The Verge

Image: Lenovo Lenovo is introducing a new ThinkPad — with a twist. The ThinkPad X12 Detachable is a 12.3-inch business laptop with a screen that you can pop off and use as a tablet. It’s one of several new ThinkPads Lenovo has launched this week, which are powered by Intel’s newest 11th Gen vPro processors.Take a look at this thing, and you’ll see that it’s a similar idea to Microsoft’s Surface Pro line. The display is essentially a 12.3-inch Windows tablet that you can attach to and detach from a folio keyboard. It has a kickstand on the back, which is how it stands up on its own, and it’s compatible with Lenovo’s Precision Pen and Digital Pen.The form factor is meant to offer extra versatility to business users. If you’re in a meeting or class,... Continue reading…

Intel’s new flagship Core i9-11900K processor will arrive in the first quarter of 2021. The chipmaker has provided the latest preview for its first 11th Gen (Rocket Lake-S) desktop chips at CES today. Headlined by the flagship Core i9-11900K, the new chips are said to bring up to 19 percent higher IPC (instructions per cycle), up to 50 percent better integrated graphics, and better AI performance.And while Intel isn’t quite ready to take the lid off the full 11th Gen Rocket Lake-S lineup just yet, it did preview the flagship Core i9 model: an eight-core, 16-thread chipset with boosted clock speeds up to a whopping 5.3GHz. The processor also includes support for DDR4 RAM at 3,200MHz, a total of 20 PCIe 4.0 lanes, and even backwards... Continue reading…

Photo by Amy Sussman / Getty Images Netflix has signed a multiyear deal with Kevin Hart and his production company HartBeat Productions for four exclusive films starring Hart and first dibs on films the comedy star develops with his company.Hart partnered with Netflix most recently for his comedy special Zero F**ks Given, which Netflix says was the “#1 Netflix comedy special in 2020,” but this new deal would bring the lucrative comedy star even deeper into the fold. Hart’s films have grossed a combined $4 billion in the global box office, according to Netflix, so taking advantage of that star power to draw users to the streaming service and keep them around makes perfect sense.Relying on recognizable comedy stars has been a successful formula for Netflix. Adam Sandler’s... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Writing is often the domain of obsessives, and Emily Dickinson — at least, the witty, chaotic version of her portrayed by Hailee Steinfeld on Apple TV Plus’ Dickinson — gives herself over to her obsessions fully. In the first season of the show, which is an irreverent, Riverdale-style take on the life of the famed young poet, her obsession was Death, played by Wiz Khalifa. (Like I said: irreverent.) In the latest season, Steinfeld’s Emily is obsessed with fame. Lovers of dramatic irony have a lot to dig into here.The new season of Dickinson is a lot like the first: equal parts over-the-top comedy and earnest teen soap. But this time around, the show has a touch more restraint. It keeps the outrageous excess — Dickinson’s second season... Continue reading…

Today, Spanish streamer and EU Heretics team owner David “TheGrefg” Martínez is showing off his Icon series Fortnite skin. With just over an hour to the reveal, it appears that Martínez has smashed the individual concurrent record on Twitch, with more than 780,000 live viewers. (By way of comparison: Seattle had 753,675 residents as of the 2019 census.) His excitement was palpable, and viewers watched live as Martínez googled the records on his record-breaking stream.Fortnite’s Icon Series skins are reserved for the game’s top creators, which include people like Kathleen “Loserfruit” Belsten and Tyler “Ninja” Blevins. As of this writing, there are only seven outfits in the series; Martínez’s would be the 8th.Martínez takes the... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Qualcomm has just announced the 3D Sonic Sensor Gen 2, the latest version of its ultrasonic in-display fingerprint sensor that looks to improve on the original model in nearly every way. The new version offers a larger surface area for the sensor and faster processing to unlock phones even quicker.The company is making a big jump here: the new Gen 2 model measures 8mm x 8mm, compared to the 4mm x 9mm surface area of the first-generation model, for 77 percent more surface area. In turn, that means it’ll be easier to accurately place your finger on the sensor, and it allows for the sensor to collect more data with each scan. By combining the larger sensor with faster processing, Qualcomm promises that scanning a fingerprint to unlock a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement with photo storage app Ever that it says used customers’ photos to develop facial recognition technology without telling them, the agency announced Monday.Under the terms of the agreement, Everalbum Inc. is required to delete photos and videos of its users who deactivated their accounts, as well as any facial recognition algorithms developed with users’ photos or videos. The company also must delete all “face embeddings,” which it describes as “data reflecting facial features that can be used for facial recognition purposes” that were derived from users’ photos who didn’t give consent for their use.Everalbum, which shut down Ever in August and rebranded itself as Paravision AI, is... Continue reading…

