The Verge

Photo by Hunter Martin/Getty Images For its first three years of existence, the Overwatch League has kicked off early in the year. But that’s going to change in 2021. Today, Blizzard announced that its ambitious esports league will begin play in April. It will also be the first season in which the league starts off with remote matches — and there will be some big changes to accommodate that. “To take full advantage of what was learned last season, we’ve made several changes that will improve the quality of competition and the fan experience for this coming season,” Blizzard says.First is a structural change. Blizzard says the 20-team league will be split into two divisions — one made of teams from China and Korea, the other North America and Europe — and they’ll play... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Samsung’s just announced a ton of new products: the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G is the company’s latest flagship and SmartTags are a Tile and (maybe) Apple AirTags competitor. But the real innovation, the thing that Samsung spent almost three minutes waxing poetically about during its 2021 Unpacked presentation, was the color black.Specifically, “phantom black,” the company’s “new” version of black for the Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G. A black that Samsung describes as “strong, fluid, and modern,” and also “unapologetic,” “resonant,” and “unforgettable,” despite looking more or less like the black phones Samsung’s rolled out almost every year. Call it Samsung entering its Adult Goth phase or maybe just a way to pad out a presentation that was light on... Continue reading…

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft will soon let you upload even bigger files to OneDrive, Teams, and SharePoint, increasing the limit from 100GB to 250GB. The bigger file size limit could be good news for people who are working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic and need to upload large projects like 4K and 8K video, CAD files, or scientific datasets to the cloud so they can be shared with colleagues and clients. The change will also carry over to OneDrive for personal use, according to Microsoft, which could make it easier for you to upload large photo or video collections.Microsoft says the 250GB file size upload limit will begin rolling out by the end of January. The company expects the new limit to be generally available by the end of this quarter.T... Continue reading…

The dream of using your phone to unlock your car door (instead of carrying around a bulging key fob) may be one step closer today: Samsung has announced partnerships with Audi, BMW, Ford, and Genesis to do just that, saying the feature may be available as soon as August 2021. And excitingly, those digital car keys should work with Apple iPhones and across other Android brands, too.That’s because Samsung is part of multiple standards bodies that are working on the tech, including the Car Connectivity Consortium and the FiRa Consortium, of which Apple is also a leading member. “You’ll even be able to share your digital key across smartphones, regardless of brand or platform,” Samsung’s Kevin Chung announced during the company’s Galaxy S21... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Samsung revealed new One UI 3 details at today’s Unpacked event, including an interesting new photo trick called object eraser, which lets you delete people from the backgrounds of your images. After a photo is taken, you can simply tap on the people you want to remove, and AI will (in theory) do the rest.If it works well — and that’s a big if — this is no small feat. Removing an element from a photo and intelligently filling in the background to replace it would be similar to what Adobe does with its Content-Aware Fill tool. We wouldn’t expect this feature to perform quite on that level, but it’s a tricky problem usually left to sophisticated image editing software to solve. If Samsung can pull this off convincingly, it’ll be a good... Continue reading…

Icebergs near Ilulissat, Greenland. Climate change is having a profound effect in Greenland with glaciers and the Greenland ice cap retreating. | Photo by Ulrik Pedersen / NurPhoto via Getty Images 2020 ranks among the hottest years on record, several science agencies said today. NASA said that 2020 shares the top spot with 2016, following a similar determination by the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service last week. The World Meteorological Association (WMO), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and UK Met Office all released figures putting 2020 within the top three warmest years recorded.They all agree that 2020 continued a trend of climbing temperatures, which is changing what’s considered “normal” on our planet. The warmest six years in recorded history have all taken place since 2015. We just climbed out of the hottest decade on record, and it already looks like the decade ahead will get... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Samsung just finished its first Unpacked event of 2021. The headline announcements were the three new phones in its S21 lineup, but the company also announced new true wireless headphones, an item tracker, and a few other things.We’ve rounded up all of the biggest announcements from the event right here. Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge The Galaxy S21 and S21 Plus will launch on January 29thSamsung announced the $799 Galaxy S21 and $999 S21 Plus, which are available for preorder today ahead of availability on January 29th. They’re largely the same phones (except for their physical size), and their camera module takes up an entire corner of the phones, giving them a whole new look. Photo by... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Samsung’s new Galaxy Buds Pro are aimed right at Apple’s AirPods Pro wireless earbuds in terms of features. They feature active noise cancellation, and Samsung claims that they’ll offer the deepest sound out of its lineup of truly wireless earbuds. My colleague Chris Welch has more details on the Galaxy Buds Pro, but I’m here to tell you how you can buy them.They’re available for pre-purchase now for $199.99 — just $30 above the retail cost of the bean-shaped Galaxy Buds Live (though those have been selling at $130 for some time). They’ll start shipping on January 15th. Samsung has released the Galaxy Buds Pro in three colors: phantom black, phantom silver, and phantom violet, but that last one’s region-specific.We expect several more... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge It’s official: Samsung is ditching the microSD card on all three of its Galaxy S21 models.We asked Samsung about this, and the company’s rationale seemed to be that it doesn’t think it’s necessary. A spokesperson told us that it only costs $50 to upgrade from 128GB to 256GB and that this is cheaper than what competitors are charging to step up storage. They also noted that cloud storage is an option.That’s all well and good, but it’s still likely that this change will be a bummer for some potential customers. It means the maximum amount of storage you’ll be able to get on the S21 phones (without wrangling up additional cloud storage) is the 512GB configuration of the S21 Ultra.As Samsung’s website advertises, the microSD slot on... Continue reading…

