The Verge

A screenshot from PUBG. | Image: PUBG Corporation PUBG’s latest update adds a reputation system intended to encourage players to be less toxic toward each other. Though, in a blog about the update, PUBG Corporation acknowledges the inherent irony of a reputation system in a game all about killing.“Keeping in-game interactions healthy is important to us,” the developers wrote in the blog. “We know passions can run high on the Battlegrounds, but toxic behavior is never justified. To help keep things more civil while you kill each other, we’re introducing a new Reputation System to PUBG.”The new system gives you a reputation level between zero and five, and your reputation will naturally go up “as long as you are not exhibiting toxic or otherwise disruptive behaviour.” Things that can... Continue reading…

Photo by VCG Wilson / Corbis via Getty Images For the past hour, I’ve been avoiding work by browsing this amazingly high-resolution scan of Johannes Vermeer’s iconic Girl with a Pearl Earring. With a total resolution of 93,205 x 108,565, PetaPixel notes the scan is believed to be the first 10 billion pixel panorama ever created, allowing you to zoom in close enough to turn the tiniest flecks of paint into puddles and minuscule cracks into crevasses. The scan appears to have been posted online early last year.The Mauritshuis gallery, which normally houses the work, recently had to temporarily close due to COVID restrictions. But for the time being, this scan is a nice replacement. In some ways, it’s actually better, letting you press your virtual nose up against the painting in a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook vice president Nick Clegg says the company is referring its decision to indefinitely suspend former President Trump from its platform to its newly established oversight board for a complete review. Trump’s Facebook account was suspended indefinitely on January 7th after he incited his followers to attack the US Capitol on January 6th. Six people died in the ensuing riots.Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said at the time that “the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service... are simply too great.”“We believe our decision was necessary and right,” Clegg said in a statement. “Given its significance, we think it is important for the board to review it and reach an independent judgment on whether it should be... Continue reading…

Photo by STEFANI REYNOLDS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee called for an FBI investigation into Parler’s involvement in the deadly attack on the Capitol this month.In a letter sent to FBI Director Christopher Wray, House Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) called for the bureau to “conduct a robust examination of the role that the social media site Parler played” in the January 6th pro-Trump assault on the Capitol. Maloney said that the committee intends to open its own investigation and requested a meeting with FBI officials regarding the status and scope of any future investigation into the social media platform.

Photo by Rich Polk/Getty Images for ESSENCE Spotify is continuing its pursuit of podcasting talent. Today, the company announced that it’s partnering with filmmaker Ava DuVernay and her Array media collective to launch exclusive scripted and unscripted audio programming. Those shows will come out of Spotify’s Gimlet team, and Spotify didn’t offer any preview of what the new programs might entail.DuVernay is just the latest in a string of high-profile talent deals Spotify has inked. It locked down Joe Rogan’s show exclusively last year, as well as new shows from Kim Kardashian West, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, as well as the Obamas’ production company Higher Ground. It’s also acquired notable podcast networks, including Gimlet Media, Parcast, and The Ringer.The strategy with... Continue reading…

Fortnite creator Epic Games is turning its attention to film. Deadline reports that Epic will lend its Unreal Engine tech to animation studio Hook Up, as well as firms DuermeVela and FilmSharks, as an investment in upcoming film Gilgamesh.Gilgamesh is inspired by the mythological hero of the same name and follows its titular character on a mission to obtain immortality. Argentinian filmmaker Tomás Lipgot is set to direct.The film is funded by Epic’s MegaGrants initiative, a $100 million pledge that allows developers, educators, filmmakers, and more to use Unreal Engine for their projects. Shows like Westworld and The Mandalorian have already used Unreal for camera effects and digital sets. Gilgamesh will be available in both English... Continue reading…

