The Verge

Image: Razer Another CES is in the books. Going all-virtual meant that it was a smaller show than usual — and since it was already a show that’s been on the decline in terms of influence for a few years now, we could feel it. Still: there were some big stories to follow and things to learn about what’s coming up in consumer tech.That’s the thing about CES: most of the time the best technology shown off here is conceptual, wildly expensive, a long way off in the future, or all of the above. We’re interested in it not because we expect to find it in a store next week, but because it informs the things we’ll find in stores over the course of the next two years. Also, we’re interested in it because gigantic screens are dope, especially when they bend.T... Continue reading…

The B-2 Test Stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. | NASA Update 6:05PM ET: A little over a minute after the Green Run hot fire test began, the engines shut down.Update 3:10PM ET: NASA has moved up the time for the Green Run hot fire test. The NASA broadcast will now start at 3:20PM ET, and the test window opens at 4PM ET.Four huge rocket engines will roar to life on Saturday, in a crucial test for NASA’s powerful next-generation rocket. This long-awaited trial run won’t leave the ground, but it will be so powerful that officials have warned that it may be heard up to 60 miles away.Saturday’s test is the last step in series of tests that NASA calls a Green Run for the Space Launch System (SLS), a powerful rocket designed to launch missions to the Moon and deep space. It will test the 212... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Millions of people in the US started buying face masks in 2020, and companies, unsurprisingly, rushed to take advantage of the surge of demand for a new product. At CES 2021, the gadget-ification of the mask was on full display. Leading the pack was Razer’s transparent voice-amplifying, light-up concept mask. AirPop promoted its Active+ Smart Mask, which monitors users’ breathing rates and alerts them via a smartphone app when the mask’s filter needs changing. Binatone’s MaskFone has built-in earbuds and a mic for phone calls.Turning masks into a status symbol is nothing new, nor is capitalizing on a disaster to make a buck. Before the pandemic, people wore masks to protect from air pollution, and they’re fashion items in China and... Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red A new report looking into what went amiss with the rollout of Cyberpunk 2077 points to overconfidence from management at CD Projekt Red as a key problem, and reveals that “full development” of the game — announced in 2012— didn’t begin until 2016.Jason Schreier of Bloomberg interviewed more than 20 current and former CD Projekt staff, and found that the game’s development was plagued by unrealistic deadlines and technical issues. The company “hit the reset button” on the game in 2016, but a demo of Cyberpunk 2077 showed at E3 in 2018 was “almost entirely fake,” according to the report. The development also suffered from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, with programmers on the PC version and testers of the console version working... Continue reading…

Image: Logitech Welcome to the weekend. If I’m being honest, this week’s assortment of deals was just as spotty as last week’s. So, to make it a little better, we’ve worked with some retailers to give Verge readers some exclusive deals. Looking forward, if you’re on the hunt for, say, a big 4K TV or a home theater system, we’ll be sure to include the top deals in our regular Verge Deals coverage as the Super Bowl nears.Save big on Logitech’s keyboard case for iPad ProDaily Steals is giving Verge readers a special discount on the Logitech Slim Folio Pro keyboard case for the 11-inch or 12.9-inch iPad Pro (pictured above). These cases connect to your iPad Pro via Bluetooth and recharge via USB-C. Both sizes have backlit keys, making it easier to see... Continue reading…

Driving around a car that looks like it’s made from the fabric of space is now slightly more possible, as demonstrated in this modified black paint job that DipYourCar applied to a Mitsubishi Lancer. The resulting car, spotted by Gizmodo, absorbs 99.4 percent of light, but features speckled luminescent spots that make it look like the night sky.The project required the use of Musou Black paint made by Koyo Orient Japan and the application of HyperShift, pearlescent particles used to create shiny finishes on cars. After some tinkering with paint thinner, the final result is stunning, even if it is as fragile and impractical as DipYourCar suggests.The effect is reminiscent of Vantablack, a light absorbing material made from carbon... Continue reading…