Photo: Riot Games For years, competitive gaming has done its best to mimic professional sports, whether it’s players wearing Nike jerseys, big-name celebrity investors, or ambitious plans for home-and-away games. But Chris Greeley, commissioner of the League of Legends Championship Series — the game’s top professional league in North America — believes that esports has moved beyond mimicking existing sports.“We had this idea in the beginning that, because esports is a sport, and we wanted to be taken seriously, we should look like a sport,” he tells The Verge. “The LCS looked like the NBA on TNT. It was great for validation and for investors and sponsors to look and say ‘Hey, this looks just like a sport, therefore this is an easy translation.’ But we’ve... Continue reading…

Samsung got its S21 flagship phones out into the world a little sooner than usual this year, and the Galaxy S21 base model will appeal to a lot of folks with its balance of flagship specs and a price well under $1,000. In this refresh of the S-series lineup it’s the best choice for value, but how does it square up against its fellow Android competitors?The OnePlus 8T, Google Pixel 5, and LG V60 are all highly capable challengers in their own right. Where the S21 aims to deliver a complete all-around package, some of its competitors have made tradeoffs for things like a bigger battery or a lower price tag that are worth considering. And Samsung’s 2020 models, the S20 and Note 20, are still solid options for now and will no doubt be... Continue reading…

Samsung’s Galaxy S-series 2021 updates are here, and they’re debuting a little earlier in the year than usual. Interestingly, the Galaxy S21, S21 Plus, and S21 Ultra represent slightly diverging strategies for the devices. The S21 includes some cost-saving measures, like a polycarbonate back, to bring it closer to midrange. Meanwhile, Samsung has pulled out any remaining stops with its top-end S21 Ultra, loading it with five cameras and adding S Pen support.To be sure, there are still plenty of flagship-level features on the 6.2-inch S21. Like the Plus and Ultra, it uses a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 888 processor (or 5nm Exynos chipset outside the US). It features the same rear triple camera array as the S21 Plus and is built with IP68... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Samsung is announcing the $199.99 Galaxy Buds Pro today, its most premium set of true wireless earbuds yet. They feature an in-ear design similar to the Galaxy Buds Plus but are aesthetically inspired by the Galaxy Buds Live. The Buds Pro aren’t bean-shaped, but they’ve got the same metallic-looking style and a similar charging case. The tweaked design “reduces the contact area between your ear and the bud, improving comfort and minimizing any clogged-up feeling,” according to Samsung.More important is that Samsung says they deliver the “best audio experience yet” of any of the company’s earbuds thanks to an 11mm woofer and 6.5mm tweeter. The active noise cancellation should also be much improved since these earbuds now create a full... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Alongside the new Galaxy S21 phones and Galaxy Buds Pro, Samsung is announcing a small Bluetooth gadget you can use for locating lost items, just like Tile. It’s called the Galaxy SmartTag, and it will ship beginning on January 29th. It will retail for $29.99, but there’s a decent chance that people who buy a Galaxy S21 phone will end up with some sort of bundled deal that gets it included with purchase.The Galaxy SmartTag works much like a Tile tracker. It’s a small Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) dongle you attach via a key ring. It pairs with a smartphone via Samsung’s SmartThings app, which can show its last known location on a map. When you’re searching for the tag, the SmartThings app can show a proximity indicator depending on the... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge It’s official: Samsung’s new flagship phones will ship without a charging brick in the box. The phones will include a USB-C to USB-C cable, but no way to plug it in to the wall. If it helps take the sting out of it at all, Samsung has dropped the price on its 25W charger from $35 to $19.99. If you don’t have a USB-C charging brick, or don’t have a high-powered one and want fast charging, you’ll have to add $20 to the price of the phone.The fact that it’s a standard cable means that many techy people will have something kicking around that can charge it — but it’s not hard to imagine a buyer who doesn’t. While last year’s Galaxy came with a USB-C charging brick, the one before that didn’t — and it’s the people who don’t upgrade every... Continue reading…

