The Verge

Photo: David Roth Another internet meme has sold for big bucks online: Zoë Roth, best known as “Disaster Girl” for the popular image macro taken by her father in 2005 of her smirking at the camera while a house burns down in the background, has sold the original copy of the meme as an NFT for 180 Ether, worth almost $500,000.Roth tells The New York Times that she’ll use the money to pay off her student loans and to donate to charity. And as is the case with many NFT sales, the Roths also retain the copyright to the image and will make 10 percent off any future sales of the NFT.She’s by no means the first meme star to leverage the boom in crytocurrency-based artwork into a small fortune. Chris Torres — the creator of Nyan Cat — sold an NFT of the... Continue reading…

Scammers are hacking into the accounts of Target gig workers and draining their bank accounts, Motherboard reports. Since March 28th, more than 30 employees who work for Shipt, Target’s delivery app, have posted on Facebook about being attacked. The company employs about 300,000 contract shoppers in the United States.In some cases, the scammers are spoofing Shipt’s phone number and pretending to be corporate employees. They say they’ve noticed unusual activity on the worker’s account and ask for the person’s password. Once they get in, they transfer the worker’s earnings to themselves.The scam is made possible in part by an “instant payout” feature Shipt rolled out earlier this year. The feature allows workers to cash out their... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Snap’s diversity report reveals that the company has made slow progress toward overall racial and gender diversity, with 47 percent of its employees being white and 65 percent male. However, there are some areas of significant progress; Snap says it increased the number of women on its board of directors to 50 percent from 37.5 percent.Other improvements were smaller, with a tiny rise in women’s representation across the company (32.9 to 33.1 percent) and a similarly small increase in underrepresented racial groups among leadership (13.1 to 13.6 percent). Meanwhile, Hispanic / Latinx representation decreased from 6.9 to 6.8 percent, and Asian representation in leadership decreased from 16.5 to 14.3 percent.The company is setting new... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Microsoft’s next big Windows 10 update for later this year will include some important audio improvements. The OS will finally get support for Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) over Bluetooth, which will give Windows users even more choice for Bluetooth headphones and speakers. Windows Insiders can test the changes right now.Windows has long only supported SBC and AptX over Bluetooth, but AAC support also unlocks the potential for better audio quality for Apple’s range of headphones and through iTunes or Apple Music on Windows. Apple was previously hiring engineers to build the “next generation of media apps for Windows,” and AAC support would be a solid improvement for any potential Apple Music app, or just streaming through the browser.M... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Just stop. Stop telling us why your 5G network is the very best and fastest and most reliable. Stop running commercials about how life-changing your 5G network is. Definitely stop telling us why your 5G network is better than the other guy’s 5G network because can you even imagine building a 5G network the way they have? Please stop with all of this, it’s been a very long year and we’re tired.It would be one thing to make all of these fantastical claims like you do if any of them reflected any real person’s experience. They don’t. Your 5G networks are just not that good yet. They’ll get better, and that’s nice! But please stop pretending like the 5G train has pulled into the station and all we have to do is get on board to be whisked... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today’s Dish Network Q1 earnings call took an unexpected turn into Whoville when chairman Charlie Ergen compared T-Mobile to the Grinch. The comparison came up when discussing the “Uncarrier’s” decision to go ahead with its CDMA shutdown, a move that will potentially see millions of Dish’s Boost Mobile customers losing service at the beginning of next year. Ergen made no secret what he thinks of the move: “They’ve become the Grinch.” He went on to add, “the Uncarrier’s become the uncaring carrier.”Dish Network acquired Boost as a condition of the Sprint / T-Mobile merger with the intention of positioning Dish to take Sprint’s place as the US’s fourth wireless carrier. A year later, the company faces a major setback following T-Mobile’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is investigating Volkswagen’s “Voltswagen” debacle to see how the stunt affected the automaker’s stock price, and whether it broke any securities laws, according to Der Spiegel.The faux rebranding took place on March 29th, when Volkswagen’s American subsidiary “accidentally” published a draft press release about changing its name to Voltswagen in a nod to the larger company’s push into electric vehicles.After some news outlets reported on that apparently errant admission, the company followed up with an official press release on March 30th, which included quotes from Volkswagen of America CEO Scott Keogh claiming the change was really happening.Ultimately, the stunt turned... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Nvidia is trying again to limit the use of its RTX 3060 graphics cards for mining Ethereum, with a new update once again adding a hash limiter to the GPU, via VideoCardz.com.If that sounds familiar to you, that’s because it’s not the first time that Nvidia has tried to nerf mining performance on the RTX 3060 — the company first rolled out new drivers that were intended to limit the hash rate of Ethereum mining by around 50 percent in February.“We designed GeForce GPUs for gamers, and gamers are clamoring for more,” says Matt Wuebbling, head of global GeForce marketing at Nvidia, in a blog post announcing the change. The company also announced a new product, the Nvidia CMP (Cryptocurrency Mining Processor), a dedicated GPU meant... Continue reading…

