The Verge

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.

Photo by Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Ripples from the Capitol riots could be spreading across the country Continue reading…

Image: The CW Some people may have been surprised to see The CW’s app sitting atop the list of free apps available on iOS devices, passing YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and more.The CW noted in a statement that this is the third year in the row it reached the top of the charts during a premiere week, despite earlier data from SensorTower claiming it was the first time in three years. Screenshots provided to The Verge from The CW show the app hit the top of the app store every week, with the exception of 2020 because the premiere week was moved to 2021 due to production issues brought on by the pandemic.For people without a cable subscription who want to watch Riverdale, All American, Batwoman, and more, The CW’s free, ad-supported app is an easy... Continue reading…

The Tab Active 3 is IP68 rated and, with the included case, can withstand a 1.5 meter drop. | Image: Samsung The Samsung Galaxy Tab Active 3, announced globally in September of last year, is now available in the US starting at $489.99. It’s a rugged 8-inch Android tablet designed primarily for manufacturing, retail, and job sites, with an IP68 water- and dust-resistance rating. Samsung even says it passed tests against 23 environmental conditions, including vibrations and high altitude, to meet the MIL-STD-810 military-grade standard. An IP68 S Pen stylus is included in the box, as is a case that protects against drops up to 1.5 meters.The Tab Active 3’s touchscreen is designed to be used even when wearing work gloves, though not “extremely heavy duty gloves or mittens.” It also offers three physical navigation buttons as well as two... Continue reading…

LIAM DANIEL/NETFLIX Netflix has surpassed another major milestone: 203.6 million subscribers around the world.The achievement comes after Netflix saw spectacular growth in the first half of 2020. But as it celebrates passing the 200 million subscriber mark, Netflix is also acknowledging that 2021 likely won’t see as many net subscriber gains every quarter, starting in the first quarter of 2021.Netflix added a total of 8.5 million paid net subscribers in Q4, bringing in a record breaking 37 million paid memberships in 2020. Netflix “achieved $25 billion in annual revenue,” according to the earnings report. Still, Netflix is warning that “we expect paid net adds of 6 million” in Q1 2021 compared to last year’s “15.8 million, which included the impact from... Continue reading…

Image: Warner Media Much has been made of Search Party as a uniquely millennial show, like it’s a brunch line you can watch other people stand in. It’s true that the HBO Max comedy — initially about finding a missing acquaintance — is absolutely drenched in the iconography of privileged millennials; their world is Instagram-friendly and the characters are all in a self-serving relationship with New York City. But it’s also a show with a uniquely online worldview: where everything, no matter how remote, is happening to you, personally, all the time.The new season of Search Party, which premiered last week, starts in a wildly different place than the series began. Unbeknownst to her friends, protagonist Dory Sief (Alia Shawkat) is being held hostage by an... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge A few weeks ago, our furnace (technically a ductless heat pump) stopped working at the worst possible time of the year. But at least one room stays nice and toasty all winter long — thanks to my gaming PC.Now, The Wall Street Journal is reporting this might actually be a trend: some bitcoin miners and gamers are warming their rooms, growing tomatoes, and even heating a chicken coop during the pandemic.It made me wonder: how many Verge readers are doing the same?Me, I keep my PC running all night long, folding proteins to help study COVID-19, which I highly recommend. (I just crossed 175 million points this week.) But I have to admit the room hasn’t been as warm since I swapped my own GeForce GTX 1080 back in. The impossible-to-find... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Despite a whirlwind of electric vehicle SPAC mergers in the last few months, there’s still one startup flying solo that’s arguably the best-positioned. Yes, Faraday Future is still on the market — though maybe not for long.Sure, Faraday Future is distressed and its electric SUV is outrageous, but it developed valid technology over the last few years that is further along than what some competitors have. It will take a lot of money to get that vehicle over the proverbial finish line. Lucky for Faraday Future, though, money is now incredibly easy to come by.In the last seven months alone, a half-dozen startups have gone public or announced plans to go public by merging with SPACs, or special-purpose acquisition companies — publicly... Continue reading…