Starting at $799 and available on January 29th Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 Ultra supports the company’s S Pen stylus. Support for the accessory has been a staple of Samsung’s Galaxy Note smartphones for years, but this is the first time it’s been supported in the company’s Galaxy S-series. The stylus will be available as an optional $39.99 accessory, and Samsung says the S21 Ultra will also work with S Pens from other Galaxy Note or Galaxy Tab devices.As for what you can use the stylus to do on the S21 Ultra, Samsung has outlined a range of familiar use cases. These include drawing, note-taking, photo editing, and signing documents. Physically, the new stylus is a little bigger than previous Galaxy Note S Pens, but it retains the side button. Photo by Chaim Gartenberg... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Google’s latest Pixel Buds wireless earbuds don’t go on sale often, but Best Buy has knocked $80 off their normal $179 cost for today only. The catch is that these are refurbished and only available in the white color. Still, $100 is a good deal if you wanted to try these out without paying close to full price.Best Buy cleans these models and includes all original accessories, but like buying anything refurbished, it’s a roll of the dice in terms of what condition your order will be in — particularly when we’re talking about in-ear headphones. You could get a like-new product with no issues, or you might run into a few issues like the folks who left reviews for these Pixel Buds. If you have a bad experience, Best Buy will swap them out... Continue reading…

Fitbit’s recent Sense smartwatch. | Photo by Brent Rose for The Verge Google has completed its $2.1 billion acquisition of Fitbit, the company announced today. The news follows the EU’s announcement late last year that it had approved the deal, after Google made a series of commitments about its planned operation of Fitbit and use of the its health data.In its announcement, Google’s hardware chief Rick Osterloh said the acquisition was “about devices, not data.” Emphasizing this point, he reiterated Google’s commitments about how it will handle the acquisition in markets around the world. These pledges include not using Fitbit users’ health and wellness data for Google’s ad tracking.Osterloh also said the deal won’t affect how third-party fitness trackers work with Android, or how Fitbit works with... Continue reading…

A DisplayPort cable. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge It has been nearly two years since the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) first published its DisplayPort 2.0 specifications, promising support for 8K monitors, higher refresh rates, and more. The first monitors with DisplayPort 2.0 were supposed to arrive in late 2020, but VESA now says it expects devices to ship later this year.“Monitors supporting DisplayPort 2.0 are currently in development, but none have been released to market yet,” explains a VESA spokesperson in a statement to The Verge. “DisplayPort 2.0 is working now in new system chips that should appear in products later in 2021.”The delay is due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Hardware developers and engineers typically convene together a few times a year... Continue reading…

Image: Disney If Marvel Studios has its way, people will get a new entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe nearly every week.Everything starts with WandaVision. Marvel’s new nine-episode show, which follows Elizabeth Olsen’s Wanda Maximoff and Paul Bettany’s Vision living out an absurd suburban life in an alternate universe, kicks off on January 15th. Two episodes will premiere, with new episodes releasing every week for the rest of the season. Just two weeks after WandaVision ends, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will arrive. It’s then three weeks until Black Widow hits theaters (unless it’s delayed again) and Loki lands on Disney Plus. By the time Loki ends, it’ll be time for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.You get the picture.Before... Continue reading…