A virtual world leads to IRL excursions Continue reading…

Image: Netflix Sweet Tooth, a new Netflix series based on the DC comic, will debut on the streaming service on June 4th, according to a new teaser trailer that premiered Thursday.Here’s a brief description of the show, from Netflix: “On a perilous adventure across a post-apocalyptic world, a lovable boy who’s half-human and half-deer searches for a new beginning with a gruff protector.” The trailer, which you can watch here or at the top of this post, shows that Gus, the half-human / half-deer boy, isn’t the only human / animal hybrid in this world — I’m pretty sure I spotted a girl with a pig’s snout. And I have to say that by the end, I was already rooting hard for Gus and getting mad at anyone who would dare threaten him.The eight-episode series... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Facebook says it will spend $5 million paying local journalists on a new publishing platform. Reuters reported the news on Thursday, saying independent journalists could begin applying for the program today. The company is prioritizing reporters in areas without an existing news source — sometimes called “news deserts” — who plan to cover “Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian or other audiences of color.”Facebook announced its new local news platform last month. The platform includes a self-publishing tool that lets reporters launch newsletters and charge for subscriptions, as well as integration with existing features like Facebook pages and groups. Reuters reports that Facebook will strike multiyear deals with selected journalists, who... Continue reading…

Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Best Buy and Amazon are is offering the 40mm Apple Watch Series 6 (GPS) for $249, smashing yesterday’s discounted price of $299. This model normally sold for $399, and today’s price drop makes it more affordable than — and superior to — the Apple Watch SE that costs $279. The one downside to this promo is that it only loops in the Product Red model that’s all red, which might not go with your look.At this price, it’s currently about $80 more than 38mm-sized Apple Watch Series 3, yet it provides a sizable boost in power and capabilities. For one, the Series 6 has more internal storage. A few other perks of this discounted watch include its always-on display that’s surprisingly efficient, and its ability to take blood oxygen readings. Y... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by William Joel | Video by Daniel Valls The New York Police Department has canceled its trial of a robot dog made by US firm Boston Dynamics after receiving fierce criticism regarding the “dystopian” technology.“The contract has been terminated and the dog will be returned,” a spokesperson for the NYPD told the New York Post. John Miller, the department’s deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism, told The New York Times that the machine was “a casualty of politics, bad information and cheap sound bytes.” Said Miller: “People had figured out the catchphrases and the language to somehow make this evil.”The NYPD began leasing the machine nicknamed Digidog last year. “This dog is going to save lives, protect people, and protect officers and that’s our goal,”... Continue reading…

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin is finally getting ready to sell tickets for seats on its suborbital New Shepard rocket.No details on price or timelines yet, but the company tweeted a video on Thursday featuring a cowboy-hat-wearing Jeff Bezos driving an electric Rivian truck through the Texas desert right after Blue Origin’s 15th New Shepard test flight on April 14th. “Guys, how exciting is this, c’mon,” he said before stepping out to inspect the company’s crew capsule, which had just landed under parachutes (without a crew inside).

Two days after the DC insurrection, as the country was still processing the aftermath, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson posted his second tweet of the past three years. Anderson attached the thinking emoji to an amateurish Photoshop render of Donald Trump, sitting in one of his typically garish offices, with his browser opened to Myspace. “‘MYSPACE TOM’ ABOUT TO GET A NEW FRIEND,” reads the caption, saliently predicting that with the entire internet industry mobilizing to hastily deplatform the president, Trump’s only access to the public might come from a long-zombified social media company. Anderson must’ve found the meme funny enough to log back on, disrupting a truly unprecedented offline streak for the average tech mogul. He... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Ford has sold more than 7,000 Mustang Mach-E SUVs so far, and it says 70 percent of those buyers have never owned one of the company’s cars.For comparison, Ford told The Verge that 39 percent of people who bought the more affordable 2020 Escape were new to the brand.So what does that 70 percent figure actually mean?Well, if Ford keeps up the pace and meets its goal of selling 30,000 Mustang Mach-Es in the US in 2021, then it’s a promising sign the company is doing important work in attracting new customers. It’s also evidence that a really capable electric car can help Ford carve out new market share, and that some early production issues haven’t scared away unfamiliar buyers. That could be good news for the all-electric version of... Continue reading…