Image: Hulu Keeping up with every single streaming service is an expensive affair, but Hulu is offering US college students a special discounted plan at $2 a month. Typically, Hulu’s ad-supported plan costs $5.99 a month. The new student plan, which is an evergreen offer and will run for the same price as long as students can verify their continued enrollment, offers more than a 65 percent discount. Students can sign up for the offer now.Hulu has made offers like this in the past for general subscribers (not just college students), but those were limited time deals. Hulu’s Black Friday sale, for example, saw the cost go down to $2 a month for an entire year. These are all for ad-supported plans, though. Hulu’s ad-free plan remains much more... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The PC was supposed to die 10 years ago, but it’s just experienced its first big growth in a decade. Market research firm Canalys reports that PC shipments reached 297 million units in 2020, up an impressive 11 percent from 2019. IDC puts the year at 302 million shipments, up 13.1 percent year over year. Either way, it’s clear 2020 was a big year for PCs and the biggest growth we’ve seen since 2010.PC shipments are up thanks to demand related to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Supply constraints made it difficult to buy a new laptop halfway through the year, and demand continued throughout 2020. “Demand is pushing the PC market forward and all signs indicate this surge still has a way to go,” says IDC’s Ryan Reith. While home working... Continue reading…

Image: D-Link D-Link is trying to make it simple to give your computer a Wi-Fi upgrade. The networking company has announced what it’s calling an “industry-first” Wi-Fi 6 adapter built into a USB stick. Plug it into your laptop or desktop computer, and you may be able to get better performance than from your older Wi-Fi chip. The adapter advertises speeds up to 1,200Mbps.It’s not entirely clear who the target audience is for this upgrade. You’ll need to be connected to a Wi-Fi 6 router to get the biggest benefits, and most people still don’t own one of those (the Wi-Fi 6 standard only started rolling out two years ago). And if the laptop or desktop you’re using was bought any time in recent memory, chances are it supports Wi-Fi 5, which isn’t a huge... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Peloton, a company known for its internet-connected bikes and treadmills, is wading into the Stop The Steal mess. The company is now preventing users from creating a #StopTheSteal tag from within the app, saying the tag does not “meet our guidelines” when a user goes to create it. Peloton’s community guidelines specifically ban “hate, offensive, and obscene speech” as well as “bullying, harassment, and other offensive behavior.” We’ve reached out for additional clarification about when Peloton began blocking this hashtag and why.Tags on Peloton function as community identifiers. When people join a tag, it appears under their name on the company’s leaderboard during workouts, and they can socialize with other members of that tag. Anyone... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The creators of social network Parler have sued Amazon for ending a web hosting agreement after last week’s riot at the US Capitol. Parler claims Amazon Web Services severed ties to stop Parler from competing with the larger social platform Twitter, and it’s asking a court to stop Amazon from shutting down its account — arguing that an extended shutdown would be like “pulling the plug on a hospital patient on life support.”Parler bills itself as a more permissive alternative to Facebook and Twitter, particularly as those sites have cracked down on President Donald Trump and his supporters for seeking to violently overturn the US election results. That stance has earned backlash from digital infrastructure companies. Apple and Google... Continue reading…

Image: Lutron Unlike indoor smart home gadgets, connected outdoor appliances have an extra problem to deal with in the form of unpredictable weather. Lutron aims to address that with its new Caséta Outdoor Smart Plug, which is designed to withstand the elements through every season and lets you toggle your outdoor electronics on and off even when it looks too miserable to step outside yourself.The Caséta Outdoor Smart Plug is an addition to Lutron’s larger Caséta smart lighting system. It’s IP65 rating means it should stand up to rain and snow, but Lutron also claims the device is essentially “dustproof” and “sunproof” as well. The plug can also survive temperatures from -4 degrees Fahrenheit to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Engadget.Like... Continue reading…