More phone, less money Continue reading…

Photo by Norbert Barczyk/PressFocus/MB Media/Getty Images Counter-Strike players could be returning to in-person competition soon thanks to a new agreement on safety protocols. The Counter-Strike Professional Players’ Association announced a new series of protocols, created in conjunction with two major tournament organizers — the ESL and DreamHack — that could see players return to LAN tournaments early this year.“The players are eager to play LAN events again, but only if it can be done in a safe and responsible manner based on clear protocols approved by the players,” Mads Øland, CEO of the CSPPA, said in a statement. “With this protocol now in place, we move one step closer towards returning to LAN.”“The players are eager to play LAN events again.”According to the announcement, the... Continue reading…

Image: Vizio The 65-inch P-Series Quantum X from Vizio is the company’s flagship 2020 model, sitting just beneath its debut OLED in terms of picture quality. You can snag one today for $1,080 at Costco and Sam’s Club or for $1,100 from B&H Photo. This size usually costs $1,530, so presumably, this is Vizio’s discount for the Super Bowl on February 7th. One quick note: you don’t need a membership at Costco to get this deal, but you’ll be charged a 5 percent non-member surcharge that’ll add about $50 to the total, whereas Sam’s Club requires a membership. B&H Photo has no strings attached.Getting into the specs, this LED panel can deliver near-OLED levels of contrast and good color and lighting accuracy. It has support for HDR10, Dolby Vision, and HLG... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Anchor promised to find sponsors for small podcasts, but Spotify is footing the bill Continue reading…

Beeper’s website promises “a single app to chat on iMessage, WhatsApp, and 13 other networks.” | Screenshot: BeeperHQ.com Beeper is a new universal chat app that’s an attempt to unify 15 different chat platforms into a single interface. The app is the work of a team that includes Eric Migicovsky, the CEO and founder of former smartwatch manufacturer Pebble, who announced its launch on Twitter. Beeper’s site notes that the project was previously known as NovaChat, and requires a $10 per month subscription.Although Beeper integrates with world’s most popular messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Slack, Twitter, Discord, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger, it’s the support for Apple’s iMessage that’s perhaps most interesting. iMessage is only officially available on Apple devices, and it’s often cited by users as something that prevents them... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple is reportedly working on a VR headset that will include a fabric design, a fan, and an expensive price tag. Bloomberg News reports that Apple’s first VR headset may launch as soon as 2022 as a standalone device that operates through batteries, similar to the Oculus Quest 2. Apple is reportedly working on “some of its most advanced and powerful chips” for this unannounced VR headset, with some chips reportedly beating its own M1 Mac processors.Apple has reportedly faced challenges in the development of this headset, with some prototypes ending up too big and heavy. Apple is reportedly using a fabric exterior to reduce the headset weight, but the company is also using a fan — an unusual move for Apple given its emphasis on fan-less... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge A new Linux port allows Apple’s M1 Macs to run Ubuntu for the first time. Corellium, a security firm that offers a virtualized version of iOS for security testing, has successfully ported Ubuntu over to M1 Macs and released a tutorial for others to follow. The modified version of Ubuntu boots into the regular user interface and includes USB support.The team at Corellium have detailed exactly how they managed to get Ubuntu running, and it’s a good in-depth read if you’re interested in the details. While a number of M1 components are shared with Apple’s mobile chips, the non-standard chips made it challenging to create Linux drivers to get Ubuntu running properly.Apple hasn’t designed its M1 Macs with dual-boot or Boot Camp in mind.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has locked the official account for China’s US embassy, over a tweet it said violated its policy against dehumanization, Bloomberg reports. The tweet, which was originally shared on January 7th, referred to Uighur women as “baby-making machines” prior to government intervention. Twitter removed the tweet and replaced it with a notice saying it’s no longer available. However, Twitter requires account owners to manually delete tweets that violate its rules before unlocking accounts.Twitter confirmed the account’s locking in a statement given to Bloomberg. “We have taken action on this Tweet for violating our policy against dehumanization,” and said the platform prohibits dehumanization of a group of people based on their... Continue reading…