Image: DC Comics DC is shaking up its comics app on January 21st and relaunching it as DC Universe Infinite. The original DC Universe featured television shows and comics, but now that DC shows have moved to HBO Max, the company has decided to refocus the app on comics and the “fan community,” while keeping the same $7.99-a-month price.DC Universe Infinite will have DC’s catalog and early access to comics six months after they’re released physically in stores. Additionally, DC says the comic reader in its app has been improved, and users will have more options to curate custom lists of titles. The app will also have a customizable icon and a widget for iOS 14 so you can get back into whatever you were reading faster.In terms of features, DC Universe... Continue reading…

Someone had to do it: there’s now a bot that turns Reddit arguments into scenes from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, complete with music and the iconic “OBJECTION!” intercuts. It’s from those moments that it draws its name: objection-bot.Users can summon the bot by typing “!objection-bot” under a thread that would work as an Ace Attorney courtroom scene, and the bot will generate a video based on the posts. It feels a little like shouting “worldstar!” but on Reddit. You can see an excellent Cyberpunk 2077-related example below:The genius behind the bot is Reddit user oppai_suika, who was kind enough to also post the source code. They also note in a comment that the number one and two fighters get assigned as Phoenix and Edgeworth,... Continue reading…

Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images Fortnite developer Epic says that, for 2021, the game’s competitive scene will have a prize pool of $20 million. That’s a step up from last year’s total of $17 million — though it’s not as massive as the 2019 World Cup, where $30 million was on the line.The news comes as Epic provided details on the latest season of the Fortnite Champion Series, the game’s highest level of competition. The developer previously said that all competitions would take place online, and today, it revealed more details about the schedule: qualifiers will kick off on February 4th, with the finals starting on March 12th. In a nod to the global nature of the game, there will also be three new, separate broadcasts with commentary in French, German, and Spanish.“... Continue reading…

Look at this bat’s little backpack! | Image: dulog Bats are elusive little creatures, which makes them the perfect subjects for scientists to try out new animal tracking systems. This is great news for me specifically, because I love both bats and seeing images of animals with goofy little trackers on them. How can you look at these seals with ridiculous antenna hats and not laugh at least a little?One of the latest innovations in tracking wearables is the dulog system, a wireless sensor network built by biologist Simon Ripperger and engineer Niklas Duda, which was put to the test in several bat-tracking studies over the past few years. Now that the dulog has proven its mettle with bats, which are tiny, nocturnal, and generally tough to observe, the pair believe it could be useful in... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge I picked up a new MacBook Air with Apple’s M1 chip, and I’ve absolutely loved it so far. It’s really speedy and the battery is fantastic. But I’ve been dealing with one nagging issue. Every once in a while, for reasons that I haven’t been able to figure out, a screensaver will suddenly take over the entire computer — despite the fact that I never use a screensaver. And frustratingly, the screensaver renders my laptop inoperable until I completely close the screen and reopen it.It seems I’m not the only one seeing this bug, according to this MacRumors article. Others have shared similar issues with M1-equipped MacBook Airs, Pros, and Minis on MacRumors’ forums, Reddit (in a few threads), and Apple’s support forums. And one user on M... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Brave has just taken a step toward supporting a decentralized web by becoming the first browser to offer native integration with a peer-to-peer networking protocol that aims to fundamentally change how the internet works. The technology is called IPFS (which stands for InterPlanetary File System), a relatively obscure transport protocol that promises to improve on the dominant HTTP standard by making content faster to access and more resilient to failure and control.This explainer from TechCrunch offers a good overview of how the protocol works. But here’s the short version: while HTTP is designed for browsers to access information on central servers, IPFS accesses it on a network of distributed nodes. Vice likens it to downloading... Continue reading…