In October, the FAA took a major stride towards letting increasingly smart drones fly themselves, letting Skydio’s self-flying drones inspect any bridge in North Carolina for four years, as long as humans first verified those bridges were clear.Now, the US airspace regulator is taking an even bigger step: American Robotics says it’s become the first company allowed to operate drones without needing a human pilot or an observer anywhere near the aircraft.It’s not quite as big a deal as you’d expect from the company’s press release or The Wall Street Journal’s headline “FAA Approves First Fully Automated Commercial Drone Flights,” because humans still need to be part of the equation: FAA documents show that American Robotics will still... Continue reading…

Medium has announced its acquisition of the social-based ebook company Glose. Glose is a platform where users can buy and read books, then share notes and highlights with friends. In the press release announcing the acquisition, Medium CEO Ev Williams says that the company “look[s] forward to working with the Glose team on partnering with publishers to help authors reach more readers.” However, as Engadget notes, once the integration is complete, Glose’s library “won’t be included in Medium’s $5 monthly and $50 annual subscriptions.”What the integration between Glose and Medium will actually look like is still a little unclear. In an interview with CNN Business, Glose CEO Nicolas Princen raises the idea of readers being able to jump... Continue reading…

Photo by Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images Facebook won’t let people create events that take place “in close proximity” to the White House, the US Capitol building, or any state capitol buildings through Inauguration Day, the company announced on Friday. The move builds upon Facebook’s previously announced Inauguration Day preparations aiming to prevent the platform from being used to organize a violent event like the January 6th attack on the US Capitol.Facebook is also doing a “secondary review” of all inauguration-related events and will remove those that violate the platform’s rules. The company is also continuing a policy that blocks pages and accounts based outside the US from creating events located in the US. That policy was first put in place for the US presidential... Continue reading…

The error message in macOS 11.1. | Screenshot: Jay Peters Apple has turned off users’ ability to unofficially install iOS apps onto their M1 Macs (via 9to5Mac). While iOS apps are still available in the Mac App Store, many apps, such as Dark Sky and Netflix, don’t have their developer’s approval to be run on macOS. Up until now, there was a workaround that allowed the use of third-party software to install the apps without having to use the Mac App Store, but it seems like Apple has remotely disabled it.When we tried to install an unsupported app on an M1 Mac running macOS 11.1, we got an error message saying that we couldn’t install it and should “try again later”. You can see a screenshot at the top of this article.Mac users have been used to having more freedom in what programs they’re... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple has started work on a foldable phone, and it’s begun prototyping foldable screens internally, according to Bloomberg. A final device is likely still years away, the report says, and Apple is working on just the display for now — not the rest of the phone it would attach to.The initial prototypes sound similar to the foldable screens we’ve seen used by Samsung, Motorola, and others. Bloomberg says Apple is looking at making foldable screens with a “mostly invisible hinge” that could unfold to around the size of the iPhone 12 Pro Max. The report says that several screen sizes are being discussed, however.Under-display Touch ID is reportedly still in testing for 2021Apple hasn’t publicly indicated any interest in making a foldable... Continue reading…

Image: Disney When times are tough, the sitcom is a refuge. Like late-night talk shows, the multicamera sitcom is one of the oldest formats in television. It’s affordable and efficient for the people who produce it, and comforting and familiar to viewers. Problems are introduced and solved in 30 minutes or less, usually with the realization that they were never that big of a deal in the first place. Characters have signature tics and catchphrases we love them for; in time, they come to feel like our friends. The best of the bunch are syndicated long enough that we’re able to introduce them to our children. What a pleasant thing it is, to retreat into the uncomplicated pleasure of a sitcom — a half-hour white lie to tell ourselves whenever the real... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge This year’s Consumer Electronics Show was unsurprisingly all virtual. Typically, The Verge is in the thick of it in Las Vegas, but this year, we’re all at our respective homes — so that means our podcast The Vergecast is as well.The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Monica Chin, and Chris Welch dive into all of the important announcements from both inside and outside of CES — including Samsung’s new flagship S21 smartphone line, the many new TVs with HDMI 2.1, Mini LED, webOS, and the next laptops with new chips from Intel and AMD.There’s a whole lot more covered in this episode (as you can see from the links below), so listen here or in your preferred podcast player to hear it all.Further reading:

Photo: Belkin Getting a MagSafe car charger for your iPhone seems like a simple process, but the current landscape is one of trade-offs: there are no all-in-one solutions that will wirelessly hold and charge your phone and are MagSafe certified to provide up to 15W of power. However, manufactures have been finding workarounds.First, there’s Belkin’s Car Vent Mount Pro, which is the only MagSafe Certified car mount, and it sells for $39.99. Being certified doesn’t mean it provides power, though. You’ll have to plug your phone in with a Lightning cable (which you’d have to do anyway for wired CarPlay compatibility). This does technically let you charge your phone faster than regular wireless charging, but it leaves you messing around with a cable.T... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A discount on HBO Max that was supposed to end today, January 15th, has been extended until March 1st, 2021. The fine print of the offer hasn’t changed: you can get six months of HBO Max for 20 percent off the normal total cost, which is usually $90 before tax. You’ll pay $70 with this deal (it’s like paying just under $12 per month instead of $15), but the catch is that you have to prepay in full and it’s nonrefundable.This discount is open to both new and returning HBO Max subscribers, but it can’t be stacked with a free trial or any other promotion.WarnerMedia kicked off this deal in early December 2020 on the heels of Warner Bros. announcing that its 2021 slate of films would debut on HBO Max alongside the theatrical releases and... Continue reading…

Image: Apple According to 9to5Mac, Apple will be extending its free year-long trials of its TV Plus service to customers until July 2021. The trials were originally included with the purchase of any Apple device (e.g., an iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV) and were initially set to last until November 1st, 2020. This is the second extension, with the first extending from November 2020 to February 2021.Subscribers who had free subscriptions that were set to expire any time from February 2021 to June 2021 will also get an extension until July. The extension comes in the wake of production delays. Only one of the shows the service launched with (Dickinson) has had its second season premiere, while others — like For All Mankind, The Morning Show, and See —... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge WhatsApp on Friday announced a three-month delay of a new privacy policy originally slated to go into effect on February 8th following widespread confusion over whether the new policy would mandate data sharing with Facebook.The update does not in fact affect data sharing with Facebook with regard to user chats or other profile information; WhatsApp has repeatedly clarified that its update addresses business chats in the event a user converses with a company’s customer service platform through WhatsApp.WhatsApp is trying to clear up confusion about its privacy practices“We’ve heard from so many people how much confusion there is around our recent update. There’s been a lot of misinformation causing concern and we want to help... Continue reading…

The Pixel 4a 5G’s 6.2-inch touchscreen has been acting up for some users. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google says it’s aware of a problem with Pixel 4A 5G touchscreens and will address the issue in its February security update. Some devices are failing to respond consistently to taps on the lower part of the screen, which is particularly impacting folks who have opted for three-button navigation rather than swipes. Android Police spotted complaints from 4A 5G owners experiencing the issue, which seems to have cropped up after the December security patch was released.Google’s response comes courtesy of a Pixel support forum post, which was recently updated with the February patch timing. In the meantime, Google advises users to work around the issue with some specific instructions on tapping navigation controls.