Samsung’s 2020 Galaxy Chromebook. | Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Samsung Display has announced plans to mass-produce the world’s first 90Hz OLED screens designed for laptops and says that “several global IT companies” are expected to release models with the new panels this year. Manufacturing will begin in March in “very large quantities,” the company says in a statement attributed to CEO Choi Joo-sun.The panels are 14-inch in size, though Samsung Display hasn’t given details on specs like aspect ratio or resolution; it’s possible that there will be multiple versions available. Samsung does cite the faster response time of its OLED panels, claiming “practically” the same amount of blurring as a 120Hz LCD when displaying fast-moving content. No potential laptop OEM partners were named in the... Continue reading…

Demonstrators rally near Trump Tower while protesting the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline on February 4, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. President Donald Trump had recently signed executive actions to advance approval of Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipelines, undermining efforts by the administration of President Barack Obama to block their construction. | Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images In one of his first actions in office, President Joe Biden issued an executive order on a broad range of environmental protections that included stopping construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. This is the second time a president has pumped the brakes on the embattled pipeline. Barack Obama denied a permit for the project in 2015. Then in 2017, Donald Trump reversed that decision and issued a permit.“Back on the right footing.”The order directed federal agencies to review environmental rollbacks made under the Trump Administration, according to the Huffington Post and The New York Times. That includes revisiting fuel efficiency standards, and the boundaries for the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments. It also... Continue reading…

Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images Tim Apple, as Trump once called him, didn’t just give Donald Trump the opportunity to lie about bringing an Apple factory to the United States. He also gave him a $5,999 Mac Pro, according to Donald Trump’s final financial disclosure report today (via the NY Times’ David Enrich).The computer is described as the very first Mac Pro produced at the Flex Factory in Austin, Texas. That’s also a lie: that factory has actually been producing Mac Pros since 2013.

Image: Innersloth Among Us was one of the smash hits of 2020 — it reportedly had nearly half a billion players in November — and there are some exciting updates announced for the game, including a new airship map and an account system. In a blog posted yesterday, developer Innersloth discussed how it has adapted in response to the game’s enormous popularity and why new features are taking a while to be released.“Among Us gained incredible traction pretty late into 2020 that we weren’t expecting, and that meant A LOT of change for us,” the developers said. Innersloth, which is comprised of just four employees, had to spend two months restructuring, figuring out processes, and working with new external partners, according to the blog. “It’s all... Continue reading…

Image: L-DI-EGO on Lego Ideas If you want a Metroid Lego set, you have the power to bring the idea closer to reality. User L-DI-EGO has submitted a design on Lego’s Ideas website that brings the block treatment to Samus and her gunship, but the site requires votes to get this concept in front of Lego itself (via Nintendo Life).Lego Ideas is an official site for users to submit their concepts and designs for the Lego company to consider, and where Lego fans can vote for their favorites. If a submission gets 10,000 votes, the Lego Group may turn it into a real product. Right now the Metroid concept has around 5,700 votes, so it’s just over halfway. If you like the concept, you can go to the website to put your thumb on the scale. Image: L-DI-EGO on... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Conchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images In one of his first acts as president, Joe Biden walked back the former administration’s plan to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, will participate in the organization’s executive meeting this week, according to a fact sheet released by the Biden-Harris transition team.Donald Trump announced plans to cut ties with the WHO in late May, claiming that China had “total control” over the global health organization. Experts widely criticized the move, saying that it would be catastrophic for public health in the midst of a deadly pandemic. The US is a major funder for the WHO.At the time the withdrawal was announced,... Continue reading…

Joe Biden speaks about climate change and the wildfires on the West Coast at the Delaware Museum of Natural History on September 14th, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. | Photo by Drew Angerer / Getty Images President Joe Biden recommitted the US to the Paris climate accord during his first day in office, fulfilling one of his earliest campaign promises. In 30 days, the US will once again be part of the global accord. Rejoining the agreement is as easy as sending a letter to the secretary-general of the United Nations. What comes after that will be much harder.“The world is very tired of seeing the US make promises we don’t keep”The US turned its back on efforts to tackle the climate crisis together as a planet when Donald Trump made the decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement. Trump decimated federal efforts to slash emissions within the US, and he stood by other right-wing leaders — like Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, who similarly... Continue reading…

