remote work experiment the world has seen,” says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, underlining nearly 11 months of a pandemic that has reshaped how people work, learn, and live. “As the world recovers, there is no going back. Flexibility in when, where, and how we work will be key.”Microsoft Viva isn’t an app or even a service but more of a platform for... Continue reading…

The concept design for the Sonic-themed set. | Image: Lego Lego is announcing a new video game-themed set featuring Sonic the Hedgehog and characters from Sonic Mania. (If you could have told six-year-old me that someday there would be a Sonic-themed Lego set, he’d cry tears of joy.)You can get a look at a concept design for the set, which is themed around Sonic’s classic Green Hill Zone stage, at the top of this post. I love how ridiculous Sonic looks in Lego form, and Doctor Eggman’s towering Death Egg Robot is just awesome.The concept for the set was submitted to Lego by Viv Grannell, a Sonic fan based in the UK, through the Lego Ideas program. Submissions need to receive 10,000 votes before Lego will consider making them an actual Lego set, so it’s no small feat that Grannell was able to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Myanmar’s government has blocked access to Facebook in the country, after users turned to the company’s services to protest this week’s military coup. In a statement given to The Wall Street Journal, Facebook confirmed that the country’s telecoms providers had been ordered to block its services, adding, “We urge authorities to restore connectivity so that people in Myanmar can communicate with family and friends and access important information.” Myanmar’s government has ordered the services to be blocked until Sunday.The block comes after users reportedly turned to the social network to protest after the military ousted elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and detained her along with other members of her party. The WSJ notes that users on... Continue reading…

How to share a workspace in a studio apartment Continue reading…

Perfection, for a price Continue reading…

A $139.95 wireless charger that looks like a cross between a bonsai tree and the decor from 2001: A Space Odyssey might seem like a niche product. But if you have an iPhone 12 and an Apple Watch, Belkin’s ridiculously named Boost↑Charge Pro 3-in-1 Wireless Charger with MagSafe is actually great.Charging Apple devices has gotten more complicated recently, at least for me. Now that the Apple Watch tracks sleep, I’ve been charging it with a messy cable at my desk for an hour or so when I start the day, instead of overnight. And while I prefer to use vertical wireless chargers so I can read notifications as they come in, the iPhone 12 mini turns out to be too small for most stands — the charging coil isn’t high enough on the back of the... Continue reading…

The third-generation Apple TV was first released in 2012. | Image: Apple Starting next month, YouTube will no longer be natively available to stream on the third-generation Apple TV, first released in 2012. 9to5Mac reports that a message is being displayed to users warning them of the upcoming change. The fourth-gen Apple TV HD and fifth-gen Apple TV 4K, the two streaming boxes Apple currently sells, are unaffected.Here’s the full message being shown to users (via 9to5Mac):

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon’s incoming CEO, Andy Jassy, says he’s committed to Amazon’s video game development efforts, in response to a damning report from Bloomberg last week about the problems facing the team. “Some businesses take off in the first year, and others take many years,” Jassy wrote in a staff email seen by Bloomberg, “Though we haven’t consistently succeeded yet in AGS [Amazon Game Studios], I believe we will if we hang in there.”“Being successful right away is obviously less stressful, but when it takes longer, it’s often sweeter,” Jassy continued. “I believe this team will get there if we stay focused on what matters most.”“Being successful right away is obviously less stressful, but when it takes longer, it’s often sweeter”The message... Continue reading…

The Beosound Level is available with wood or fabric finishes. | Image: Bang & Olufsen Bang & Olufsen’s Beosound Level is the Danish brand’s latest battery-powered connected speaker. It supports voice controls via Google Assistant, Bluetooth, and you can also stream to it via the AirPlay 2, Chromecast, and Spotify Connect standards. B&O says the Beosound Level uses a modular construction that it claims will make it usable far into the future. It’s a welcome feature, considering the speaker’s high $1,499 (£1,099) starting price.While many stereos and amplifiers from the middle of the last century can still be used today, the average lifespan of modern integrated audio systems is far shorter. If your music system contains a computer, then it’s inevitable that it’ll eventually become outdated. B&O’s hope is that the modular... Continue reading…