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge In addition to revamped MacBook Pros that ditch the Touch Bar and resurrect MagSafe, Apple is also said to be planning to announce its long-awaited iMac redesign this year — and a pair of Mac Pro refreshes are on the roadmap, too. This is all according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who says the iMac will undergo its most significant overhaul since 2012: Apple will reportedly ditch the chin beneath the screen, cut down on display bezels, and move to a flat-back design. The overall appearance will likely resemble the Pro Display XDR.The new iMac will replace the Intel-powered 27-inch and 21.5-inch versions currently available and move the all-in-one desktop to Apple silicon. It’ll be one of the most significant visual makeovers of any... Continue reading…

A screenshot from Hitman 3. | Image: IO Interactive Hitman 3 and the World of Assassination trilogy launch on January 20th, and at launch, Google Stadia players will be able to share access to distinct points within a game thanks to Stadia’s State Share feature.With State Share in Hitman, you’ll be able to share a link alongside an image or video from your game. Then, others can click on it to try the scenario you were playing for themselves. There are multiple “states” of missions you can share to customize the experience, including a mission’s starting location, the objectives, Agent 47’s loadout, and difficulty level.The feature works with any campaign or custom mission, and you’ll even be able to use weapons or items that you haven’t unlocked yet if a game state is ahead of your... Continue reading…

The Humble Store has kicked off its winter sale. Starting today and lasting until January 28th at 10AM PT / 1PM ET, the digital storefront is running a slew of discounts across various PC video games.To highlight a few especially great discounts: a Steam key for Yakuza: Like a Dragon is down to $45 (usually $60), a Steam key for Dirt 5 is down to $42 (usually $60), and a Steam key for Jackbox Party Pack 7 is down to $24 (usually $30). An Epic Games Store key for Red Dead Redemption 2: Ultimate Edition is down to $60 (usually $100) and an Epic Games Store or Steam key for The Outer Worlds is down to $30 (usually $60).PC gamers, if you are looking for a new game to add to your backlog, or you don’t have any money to burn, the Epic... Continue reading…

Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images GitHub employees are protesting the firing of a Jewish colleague who was let go two days after he warned co-workers in Washington, DC to stay safe from Nazis.The employee was chastised for using divisive language, according to news first reported by Business Insider. Now, GitHub workers are saying “Nazi” repeatedly in Slack, in regards to the US Capitol rioters, to protest what is being perceived as unfair treatment.“Others have already said so, but I just want to say it explicitly myself - I think that nazis were present at some protests on Jan 6, and that it’s very scary to see those ideas on display,” wrote one senior engineer in a 390-person Slack channel called #inclusion-belonging. “100% Nazis were there, and 1000000000% Nazis... Continue reading…

One of the miracles of any good television show is that it even works at all. First consider the countless people working across departments and disciplines needed to make a single episode happen; and then consider that they all have to do it anywhere between eight and 20-ish times a year, and that the result has to make sense to millions of people who cannot wait to be unimpressed. There are a lot of places to mess up! And yet we hear about so few mistakes. Which is why it’s a pretty big story when something as large as American Gods goes awry.The Starz drama was a special kind of disaster: it premiered to considerable acclaim only to fall to pieces in between its first and second seasons, losing its high-profile showrunners and... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Spending on video games set a new record of $56.9 billion in 2020 in the US, according to a new NPD Group report, a 27 percent increase compared to 2019. Spending on hardware hit its highest level since 2011 at $5.3 billion, a 35 percent increase compared to 2019. NPD classifies video game spending as money spent at retail and digital storefronts on “video game hardware, content, and accessories.”Although last year saw the release of the PS5 and new Xbox consoles, it was Nintendo’s Switch that took the crown as the bestselling platform over the course of the year. It was number one in terms of both dollar sales and units sold. The PS5 was the second bestselling console in terms of dollar sales, while the PS4 was in second place in... Continue reading…

A California man is facing jail time for hitting a police helicopter with his drone. Andrew Hernandez pleaded guilty yesterday to unsafe operation of an unmanned aircraft, a charge that carries up to one year in federal prison and a potential fine of up to $250,000.According to a plea agreement, Hernandez launched a small drone to see a crime scene near his Hollywood home in September. The drone flew into the path of a police helicopter that was responding to a burglary, hitting its fuselage and forcing an emergency landing. While the officers weren’t harmed, an affidavit said that this was a lucky outcome — Hernandez’s drone could have accidentally struck the aircraft’s rotor and brought it down.Hernandez was charged in November after... Continue reading…