Photo by Drew Angerer / Getty Images Hours after taking his oath of office on Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed several executive orders overturning actions taken by the Trump administration regarding immigration, and tech is rallying behind the move.Biden signed two executive orders Wednesday that extend the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for another four years and overturn the Trump administration’s travel bans on largely Muslim-majority countries. It’s just the start of the Biden administration’s immigration reform efforts. The administration also plans to drop a new bill that would provide 11 million undocumented immigrants with a pathway to citizenship and an eight-year waiting period before they can become permanent residents, according to P... Continue reading…

Image: Disney Our desperate plea for a Muppets adaptation of The Great Gatsby has been answered: documentary filmmaker Ben Crew has taken the public domain novel and turned it into a downloadable 104-page fan-made script that marries Muppet antics with existential angst. My request for an adaptation may have been ridiculous, but this script seriously vindicates me.Crew’s script, “Muppets Present ‘The Great Gatsby,’” may be a silly mashup of a novel you’re forced to read in high school and a puppet comedy variety show, but he said it became a meaningful project when January’s news cycle became too much to bear. “I knew that there was nothing I could do about what was happening in D.C. and that if I didn’t distract myself I was just going to waste away... Continue reading…

Captain Andrea Hall speaking and signing the Pledge of Allegiance during the presidential inauguration. | Photo by Erin Schaff / Pool / AFP via Getty Images Firefighter Andrea Hall put accessible communication front and center at the presidential inauguration today when she led the Pledge of Allegiance in both spoken English and Signed English. The inaugural committee also hosted several separate accessible live streams of the event on its YouTube page, including one with audio description, one with live captions and American Sign Language interpretation, and one with Cued Speech transliteration (the use of hand shapes to signal speech sounds).But despite those efforts, many deaf and hard of hearing viewers still found the inauguration inaccessible. Most broadcast stations didn’t have an ASL interpreter on-screen and used automated captions, which are notoriously inaccurate. In what some... Continue reading…

Image: JBL JBL’s Google Assistant-powered smart display, the Link View, is on sale for $80 on Harman Audio’s (JBL’s parent company) eBay store. While its original price was $300, this smart display has been slowly getting cheaper since it debuted in 2018. Both the black and white color variants are on sale, and it comes with free standard shipping.The JBL Link View smart display features an 8-inch touchscreen display with a webcam built into the device. Although it has been on the market for several years, time has been kind to this smart display. And Reddit users have pointed out that the Link View recently received an update, which includes a new user interface.For the price, JBL’s smart display seems like a great value that delivers more... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch has “indefinitely” banned former President Donald Trump from its platform. The action comes two weeks after the site disabled Trump’s account, preventing him from streaming but leaving the account page live, in light of the mob attack on the Capitol. At the time, a company spokesperson told a Verge reporter that it would reassess his account after he left office — which happened today.“We have indefinitely suspended President Trump’s Twitch channel due to the ongoing risk of further incitement of violence,” a Twitch spokesperson wrote in an email to The Verge.

The official website of the White House, WhiteHouse.gov, has been completely replaced with a new version for the Biden administration, and it comes with some unexpected accessibility features: a high contrast mode, which serves as a dark mode, and a toggle to make the font size larger.Both options show up along the left rail as big, easy-to-click or tap buttons, and that’s the way you’ll need to toggle them. Even if your device has a system-wide dark mode, the White House website won’t switch over automatically. That’s because it’s really there to serve as an accessibility feature, meant to help anyone who would have trouble reading or looking at a bright white screen with black text.With dark mode being very popular among heavy... Continue reading…