Not the familiar dark blue. The feeling of opening Twitter and noticing that something’s off probably isn’t a new one, but it usually isn’t related to the site’s color scheme. Yet some users (and Verge staff) are now seeing that Twitter’s desktop dark mode has gotten darker, or worse, been changed to light mode.Twitter tells The Verge that the change from blue to black was intentional — it’s part of an update to make the Twitter website respond to the light and dark modes on your OS. Of course, if you miss the dark blue, you can bring it back by going to Twitter’s display settings and choosing Dim mode (instead of the inky black Lights Out or the bright Default), and the site should remember that preference.If your Twitter switched from dark mode to light,... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Amazon added a few abilities to Alexa last month, introducing a variety of Super Bowl-related skills and the ability to do home automation on its own, but today the company’s telling us about some new alarm and COVID skills that snuck under the radar.You’ve been able to set custom alarms and alarm sounds using Alexa devices for a while now, but now you can do it with Minion sounds, if you just haven’t been waking up angry enough. The sounds include such classics as “Peep Peep Peep”, “Banana,” or “Boing Boing Boing!” Lovely.There are now a variety of branded alarms available for Alexa, including sounds from Disney, Spongebob, Jurassic World, and Harry Potter. They can be set by saying “Alexa, wake me up to Minions/Jurassic... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge The quality of Tesla’s cars suffers any time the company dramatically scales up production, CEO Elon Musk admitted in a February 2nd interview. Musk also said that Tesla was making cars so fast near the end of 2020 that it was messing up the paint jobs.Tesla has gotten a lot of criticism for the quality of its cars, especially after it started making them at relatively high volumes with the Model 3 and Model Y. But in the interview with industry analyst Sandy Munro, Musk was unusually candid about quality control problems.“It took us a while to kind of iron out the production process. Friends ask me: ‘When should I buy a Tesla?’ And I’m like: ‘Well, either buy it right at the beginning, or when the production reaches a steady state,’”... Continue reading…

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images After his social media platform was largely wiped off the web, Parler CEO and co-founder John Matze says he has been fired by his company’s own board of directors, according to a memo obtained by Fox News and The Wall Street Journal and a text message confirmation he sent to Reuters. His LinkedIn page shows an employment end date of January 2021.Parler, of course, is the social network that found itself wholly deplatformed after its role in the January 6th riots at the US Capitol. Both Apple and Google removed the app from their app stores after being unsatisfied with the company’s attempts to moderate the spread of calls for violence. Amazon decided to terminate the company’s AWS website hosting completely. And though Parler did try to... Continue reading…

Photo by Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Amazon plans to install high-tech video cameras in its delivery vehicles in order to better monitor the behavior of drivers as they deliver packages, according to a new report from The Information.The hardware and software will be supplied by Netradyne, a California company behind a platform called Driveri that uses cameras and artificial intelligence to analyze a driver as they operate the vehicle. The camera then gives real-time feedback — including automated suggestions like “distracted driving” and “please slow down” — while collecting analysis that is used to later evaluate drivers during their shifts.The Netradyne cameras record 100 percent of the time and automatically upload footageAn unlisted, week-old video hosted on the... Continue reading…

Today, the fan site Universal Parks News Today dropped a slew of videos from inside Japan’s Super Nintendo World that show what the whole experience of going to the park is like. It’s a cool look at what’s sure to be a very popular post-COVID destination for Nintendo fans. From what I can tell, the park seems stuffed with people and attractions. It looks surprisingly normal, though everyone is wearing a mask. They went on every ride! They tried all the food! It’s guaranteed to make you want to go yourself.What’s a little stranger is the videos show the park stuffed with people, but it’s not supposed to be open yet. The original plan was to open the Osaka park on February 4th, 2021, but a state of emergency was declared. Universal... Continue reading…

If you live in one of the twelve states where Comcast is planning to roll out 1.2TB data caps, we have some moderately good news: you won’t have to start monitoring your bill for extra charges until July. The ISP had planned to start charging customers $10-and-up fees for using more than 1.2TB of data starting this March, but the rollout has been delayed (via The Washington Post). This gives us a few more months until the scourge of Comcast home internet data caps are truly nationwide.The areas affected are in Comcast’s Northeast region: Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia, as well as parts of North... Continue reading…