Photo: ColdSnap We’ve had pod coffee, pod juices, pod lipstick, pod weed, pod cocktails, pod cookies, pod tortillas, and so much more thanks to the VC- and Kickstarter-backed rise of pod technologies in recent years. Now, we’re finally getting to the good stuff: pod-based ice cream.A new device called the ColdSnap, spotted by Gizmodo, can take pods filled with some unknown ingredients and turn them into soft-serve ice cream on demand. While ice cream is the ColdSnap’s main selling point, the company also plans to offer frozen yogurt pods, frozen coffee pods, frozen smoothie pods, frozen “healthy shakes” pods, and slushie pods.There will also be frozen cocktail pods, which the company may want to consider advertising more prominently.Mostly, though,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Alphabet Workers Union (AWU) passed 700 members on Monday, growing from roughly 230 at launch on January 4th. The group, which is open to employees and contractors at Google’s parent company, includes workers from 35 offices in the US and Canada.AWU organized in secret for almost a year, before going public with an op-ed in The New York Times last week. The news prompted an outpouring of support from tech workers in Silicon Valley. “We were excited to see the response of the public and employees,” says Alan Morales, a Google engineer. “Now we’re welcoming all of our new members and hearing their motivations for joining.”As a minority union, AWU can’t force Google management to come to the table to negotiate. But it can try to... Continue reading…

Image: Vizio Vizio’s latest TV firmware update is full of features and improvements for people who game on a PS5, Xbox Series X, or PC with the Nvidia RTX 3080 (or any powerful G-Sync-ready Nvidia GPU). It’s currently rolling out to the company’s OLED sets as well as its 2021 collection of P-Series Quantum X and P-Series Quantum models — all of which feature HDMI 2.1 ports.Breaking it down by platform, Vizio claims that the update “enables full bandwidth 4K at 120fps” for the PlayStation 5. The PS5 doesn’t natively support variable refresh rate yet.That’s not the case if you have a PC with something powerful in it like the Nvidia RTX 3080. This firmware allows for 4K resolution at up to a 120Hz refresh rate when connected to your rig, along with... Continue reading…

The Linksys AXE8400 Wi-Fi 6E router Linksys Aware — the company’s subscription service that uses its mesh Wi-Fi systems to detect motion in your house — is getting even smarter with a new update that will let the routers utilize the internet to connect to other stationary smart home products to track motion in your house more accurately.The original Aware motion-sensing system detects how Wi-Fi signals bounce around your house between routers in a mesh system. Movement naturally interferes with those signals, allowing the routers to act as a motion-sensing setup without the need for any additional hardware.Now, Linksys is adding support to leverage other internet-connected smart home products — like speakers, smart switches, and thermostats — to serve as additional... Continue reading…

Image: OtterBox As part of OtterBox’s CES 2021 announcements, the consumer electronics company announced the first line of products under its gaming portfolio, releasing in mid-February with preorders beginning on January 25th. As part of a partnership with Xbox, OtterBox has created a new gaming accessories line aimed at mobile gamers. This includes a mobile gaming clip designed for the Xbox One, Series X / S, and the Elite wireless controllers.OtterBox’s Mobile Gaming Clip costs $30 and includes an admittedly tough-looking phone clip that extends if you are trying to place a bigger phone or a phone with a bulky case securely into it. Now, there are other options for gaming clips like PowerA’s $15 gaming clip, but what makes OtterBox’s product... Continue reading…