Steve Carell in The Office. | Photo: NBC/NBCU Photo Bank Comcast said that The Office and WWE were to thank for its new-ish streaming service, Peacock, adding 9 million signups during the first three months of 2021. Peacock now has 42 million members total in the United States. That looks strong compared to HBO’s 44.2 million US customers, but it comes with a huge caveat: Peacock has a free tier, and Comcast doesn’t say how many customers are paying.Still, Peacock got a sizable boost during a quarter when other streaming services notched smaller growth. HBO added 2.7 million subscribers in the US, and Netflix added 4 million subscribers globally. (Disclosure: Comcast is an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.)Two big names contributed to this quarter’s growth. The Office became... Continue reading…

Lime’s bright green electric mopeds are coming to New York City. The company that’s better known for its electric kick scooters will initially roll out 100 mopeds in Queens, Brooklyn, and Lower Manhattan.It’s the second US market for Lime’s mopeds, after first launching them in Washington, DC. (The company is also operating a fleet in Paris.) Lime was also recently approved to deploy 1,000 electric scooters in the Bronx as part of New York City’s inaugural shared scooter pilot.It’s the second US market for Lime’s mopedsThe mopeds are manufactured by NIU, a Chinese company that also supplies mopeds to New York City-based mobility company Revel. NIU’s mopeds typically get between 25–100 miles of range. Lime’s mopeds will be speed... Continue reading…

Microsoft is announcing today that Halo Infinite will support crossplay and cross-progression when it launches later this year. This will allow PC and Xbox players to match together and play the Halo Infinite campaign, and the support also extends to multiplayer. Any multiplayer customization and progress will sync across both PC and Xbox.Halo Infinite’s multiplayer mode will also be free to play when it launches later this year, with support for up to 120fps in the arena mode on Xbox Series X. Microsoft is also ensuring all of the customizations PC players expect are available inside Halo Infinite. This includes support for ultrawide monitors, triple keybinds, advanced graphics options, and other customizations.We’re now waiting to... Continue reading…

Spotify’s redesigned Your Library features dynamic tabs and an easier way to sort your downloaded content. | Spotify Spotify is trying again to make its Your Library tab easier to navigate. It’s introducing dynamic filters, a new grid view, the ability to pin content, and different sorting options. The changes are coming to all users across iOS and Android over the coming week. The filters will likely be the most useful change, with users being able to filter between album, artist, playlist, or podcast. Premium users can also choose to view only downloaded content, which, up until now, has been hard to find within Spotify without scrolling through every artist and album they’ve saved.Users can also choose to pin four playlists, albums, or podcast shows that’ll show up at the top of their content. To pin, swipe right on what you want to keep at the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is shaking up the world of PC gaming today with a big cut to the amount of revenue it takes from games on Windows. The software giant is reducing its cut from 30 percent to just 12 percent from August 1st, in a clear bid to compete with Steam and entice developers and studios to bring more PC games to its Microsoft Store.“Game developers are at the heart of bringing great games to our players, and we want them to find success on our platforms,” says Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios at Microsoft. “A clear, no-strings-attached revenue share means developers can bring more games to more players and find greater commercial success from doing so.”These changes will only affect PC games and not Xbox console games in... Continue reading…

