The Verge

A screenshot from Gran Turismo 7. | Image: Sony The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced a new series of virtual sporting events that will take place ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, called the Olympic Virtual Series. No, this doesn’t mean that League of Legends just became an Olympic sport — what’s happening is that the IOC is partnering with five international sports federations to host virtual competitions in games featuring their sports.The Olympic Virtual Series will kick off on May 13th and will run through June 23rd. Here’s the lineup of federations and what games they’ll be hosting events for, as we know it so far:

The original Reon Pocket. Sony has announced a follow-up product to the Reon Pocket, the app-controlled “wearable air conditioner” it released last year after crowdfunding it on the company’s own platform. The Reon Pocket 2 looks more or less the same as the original model, but the newly designed internals can achieve up to twice the level of heat absorption, according to Sony, resulting in more powerful cooling performance. Sony also says that it’s improved the sweat-proofing in the Reon Pocket 2, making it more suitable for light exercise situations.The prior model was mostly marketed as something to wear with a special undershirt to make summer commuting more bearable, but this time around Sony is emphasizing more versatile use cases — particularly golf. The... Continue reading…

Image: Apple The Apple AirTags have finally been announced, and with them come a ton of accessories to make them easier to use (so much easier than if it had, say, a built-in way to attach it to things). While a small tracking puck could be carried in a bag, there are a variety of other things that you may want to put an AirTag on that require some sort of holder or the judicious use of tape.These are all the accessories we could find that are either listed for preorder on the maker’s site or have a page on Apple’s store. We don’t have official ship dates for most of them, but it’s probably a safe bet that the ones on the Apple Store will become available when the AirTags do, on April 30th. Image: Apple Belkin’s AirTag... Continue reading…

Photo: Sony Pictures Entertainment Disney and Sony Pictures have signed a multi-year “content licensing agreement” that will bring new Sony theatrical releases, starting with its 2022 films, to Disney-owned platforms. The deal also gives Disney the rights to many of Sony’s older films, including Spider-Man titles — meaning that movies starring the web-slinger, which are notably absent from Disney Plus’ collection of Marvel films, could eventually make their way to the streaming service.Sony’s theatrical releases from 2022 through 2026 are included in the deal, and Disney will get access to them following their “Pay 1 TV window.” Starting in 2022, that window, which follows a film’s theatrical and home video runs, will be owned by Netflix, thanks to a deal announced... Continue reading…

Capcom Facebook Reality Labs has offered more detail about a virtual reality remake of Resident Evil 4, following Capcom’s original announcement last week. The game will launch later this year exclusively on Facebook’s Oculus Quest 2 headset, although the exact date is still a mystery. As Capcom’s first trailer indicated, it’s a first-person VR adaptation of the 2005 third-person game, with a focus on making weapons and movement feel more natural with Oculus Touch motion controllers.Resident Evil 4 for VR uses the game’s original levels and animations, revamped with remastered textures, and Oculus says cutscenes will be rendered “in their original format.” But developer Armature Studio has added VR-friendly locomotion options like the ability... Continue reading…

US President Joe Biden prepares to sign executive orders after speaking about climate change issues in the State Dining Room of the White House on January 27th, 2021, in Washington, DC. Biden signed several executive orders related to the climate change crisis. Also pictured, left to right, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and US Vice President Kamala Harris. | Photo by Anna Moneymaker-Pool / Getty Images The US plans to officially ratchet up its climate commitments going into Earth Day tomorrow, but many advocates are skeptical that it will be ambitious enough to balance out the nation’s inordinate role in creating the climate crisis.“No possible ethically justifiable story in which the United States does not do more”Biden is expected to commit the US to slashing its greenhouse gas emissions by at least half compared to what they were in 2005. That’s already a significant ramp-up compared to the trajectory the US was on before. (Barack Obama committed the US to a roughly 27 percent cut by 2025.) But there’s still somewhat of a mismatch between what the US is willing to commit to and what some say it owes to the rest of the world.“... Continue reading…