Since Apple’s reveal of its new MagSafe charging standard, officially approved wireless chargers that use the standard have been few and far between. But Belkin is boosting those numbers with its new BoostCharge Pro MagSafe 2-in-1 Wireless Charger, which also brings a more palatable $99.95 price tag.Similar to the BoostCharge Pro MagSafe 3-in-1 Wireless Charger, the BoostCharge Pro MagSafe 2-in-1 Wireless Charger — as you might be able to already guess — can charge two products instead of three. Now, the futuristic charging tree will offer just a MagSafe pad and a regular Qi charger for your AirPods (or any other device that fits), dropping the Apple Watch charger found on the 3-in-1.And like the 3-in-1, the new BoostCharge Pro... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook announced Monday that it would pause its contributions to political action committees after last week’s deadly attack on the US Capitol, as first reported by Axios.“Following last week’s awful violence in DC, we are pausing all of our PAC contributions for at least the current quarter, while we review our policies,” Facebook spokesperson Danial Robert told The Verge in a statement Monday.Facebook’s political spending freeze will last at least through the first quarter of 2021. This freeze only affects PAC contributions, not all of Facebook’s political spending.“We are pausing all of our PAC contributions for at least the current quarter.”The social media company is joining a group of other private companies halting... Continue reading…

Image: LG LG has announced a new entry in its high-end UltraFine monitor lineup, the LG UltraFine OLED Pro, as part of the company’s CES 2021 announcements. LG is pitching the new monitor primarily for use by creative professionals, as you can see in LG’s video about the new display that we’ve embedded at the top of this post.The UltraFine OLED Pro is a 31.5-inch 4K display, according to Engadget, and LG says the display has individual dimming for its more than 8 million pixels. The monitor covers 99 percent of the DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB color spectrum and has a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio, according to LG’s video. And the display has a good number of ports, including one USB-C port with 90-watt power delivery, two DisplayPorts, three USB-A ports,... Continue reading…

The fourth-gen Amazon Echo Dot looks more like a ball and less like a dot. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge The new ball-shaped fourth-gen Amazon Echo, which was released last year, was frequently discounted over the holiday season. If you missed those deals and are looking to grab two Echo Dots, Amazon is currently running a promotion that allows you to buy two for $50 (before tax) when you enter the code DOT2PACK at checkout.If you are looking to pick up Apple’s flagship earbuds, there are a few deals currently available. Right now, if you want the lowest price for these wireless earbuds and don’t mind buying refurbished, they are $190 at Best Buy (Geek Squad Certified). If you want a new pair, they are $219 at Amazon, or you can shell out an extra dollar and get them at Verizon and choose in-store pickup.At Best Buy, you can buy a pair... Continue reading…

In 2014, a Twitch user turned a game of Pokémon Red into a co-op experience with thousands of players. TwitchPlaysPokémon used crowdsourced commands to move through the game’s world, culminating in the defeat of the Elite Four and capture of all 151 of the original series pokémon. Gameloft 3D programmer Constantin Liétard is attempting a similar feat, this time through Twitter.Liétard’s version plays out through his avatar — the image updates with the game’s progress as players battle and travel through Pokémon Red’s world. To play, users tweet commands — up, down, start, select, and so on — on an ongoing thread. Comments are pulled every 15 seconds, Liétard tweeted, with the most commented directive then being entered into the game.... Continue reading…

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images Twitch had a good 2020. Events were virtual; people stayed inside. The live-streaming site managed to clock 17 billion hours watched last year, which is a full 83 percent higher than 2019’s 9 billion, according to the latest report from StreamElements and Arsenal.gg. The jump wasn’t limited to Twitch; Facebook Gaming and YouTube Gaming also posted their best numbers ever last year.“Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook all experienced major jumps in viewership traffic, which includes Twitch hitting 3 back-to-back milestones from October to December to end with a record high of 1.7B hours watched in that final month,” writes Doron Nir, CEO of StreamElements. For YouTube, that meant 10 billion watch hours in 2020; Facebook Gaming hit 3.59... Continue reading…

Chinese EV startup Nio unveiled an electric sedan called the ET7 this weekend that it promises will have autonomous capabilities and, eventually, a solid-state battery option. It’s a big project that Nio is only able to tackle after pulling off an incredible rebound from the brink in 2020.Nio will sell a version of the sedan, which is based on a previous concept first shown at the 2019 Shanghai Motor Show, that can go 500 kilometers (about 310 miles) on a full battery for 448,000 yuan (about $69,000) and one that can supposedly eclipse 700 kilometers (about 435 miles) for 506,000 yuan (about $78,000). The first vehicles are slated to be delivered in China in early 2022.Nio, which is backed by Tencent, will sell a “premier edition” of... Continue reading…