The integration lets you view charging stations directly from your car’s infotainment screen. | Image: ChargePoint ChargePoint, operator of one of the largest EV charging networks across Europe and North America, is adding support for Android Auto to its app. The functionality means Android phone users will be able to find, navigate to, and start charging from a ChargePoint charging station from their car’s infotainment screen, without having to pick up their phone. Support for Android Auto follows the addition of CarPlay support in November last year.According to ChargePoint, the Android Auto experience lets you view a map with nearby charging stations, check status, filter by metrics like availability and cost, and then start a charging session once you arrive. The in-vehicle app can also be set to notify the driver once a busy charging station... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Shutting down its semiconductor plant in Austin, Texas lost Samsung over 300 billion won (around $270 million), Yonhap News reports. Speaking during a conference call, a senior vice president at Samsung’s foundry business Han Seung-hoon said that the shutdown affected around 71,000 wafers, corresponding to “around 300 to 400 billion won in damage.” The statement coincided with Samsung’s latest earnings release, in which it reported strong sales of its smartphones and other consumer electronics.The South Korean electronics giant was forced to shut down its Austin plant — which produces microprocessors like radio frequency integrated circuits and solid state drive controllers — back in February after a storm left some 200,000 Austin... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An ongoing lawsuit pursued by Amazon against the US government and Microsoft will continue after a federal judge rejected a motion to dismiss the case. The suit concerns Microsoft’s success in securing the $10 billion JEDI cloud computing contract with the Defense Department — a decision that Amazon says was influenced by President Donald Trump’s dislike of the company and its CEO Jeff Bezos.The decision, as reported by The Washington Post and Bloomberg News, means Amazon can now argue in front of a court that Trump himself and former defense secretary Jim Mattis should testify. A motion to dismiss the case was rejected by Judge Patricia Campbell-Smith on Wednesday April 28, though her full opinion was filed under seal.Amazon and... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The PS5 will be available to buy in China on May 15th, a little over six months after its original release in the US last year, Sony announced today. The disc version of the console will retail for 3,899 yuan (around $600), while the cheaper disc-free model will cost 3,099 yuan (around $479). Preorders open today. The launch means Sony’s next-gen console will beat Microsoft’s to release in the country, although CBNC notes that Microsoft received safety approvals to release the Xbox Series X and Series S there at the end of last year.Relative to its size and population, China isn’t considered a huge market for console gaming. Game consoles were technically illegal in the country until 2014, which meant PC and mobile gaming has become... Continue reading…

Image: Vivaldi Vivaldi announced today that it’s updating the desktop and Android versions of its Vivaldi browser with the ability to block annoying cookie preference pop-ups. Thanks to the passage of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you’ve probably had to click through at least one dialog box asking if you’d like to manage how a site tracks you. Vivaldi’s new update lets you avoid those notifications — with some major caveats — while theoretically still keeping you safe from tracking.Vivaldi’s logic for the new feature, affectionately called “Cookie Crumbler,” is that while giving users control over how they’re tracked is good, doing so through a pop-up “leads to clicking ‘allow’ or ‘accept’ without realizing that... Continue reading…

No matter how much web browsers improve, it feels like they can’t keep pace with everything we want to do. Open one too many tabs on a few-year-old laptop, and your fan starts spinning, your battery life dips, your system starts to slow. A faster or cleaner PC might fix it, but a startup called Mighty has a different idea: a $30-a-month web browser that lives in the cloud.Instead of your own physical computer interacting with each website, you stream a remote web browser instead, one that lives on a powerful computer many miles away with its own 1,000Mbps connection to the internet.Suddenly, your decent internet connection would feel like one of the fastest internet connections in the world, with websites loading nigh-instantly and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge When Facebook users tried to view a hashtag calling for the resignation of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, they instead saw a message saying that Facebook was temporarily hiding the posts in order to keep the community safe. Buzzfeed News reports that the posts were hidden for about three hours.Facebook has now restored the posts. The company tells The Verge that the hashtag was blocked “by mistake” and claims it wasn’t because the Indian government asked Facebook to remove it. It also says the block was the result of some of the content that used the hashtag, but did not specify what kind of content.The temporary suspension of the hashtag is likely to fuel concerns about the influence that Modi’s BJP party wields... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has announced that over 500,000 of its workers will get a permanent increase in their hourly wages starting in mid-May, from as low as an additional 50 cents an hour to as much as three extra dollars per hour (via GeekWire). That’s a substantial chunk of its 1.3 million person workforce getting at least a small pay bump, and the company shared that it’s investing over $1 billion in these pay increases. Amazon said that it’s also on a hiring spree for “tens of thousands of jobs across our operations in the US.”Amazon previously recognized its warehouse and delivery workers with a $2 pay bump last March as the company worked to meet increased demand during the pandemic, but that was a temporary raise that disappeared in May 2020,... Continue reading…