All five seasons of The Muppet Show will stream on Disney Plus beginning February 19th, Disney announced today. With the addition, Disney Plus is now home to nearly every Muppets title — except two.While Disney owns the rights to The Muppet Show, Muppets Most Wanted, The Muppet Movie, Muppet Treasure Island, The Muppet Christmas Carol, The Muppets, and The Great Muppet Caper, all of which are streaming on Disney Plus, The Muppets Take Manhattan and Muppets from Space are owned by Sony. As such, Disney can’t host the entire Muppet movie collection. Disney will also make the fourth and fifth seasons of the series, previously never available to purchase through home video offerings, available on Disney Plus.It’s a similar situation to S... Continue reading…

iFixit praises Apple’s use of screws to attach key components. | Image: iFixit iFixit’s long in the making AirPods Max teardown is finally complete, giving an exhaustive look at the internals of Apple’s debut over-ear headphones and an idea of how easy they are to repair. iFixit even went as far as to teardown Sony’s WH-1000XM4 and Bose’s NC 700 headphones for comparison. Until now, iFixit has refused to grant Apple a single repairability point for any of its AirPods, but the AirPods Max buck the trend with a surprisingly high score of six out of ten.Why so high? Well, for starters, its ear cushions attach via magnets, making them easy to swap and replace when they inevitably get worn out. There are also plenty of internal components held together with screws rather than messy glue, which should make it easy for... Continue reading…

Image: Rivian Amazon-backed electric vehicle startup Rivian has raised another $2.65 billion, bolstering its position as one of the most well-funded EV startups in the world.The investment round was led by T. Rowe Price and included Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Fidelity Management and Research Company, and investment firms Coatue and D1 Capital Partners, along with “several other existing and new investors,” according to the startup.The new money arrives a mere six months after Rivian raised $2.5 billion, and about a year after it raised $1.3 billion. It has now raised more than $8 billion to date.Rivian has raised some $8 billion to dateIt’s hard to say exactly how much Rivian has in the bank, given that it has spent a lot already to hire a... Continue reading…

Photo by Alexander Kramer for The Verge Apple’s MacBook Pro with the new M1 processor is one of the best-performing laptops on the market for the cost, and that cost is a little less than usual today. Amazon and B&H Photo have each knocked $80 from the base model’s normal $1,299 price. At checkout, you’ll pay $1,219, which is just $20 more than the lowest price yet. In other words, if you’ve been waiting for a deal, today’s not a bad day to go for it. Though, this price is only set for the silver-colored option.Unlike the M1-equipped MacBook Air, this base model Pro features a fan, as well as an eight-core GPU instead of seven in the Air.Looking to change your music streaming service or jump onto one for the first time? Tidal’s HiFi service delivers high-bitrate audio and... Continue reading…

Image: Instagram Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, isn’t thrilled with the platform’s TikTok competitor Reels. He discussed the format, which launched in the US in August, during an interview with The Verge’s Decoder podcast today.“I’m not yet happy with it,” he says. “We’re growing both in terms of how much people are sharing and how much people are consuming, but we have a long way to go. And we have to be honest that TikTok is ahead.”He went on to say the team is mostly focused on “table stakes” right now, and not honed in on how to differentiate itself. Specifically, he calls out TikTok’s innovative creative tools, like filters and effects that spur new video meme formats as something Instagram isn’t making on its own yet but needs to eventually... Continue reading…

With an ongoing pandemic and an unprecedented lockdown of the nation’s capital, Joe Biden’s inauguration will look different from those that came before it.The Biden inaugural committee has already planned a week of extensive televised events — like live performances from Lady Gaga and Fall Out Boy — but to try to recreate the camaraderie of a live event, the team has also come up with a new way for supporters to participate virtually.On Wednesday, Biden’s team will launch a Snapchat filter that transports users to the Capitol to participate from home. Once the inaugural filter is selected in the Snapchat reel, users can take a selfie in front of the Capitol as confetti falls from above. If users flip the camera around, they’ll be... Continue reading…

Samsung’s 860 SSD has been one of the standards for PC parts since it was released in 2018. Now, the company is announcing its successor, the 870 Evo, its latest SATA SSD designed for consumer use that brings faster speeds and lower prices.The new drive is apparently so fast that it can actually reach the maximum possible speed for sequential read and write on a SATA drive, with 560MB/s read and 530MB/s write speeds. The new model also represents a nice improvement compared to the 860 Evo, with Samsung promising roughly 38 percent better random read speeds and a 30 percent improvement in sustained performance. The 870 Evo also features a five-year warranty, which is good to see. The 870 Evo will be available in 250GB... Continue reading…