The Nickelodeon half-time report, presented in block form. If people tuned into the Chicago Bears vs. New Orleans Saints game on CBS, they may have missed all the slime. In a play for a broadcast aimed at a younger audience, the NFL aired the Wild Card matchup simultaneously on Nickelodeon, with its own announcers, goofy on-screen animations, and touchdown celebrations featuring SpongeBob SquarePants characters and, of course, green slime.From the minute the game kicked off at 4:40PM ET to the second it ended, Nickelodeon’s broadcast was chaotic absurdity and a total delight. Whenever a player scored a touchdown, slime cannons would erupt in the end zone. Digital art, like clouds appearing at players’ feet or lighting across their chest, appeared often during replays. Nickelodeon stars —... Continue reading…

At CES 2021, Netgear announced its first Wi-Fi 6E-ready device that takes full advantage of the 6GHz band: the Nighthawk RAXE500, a $599.99 tri-band wireless router.Wi-Fi 6E wireless routers like this one broadcast over the 6GHz band, in addition to serving the 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands that most devices can use. A number of devices launching at CES 2021 will support Wi-Fi 6E, and as a result, routers like the new Nighthawk RAXE500 can provide unfettered bandwidth to devices that require a lot of it. Not just that, devices connected via 6GHz can avoid disruptions from the many other household devices (even those being used by nearby neighbors) that operate on the crowded 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.Netgear’s new high-end router looks like a... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Before Parler went offline early Monday, a researcher says she archived 99 percent of its posts, Gizmodo reported. The researcher, identified only by her Twitter handle, @donk_enby, started archiving Parler posts after the January 6th attack on the Capitol in Washington, DC that left six people dead.Parler has been identified as one of the sites where people who participated in the riot planned and coordinated the attack on the Capitol. @donk_enby says she began cataloging Parler posts on January 6th in an attempt to create a public record. That effort had to be accelerated when Amazon announced on Saturday it was pulling web hosting services from the site for violating its terms of service.Posts on Parler encouraged violence, leading... Continue reading…

Image: Dell Among the monitors Dell has announced at this year’s CES is the Dell UltraSharp 40 Curved WUHD U4021QW, which it’s claiming is the “world’s first 40-inch ultrawide curved WUHD (5K2K) monitor.” 5K2K, in case you were wondering, translates to a pixel resolution of 5120 x 2160. That gives it the same vertical pixel count as a typical 4K screen, but with an ultrawide 21:9 aspect ratio. By the standards of most monitors, it’s a lot of pixels.The UltraSharp 40 Curved WUHD has a full array of ports, including a Thunderbolt 3 port that can supply a compatible MacBook with up to 90W of power. Other ports include a pair of HDMI 2.0 ports, a DisplayPort 1.4 port, four USB Type-A ports with data speeds of up to 10Gbps, an Ethernet port, 3.5mm jack,... Continue reading…

Last week saw unprecedented mob violence in our nation’s capital and a huge shift in the internet’s relationship with President Donald Trump. Major sites like Facebook and Twitter, which excused harassment and outright threats from the president for years, banned him in a matter of days. The social network Parler, a home for Trump supporters too extreme for those big networks, was banned from Apple and Google’s App Stores and then by Amazon’s hosting services. As of this morning, the network cannot be accessed in any way.Skeptics have called the deplatforming a “censorship orgy” or a move to “one-party control of information distribution.” One pundit argued that “big tech has the power to utterly erase you from modern existence” — a... Continue reading…

TCL’s aptly named Wearable Display. | Image: TCL For CES 2021, TCL is showing off a wearable display prototype that’s been in the works for years and is now close to reaching market. Simply enough, the company is calling it the TCL Wearable Display, and it’s a pair of glasses with two 1080p mini OLED screens on the inside. This isn’t a virtual reality headset — rather it’s a new take on the concept of a wearable, personal display that gives the viewer the effect of looking at a very large screen. Image: TCL The Wearable Display is shaped like a pair of standard glasses. The glasses require a wired connection to a device that’s equipped with USB-C video out. TCL says they produce the effect of viewing a 140-inch display from four meters away, with a density... Continue reading…