Customers already enrolled in the prepaid plan will get a data boost and a lower price when their plan renews. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AT&T says it will now offer a prepaid 5G data-only plan with up to 100GB of data for $55 per month — a big upgrade from its previous offering of 40GB for $75. The new pricing extends to Cricket Wireless customers as well as AT&T’s direct prepaid subscribers, though those on Cricket won’t be able to access the 5G network. These plans allow customers to buy data for their tablet or mobile hotspot separate from their voice plan.That 100GB is a lot of data at a lower price than the other major carriers are offering; currently, T-Mobile has a prepaid data-only plan of 50GB for $50 and Verizon has a 30GB plan for $65 per month. It may be no coincidence that Verizon and T-Mobile are also eager to expand their own 5G and LTE-based fixed home... Continue reading…

NASA Michael Collins, the witty “forgotten” astronaut of NASA’s legendary Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, died of cancer on Wednesday, his family said. An icon of space exploration and an eloquent storyteller (who, arguably, had the best sense of humor among the Apollo 11 crew), Collins passionately advocated for further exploration of other worlds. Astronauts, NASA officials, and others in the space community who are heeding his advocacy mourned his death today.Collins was the Columbia command module pilot who stayed in orbit around the Moon in 1969 while his crew mates, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, descended to the lunar surface and became the first two humans to set foot on another world. Aldrin, now the only living Apollo 11 astronaut,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook’s ad revenue was up more than 45 percent during the first three months of 2020, soaring to $25.4 billion — or about seven times what Twitter makes in an entire year. But the company sees some potential problems on the horizon that could limit continued growth: regulators are closing in on ad tracking practices, and a feature launched this week by Apple could harm its ability to target ads.“We continue to expect increased ad targeting headwinds in 2021 from regulatory and platform changes,” Facebook CFO Dave Wehner writes in the company’s Q1 2021 earnings release. Wehner specifically calls out iOS 14.5, which includes a feature that lets iPhone and iPad users easily stop apps from tracking them in certain ways. Facebook expects... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple’s iPhone 12 lineup maintained enormously strong demand from consumers from January through March, according to the company’s fiscal Q2 earnings posted today. Apple reported record March quarter revenue of $89.6 billion, up 54 percent year over year. The iPhone took in just under $48 billion, jumping up by 66 percent from a year ago.Sales of Mac and iPad hardware also surged for yet another quarter, up 70 and 78 percent respectively, due in part to continued remote work and schooling necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. That success might slow down as some regions of the world return to a sense of normalcy, so most eyes — as usual — are on the iPhone. It’s been reported that the iPhone 12 mini isn’t doing as well as Apple hoped,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge HBO Max’s upcoming ad-support tier will cost $9.99 per month, or $5 less than the standard $14.99 per month that the regular version of HBO Max costs, according to a new report from CNBC.The upcoming ad-supported tier is still set to launch in June and will feature a few major differences from the $15 per month plan — including access to WarnerMedia’s same-day theatrical release strategy for films like Dune or The Matrix 4, which will be limited to subscribers to HBO Max’s more premium tier. WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar has also confirmed in a March analyst event that HBO original shows won’t get ads added in, so customers won’t have to worry about Euphoria, The Sopranos, or Game of Thrones getting interrupted by commercials.HBO, for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon workers at four different facilities near Staten Island have begun the process of unionizing with the Amazon Labor Union. The organizing effort is being led by Christian Smalls, a former warehouse worker who was fired in March after organizing a walkout to protest unsafe working conditions during the pandemic, according to Protocol.The company has responded by posting anti-union messages on TV screens at JFK8, the fulfillment center where Smalls used to work. “KNOW THE FACTS BEFORE YOU SIGN A UNION CARD,” reads one of the messages obtained by Motherboard. “If someone asks you to provide your personal information or sign a union card, do not release your personal information without knowing all the facts.”Several hundred workers... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Next week, Epic Games and Apple will appear in court for a long-anticipated legal battle. Epic argues that Apple unfairly kicked its hit game Fortnite off the App Store last year, exercising an illegal monopoly over the ubiquitous iOS platform. Apple claims Epic is trying to break the iOS platform’s vaunted safety and security for its own gain. Both parties have laid out how they expect to win their respective cases, and this week, they’ve provided near-final lists of the people they expect to call for testimony.Apple and Epic both filed revised tentative witness lists on April 26th. The lists don’t guarantee every witness will be called, and crucially, they don’t tell us when we’ll see a given person on the stand. But with the closely... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge General Motors announced a “holistic charging approach” to electric vehicle charging that it’s calling the Ultium Charge 360.Much like Ford does with its FordPass network, the Ultium Charge 360 will integrate GM’s own vehicle apps and software with a variety of third-party charging services, such as Blink, ChargePoint, EVgo, Flo, Greenlots, and SemaConnect. The goal is to create a seamless experience in which an owner of a GM electric vehicle can drive up to a station, plug in, and start charging without having to juggle multiple apps or third-party memberships.“There is a lot more to EV adoption than just buying the vehicle and just having a large connected network,” said Travis Hester, GM’s chief EV officer. “And our mission is to... Continue reading…