Epic has partnered with some of the biggest soccer clubs in the world for its latest set of Fortnite skins. Today, the developer unveiled the new “kickoff set,” which lets players swap between 23 different kits. There are some big names not featured — sorry, Bayern Munich fans — but the list is impressively global, with popular teams from Europe, alongside squads from the US, Japan, Australia, and Brazil.Here’s every club available:

ViacomCBS is set to relaunch its CBS All Access service as Paramount Plus on March 4th, with a special event to introduce the new streamer on February 24th, the company announced today.The service will also launch in Latin America on March 4th, followed by the Nordics on March 25th and Australia in mid-2021. The version of CBS All Access that is currently available in Canada will rebrand to Paramount Plus on March 4th, with an expanded offering being made available to subscribers later in the year. To better introduce Paramount Plus, and give a more comprehensive look at ViacomCBS’s overall streaming portfolio (that includes Pluto TV and Showtime’s OTT service), the company will host a two-hour event on February 24th following the... Continue reading…

Qualcomm has announced a new mobile phone processor: the Qualcomm Snapdragon 870, a successor to last year’s Snapdragon 865 and 865 Plus models. To be clear, the 870 isn’t a new next-gen design — that title goes to the Snapdragon 888, which makes far more substantial improvements in performance and new features.The 870, on the other hand, is virtually identical to the 865 and 865 Plus, with the same design right down to the Kryo 585 CPU and Adreno 650 GPU cores. The 870 is clocked at 3.2GHz, however, making it about 10 percent faster than the original 865’s 2.84GHz and about 3 percent faster than the 865 Plus (which offered 3.1GHz speeds). Think of it almost like a Snapdragon 865 Plus-plus.Think of it almost like a Snapdragon 865... Continue reading…

Illustration by The Verge The head of Instagram on where social media goes from here Continue reading…

With each new satellite that reaches orbit, the space above our heads gets a little more congested. There are about 3,000 active satellites in use today, but that number is changing quickly, especially as companies like Starlink send up 60 small satellites in a single launch. Add the 20,000 or so bits of orbital debris that authorities are actively tracking, and the image of a limitless expanse of space above the Earth starts to feel a little different.Moriba Jah is a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin who’s on a mission to make the stakes of orbital congestion abundantly clear. He built a visualizer called AstriaGraph that displays the positions of all actively-tracked objects in the sky. He also designed a real-time graph... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images Microsoft is joining forces with Cruise, the self-driving subsidiary of General Motors, to help speed up the commercialization of autonomous vehicles. The software giant is also chipping in on a new equity investment of $2 billion for Cruise, along with previous investors Honda and GM, bringing the AV company’s valuation up to a whopping $30 billion.Microsoft and Cruise are entering “a long-term strategic relationship” — though the partnership won’t be exclusive. It is Microsoft’s first partnership with an autonomous vehicle company. As part of the deal, Cruise will use Azure, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, to help speed up the process of making money off its fleet of autonomous vehicles. For its part, Microsoft will leverage... Continue reading…

The Chromebook Spin 512 comes with a 3:2 aspect ratio display. | Image: Acer Acer is announcing five new laptops aimed at schools today, consisting of four Chromebooks and one Windows convertible. Two of the Chromebooks are Intel-based convertibles, with screens that spin around to turn them into laptops, while the other two feature a more traditional design and are powered by Arm-based processors. All five laptops are designed to be durable, with spill-resistant keyboards and components tested to MIL-STD 810H military durability standards.The two convertible Chromebooks are the Acer Spin 512 and Spin 511. They’re powered by Intel processors (specifically the N4500 and N5100). The Spin 511 has a 11.6-inch HD 16:9 display, while the Spin 512 has a 12-inch HD+ 3:2 display. Both come with up to 64GB of storage, and... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The latest update to ubiquitous open-source media player VLC is here, and it comes with native support for Apple silicon Mac computers — the new versions of the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air, and the Mac mini with Apple’s own M1 processor. VLC 3.0.12 also includes some visual tweaks to bring it further in line with Big Sur, the latest version of macOS.Mac apps don’t strictly require native updates to work with the M1 processor, since Apple silicon Macs include Rosetta 2, a translation layer that lets software compiled for x86 processors run surprisingly well on the newer Arm-based hardware. But for an app like VLC, which many users rely on for playback of hefty 4K or 8K video files, the improvements to performance and efficiency could be... Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red If you’ve already nabbed a next-gen PlayStation or Xbox — or are willing to give developer CD Projekt the benefit of the doubt that it’ll eventually work on your current-gen machine — you can now pick up the standard disc edition of Cyberpunk 2077 for half-price at Amazon and Best Buy. It’s $30, instead of $60.To be clear, that’s the price for the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game, which work on PS5 and Xbox Series X far, far better than they do on current-gen consoles. (There’s no PS5 or Xbox Series X-specific version of the game so far, but the disc will include a free upgrade.) Amazon also has the PC version for $40; compare to its normal price of $60.Sony actually took the unprecedented step of removing Cyberpunk 2077 from... Continue reading…