Today’s US presidential inauguration brought many good things, but the thing Twitter seems most excited about is a new crop of Bernie memes.The meme started with a wire photo of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), sitting on a folding chair watching President Joe Biden’s inauguration. The temperature in Washington, DC was in the 40s, so he’s bundled up with a coat and mittens, and he’s sitting socially distanced from everyone else, as his age and prior health issues put him at severe risk for COVID-19.Something about Sanders’ chilly body language, his oversized wool mittens, and the fact that he was sitting entirely alone made the photo irresistible as meme material. Of course, the senator is no stranger to memes — including 2016’s Birdie... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has offered to help the Biden administration meet its goal of completing 100 million coronavirus vaccinations within the next 100 days. “Our scale allows us to make a meaningful impact immediately in the fight against COVID-19, and we stand ready to assist you in this effort,” Dave Clark, Amazon’s worldwide operations leader, wrote in a letter to the administration.The company’s main interest appears to be in offering vaccinations through its own facilities. Clark writes that Amazon has “an agreement in place” with a health care provider to administer vaccinations on site, though he did not say which Amazon facilities were being considered. The company operates warehouses, Amazon-branded shops, and Whole Foods grocery stores.... Continue reading…

Photo by Bill Ingalls / NASA At 12PM ET today, Jim Bridenstine officially stepped down from his role as NASA administrator. During his time at the agency, the former Oklahoma congressman and Naval aviator used his political chops to drum up bipartisan support for the Trump administration’s Artemis program, the agency’s cornerstone initiative to land humans on the Moon by 2024 — a deadline widely viewed as nearly impossible to meet.In anticipation of President Joe Biden taking office and the Senate transitioning to Democratic control, Bridenstine, a Republican, spent his final days as administrator making one last push for the Artemis program, a parting bid to insulate the program from potential cancellation. Last week, he met with top Democrats including Sen.... Continue reading…

Photo by Miquel Benitez/Getty Images Volkswagen Group boss Herbert Diess joined twitter Wednesday, and his first tweet was a light trolling of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.“Hello @Twitter! I’m here to make an impact with @VWGroup, especially on political issues,” Diess wrote. “And, of course, to get some of your market shares, @elonmusk – after all, our ID.3 and e-tron have won the first markets in Europe. Looking forward to productive discussions!”Diess — who last year settled criminal charges related to his role in the Dieselgate emissions scandal — was referencing how the first mass-market electric vehicles of its VW and Audi brands performed well in Europe (and especially in Germany) in their debut year, causing Tesla to lose market share on the continent. (To wit, while... Continue reading…

Photo by Joshua Roberts / Getty Images President Biden is going to need some Twitter followers. Twitter wiped out all followers from the @POTUS and @WhiteHouse accounts once Biden was sworn in, today, January 20th, rather than transferring the accounts’ existing followers over to the new administration. That’s what what Rob Flaherty, Biden’s digital director, said would happen in late December.Here’s the full list of changes today, according to Twitter:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Streaming services are slowly turning into cable TV — complete with bundles, an ever-growing list of channels, and a reinvented TV guide. And a series of lawsuits could portend the return of something even worse: the hidden cable fee.Three municipalities in Georgia are suing Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming video providers for as much as 5 percent of their gross revenue in the district — joining a nationwide group of towns and counties that want these services regulated more like cable TV. It’s a small but growing front in the war over cord-cutting, challenging regulators to decide which matters more: the increasing role streaming services play in American media diets or their significant practical differences from traditional TV.M... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Last October, Lenovo unveiled its new Google Assistant-powered alarm clock, the Smart Clock Essential. At just $50, the Lenovo Smart Clock Essential is slightly smarter than your average bedside clock. Not only does it display time, weather conditions, and current alarms, but its compact design won’t take up much space on your nightstand or bedside table.The Lenovo Smart Clock Essential is currently $25 at Best Buy. And if you want to take full advantage of Google Assistant and add some smarts to your home, Best Buy is currently offering a bundle that includes the Lenovo Smart Clock Essential and four C by GE Direct Connect Smart Bulbs for only $30.If you are in the market for a new pair of wireless earbuds and do not mind... Continue reading…

vrbo Vrbo has changed its stance on people making reservations in the Washington, DC area during the week of the inauguration. The company announced on January 19th, the day before the event, that it will block any new reservations through Friday, January 22nd. Vrbo previously stated it was evaluating new bookings and that it would “take appropriate action in coordination with law enforcement” if necessary.The news was tweeted by Expedia Group (which owns Vrbo) and from the official Vrbo Twitter account. It comes in light of DC officials encouraging people to stay home and participate in the inauguration virtually.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix’s Shuffle Play feature, which the company was spotted testing last year, is getting a widespread launch in the first half of 2021. Variety reports the company made the announcement as part of its latest financial results. In its testing phase, Shuffle Play has worked by picking content based on your viewing history, helping you avoid feeling overwhelmed by Netflix’s home screen full of content.Netflix’s COO and chief product officer Greg Peters said the feature is designed for users to “indicate to us that they just want to skip browsing entirely, click one button and we’ll pick a title for them just to instantly play.” During its tests of the feature, Netflix has experimented with including a “Shuffle Play” button on its... Continue reading…