Netflix’s Vtuber, N-Ko. | Image: Netflix Netflix has joined the Vtuber trend, unveiling a virtual streamer this week who will host a weekly show on the company’s YouTube channel to promote its original anime series. The character is named N-ko Mei Kurono, and Netflix describes her as the company’s “anime ambassador.” She also happens to be a “sheep-human lifeform.”Vtubers, or “virtual YouTubers,” are animated hosts who often vlog on YouTube or stream on Twitch. In general, these characters are operated by a single human, who will use motion capture software (and sometimes a motion-capture outfit) to transform themselves into a cartoony character on-screen. Some Vtubers have become hugely popular over the past year, including Projekt Melody and CodeMiko.Netflix is using the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Many Verizon customers in Southern California reported difficulties making calls on Tuesday afternoon, and the company confirmed to The Verge at the time that was a “network issue” affecting voice services in parts of the region. That issue was resolved overnight, a spokesperson told The Verge on Wednesday morning.During the outage, if you were having trouble making calls, the spokesperson recommended putting your device in airplane mode or restarting your phone, which they said should fix the issues. And in response to one person on Twitter on Tuesday, Verizon’s support account recommended using Wi-Fi “if possible.”

Image: Google Google Assistant is getting a better way to correct its name pronunciation, as well as improved contextual awareness when it comes to setting and changing timers with your voice. In the blog post announcing the changes, Google says they should be rolling out in the next few days.If Assistant has been pronouncing your name wrong, the new way to try to fix that is pretty simple: you can just say your name out loud, and Google will try to learn the pronunciation. The old way, which is still available for those who wanted it, required you to spell out the way you wanted your name pronounced.If you’re looking to try it for yourself, you can go to the Google Assistant settings, then Basic Info, then Nickname. It is worth noting that you... Continue reading…

If you’re a Windows user and you use multiple monitors, you’ve probably experienced the headache of apps randomly rearranging when you resume from sleep. There have been a variety of ways to work around this over the years, but Microsoft is finally addressing it and fixing it in a future Windows 10 update.“The technical terminology we use to describe this problem is known as Rapid Hot Plug Detect (Rapid HPD),” explains Michelle Xiong, a program manager on the graphics team at Microsoft. “This behavior impacts DisplayPort multi-monitor setups which results in unwanted desktop rearrangements.”This problem is particularly troublesome if you’re using a laptop with a secondary screen or an additional monitor goes into deep sleep and Windows... Continue reading…

Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images President Biden will deliver his first joint address to Congress on Wednesday. There will be an unusually small crowd in the House chamber due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, but the event will be streamed on social media platforms for viewers across the country.Biden’s speech is expected to touch on a series of administration priorities, including the pandemic, immigration, and tax reform.Here’s how to watch the address:HOW DO I WATCH THE ADDRESS?Biden’s address will be broadcast across major networks such as CNN, Fox, NBC, PBS, and C-SPAN. The White House will also be streaming the event on its YouTube channel, Facebook page, and on Twitter from @WhiteHouse and @POTUS.The Twitter stream will be accompanied by live on-screen... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Stadia is an online game streaming service from Google, a company that is practically synonymous with search engines and the general concept of searching things online. Over the past two decades, the idea of “googling something” has become a standard part of language, so dominant has Google’s search engine become in popular culture.On an unrelated note, today — 526 days after its initial launch — Google has finally added a search bar to the Stadia store to better allow customers to search through the 172 games currently available on the service. In addition to the new, revolutionary search bar (which Google says will be reaching all players this week), Stadia is also debuting a new way to sort players’ libraries to... Continue reading…