Photo: Sean O’Kane / The Verge Samsung will be presenting its latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S21, today at the streaming event titled Galaxy Unpacked 2021. The company is so confident that people will want the new device that it is inviting people to get in line to preorder before the phone is actually introduced.Samsung hasn’t been shy about the specs of the upcoming S21. As reported by The Verge’s Chaim Gartenberg and Sean Hollister, the company is widely expected to announce three new smartphones at the event, including a pair of matching S21 and S21 Plus phones (that are expected to be largely similar, except for size), and a higher-end S21 Ultra that will offer even better specs and cameras. There should also be an optional stylus.But wait, there’s more:... Continue reading…

The new Philips Hue Wall Switch Module make the switch smart, not the bulb. | Image: Philips Hue Signify is introducing three new Philips Hue products today: an in-wall Hue module for existing light switches, a new outdoor light bar, and a refined dimmer.The Philips Hue Wall Switch Module solves a problem long suffered by Hue smart light owners. Namely, you install a so-called “smart” Hue bulb into a lamp or ceiling fixture and then marvel at your ability to control it from your phone until a roommate flips the wall switch and cuts power to the bulb, rendering your expensive lightbulb useless. The new Wall Switch Module — powered by a battery with at least a five year lifespan, according to Signify — puts the intelligence right inside of the wall to make the switch smart. Unfortunately, the Switch Module doesn’t make regular lights... Continue reading…

Windows 10X running on a single-screen device. After years of waiting, it looks like Microsoft now has a true answer to Chrome OS. A new and near-final version of Windows 10X has leaked, and it offers a first look at the changes Microsoft has made to the upcoming operating system to get it ready for laptops. Windows 10X first started off life as a variant of Windows 10 designed for dual-screen devices. It was supposed to launch alongside Microsoft’s Surface Neo, a tablet-like device with two separate nine-inch displays that fold out to a full 13-inch workspace.Microsoft revealed last year that Windows 10X is now being reworked for “single-screen” devices like laptops, and Surface Neo has been delayed. While the company has spent years differentiating Windows 10X for foldable and... Continue reading…

BMW’s all-electric iX will be first to support the Digital Key Plus feature. | Image: BMW BMW has announced an upgraded version of its mobile car key technology dubbed Digital Key Plus. It promises to allow iPhone owners to unlock select BMW cars without having to take out their phones. The feature relies on ultra wideband (UWB) which has been included in Apple’s flagship iPhones since the iPhone 11 thanks to the U1 chip. Digital Key Plus will debut on the all-electric BMW iX which launches later this year in Europe and next year in the US.The big benefit of Digital Key Plus, according to BMW, is that it uses UWB so it works with an iPhone that’s still in your pocket or bag. In contrast, the current Digital Key system used by Apple and BMW is NFC based, so you have to hold an iPhone (or Apple Watch) near the car’s tag to... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Today, Samsung will unveil the Galaxy S21, Galaxy S21 Plus, and Galaxy S21 Ultra (I’ll take the Zune-inspired brown one thanks). It’s happening a couple months earlier than usual for the S line of phones, but otherwise the script will remain the same.Here’s the script. Samsung will be the first major Android maker out of the gate with Qualcomm’s newest chips, this time with the Snapdragon 888. Samsung will use its unseemingly immense marketing budget and longstanding carrier relationships to ensure it will be seen as the default option if you want a premium Android phone — especially if you are making that purchase in a US carrier store.Other parts of the script are not necessarily guaranteed but are safe bets. They will probably be... Continue reading…

The technology makes for smaller bezels, without having to relocate the laptop’s webcam. | Image: Samsung Display Samsung Display has released a teaser for its under-screen camera technology meant for laptops, dubbed “Samsung Blade Bezel,” on its Weibo page. It promises that its “UPC” (Under Panel Camera) tech can make a laptop’s bezels smaller without having to relocate its webcam, while also making the OLED display itself be both thinner and lighter. There’s no mention of the impact of the technology on the webcam’s image quality, however, which has become increasingly important in the age of social distancing.We saw the first smartphone with an under-display selfie camera release commercially last year. However, the ZTE Axon 20 5G’s implementation of the feature simply wasn’t very good. The quality of its selfie camera photos was poor, and the... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Oculus Quest headsets will soon support multiple users, Facebook has announced. The functionality will allow Quest owners to set secondary accounts on their headsets, which will allow other people to log in and access content shared by the primary user while maintaining separate save data and achievements.The primary account holder will be able to add three secondary accounts and share apps on a single device, though Facebook says you’ll later be able to share purchases across three headsets; the company may also adjust these parameters based on feedback. Apps will be automatically opted-in to the sharing functionality, but developers can opt out before February 12th.The Quest 2’s Facebook account requirement has been controversial,... Continue reading…