The TCL NXTPAPER will in April to European customers. | Image: TCL TCL has announced the NXTPAPER 8-inch tablet using technology it teased with its IFA 2020 announcements, which the company calls an “artistic combination of screen and paper.” The tablet features a full-color display without backlighting to reduce power consumption and provide a comfortable, E Ink-like viewing experience.The 1440 x 1080, 8.88-inch screen uses a reflective design to “reuse” natural light, and there’s no flicker or blue light to strain your eyes. TCL says it’s 65 percent more power efficient than a traditional tablet screen with better contrast than an E Ink device.The tablet will ship with Android 10 and include support for Google AssistantThe TCL NXTPAPER includes 8-megapixel rear-facing and 5-megapixel front-facing... Continue reading…

Image: TCL TCL makes some of the best under-$1,000 TVs you can buy, and it was also early to adopt the Mini LED technology that TV makers like Samsung and LG are only starting to use in their 2021 lineups. (TCL’s 8-Series and 6-Series both already include Mini LED backlighting.) For 2021, the company is hoping to combine its aggressive pricing strategy and technological head start on Mini LED for a new 6-Series that also goes all in on 8K resolution.“In the year ahead, all 2021 6-Series TCL Roku TV models being launched will feature 8K resolution,” TCL announced in a press release today, noting that last year’s models will remain available as well. TCL’s AiPQ engine will be able to upscale 4K content to higher clarity and sharpness on the new... Continue reading…

The TCL 20 5G offers a 6.67-inch display with HDR10 video playback. | Image: TCL The TCL 20 5G is one of many affordable 5G phones we’ll see this year, and at €299, it will launch a full €100 cheaper than last year’s TCL 10 5G. Using a less expensive 5G-equipped 600-series Qualcomm processor likely enabled the price drop. Otherwise, it looks to be a modest iteration of the previous model. TCL isn’t providing information now about US availability or pricing, only that “some” of the five 20-series phones it will announce this year will come to the US.The 20 5G adopts the new Snapdragon 690 5G processor, dropping down from the 7-series chipset used by its predecessor. The 690 supports low- and midband 5G frequencies but not mmWave. Image: TCL The TCL 20 5G with a 6.67-inch screen and rear... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Samsung is working on a robot that can pick up laundry, load the dishwasher, set the table, pour wine, and even bring you a drink. The robot is called Bot Handy, and Samsung says it’ll be able to recognize objects using a camera and AI.The bot is meant to be “an extension of you in the kitchen, living room, and anywhere else you may need an extra hand in your home,” Sebastian Seung, president of Samsung Research, said during Samsung’s CES press conference today.For now, it’s not clear how close Bot Handy is to being a real, shipping product. Samsung didn’t announce a price or release window, and the company has previously used CES to show off futuristic-looking robots that are more of a concept than a real product. The robot is... Continue reading…

Image: Alarm.com Alarm.com has announced a new device for anyone worried about visitors catching COVID-19 from, of all things, their doorbell. Rather than using a button, the Touchless Video Doorbell is designed to chime when its camera detects visitors standing on your doormat. Alarm.com claims this is the “first commercially available video doorbell that rings without requiring any contact,” and that its aim is to “reduce public health risks and make home visits and deliveries safer for all.”In what seems to be an admission that this is quite a confusing way to ring a doorbell, there are instructions on how to ring the device printed on its front. Alarm.com is also selling a doormat accessory for the doorbell, which instructs visitors on where to... Continue reading…

Reah Keem is just like you and I — she loves working on music, vacationing abroad, and is pretty bummed out about not being able to visit any cool places right now. The biggest difference, however, is that Reah Keem isn’t a real person.LG introduced Reah Keem as a virtual influencer who appeared during its live-streamed CES keynote to unveil the company’s new line of LG CLOi UV-C robots. The robot, which was announced by LG in December, is designed for areas with high traffic, like hotels, and roams around shining UV-C light that should reduce exposure to harmful germs. Keem’s job was talking about how important the CLOi UV-C was to her own life, using the chance to talk about how excited she was to start traveling again in the real... Continue reading…