A blue whale’s tail above the water. | Photo by Jeff Gritchen / Digital First Media / Orange County Register via Getty Images An eye-catching animation ricocheted across Twitter this week, showing the struggles of a single blue whale as it tried to avoid crowds of shipping vessels in the Corcovado Gulf. The animation accompanied a study published in the journal Nature this week examining the overlapping paths of ships and blue whales in the waters off Chilean Patagonia.Whales, including the one featured in the video, were tagged and tracked for up to three months as they moved through the gulf. The tracking data was then compared against vessel traffic patterns from a Chilean database. The scientists say their results point to a need for more protective measures, including speed regulations, to prevent ships from hitting whales in the area.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram might try to emulate another element of TikTok’s design with a new vertical feed for Stories, TechCrunch reports. Navigating with vertical swipes up and down would make stories behave more like Reels, the shortform video feature the company added to better compete with TikTok.The vertical stories feed is not currently being tested, Instagram confirmed to TechCrunch, but code for the change is already in development based on this screenshot developer Alessandro Paluzzi shared. It’s not much to go on, but it does show Instagram is at least considering the adjustment to its ever-expanding features.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into whether misinformation posted on social media was used to boost the stocks of GameStop and AMC, according to Bloomberg. The commission is also said to be reviewing trading data as part of its probe into potential market manipulation.This inquiry comes a week after shares in GameStop and AMC, among other companies, were sent soaring, largely thanks to support from Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets community. The community is ostensibly composed of small-time, amateur traders, but there’s been speculation as to whether some of the members of the community — which describes itself as “like 4chan found a Bloomberg terminal” — may in fact have been professional investors looking to capitalize on... Continue reading…

Swiss watchmaker H. Moser has returned with another cheeky spin on the iconic Apple Watch design with the Swiss Alp Watch Final Upgrade. It’s a $30,800 Vantablack-infused creation that mocks not just Apple’s design but the loading wheel found on Apple’s macOS, iOS, and watchOS products, via Hodinkee.“No updates required, no lousy autonomy, no unnecessary features, no annoying notifications, just the only reminder you ever really need: To disconnect from all the noise and cherish each and every moment,” Moser boasts.Moser has been making its Alp Watch series of Apple Watch-esque timepieces for years, going back to the original model (which launched a few months after Apple’s original smartwatch). The company is known for its edgy... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge A number of Apple’s cloud services are currently dealing with disruptions and partial outages, according to the company’s system dashboard. Photos, iCloud Drive, iCloud Mail, Notes, Contacts, Find My, and iCloud Backups are a few of the services that have been hit by the problems, which Apple’s site reflected as of 1:13PM ET (10:13AM PT) with a message acknowledging that “users may be unable to use this service.”The issues don’t seem to be universal or particularly widespread, as iCloud syncing continues to work normally for several editorial employees at The Verge. My own iCloud Drive remains accessible at the moment, but I can see how this is frustrating for those dealing with the downtime. Apple Music, the App Store,... Continue reading…

Image: Tik Tok TikTok has come to Google’s Android TV platform, marking the short video app’s latest expansion to big screens, according to 9to5Google. Though the app is currently on the Google Play Store, it seems to not be working in every region yet.The Android TV take on TikTok looks remarkably similar to the TikTok app that arrived on Samsung TVs in the United Kingdom. Videos play vertically (just like in the phone app) in a scrollable main feed, with access to specific categories of videos, and your profile is also available to browse. I haven’t been able to download it on my Chromecast with Google TV to test, but it appears to be a more fully featured option than what TikTok launched on Amazon’s Fire TV, which got a curated selection of videos... Continue reading…

Credit: Jeff Bezos / Twitter Jeff Bezos’ departure from the day-to-day responsibilities of running Amazon will be the first time the founder hasn’t driven the company as CEO in 26 years. Bezos built Amazon up from a small online bookstore to the massive conglomerate with dealings in cloud computing, groceries, physical retail, personal electronics, TV and film production, video games, and more that the company is today.To get a sense of how much Amazon owes to Bezos, here’s a look back at Bezos’ history with the company, and an idea of the scope of what he’ll be leaving behind:The beginningIn 1994, hedge fund vice president Jeff Bezos, 30, quit his job at D. E. Shaw & Co. to found an internet-based bookstore. It launched in July 1995; the first book sold was F... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Players who have jumped into Sony’s new car-smashing PS5 game Destruction AllStars may have run into a rather obnoxious issue: voice chat in the game’s multiplayer matches is switched on by default.In one round, I was subjected to somebody’s music blaring in the background for the entirety of the match. In another, I heard every word of someone teaching their friend how to play the game. Kotaku collected many more examples of people being frustrated by the default voice chat, and it sounds like many heard far worse things than I did.The DualSense’s integrated mic compounds the problem. Unless you proactively hit the mute button, that mic is going to pick up everything going on around you and broadcast it to your fellow players. Voice... Continue reading…