Universal Studios Japan has announced that Super Nintendo World will not be opening next month as planned. The Nintendo-themed zone of the Osaka park was supposed to open on February 4th after its launch was delayed from last year, but with Osaka being placed under a state of emergency declaration yesterday until at least February 7th, that’s no longer going to happen. USJ says it will announce a new opening date once the state of emergency has been lifted.The state of emergency in Japan was initially issued for Tokyo and its surrounding areas, but yesterday the order was expanded to cover a total of 11 prefectures, Osaka included. The countermeasures aren’t particularly strong compared to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions elsewhere —... Continue reading…

On January 8th, Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump, and proceeded to play whack-a-mole as he attempted to dodge that ban by using different Twitter accounts, each of which Twitter suspended in turn.And yet less than a week later, a Trump video has been posted on the official @WhiteHouse account delivering a new video speech. The speech is not inflammatory — quite the opposite. It features Trump denouncing violence, lawbreaking, and vandalism. It contains messages many might have hoped Trump would issue immediately during or perhaps even before the attack on the US Capitol, to avoid the violence and the five deaths that occurred.Still, it’s very strange to see Trump’s face in a new Twitter video,... Continue reading…

Photo by Hannah McKay-Pool/Getty Images Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, in a series of Tweets, explained that he felt banning US President Donald Trump’s account was the right move for the social network. “Offline harm as a result of online speech is demonstrably real, and what drives our policy and enforcement above all,” he wrote.Dorsey blamed Twitter’s failure “to promote healthy conversation,” acknowledged that Twitter needs to “look critically at inconsistencies of our policy and enforcement,” and said that social platforms needed more transparency around moderation.Then, Dorsey plugged an effort to build a decentralized standard for social media he began in 2019 when he sought to hire five engineers to work on it. That’s how, eight tweets into a thread on why his company... Continue reading…

Photo by Go Nakamura/Getty Images Snapchat will permanently terminate President Trump’s account, Snap announced on Wednesday. Snap had indefinitely suspended Trump’s account last week after he incited a pro-Trump mob to attack the US Capitol, and it has now made the decision to make that suspension permanent. The news was first reported by Axios.“Last week we announced an indefinite suspension of President Trump’s Snapchat account, and have been assessing what long term action is in the best interest of our Snapchat community,” Snap said in a statement shared with The Verge. “In the interest of public safety, and based on his attempts to spread misinformation, hate speech, and incite violence, which are clear violations of our guidelines, we have made the decision to... Continue reading…

Image: @We_The_Techies You’ve seen the leaks, renders, and leaked renders. Now, only a day before the launch, you can see what the entire Galaxy S21 lineup looks like in a real person’s hand, thanks to Twitter user Mr.Techie (via Android Authority).The images also provide a good size comparison between the rumored regular, Plus, and Ultra variants of the phone. We also get to see at least three of the colors, and in my opinion the purple is looking very nice, but does seem to continue the trend of collecting fingerprints.

Photo by Lee Quinones The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has asked Tesla to recall some 158,000 Model S and Model X vehicles that could suffer from failing display consoles, according to a letter published by the agency on Wednesday. The failures of the so-called “media control units” in these vehicles can sever the owner’s access to their vehicle’s backup camera, climate controls, and Tesla’s Autopilot driver assistance system, increasing the risk of a crash, the safety agency says.The problem at the heart of the defect that NHTSA wants Tesla to fix involves worn-out flash memory chips used in the displays of 2012-2018 Model S sedans and 2016-2018 Model X SUVs. Each time an owner turns on one of these Teslas, it eats away at the total... Continue reading…

Image: Asus Asus has announced a new fanless addition to its family of Chromeboxes: the Asus Fanless Chromebox. Like Asus’ previous models, the Fanless Chromebox’s compact size is designed to be mounted to the back of a display or desk to save space in size-conscious work environments. Perhaps unintentionally, it also looks almost exactly like a wireless router.The Asus Fanless Chromebox dimensions come out to about 8.15 x 5.82 x 1.26 inches, which gives its aluminum chassis a small, rectangular shape. But the real wireless router aesthetic comes from the ridged design on the top of the box and the two adjustable antennas on the back. Image: Asus The Asus Fanless Chromebox piggybacking on the back of a display. Inside,... Continue reading…