L’Oreal L’Oreal debuted a gadget at CES last year that promised to make lipstick shades in whatever color wearers wanted. This year, we’re learning what that device requires to work at home: lipstick pods.The Yves Saint Laurent Beauté Rouge Sur Mesure Powered by Perso — yes, that really is the name — takes three different lipstick color pods and squirts their liquid out at the top of the device for wearers to mix. (The pods dispense the YSL Beauty Velvet Cream Matte Finish formula.) When combined, they create the desired shade. The top of the Bluetooth-enabled device doubles as a compact so people can take it on the go and touch up their color as needed.The device costs $299 and is available for preorder today. Each preorder includes two sets... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 7 Plus. | Microsoft Microsoft is updating its Surface Pro line today with a refreshed Surface Pro 7 Plus model that is only available to businesses and schools. While the design and screen on the outside remain the same as the Surface Pro 7, Microsoft has overhauled the internals of the device to make way for Intel’s latest 11th Gen processors, a bigger battery, removable SSD, and LTE connectivity.This marks the return of LTE to the main Surface Pro line for the first time since 2015, but unfortunately there’s no 5G connectivity as Microsoft is using Qualcomm’s older Snapdragon X20 LTE modem inside the Surface Pro 7 Plus. Image: Microsoft The Surface Pro 7 Plus has no external design changes. A variety of models will be... Continue reading…

Image: Spotify Parents can now influence more of their kids’ music taste through Spotify. The audio streaming platform announced a new feature for Spotify Kids today called Shared Playlists, which allows parents to share playlists they’ve created with their kids. The Spotify Kids app gives kids access to child-approved audio content with the goal of gating them into a safe place to click around and access music and stories. This new feature allows kids to gain access to the content that lives outside those walls, however, with parents acting as the main gatekeeper. Spotify says the idea is to give parents a way to share the music they loved growing up or that they enjoy regularly as a family.To share a playlist, parents have to access the... Continue reading…

LG is once again teasing its rollable phone. While we’ve seen brief hints in the past, at CES today, LG provided the best look at the device so far. Named LG Rollable, the device has what the company calls a “unique resizable screen” that transforms from a phone into a small tablet. The screen slides in and out of place to extend its surface area.It’s merely a concept right now, as part of LG’s “Explorer Project” experiments, and we still don’t know exactly what technology LG is using or the size of the expandable display. LG has previously used its Explorer Project to introduce its LG Wing smartphone, with a wild rotating design and two OLED displays. Image: LG LG Rollable is the name for the expandable device.... Continue reading…

Image: LG There’s really not much of a resemblance between the webOS software that runs on LG TVs and the Palm smartphones where the operating system had its beginnings many years ago. But LG’s TV interface has grown to be among my favorites for its efficiency at staying out of the way. When you hit the remote’s home button, a shortcuts bar with apps, HDMI inputs, and other destinations slides up at the bottom of the screen but doesn’t completely overtake whatever’s on-screen. Highlight a streaming app, and an additional row slides up to reveal recommended picks and what’s streaming.Well, so much for that.LG is giving webOS a major overhaul for its 2021 TVs. Version 6.0 of the software gets rid of the slide-up bar altogether and now has a full... Continue reading…

Archer AX206 router. | Image: TP-Link TP-Link is announcing its first routers with support for Wi-Fi 6E, a huge new upgrade to Wi-Fi that quadruples the available airwaves for faster speeds and more reliable connections. The first four routers it’s announcing include a pair of mesh Wi-Fi systems and two high-end single-unit routers, including one that supports 10 Gbps speeds.Wi-Fi 6E routers add a third band of Wi-Fi — so in addition to 2.4GHz and 5GHz connections, there’ll now be a 6GHz network. That network will be significantly larger, too, which should mean less congestion and more potential for faster speeds.TP-Link is planning to introduce two mesh Wi-Fi routers with support for Wi-Fi 6E this year. The Deco X96 and Deco X76 Plus are both tri-band systems, and they’ll... Continue reading…