In 2016, a team of modders released a game they developed in their spare time to nigh-universal acclaim — a mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim that they called Enderal, with its own 30+ hour quest with gobs of original dialogue and professional voice acting. “[It’s the most fun I’ve had in an Elder Scrolls game in years,” wrote our sister site Polygon. It’s the top-rated Skyrim mod of all time at ModDB, has nearly 500,000 downloads at NexusMods and its own Steam page filled with glowing reviews.Now, its developers are setting off to build a game of their own. On Sunday, the team at SureAI released its final patch for Enderal, explaining that they no longer had as much free time to keep up development — because they’re working on “a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amid rising political tensions in the United States, Telegram founder Pavel Durov says his chat service has taken down hundreds of public calls for violence, in accordance with the platform’s terms of service.In a public Telegram post on Monday, Durov emphasized the service’s commitment to banning speech that actively incites violence. “Telegram welcomes peaceful debate and protest, but our Terms of Service explicitly prohibit distributing public calls to violence,” he wrote. “Сivil movements all over the world rely on Telegram in order to stand up for human rights without resorting to inflicting harm.”Notably, the post does not address Telegram’s encrypted chat feature, which protects conversations from outside access and thus is not... Continue reading…

One year ago at CES 2020 in Las Vegas, Alienware made waves with a modular gaming PC that worked like a Nintendo Switch, with a pair of gamepads flanking a powerful Windows 10 tablet. Sadly, Alienware’s UFO was just a concept, as was Lenovo’s take on the idea this year — but two companies are now taking up the torch with a pair of crowdfunded gadgets you might actually see in your lifetime. They look seriously legit.The 5.5-inch GPD Win 3 and the 7-inch Aya Neo aren’t going about it in quite the same way; while the Ava tries to closely match Nintendo’s console in shape, size, and with strictly gaming controls on board, the GPD sticks to its palmtop computer roots with a slide-up screen that reveals a tiny backlit keyboard. There’s also... Continue reading…

On Sunday, The New York Times published an article about the risks of sky-rocketing teenage device usage during quarantine — and as you might expect, they went straight for the guilty-parent touchstones. There are maudlin photos of a family ruined by gaming, and the quote “I’ve failed you as a father” comes in the second sentence. There are also curious comparisons to drug addiction (“There will be a period of epic withdrawal” after quarantine, one addiction expert warns) and vague claims about the impressionable nature of young brains.Before you rush to cut off junior’s Playstation Plus subscription, it’s worth putting things in perspective. We’re in the middle of a worldwide crisis, and the last ten months have been hard on everyone.... Continue reading…

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images A capitol rioter may have stolen Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s laptop with plans to sell it to the Russian government, according to an FBI affidavit filed on Sunday. The affidavit charges Riley June Williams with unlawful entry and impeding government functions, based on extensive video record placing her at the scene of the Capitol riot. But the affidavit also uncovers an apparent plan to steal Speaker Pelosi’s laptop and convey it to a contact in Russia, who would then make contact with the country’s government.Williams was identified by UK media over the weekend, and officers confirmed the identification with her driver’s license photo (on file with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation) and in an in-person interview with her... Continue reading…