Asus announced its new ZenBeam Latte at CES 2021 today, and it’s kind of cute. It’s a mobile movie projector that looks like a one-eyed, fabric-covered mini-robot of sorts. Importantly, it fires out its 720p image using up to 300 lumens of LED light, making it brighter than capsule projectors we’ve seen from the likes of Anker, and it has an integrated 10W Harman Kardon-tuned speaker system to boot.Weirdly, Asus insists that its projector looks like a coffee cup. Image: Asus The ZenBeam Latte projector. It does not. It’s not the right shape (just watch the video!), and why would a “homey” coffee cup (Asus’ word) be gray instead of a glorious brown? Asus also claims it is “the first projector to offer a fabric... Continue reading…

Samsung All of the things we’re expecting to unpack on January 14th Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Qualcomm has just made a splashy acquisition in the chip market that’s sure to shake up the semiconductor industry in substantial fashion. The company Qualcomm is purchasing, Nuvia, was formed in 2019 by three former engineers and chip specialists, all of whom worked at Apple on the A-series chip line that powers the iPhone and iPad. And now, Qualcomm is paying an eye-popping $1.4 billion for the firm, placing a huge bet on the team’s talent and its focus on building next-generation CPUs for use in data centers, mobile, and other devices.Qualcomm is specifically calling out the growth of 5G as one of the reasons it’s paying such a handsome sum for a company of just a couple hundred employees founded only two years ago. “5G is further... Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red Following the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red says it will release the first update within the next 10 days, with “a larger, more significant update, in the weeks after.” In a video released today, co-founder Marcin Iwinski issued a mea culpa to players, adding that he and the board members are “the final decision makers” for the game’s faulty release. “Please, don’t fault any of our teams for what happened,” Iwinski said.Cyberpunk 2077 launched on December 10th, 2020, with immediate problems. While the game’s PC release was mostly praised by critics, console players — particularly those playing on the older generations — ran into widespread bugs, frame rate issues, and more. A week after the game’s release, Sony p... Continue reading…

A popular period and fertility tracking app has settled with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that it lied to users about sharing private health information with third-party firms, including Facebook and Google. Flo, a period and ovulation tracking app, has more than 100 million users.In the complaint, the FTC alleges Flo told users their information would be kept private. Then it shared their sensitive health data, including the dates of their periods and their pregnancy plans, with outside companies that provided marketing and analytics services to the app. It also failed to limit how this data would be used.The move could have allowed Facebook to match sensitive health information with users’ profilesThe move could... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Valve is doing its part to illustrate gaming’s growth last year with its Steam 2020 Year in Review report. It includes some rather impressive numbers, like the fact that PC gamers increased their playtime by over 50 percent last year, and that each month, 2.6 million people bought a game on Steam for the first time.2020 was a rough year, and many of us used gaming as a way to escape from the awfulness of everything going on in the world — an aim helped by the fact that so many good games were released last year. Over half of Americans played video games in 2020, and while Steam’s numbers only represent the PC (and doesn’t count games like Fortnite that appear on rival PC stores), it still speaks to the fact that PC gaming is not just... Continue reading…

Last week, Twitch deleted the face of its extremely popular PogChamp emote, Ryan “Gootecks” Gutierrez, after he called for further violence at the Capitol just after a mob sacked the building. In the aftermath, Twitch responded to a suggestion from the community for the emote — why not have a different face represent hype on Twitch every day?

Image: Belkin Belkin is voluntarily recalling its Portable Wireless Charger + Stand Special Edition that was sold in Apple retail stores and online on Apple and Belkin’s sites because of fire and shock safety hazards. No incidents or injuries have been connected to the charger, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the malfunction should only affect chargers sold between July 2020 and October 2020.The wireless charging stand has a 10,000mAh power capacity and can charge at 10W speed for phones that support it, but an issue with the “power supply unit” could cause the device to overheat and leave it vulnerable to catching fire or shocking people. Belkin is advising anyone who’s purchased the device to stop using it and unplug it... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google says it’s working to investigate issues with Android apps that use the Android Exposure Notifications System to track the spread of COVID-19. An issue began causing delays for apps using the system, resulting in longer load times and delays in notifications for regular exposure checks. The NHS COVID-19 app that’s used across England and Wales is affected by this Android issue, with a loading notification stuck in the notifications area for many users.“We are aware of an issue affecting Android apps developed using the Android Exposure Notifications System,” a Google spokesperson told The Verge in a statement earlier on Wednesday. “Our engineers are investigating the issue.”As of Wednesday afternoon, Google tells The Verge it’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images For months, Nextdoor moderators have struggled with the challenge of addressing QAnon content on its neighborhood sites — but after last week’s deadly attack on the Capitol, the pressure between moderators and the company’s policy team may have reached a breaking point.Moderators have been asking Nextdoor to impose a ban against QAnon content since at least October, according to forum screenshots obtained by The Verge. Last week, Nextdoor moderators began pressuring the company directly in the National Leads Forum, a private forum for moderators on the site. In screenshots of forum posts, obtained by The Verge, moderators expressed concern that Nextdoor’s misinformation policies did not fully bar discussions of conspiracy theories like... Continue reading…