They don’t win at any one thing, but they strike a great mix in terms of sound quality, ANC, and comfort Continue reading…

WandaVision, the first original television series produced by Marvel Studios, isn’t quite like anything Marvel has released before.It’s absurdist and pays authentic tribute to some of the best American sitcoms produced in the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, including Bewitched and The Dick Van Dyke Show. WandaVision is still a Marvel Studios show, however, and that means it ties into the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe. The first two episodes, now streaming on Disney Plus, set up a key organization that ties WandaVision into the current Marvel Cinematic Universe’s moment, while also setting up the enticing “cosmic universe” era it’s about to enter.[This is your mandatory spoiler warning. Stop reading here if you don’t want to know... Continue reading…

Briana became Storymodebae when she started her Twitch channel in January 2018. Back then she was still a year away from graduating from college, and in her own words, got the idea to start making things online after she started watching Let’s Plays on YouTube when she found herself stuck in games. “I was like, ‘I mean, I like playing video games and I think I can crack a joke on occasion. So maybe I should give this a try.’”Three years later, Storymodebae has made Twitch her full-time career — though she’s still understandably a little nervous about putting her full name online. (“You know, I don’t put the government out there,” she jokes.) Last year, Storymodebae hosted three shows for Twitch — This is Dope, Follow Fridays, and The... Continue reading…

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft says it’s planning to fix a bizarre Windows 10 bug that could corrupt a hard drive just by looking at an icon. Security researcher Jonas L first warned about the bug earlier this week, describing it as a “nasty vulnerability.” Attackers can hide a specially crafted line inside a ZIP file, folder, or even a simple Windows shortcut. All a Windows 10 user needs to do is extract the ZIP file or simply look at a folder that contains a malicious shortcut and it will automatically trigger hard drive corruption.Will Dormann, a vulnerability analyst at the CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC), confirmed the findings, and notes that there could be more ways to trigger the NTFS corruption. Dormann also revealed the vulnerability has... Continue reading…

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images Medical appointment company Zocdoc is offering to handle COVID-19 vaccine scheduling logistics for hospitals and health systems, many of which have spent the early days of the vaccine rollout struggling to handle the crush of demand for doses. Mount Sinai Health System in New York has been using the company’s tool to handle vaccine appointments since mid-December, and has scheduled over 100,000 appointments since.“It’s for anyone who’s in the front lines of administering COVID-19 vaccinations, to streamline their work. That’s our contribution to the public health effort,” Oliver Kharraz, CEO and founder of Zocdoc, told The Verge. The scheduler is free for any group offering vaccines, even if they aren’t Zocdoc clients.Without federal... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon will now allow third-party companies the unprecedented privilege of accessing the core artificial intelligence underpinning its Alexa digital assistant, a first for the company’s AI platform.While Amazon has allowed companies to build skills for Alexa and allows pretty much any consumer electronic device maker to integrate Alexa into a compatible product, the e-commerce giant has not licensed the underlying AI tech for use in other assistant-like products. Amazon is calling the new offering Alexa Custom Assistant, and it’s starting out with a focus on the auto market.Amazon is doing so to allow not just automobile manufacturers, but any company with a need for a digital voice assistant more control over the software... Continue reading…

Let’s face it: some of us are so busy these days — what with pandemics and presidential elections and attempted overthrows of the government — that we don’t pay enough attention to what we are subscribed to (and paying for). Especially now, when there are more and more streaming services vying for our attention, it’s easy to go for a trial subscription, or to decide that you’re going to subscribe “just for a couple of months,” and then completely forget about it. Meanwhile, your charge card is being pinged every month.For example, Matthew Inman, the artist who creates the comics site The Oatmeal, recently reported (to his apparent chagrin), that he had been paying for Netflix’s DVD subscription for the last 13 years:

Intel’s new CEO, Pat Gelsinger, doesn’t start his new role until February, but he’s already prepping the company to take on Apple’s M1 chips. The Oregonian, a local newspaper in Oregon where Intel maintains a large presence, reports that the chip maker held an all-hands company meeting yesterday, and Gelsinger attended.“We have to deliver better products to the PC ecosystem than any possible thing that a lifestyle company in Cupertino” makes, Gelsinger reportedly told Intel employees. “We have to be that good, in the future.”Intel has been facing increased competition from both Apple and AMD recently. Apple announced its transition to its own silicon back in June, calling it a “historic day for the Mac.” The transition has gone well,... Continue reading…

Image: Bumble Dating app Bumble has temporarily disabled a feature which allowed users to filter potential matches based on their political leanings, the service has announced. The feature allows users to identify and filter matches with options such as “Apolitical,” “Moderate,” “Liberal,” and “Conservative.” In a statement given to Mashable, Bumble said it had temporarily removed the feature in the US to “prevent misuse and abuse.”News of the change emerged after Bumble users reported seeing individuals on the app who appeared to have participated in the riots at the Capitol building last week. On January 7th, Twitter user Alia Awadallah reported seeing “dozens” of men on dating apps that appeared to be in Washington, DC on the day of the riots.... Continue reading…

Photo by Alexander Kramer for The Verge Apple is planning a major MacBook Pro redesign for the third quarter of 2021, according to a research note written by TF International Securities analyst Ming-chi Kuo and reported on by MacRumors, 9to5Mac, and Apple Insider. Kuo calls it the first major redesign of the MacBook Pro since the introduction of the current generation in 2016. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has followed up with a report corroborating many of the same details.The new MacBook Pro is said to have squared-off sides like the iPad Pro and the iPhone 12; the current laptop already has sharp edges, but it sounds like the top and bottom panels are going to be flatter than before as well. The new model will reportedly come in 14-inch and 16-inch sizes both featuring... Continue reading…

Image: Patr10tic A developer going by the name of Patr10tic has created an interactive map using GPS metadata and videos from the app Parler to offer a glimpse of what was happening inside and around the Capitol building during the violent protest on January 6th (via Motherboard).The project is an expansion on similar maps like the one Gizmodo created to illustrate just how many Parler users were part of the mob that occupied the Capitol building, based off an archive created by a researcher known as @donk_enby. Patr10tic’s map (currently named “Y’all Qaeda”) uses the same archive and connects GPS coordinates with actual video, offering a map of red icons placed around the Capitol for each associated video post.Viewing the videos has an unsettling... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Samsung’s future phones will also not come with charging bricks, the company has revealed, but it’s leaving itself some wiggle room. In a Q&A about why it’s no longer including headphones and a charging brick in the box, Samsung says it believes gradually removing the accessories from its phones could help make them more sustainable.This answer implies that, while the next generations of its phones may not come with the included accessories, some may. Samsung has other lines that it brands as Galaxy, from its folding phones to its more budget options, and it’s left itself room to keep including a charger in some of them for a little while longer.Maybe Samsung wants to keep the charger around in cheaper phones so people who aren’t tech... Continue reading…

A photo of Spotify’s Car Thing, taken from FCC filings. | Image: FCC filings Back in May 2019, Spotify announced that it would be publicly testing a voice-controlled smart assistant for cars that the company called “Car Thing.” But nearly two years on, we haven’t heard much from the project — though that might change soon. A Car Thing with a totally new design and a bigger screen has appeared in FCC filings.This new version of the Car Thing seems like it will function similarly to the 2019 version — it’s a “voice controlled accessory for phone/Spotify App with supporting display and buttons,” according to a description found in the filings. “Bluetooth enabled for communication with the Car Head Unit. Powered from a 12V outlet,” continues the description, bluntly.The design, though, is radically different. The... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Samsung just revealed the new Galaxy S21 Ultra would be its first Galaxy S phone to support the S Pen stylus, but the company is already saying that S Pen support will come to other devices in the future, according to a statement first given to SamMobile on Thursday.“We are committed to innovating new mobile experiences that flow seamlessly and continuously to make our consumers’ lives easier and better,” Samsung president of mobile TM Roh says in the statement, which the company shared with The Verge. “We’ve made the bold decision to expand the S Pen experience to Galaxy S21 Ultra, and plan to expand the S Pen experience across additional device categories in the future.”“Additional device categories” is vague on its own. But given... Continue reading…