Andy Jassy speaking at the 2019 CERAWeek Conference | Photo: Getty Images The exec helped Amazon soar in the cloud, and now he’ll determine the company’s future Continue reading…

These Days. | Photo: Sundance Institute For the first time since its inception, this year’s iteration of the Sundance Film Festival wasn’t held in picturesque Park City, Utah. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the showcase turned into a virtual event. Promising directors were still on hand to showcase their work, but viewers were able to watch them from the comfort of their living rooms. It wasn’t just the way films were presented that changed, though. The pandemic also impacted how many of these movies were made and what they’re about.The shift is most obvious in films that are explicitly about the pandemic, of which there are several. For instance, These Days is a pilot episode that stars Marianne Rendón and William Jackson Harper as two 20-somethings in New York struggling... Continue reading…

The newly refreshed Android TV home screen | Image: Google Google is rolling out a new update for Android TV that gives its smart TV OS a fresh new look — one that’s almost identical to the UI on the company’s Google TV software on its latest Chromecast.The new interface refreshes the look of Android TV to bring it more in line with Google TV, adding scrolling carousels of featured content on the top of the menus and ditching the oversized icons for more minimalist tabs.That said, there are a few differences between the UI on the Chromecast’s Google TV versus the refreshed Android TV. The new Android TV menu features three main tabs: home, for quickly accessing apps and channels; apps, as a dedicated place to find your applications; and a wholly new Discover tab, which will offer... Continue reading…

The Pinnacle Station, a training facility added to the first Mass Effect, won’t appear in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition alongside over 40 other pieces of downloadable content. Game Informer reports that the Pinnacle Station, created by Demiurge Studios for the first game, can’t be salvaged due to data corruption.Legendary Edition repackages the original trilogy and all of its previously released content with new features and a major graphical overhaul. Speaking to Game Informer, game director Mac Walters said that trying to save the DLC was an “emotional roller coaster” that included reaching out to Demiurge and trying to obtain backups. Source code from the developer was corrupted. The original code source code has also been... Continue reading…

Photo by Jack Guez / AFP via Getty Images Facebook has designated Myanmar a “temporary high-risk location” after a coup earlier this week, saying it will remove “any calls to bring armaments” and protect posts criticizing the country’s military.According to BuzzFeed, Facebook’s Asia-Pacific policy director, Rafael Frankel, outlined its coup response in a message to employees. Frankel pledged to employ “a number of product interventions that were used in the past in Myanmar and during the US elections, to ensure the platform isn’t being used to spread misinformation, incite violence, or coordinate harm.”Facebook declined to comment on the leaked post to The Verge, but it confirmed that a number of the measures it mentions are being put in place. “We are closely monitoring... Continue reading…

A user browses TikTok in Tehatta, India. | Photo by Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto via Getty Images More than seven months after India issued a countrywide ban on TikTok, the app is significantly reducing its staffing in the country. On Tuesday, Nikkei Asia reported that TikTok was “essentially withdrawing” from India, citing sources familiar with the company.Reached for comment, a TikTok spokesperson confirmed that it was reducing its workforce in India but disputed the details of Nikkei’s report.In a statement, a TikTok spokesperson told The Verge: “Given the lack of feedback from the government about how to resolve this issue in the subsequent seven months, it is with deep sadness that we have decided to reduce our workforce in India... [We] hope to get the chance to relaunch TikTok in India to support the hundreds of millions of... Continue reading…

Amazon’s new electric delivery vans will hit the road in more than a dozen cities starting this year, the company announced Wednesday. The vans, which are being designed and built by buzzy EV startup Rivian, are already making deliveries to customers in Los Angeles. Amazon plans to expand its testing to 15 more cities this year, as it continues to build toward a fleet of 10,000 vehicles by 2022. The companies did not name which cities they would choose.In a short video published today, Amazon touts the fact that the vans were designed, built, and are now being tested within a year. “We’re loving the enthusiasm from customers so far—from the photos we see online to the car fans who stop our drivers for a first-hand look at the vehicle,”... Continue reading…

We already knew Sony’s beloved sports exclusive MLB The Show would release on “additional consoles” as early as 2021. Today, Sony announced that MLB The Show 21 will release on April 20th on the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X / S.This is the first entry in the MLB The Show series that will release on Microsoft’s home consoles, but Sony isn’t just offering the game on the Xbox for the first time. MLB The Show 21 will also support full cross-platform progression, cross-saves, and online multiplayer between PlayStation and Xbox consoles.