Nelson smiles for cameras before his Senate confirmation hearing to be NASA’s 14th administrator. President Biden’s pick for NASA administrator, former Sen. Bill Nelson, breezed through his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, as expected. Facing questions from his “old buddies” about NASA’s commercial partnerships, climate change, and workforce diversity, Nelson’s hearing was uneventful and garnered bipartisan praise. He backed the agency’s current plan to send its first crew of astronauts to the Moon on a SpaceX rocket and emphasized NASA’s role in studying climate change.Just over a month after being tapped by Biden for NASA chief, Nelson told lawmakers he supported the president’s 2022 summary budget request for NASA and defended the $2.3 billion it set out for the agency’s Earth sciences wing — a 15 percent increase from... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s App Store was in the hot seat of Wednesday’s hearing Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Hyundai is discontinuing its first mass-market electric SUV, the Kona EV, in South Korea following a massive recall due to a fire risk in the battery pack, the Yonhap news agency reports. The automaker will instead turn its focus to the forthcoming Ioniq 5 (and the EVs that will follow it), though Hyundai will still sell the Kona EV in the United States, according to Roadshow.More than a dozen reports of fires in Kona EV battery packs have been documented since 2019, and so this February, Hyundai finally decided to spend nearly $1 billion to recall 76,000 Kona EVs across its home country (though battery supplier LG Chem is contributing a big portion). It also recalled some Ioniq sedans and electric buses that used the same battery... Continue reading…

Image: Activision In the battle royale of battle royale games, there doesn’t need to be a single winner. Call of Duty: Warzone now has 100 million players, the same number Apex Legends achieved just a week ago.They can share a victory royale with Fortnite, with its 350 million-plus players (as of May 2020), as well as the original PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, which has sold north of 70 million copies on console and PC, and its free-to-play PUBG Mobile variant reportedly raked in $5 billion last year ($7.4 million per day).

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has been targeted in a $50 million ransomware attack following the theft of a trove of engineering and manufacturing schematics of current and future products from Quanta, a Taiwan-based company that manufactures MacBooks and other products for Apple.The leak, first reported by The Record, was carried out by REvil, a Russian hacking group that’s also known by the name Sodinokibi. The group had already begun posting the stolen images on April 20th, timed specifically to coincide with Apple’s latest “Spring Loaded” event, after Quanta refused to pay the $50 million ransom for the data. The group is now hoping to get Apple itself to pay up by May 1st, promising to continue to post new images from the leak daily until it does.Quanta... Continue reading…

Brydge is announcing a keyboard and trackpad accessory for the 12.9-inch iPad Pro (via 9to5Mac). Like the company’s previous accessories, the Brydge 12.9 Max Plus will let you take your iPad from being a tablet to a laptop, just by connecting it to the accessory. With Apple’s new M1-powered iPad Pro, some might already be thinking about using it to make a MacBook replacement, while others may just be excited for the way you can now neatly attach it via magnets.The answer to whether this will help replace your MacBook with an iPad is more or less what it’s always been: it depends on whether you can do all your work with what’s available on iPadOS. The iPad Pro has been more powerful than a lot of MacBooks for years, but hardware is only... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google’s AI leadership came under fire in December when star ethics researcher Timnit Gebru was abruptly fired while working on a paper about the dangers of large language models. Now, new reporting from Bloomberg suggests the turmoil began long before her termination — and includes allegations of bias and sexual harassment.Shortly after Gebru arrived at Google in 2018, she informed her boss that a colleague had been accused of sexual harassment at another organization. Katherine Heller, a Google researcher, reported the same incident, which included allegations of inappropriate touching. Google immediately opened an investigation into the man’s behavior. Bloomberg did not name the man accused of harassment, and The Verge does not know... Continue reading…

Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images NFL fans will have another place they can watch NFL RedZone and the NFL Network next season, as both channels are coming to the Hulu with Live TV plan by August 1st. NFL Network will be included in the base package, while NFL RedZone will be offered at an additional cost, Hulu tells The Verge.Hulu isn’t the only streaming service where you can get the NFL channels, as they are also available on YouTube TV, Sling, and fuboTV. And similarly, only NFL Network is part of the base subscriptions for these services — you’ll have to pay for sports-focused add-ons to get access to NFL RedZone. But if Hulu with Live TV is your preferred live TV streaming service, now you don’t have to go somewhere else to get your NFL channel fix.The NFL’s deal... Continue reading…

Microsoft Microsoft is releasing a new stylus for classroom use: the Classroom Pen 2. The pen will be available on April 27th and will be sold directly to schools.The company launched its first Classroom Pen in 2019. That stylus sold for $39.99 per unit. It was compatible with any device that supported the MPP protocol (including a number of non-Surface Windows devices).Microsoft is going even more budget with this release. The Pen 2 will be sold to schools in packs of 20 for $399.80, which works out to $19.99 per pen. Per Microsoft’s blog post, however, it seems like this pen may only be optimized for Microsoft’s own Surface Pro and Surface Go devices — other Windows devices aren’t mentioned.Microsoft claims that the device has an “improved... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Get ready for Twitter to start looking a whole lot crisper — starting today, the company is letting all users tweet (and view) pictures in 4K on iOS and Android.Twitter’s web app already supports higher-resolution images (at up to 4096 x 4096 resolution), but the mobile apps had been limited to just half that, with a maximum resolution of 2048 x 2048. The company had previously started testing the 4K image upload option for mobile users earlier this year, and it seems those tests went well, as its now rolling out the feature to all users starting today.