Image: Xiaomi With six days left in office, the Trump administration has decided to put one more Chinese electronics giant in its sights: Xiaomi, the world’s number three phone manufacturer. The US Department of Defense is now designating Xiaomi as a “Chinese Communist military company,” meaning it’s now vulnerable to Trump’s executive order that bans the US from investing in such companies — and might force US companies and other US investors to divest in Xiaomi on November 11th, 2021, as reported by Reuters.In a statement sent to The Verge, Xiaomi maintains that it’s “operating in compliance with the relevant laws and regulations of jurisdictions where it conducts its businesses.” The spokesperson contends that Xiaomi “is not owned, controlled or... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge During Samsung’s Unpacked event, the company unveiled three new phones as part of the Galaxy S21 lineup — the Galaxy S21, S21 Plus, and the S21 Ultra — which will be available to preorder starting January 14th and will release on January 29th. As a reminder, their prices range from $999.99 to upward of $$1,379.99.We will be reviewing the S21 line soon, but if you are interested in preordering the phone, we’ve compiled a list of retailers that currently have product listings available.See below for how to preorder and any promotions currently available.Where to buy the Samsung Galaxy S21

The Galaxy A32 5G offers a 6.5-inch display and 5,000mAh battery. | Image: Samsung Echoing a theme that will be repeated a lot more this year, Samsung has announced a very inexpensive 5G phone. The Galaxy A32 5G is debuting in Europe first, starting at €279 for a 64GB version or €299 for 128GB. There’s no official word yet on whether it will come to the US.The A32 5G offers a 6.5-inch 1600 x 900 display, a 5,000mAh battery, and a side-mounted fingerprint reader. Its rear camera array includes a 48-megapixel main camera, an 8-megapixel ultrawide, a 2-megapixel depth-sensing camera, and the obligatory 5-megapixel macro camera. Around front, it offers a 13-megapixel selfie camera.Samsung doesn’t say what processor the phone is using, only that it’s a 2.0GHz octa-core chipset, but 9to5Google suspects it’s a Dimensity... Continue reading…

BMW is suspending its two-year-old car subscription service, The Verge has learned.Access by BMW was launched in 2018 in Nashville as a pilot project to test out whether customers would want to have access to a fleet of fancy cars but not necessarily own one. But recent requests to sign up have been met with a disclaimer that the service is in the process of shutting down. A Nashville resident who was interested in applying for the subscription service was told that it was going to be defunct by the end of January.“Unfortunately the Access by BMW subscription program is ending on January 31st and we are no longer taking new members,” a sales representative said in an email.“Unfortunately the Access by BMW subscription program is... Continue reading…

Image: Intel Intel is updating its Next Unit of Computing (NUC) lineup of miniature computers with its 11th Gen processors, and it’s again including a gaming-focused model. The NUC 11 Enthusiast is a follow-up to the NUC 8 Hades Canyon from 2018, which managed to pack triple-A gaming performance (not to mention I/O that rivaled a full-size desktop) into a tiny enclosure.Included in the refresh are updates to the company’s more traditional small-cube NUC Performance Mini computers, which previously had 10th Gen processors. The upgrade brings Wi-Fi 6 and Intel Xe graphics to the i5 and i7 models. Intel has also added a NUC Pro line, some of which have vPro-enabled CPUs and all of which can drive 8K displays. There’s also a NUC 11 compute unit, which... Continue reading…