Tracy* kept it together when her mom died in mid-March in New York. She kept it together when she came back from the funeral on an Amtrak rather than an airplane because there were no flights operating to get her home.It wasn’t until she went back to her job as a flight attendant and saw out of the galley window row upon row of airplanes stacked nose to tail with cloth covers over their engines and sensors.Tracy has been flying for over 16 years. She worked during the Great Recession, when passenger traffic fell by 10 percent and forced several airlines to declare bankruptcy. She worked during the years of nightmarish tarmac delays prior to 2010, when airlines weren’t required to taxi back to the gate to let passengers off even... Continue reading…

You have another chance today to pick up Vizio’s 55-inch OLED TV at a discount. Normally $1,300 for this size, it’s down to $1,000 at Best Buy. The best price from late 2020 was $100 cheaper than today’s deal, but if you’re scrambling for a decent price cut in time for the Super Bowl on Sunday, February 7th, your search might end here.This model is Vizio’s debut OLED television, launching alongside a larger 65-inch version that currently costs $1,500 (down from $2,000) at Best Buy. Other than having excellent picture quality and contrast, thanks to its OLED screen tech, it’s going to be a good choice for people with either a fast gaming PC with a recent Nvidia graphics card, a PS5, an Xbox Series X, or all of the above. That’s because... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Robinhood is running its first Super Bowl ad, just as the company faces a growing brand crisis. CNBC reports that the commercial marks Robinhood’s biggest brand campaign, and it focuses on the idea that anyone can be an investor. That’s been at the center of Robinhood’s message since it was founded seven years ago, but recent stock restrictions have undermined Robinhood’s entire brand.Robinhood temporarily banned small investors from buying stock in companies like GameStop last week, before placing restrictions on stocks associated with r/WallStreetBets — including GameStop, AMC, and Nokia. The move angered thousands of Robinhood customers trying to buy stocks, and the company’s app got review-bombed on the Google Play Store. While... Continue reading…

Microsoft is updating its OneDrive app for Android this week with a new home screen, Samsung Motion Photos support, and the ability to play 8K videos. The new home screen includes quick access to recent files, offline files, and the “On This Day” feature of OneDrive that reminds you of your old photos.Samsung Motion Photos support is also included in this update, allowing owners of Samsung phones to play back photos captured with motion in the OneDrive app or online. These photos work like Apple’s Live Photos and capture a still image alongside several seconds of video and sound before the capture. Microsoft says Samsung Motion Photos playback is rolling out worldwide and will require Android version 6 or above. I... Continue reading…

Photo by Phillip Faraone / Getty Images for Revolt Four months after ending his exclusive Spotify deal, Joe Budden is bringing his podcast to Patreon and has been made an adviser to the company, taking on the title head of creator equity. Like many other podcasters on Patreon, his show will be available freely on most podcasting platforms — with the notable exception of Spotify — and paying supporters will have access to additional perks. Both his show, The Joe Budden Podcast, and his network, The Joe Budden Network, will be supported through the same Patreon page with the same subscription cost.Subscribers can pay between $5 and $25 a month for bonus content, a private Discord, and exclusive tour deals. Budden tells The Verge he and his team will also gate new shows as exclusives for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok will start displaying warnings on videos that contain questionable information that couldn’t be verified by fact-checkers, and it’ll begin warning users when they go to re-share those videos that the information hasn’t been confirmed.The app will now display a warning label on these videos that reads, “Caution: Video flagged for unverified content.” This means a fact-checker looked at the content but wasn’t able to certify that it was right or wrong. TikTok has already been reducing the spread of some unverified videos, but they weren’t publicly flagged before today. Creators will now get a message when a warning label is added to their video, and those videos will all have their distribution reduced. Image:... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify now boasts 155 million premium subscribers and 345 million monthly active users, according to its latest earnings report released today. Those numbers represent a 24 percent and 27 percent year-over year increase. Its biggest increase was in ad-supported monthly active users, which rose 30 percent to 199 million. Last quarter, it reported having reached 144 million subscribers, and 320 million monthly active users.However, despite the growth in listeners, The Wall Street Journal notes that the average revenue per user fell by 8 percent to €4.26 (around $5.13) compared to a year ago. That’s because of the discounted plans used to lure in new subscribers, and the lower prices it charges in markets like Russia and India. Ad revenue... Continue reading…