Image: LG According to LG, 2021 represents a major leap for its OLED TVs thanks to a new “OLED Evo” panel that outputs a brighter picture. Brightness has remained a winning factor for LCD TVs over many years; despite perfect blacks and amazing viewing angles, sometimes an OLED set just won’t get the job done if you stick it in an ultra-bright room. But LG says the Evo panel found in its new G1 series — succeeding 2020’s GX lineup — can crank higher than any of its previous OLED TVs for improved luminosity and HDR. LG likens this achievement to past OLED milestones like 4K HDR and the introduction of 8K.The G1 series will come in 77-, 65-, and 55-inch sizes. It shares the same brains — the fourth generation of LG’s alpha9 processor — with the C1... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge LG has announced that it’s bringing two of the leading cloud gaming services, Google Stadia and Nvidia’s GeForce Now, to its newest TVs later this year. Stadia is expected to be available in the second half of the year after the 2021 lineup of OLED, QNED, and NanoCell TVs start shipping — with GeForce Now coming sometime later.The news signifies a continued expansion for both services. Google has promised that Stadia will come to Google TV (including the latest Chromecast) in the first half of 2021. Last week, Sony announced its 2021 lineup of TVs. They all run Google TV, so it’s a safe bet that you’ll also be able to find Stadia on those when they ship in a few months.As for GeForce Now, it’s currently available on the Nvidia Shield... Continue reading…

Fossil Gen 5 with LTE smartwatch | Fossil Fossil is making a smartwatch with LTE for the first time, the Gen 5 LTE. As you might guess from the relatively boring name, the watch is based on Fossil’s Gen 5 Wear OS platform. That means that it has many of the same features and likely performs in the same way as Fossil’s smartwatches have since late 2019, when we first reviewed the Gen 5 platform. It will retail for $349 and be available this spring in the US either in Fossil stores or at Verizon.The key spec to pay attention to is the processor, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 3100. For the most part, it’s fast enough to handle Wear OS’ software, but smartwatches that use it still have a difficult time getting more than a day’s worth of battery life. It’s a disappointment that Fossil isn’t... Continue reading…

The Consumer Electronics Show officially begins this week. Thankfully, the Consumer Electronics Association capitulated in July and switched the whole thing over to being online-only. But it’s hard to know what CES is even supposed to be without giant convention halls filled with ostentatious displays, blinking lights, and hordes of exhausted and smelly people in off-the-rack suits. Whatever happens, you will be able to find all our coverage right here.The chief executive of the CEA Gary Shapiro told the Wall Street Journal that his organization did its best to try to translate some of the experience online. I can tell you that many on our staff here at The Verge are absolutely dreading being made to click through 3D software models of... Continue reading…

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Nvidia has started teasing its RTX 3000 series launch for laptops. The GPU manufacturer is holding a virtual press event for CES tomorrow, and it’s widely expected to unveil the mobile versions of the RTX 3000 series GPUs. A new teaser video includes a very clear hint of a laptop, alongside some other announcements that Nvidia is likely to make.Tom’s Guide notes that the teaser includes four images: a gaming laptop, the Outriders game, a GeForce RTX logo, and resizable BAR (Base Address Register). The gaming laptop hints at the RTX 3000 mobile GPUs, but it’s also likely that the RTX logo teases further desktop GPUs. Rumors have suggested Nvidia is ready to unveil an RTX 3060 GPU that will be priced below Nvidia’s latest RTX 3060 Ti card.... Continue reading…

The HyperX Alloy Origins 60 | HyperX Most major gaming peripheral companies have already introduced 60-percent mechanical keyboards, which are more compact than full-sized versions and have become trendy in recent years for aesthetic and size reasons. But at CES 2021, HyperX is finally following suit by debuting its first compact model called the Alloy Origins 60. There are fewer keys here than one of its full-sized options, but not necessarily fewer functions; you’ll find most of the keys available have secondary functions that can be activated by holding down the function button.This isn’t the first time a 60-percent keyboard has donned HyperX’s name. The company collaborated with enthusiast brand Ducky on a limited release of that company’s One 2 Mini, injecting it... Continue reading…

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