Google is turning Android phones into an earthquake detection system. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Google is expanding its Android-based earthquake detection and alert system, filling in gaps in places where there are few seismometers and no early warning systems. Starting today, the program that launched in California last year will also be available in Greece and New Zealand.Filling in gaps in places where there are few seismometersThis also marks a new step for Google; it’s the first time the company will handle everything from detecting the earthquake to warning individuals. Android devices will first sense waves generated by quakes. Google then analyzes data from the phones and sends out an early warning alert to users in the affected area. Users will get the alerts automatically unless they opt out of the service.When Google... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Epic Games is holding back Fortnite from being available on Microsoft’s Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service, according to a new deposition made public as part of the Epic case against Apple. The Fortnite developer views Microsoft’s xCloud service as competition to its PC offerings, and the company is deliberately not offering Fortnite on xCloud as a result.Joe Kreiner, Epic’s vice president of business development, was questioned over why Fortnite isn’t available on xCloud, and confirmed it was a deliberate choice. “We viewed Microsoft’s efforts with xCloud to be competitive with our PC offerings,” says Kreiner in the deposition. The court document makes it appear like Kreiner may go on to explain why, but the next part of the... Continue reading…

I’m proud of the Milwaukee Bucks for winning their game against the Hornets yesterday, and I’m also really proud of them for setting up a mobile COVID-19 vaccination site for their next home game. On Sunday, any fan in attendance can get their first dose of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine through a partnership with the Milwaukee Health Department.Game attendance is capped at 3,266 people, and the arena’s general manager Dennis Williams told The Washington Post that the organization hopes to vaccinate at least a few hundred people. Facility employees will be able to get a shot as well.“It was important to try to capture as many people as possible,” Williams said, “and what better way than a Bucks game that sees 600 to 800 employees on... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced today that the iOS version of Telegram will be updated to support group video calls in May (via Yahoo Finance). The company originally planned to add the video call feature to its messaging service at some point in 2020, but the feature never materialized. Telegram did at least make it into the new year with one video call addition: end-to-end encrypted one-on-one video calls were added in August 2020.Durov’s announcement of the new launch date was shared — naturally — in his personal Telegram channel. He writes that group video calls will have:

The Galaxy Book comes in silver or this sleek blue color | Samsung Samsung announced two entry-level Galaxy Book laptops at its Unpacked event: the Galaxy Book and the Galaxy Book Flex2 Alpha. The former will start at around $800 (according to Samsung, that price is subject to change) and will launch in the second half of 2021, whereas the Flex2 Alpha starts at $849 and is available for preorder now, shipping in mid-May. These round out the fleet of premium models announced today, including the Galaxy Book Pro and Pro 360 with OLED screens that start at $999, and the $1,399 Galaxy Book Odyssey gaming laptop that’s the first to sport Nvidia’s new RTX 3050 Ti graphics card.Starting with the Galaxy Book, it has a 15.6-inch 1080p TFT LCD display, and it supports up to two fast NVMe SSDs. It has two USB-C... Continue reading…

The United Auto Workers union is “laying the groundwork” to organize factory workers that will build electric vehicles for startups like Rivian and Lucid Motors, president Rory Gamble told CNBC.“That’s a given. We are formulating plans to go out to all these start-ups to give these workers a voice,” he said. “In today’s world, you have to think out of the box in how you reach people. We really have to drive home the benefits of belonging to the union.”Gamble declined to say what those plans involve, according to CNBC. The UAW did not respond to a request for comment from The Verge. Representatives for Rivian, Lucid Motors, Faraday Future, and Lordstown Motors did not respond to requests for comment.Factory workers who build cars for... Continue reading…

Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images Two shots of a COVID-19 vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalization by 94 percent for people over 65, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.That age group is at the highest risk of severe cases of COVID-19 — that’s why it was prioritized for the early waves of vaccination in the United States. Keeping that age group out of the hospital would go a long way to drive down the hospitalization rates from the disease overall.The analysis looked at people hospitalized at 24 hospitals in 14 states during January, February, and March. It included 417 hospitalized patients, 187 of whom tested positive for COVID-19 and 230 who did not. Partial vaccination, defined in this case as having a first dose two... Continue reading…