2020 Game draws inspiration from the biggest trends of last year. | Screenshot: 2020 Game I get it, there’s absolutely no part of you that wants to relive the terrible year we just lived through. But I implore you to make an exception for 2020 Game, a free web-based side scroller that offers a lighthearted take on last year’s events. It’s well-designed, creative, and — dare I say it — even laugh-out-loud funny in places, and well worth the 10 minutes or so it takes to complete.2020 Game is the work of Max Garkavyy, who developed it alone over the course of six months. Each level takes the form of a major event or trend from last year, ranging from the early rush on toilet paper to the US presidential race. There’s even a brief TikTok dance interlude.The whole experience is complimented by some fantastic pixel-art graphics... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Thiago Prudêncio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images ProPublica has published a new interactive resource of over 500 videos taken in Washington, DC on January 6th, the day of the Capitol riots, offering an unfiltered look at the day’s events. The videos were sourced from Parler, the social network popular with Trump’s supporters, whose database of over one million videos was archived before the service was taken offline.We’ve covered previous attempts to organize these videos into easy-to-view online resources, like this interactive map from Patr10tic. But what’s notable about ProPublica’s site is how easily you can scrub through a timeline of videos and sort by general location: Around DC, Near Capitol, and Inside Capitol. You can start by watching videos of crowds attending President... Continue reading…

Jay Y. Lee arrives at the Seoul High Court on November 09, 2020 in Seoul, South Korea | Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images Lee Jae-yong — known as Jay Y. Lee in the West — the de facto leader and heir to the Samsung Group conglomerate, has been ordered back to prison for two years and six months on bribery charges, according to Bloomberg.The billionaire son of controversial Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee, who died in October, was first jailed in 2017 in a succession scandal that saw the removal of president Park Geun-hye. Lee served just one year of a five-year sentence before a retrial was ordered in 2019.Lee had been accused of offering horses and other bribes to a friend of the former president to win government support for his succession at Samsung. Park is serving a 20-year sentence on a variety of charges including bribery related to Samsung.In... Continue reading…

Virgin Orbit’s airborne rocket-launching system during a previous test. | Image: Virgin Orbit Update January 17th 5:34PM ET: Virgin Orbit’s rocket reached orbit and the satellites were released, meaning Sunday’s mission was a success. The headline has been updated to reflect this. The original story is below.Virgin Orbit — the sister company of billionaire Richard Branson’s space tourism outfit Virgin Galactic — will try a second test of its small satellite-launching rocket later today, months after it failed to reach orbit during a first attempt. It will also be the first time that the company tries to launch working satellites into space on behalf of NASA.Sometime after 1PM ET, Virgin Orbit’s customized Boeing 747 will take off from Virgin Galactic’s spaceport in the Mojave desert and ascend to 35,000 feet with the... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Social media platform Parler was all but wiped off the internet last week, but on Sunday, showed some signs of life. A message from Parler CEO John Matze, first noted by CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, is now appearing at the site’s URL with an image showing a “technical difficulties” banner, and a message.“Now seems like the right time to remind you all — both lovers and haters — why we started this platform. We believe privacy is paramount and free speech essential, especially on social media,” the message reads, pledging to “welcome all of you back soon.”Matze said that Parler could return within weeks. “I’m confident that by the end of the month, we’ll be back up,” Matze told Fox News on Sunday night. That’s a major shift from Wednesday... Continue reading…

Andra Day stars in The United States vs. Billie Holiday | Hulu I’m getting to the point where there’s so much to stream that I don’t know what to watch first, old shows I want to catch up on, or new shows/movies so I can keep up with all the references on Twitter. But! I am filled with hope for the coming weeks, as there are a slew of interesting-looking trailers for movies I have been waiting to see.The United States vs. Billie HolidayI sort of wish this movie had been named “Strange Fruit” after Holiday’s 1939 song that drew the ire of the FBI, but guessing a lot of people don’t know about this part of Holiday’s life. The great jazz singer who struggled with drug addiction saw the government wreck her career using an undercover sting operation, all over a controversial song. Really looking... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Chesnot/Getty Images GitHub is admitting that a Jewish employee was fired in error and is offering him his job back. The news comes after the company hired an independent law firm to investigate the termination, and found that “significant mistakes were made.” The company’s head of HR, Carrie Olesen, is also resigning.“Yesterday evening, the investigation reached the conclusion that significant mistakes were made that are not consistent with our internal practices or the judgement we expect from our leaders,” wrote GitHub CEO Nat Friedman in an internal message to employees on January 16th. He said the company would be issuing a public apology on its blog this weekend.In the post, GitHub COO Erica Brescia said: “To the employee we wish to say publicly:... Continue reading…