Microsoft may have killed off its flagship MP3 player nearly a decade ago, but these fans are keeping their enthusiasm alive Continue reading…

An ultrathin notebook with fantastic battery life Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia is updating its Shield Android TV software to include support for the latest next-gen console controllers. If you own a Shield TV or Shield TV Pro device, you can now pair the PS5 DualSense or Xbox Series X controllers to play Android games or PC titles through Nvidia’s GeForce Now streaming service.To pair a PS5 DualSense controller, you can head into the Bluetooth section of the Shield TV, and then hold down the PlayStation button until the light pulses blue. For Xbox Series X / S controllers, you can hold the pairing button until the Xbox button starts blinking.Alongside the controller support, Nvidia is also adding Control4 home automation system support in this Shield TV 8.2.2 update. This allows the Control4 remote or app... Continue reading…

Photo by Stefani Reynolds / Getty Images President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are set to make history today when they will be sworn into office as president and vice president. Because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and heightened security following this month’s deadly attack on the Capitol, Inauguration Day will be unlike any other before.Here’s how to watch and participate in the historic day’s events from home:When is the presidential inauguration?The inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris will begin on Wednesday, January 20th, in Washington, DC. Soon after Biden takes his oath of office, he will deliver an inaugural address outlining his vision for the next four years.What time does the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Valve and five PC video game publishers have been fined a total of €7.8 million (around $9.5 million) by the European Commission for restricting cross-border game sales in the European Economic Area. The Commission said that the companies geo-blocked around 100 PC video games, preventing them from being activated and played outside certain EU countries. This broke the EU’s Digital Single Market rules which prohibit those types of barriers.The European Commission says the geo-blocking was to prevent games being activated outside Czechia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Geo-blocking prevents gamers living in EU countries with higher average incomes from being able to save money buying them in EU states... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is releasing a new version of Chrome this week that will improve its dark mode support, alongside removing FTP and Adobe Flash support. The dark mode improvements can be found on both Windows and Chrome OS. There are refinements to both the light and dark modes in Chrome OS, with the themes updated for the app launcher, quick settings, and shelf parts of Chrome OS.How To Geek also reports that the Windows 10 dark mode is improved with Chrome 88, with scroll bars finally appearing dark. Unfortunately, these are currently limited to the settings, bookmarks, history, and new tab pages of Chrome 88 and not across all websites with dark themes.Elsewhere, Google is also removing some old web technology in Chrome 88. The File... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is investigating artificial intelligence researcher Margaret Mitchell, who co-leads the company’s Ethical AI team, and has locked her corporate account, Axios reports. The news comes a little over a month after another prominent AI ethicist, Timnit Gebru, said she was fired by the company. Mitchell’s account has now reportedly been locked for “at least a few days” but she hasn’t been fired, according to a tweet from Gebru. Mitchell did not immediately respond to a request for comment.In a statement given to Axios, Google said it was investigating Mitchell after its systems detected an account had “exfiltrated thousands of files and shared them with multiple external accounts.” According to an Axios source, Mitchell had been... Continue reading…

LG’s Wing smartphone. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge LG is considering exiting the smartphone market in 2021. After losing around $4.5 billion over the past five years, LG’s smartphone business has been struggling to compete with rivals. Now LG CEO Kwon Bong-seok has notified employees that the company is considering making big changes to its smartphone business.The Korea Herald reports that Kwon Bong-seok sent out an internal memo to staff on Wednesday, hinting at a change in direction for LG’s phone business. “Since the competition in the global market for mobile devices is getting fiercer, it is about time for LG to make a cold judgment and the best choice,” says an LG official in a statement to The Korea Herald. “The company is considering all possible measures, including sale,... Continue reading…