Poly’s P21 display has a built in webcam, microphone, speakers, and lighting. | Image: Poly Poly, the brand launched after headset-manufacturer Plantronics bought video conferencing company Polycom back in 2018, is announcing a new lineup of office gear for the work-from-home era. There’s the $129 Poly Studio P5 webcam, the $599 Poly Studio P15 Personal Video Bar, and the $815 Poly Studio P21 Personal Meeting Display.The P21 display is particularly interesting. Although it’s fundamentally a 21-inch monitor, it’s designed to make the most of video calls. It’s got a built in webcam with a physical privacy shutter, microphone, and integrated stereo speakers. There’s even a pair of ambient lights on its left and right sides to keep your face well-illuminated on video calls. Its stand doubles as a wireless charger, and there are... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony shipped 4.5 million PlayStation 5 units worldwide in 2020, as revealed by information published alongside the company’s latest earnings report. The number highlights Sony’s current ability to mass-produce the console, which has been extremely difficult to buy since its launch in November.Demand for the PlayStation 4 dropped dramatically year-on-year, with 1.4 million units shipped in the October-December quarter — a 77 percent decrease from the previous year. Sony actually managed to sell fewer PS4s in the holiday quarter than it did from July to September.The best quarter in PlayStation historySony’s gaming business overall performed much better than a year ago, with analyst Daniel Ahmad noting that it was actually the best... Continue reading…

Huawei will announce a new flagship foldable phone later this month, according to a Weibo post on the company’s official page. Based on the name, the Mate X2 sounds like it should be a more substantial followup to the original Mate X than Huawei’s last foldable phone, the faster and slightly tweaked Mate XS.Unless Huawei is being deliberately cryptic, the teaser image for the Mate X2 actually suggests that the phone could possibly switch to a different folding screen design with the flexible panel on the inside, like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold line. The previous Mate X phones had a single panel that wrapped around the outside when closed, like Royole’s Flexpai devices.Otherwise, there’s not much in the way of details on the Mate X2 yet.... Continue reading…

Image: Silk EV A new engineering and design startup called Silk EV headquartered in Italy’s venerable Motor Valley is more than just another attempt at making an electric hypercar. It’s also the latest arrow in the quiver for China’s massive Belt and Road project, though the first that deals with electric cars.Silk EV announced on Tuesday that it will co-develop an “ultra-luxury hypercar” called the S9 in the home region of Lamborghini and Ferrari with First Automobile Works (FAW), China’s original state-owned automaker. The S9 will be part of the Chinese automaker’s longstanding Hongqi brand, which means “red flag” and was once exclusively made for high-ranking Chinese government officials before becoming more widely available.The two companies... Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red CD Projekt Red has warned players that installing Cyberpunk 2077 mods or custom save files on the PC could pose a security risk (via Kotaku). According to the company’s tweet, there’s apparently a “vulnerability in external DLL files the game uses which can be used to execute code on PCs.” The game’s official mod tools were just released last week.The company warns users not to install files from unknown sources, though as Kotaku points out, that pretty much rules out all mods unless you can read and understand their code. When you’re dealing with a vulnerability that could potentially lead to arbitrary code running on your computer, it’s probably best not to risk it until a fix is available.

It hasn’t been a good day for WallStreetBets, as GameStop’s stock has plummeted today. AMC, the community’s other bet, dropped as well. But unlike previous dips, the stocks don’t appear to be rallying. Prices stayed low for the entire trading day, something that hasn’t happened since WallStreetBets became a household name one week ago.When the market closed today, the price of GameStop was $90 even, an 81 percent drop from GameStop’s peak at $483, and a 58 percent drop from its price of $218 on Friday evening. AMC is down too, closing today at $7.82, which is a 61 percent drop from its peak at $19.88.It’s hard to believe that in August of last year, GameStop was trading at $4.50. Between then and last week, some investors bet that the... Continue reading…