Amazon is facing a new lawsuit alleging that a deal between the company and five book publishers has created higher prices on e-books, The Wall Street Journal reported.The lawsuit filed by law firm Hagens Berman in a federal district court in New York, alleges that the publishers pay high commissions and other costs to Amazon, which in turn increases the retail price of e-books sold on the platform. Due to the deal between Amazon and the publishers— HarperCollins Publishers, Hachette Book Group, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan — the Amazon price is the price the publishers charge other retailers as well, preventing other sellers from offering the e-books at lower prices, according to the lawsuit.The lawsuit... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images After experiencing technical difficulties Friday, the Signal messaging app appears to be back up and running. The company tweeted Saturday night that it was “back,” although added that some users may still see error messages in their chats. The company didn’t explain what caused the outage.

A critical NASA rocket test ended with a shutdown on Saturday, a little over a minute into what was planned to be an eight-minute test. This trial run was a vital checkpoint for NASA’s much-delayed Space Launch System. The SLS is set to play a key role in the agency’s Artemis program which aims to return astronauts to the Moon.During today’s Green Run test, the four rocket engines in the SLS core fired for a little over a minute while anchored in NASA’s rocket test stand. The team had planned to have the engines fire for approximately eight minutes, or about the same amount of time it will take to launch future missions to the Moon.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook has updated its Inauguration Day preparations to include a temporary ban on ads that promote weapon accessories and protective equipment at least through January 22nd “out of an abundance of caution,” the company said in a new blog post Saturday. “We already prohibit ads for weapons, ammunition and weapon enhancements like silencers. But we will now also prohibit ads for accessories such as gun safes, vests and gun holsters in the US,” the statement reads.The ban comes after Facebook was criticized for allowing posts across its platforms that promoted and organized the deadly January 6th attack on the Capitol building. The ads for military gear such as body armor and gun holsters ran next to Facebook and Instagram posts about... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Ford will delay deliveries for hundreds of its Mustang Mach-E vehicles to perform quality checks, Electrek reported. The automaker began delivering the Mach-E SUV in December, but some buyers reported that their upcoming delivery dates had been pushed back, by as long as a month in some cases, according to Electrek.The Mustang Mach-E SUV is Ford’s first update to the iconic Mustang brand ever, and the company’s biggest foray into the EV marketplace.Ford didn’t immediately return a request for comment from The Verge on Saturday, but a spokesperson told Electrek it was doing “additional quality checks on several hundred” of the SUVs that were built before dealer shipments began in December, “to ensure they meet the quality our... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Some Twitter employees have set their accounts to private and scrubbed their online biographies over concerns they may be targeted by supporters of President Trump, the New York Times reported. In addition, some Twitter executives have been assigned personal security as the company reckons with its decision to bar one of its loudest voices.Trump’s @realDonaldTrump account was permanently suspended from Twitter January 8th, “due to the risk of further incitement of violence,” Twitter said in its statement. The president told supporters at a rally just before an attack on the Capitol January 6th they would “have to show strength,” and “fight much harder,” encouraging them to walk down to the Capitol. Trump tweeted that Vice President... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Rating the all-digital Consumer Electronics Show Continue reading…

vrbo Short-term rental site VRBO does not plan to cancel reservations in the DC area during the inauguration next week, even though competitor Airbnb has already done so. First reported by BuzzFeed News, VRBO said in a blog post Friday afternoon that it was “encouraging hosts to cancel bookings during this time,” if they believed a guest was violating its policies, but stopped short of a blanket cancellation.Following the January 6th attack on the Capitol that left six people dead, DC-area officials said in a joint statement that they were “encouraging Americans not to come to Washington, D.C. and to instead participate virtually” in the inauguration.VRBO acknowledges in its blog post that officials were “reporting the potential for... Continue reading…