Images: Mercedes-Benz Mercedes-Benz threw back the curtain on the EQA crossover, its latest electric vehicle as part of a slate of new EVs that are being planned for the coming years. The compact SUV will have a range of less than 300 miles, a 66.5kWh battery pack, and a net list price of €39,950 ($48,442).The EQA, which is based on the German automaker’s GLA-class of SUVs, is scheduled to go into production this year in Europe, but likely won’t make it to the US anytime soon. That said, a spokesperson for Daimler, Mercedes-Benz’s parent company, said the EQA is still being considered for the US market.American car buyers would do better waiting for the EQB electric crossover, which will be closely related to the boxier GLB-class vehicle. The EQB is also... Continue reading…

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images One of President Trump’s final acts in office is to pardon a former Google engineer who was convicted of stealing trade secrets. Anthony Levandowski worked for Google’s self-driving car division, now called Waymo, before leaving to found Otto, a self-driving truck company that was acquired by Uber. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison in August, with judge William Alsup describing the incident as the “biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen.”Levandowski was found to have downloaded thousands of files to his laptop before he left Google and entered into sale discussions. Uber ultimately fired him after Google sued, and Levandowski remains in a legal battle with the ride-hailing company, claiming it should be liable for the $179... Continue reading…

Photo by random stranger in the crowd Mark Harris has put together an amazing report for TechCrunch on the legal troubles that have befallen buyers of the Boring Company’s flame-throwing device. Part of what makes it worth a read is that it digs up stories you may have not heard about yet: a police raid in London, an American doing time in an Italian prison, and how they’ve turned up in narcotics hauls alongside real guns and bags of cocaine.While the Not a Flamethrower name may actually be accurate, the story shows that when police the world over see you with a gun-shaped device, especially one that shoots flames, they may not join you in laughing about Elon’s zany project ideas. They may just end up arresting you.“It’s a toy they sell to children.”The biggest “what the... Continue reading…

Minecraft Dungeons’ dedicated launcher on PC is being retired in favor of a new “Unified Launcher” that lets you launch Dungeons and Minecraft: Java Edition from the same place, reducing the number of places where you can play Minecraft on PC by one (via Windows Central).Minecraft Dungeons is the hack-and-slash loot collecting cousin of Minecraft that, until this change, had its own launcher unless it was purchased from the Microsoft Store. As of January 18th, the non-Microsoft Store version of Dungeons on PC can only be launched from the new Unified Launcher (which itself is an update to the Java launcher). Mojang says the change shouldn’t affect save files and that either a Microsoft account (soon to be required to play on PC) or a... Continue reading…

After We Collided, a sequel to a film adaptation that came from a Wattpad author. | Photo: Aviron Last week, we told you how Wattpad has become a place where budding authors can sometimes turn their work into Hollywood film and TV, with Hulu, Netflix and others adapting Wattpad writers’ labors into titles like The Kissing Booth, Light as a Feather and After We Collided. But it looks like Wattpad may no longer be trying to become an entertainment tastemaker all on its own — South Korean web company Naver is buying Wattpad for over $600 million, the companies announced today.While details are scarce, it seems like Naver already sees Wattpad as a natural pairing with one of its other brands — Webtoon, an online webtoon publishing portal that similarly allows artists to upload their own work and similarly spawns TV and anime... Continue reading…

Image: ColourPop Nintendo has announced that it’s collaborating with cosmetics brand ColourPop on a makeup collection inspired by Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The collection looks to be relatively extensive, including four powder palettes that are themed after characters in the game. Obviously, Isabelle is fabulous enough that she doesn’t have to share with anyone and gets her own.ColourPop is no stranger to pop culture collaborations. It has lines inspired by Disney princesses, The Mandalorian, and even Sailor Moon. The Animal Crossing venture won’t even be the first collab it’s done with a gaming brand, as there’s also a Candy Land x ColourPop line.