Photo: Marvel Studios WandaVision is the Marvel universe’s most comic book show yet, if not in content at least in concept. It’s a dense-looking storyline that will be released on an episodic basis, with characters and a setting that are virtually impenetrable to new viewers — so much so that Marvel Studios even went so far as to produce a clip show recapping the critical moments of the 23-odd films that precede it.It may seem like WandaVision would be barreling toward the same issue that has hounded traditional comics for years — a high barrier to entry with complex storylines, character dynamics, and lore that span decades and serve to confuse and drive away new readers — but WandaVision arguably doesn’t have that same problem.Pick up a random issue of S... Continue reading…

What Samsung used to advertise, but not anymore. | Photo: Samsung (via 9to5Google) There was a time I would have railed against a gadget maker for daring to ship a phone without a charger.That time was yesterday. Then, Apple was the poster boy for the idea — Apple with its goody-two-shoes rhetoric about saving the environment while continuing to produce an array of proprietary cables and wireless chargers, one of which requires you to buy a new power brick anyhow.Samsung doesn’t have those problems. It’s been all-in on USB-C and the Qi wireless standard for years, and you can use any such cable and any charger from any reputable manufacturer to top up your Samsung phone. Heck, those same universal cables and chargers work with laptops and tablets, too: you can use a MacBook or iPad charger to juice up a new Samsung... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A coalition of health and tech companies, which includes Microsoft, Salesforce, and Oracle, is working on an initiative that aims to make it easier for people to access their COVID-19 vaccination records digitally. As people are beginning to get vaccinated against COVID-19, they may need to prove that they’re vaccinated so that they can return to work, school, or to travel, and having an easily accessible digital vaccination record could help with that. The coalition is calling itself the Vaccination Credential Initiative (VCI).“VCI’s vision is to empower individuals to obtain an encrypted digital copy of their immunization credentials to store in a digital wallet of their choice,” according to a press release. If you don’t want to use... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Samsung has confirmed that the Galaxy S21, S21 Plus, and S21 Ultra no longer support the convenient Magnetic Secure Transmission (MST) feature of Samsung Pay. And based on what the company told Android Police, the same will be true for all phones that Samsung releases from here on out.If you’re not familiar, MST is a very cool trick that allows Samsung phones to send out a magnetic pulse that made payment terminals think that you’d swiped a regular credit card. The most beneficial thing about it is that MST can work in scenarios where NFC payments aren’t available. It can send that magnetic signal to pretty much any payment terminal with a traditional card swiper.MST is by no means perfect: getting a payment to go through on the... Continue reading…

Image: Razer One of the biggest announcements at CES 2021 seemed to come and go without much fanfare. Overshadowed by Nvidia’s debut of its RTX 3000-series graphics chips for laptops, you might have missed hearing that a growing number of manufacturers are finally building fast-refreshing QHD screens into their portable gaming machines.Standalone QHD (1440p) monitors are a popular choice for discerning gamers who use desktop computers for several reasons. First, the displays are often more affordable and feature-packed than most 4K monitors while looking nearly as good. And importantly, modern high-end graphics cards, like the AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT and Nvidia RTX 3080 (and even some last-gen products), run games very well at QHD.Frustratingly and... Continue reading…

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Instacart will give its shoppers — the workers who pick and fill grocery store orders for customers — a $25 stipend for the time they take off to get a coronavirus vaccine, the company announced Thursday.Beginning February 1st, any full-service Instacart shopper in North America who has shopped at least five batches — which can include one or more customer orders — in the past 30 days and can also verify they have received a vaccine will be eligible. Shift leads and in-store shoppers who are actively employed when they receive the vaccine will be eligible as well.The company says the $25 is intended to provide shoppers with financial assistance as they take time away from shopping. Full-service shoppers are independent contractors... Continue reading…