The rumored Galaxy S21 Ultra lineup. | Image: WinFuture Samsung’s next Unpacked event is less than a day away, kicking off on January 14th at 10AM ET, and thanks to copious leaks, we have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the upcoming event.Samsung is widely expected to announce its next lineup of flagship phones, which will likely be called the S21, S21 Plus, and the S21 Ultra. The S21 Ultra is rumored to have top-of-the-line specs, cameras, and, in a first for an S-model Galaxy phone, support for Samsung’s S Pen stylus. The S21 and S21 Plus are expected to have similar specs but differ in size. And since we first published this post, we’ve seen even more leaks about the phones.A new set of true wireless earbuds, the Galaxy Buds Pro, and a Tile-like item tracker, the Galaxy... Continue reading…

2.2 pounds ain’t bad. | Asus Asus’ new Chromebook CX9 is a powerhouse of a Chromebook built for professionals. Pricing is still to be announced, but it’s coming to North America in Q2 2021.Per Asus, the Chromebook CX9 is powered by up to an 11th Gen Intel Core i7 processor. That’s an unusual processor to see in a Chromebook — students and more casual Chromebook customers don’t usually need more than a Core i3 — but it’s the best option for power users.It also packs that power into quite a portable chassis, which is just 0.63 inches thick (16 mm) and 2.2 pounds. And Asus says it meets the MIL-STD-810H US military standards for durability, so you should have no problem battering it around. In addition, the new Chromebook supports... Continue reading…

The Zenbook Pro Duo 15 OLED is coming in April. | Asus Asus has announced two new dual-screen ZenBook Duo laptops as part of its slate of CES 2021 announcements. The 15-inch model will be available in North America in April of this year, but you can preorder the 14-incher for $999.99 starting January 14th to ship on January 22nd. There’s also a new VivoBook and a new ExpertBook for folks looking for light and portable purchases.If you’re new to the ZenBook Duo line, the laptops have a primary screen (the regular one) as well as a secondary screen (the ScreenPad Plus) that’s built into the top half of the keyboard deck. It’s not really big enough to do anything on, but you can load your distractions (Twitter, Discord, etc.) onto it to keep them out of your main workspace. Some programs,... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Beginning today, Google smart speakers like the Nest Hub and Nest Mini will have a new option called “Guest Mode.” When enabled by saying “Hey Google, turn on guest mode,” the speaker will act a bit more like a public Google Assistant terminal and a bit less like your own personal assistant.When Guest Mode is turned on, queries are no longer saved to your Google account and some personal data like your calendar won’t be shown. However, the speaker will still be able to do the basics like set timers, answer questions, and play music.However, don’t think this works as a way to secure your personal data: turning off Guest Mode is as simple as asking for the speaker to do it. The idea is apparently that if you’re having guests over to... Continue reading…

Here’s Asus’ big XG43UQ. | Image: Asus We covered Asus’ announcement of the 32-inch ROG Swift PG32UQ earlier this week as part of CES 2021, but the company waited until now to reveal more monitors that have HDMI 2.1 ports.Basically, these are the screens you want if you have a high-end PC, a PS5, or an Xbox Series X so you can see your gameplay in 4K resolution at up to 120 frames per second. They’re a big deal if you really want to let your hardware rip, which is why we’ve been closely covering monitors and TVs with the requisite HDMI 2.1 ports required to achieve that high-end resolution and performance balance.Starting with what will likely be the most expensive option (though Asus hasn’t shared a price), the 43-inch ROG Strix XG43UQ is shown above. This model has a 4K... Continue reading…