Amazon One is expanding to its biggest area yet: the company is now testing its palm-scanning payment technology in Whole Foods, starting with a single store in Amazon’s home city of Seattle.The company has been using Amazon One payment technology in its Amazon-branded stores in the Seattle area (including Amazon Go and Amazon Books), but the Whole Foods rollout will make the most substantial expansion of the technology yet. The company says that thousands of customers have already signed up with Amazon One.According to an Amazon FAQ, the palm-scanning technology analyzes “the minute characteristics of your palm — both surface-area details like lines and ridges as well as subcutaneous features such as vein patterns” in order to... Continue reading…

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Google has announced some new features coming to Chromebooks, including the company’s Live Captions feature that will be added to Chrome on “most” Chrome OS devices in the coming weeks. Once Live Captions are available, users can flip them on in the accessibility settings to get captions for any media with audio right inside their browser. The feature rolled out to Chrome on Windows, Mac, and Linux in March.Google is also beefing up the Chrome OS Launcher, which lets you search for files and apps, with some new capabilities, allowing you make simple calculations and check the weather, the definition of a word, and stock prices. Image: Google Searching for weather in the Launcher. The search giant is also... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple’s Mac computers typically come with a one-year warranty that you can optionally extend to three years by purchasing AppleCare Plus. The extended warranty also adds coverage for accidents and physical damage. But now, Apple is giving Mac customers the choice to keep AppleCare Plus going for even longer than the usual three-year limit.As noticed by MacRumors, there’s a new support page that confirms people in the United States can convert AppleCare Plus into an indefinite annual subscription once the coverage they paid for upfront lapses. Apple says the recurring annual coverage must be purchased “within 30 days of the end date of your original coverage.” Once you’ve moved to annual billing, it renews automatically.More peace of... Continue reading…

Microsoft is starting to allow Windows 10 testers to access Linux GUI apps. The first preview of support for GUI applications is available today for Windows Insiders, allowing developers to run GUI editors, tools, and applications to build and test Linux apps. It’s a significant extension for Microsoft’s Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), after the company added a full Linux kernel to Windows 10 last year.While it has been possible to run Linux GUI apps within Windows previously using a third-party X server, official support from Microsoft means there’s also GPU hardware acceleration so apps and tools run smoothly. Audio and microphone support is also included out of the box, so Linux devs can easily test or run video players and... Continue reading…

This morning, I wrote how Apple’s $64 billion-a-year App Store isn’t catching incredibly obvious multimillion-dollar scams because the company isn’t even bothering to audit its most profitable apps for fraud, and how app developer Kosta Eleftheriou is showing the company how it’s done.But that’s not the only kind of scam Eleftheriou has been uncovering in Apple’s App Store — he has also discovered that Apple’s review teams have been approving games that transform into secret gambling dens when you access them from certain countries (or via VPN). We wrote about two of them last Thursday as if they were an isolated incident, but he’s now found at least two more, suggesting this may be a trend — including a match-three puzzle game dubbed L... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Magic Leap CEO Peggy Johnson says the mixed reality headset company will be shipping limited quantities of a second-generation device at the end of this year, with broader availability in the first quarter of 2022.Johnson offered a timeline for the Magic Leap 2 launch in an interview with Protocol. She says the long-awaited device is half the size of the first-generation headset and about 20 percent lighter. It’s optimized for professional use and is designed to be wearable for long periods, and it’s supposed to double the Magic Leap One’s field of view. “For frontline workers, the product has to be something comfortable that they can wear all day long,” Johnson told Protocol.Magic Leap left the consumer market last yearMagic Leap has... Continue reading…

Images: Silk-FAW China’s original state-owned automaker, First Automobile Works (FAW), has revealed the first electric vehicle that’s part of the government’s massive Belt and Road project. The Hongqi S9 is a 1,400-horsepower hybrid hypercar created in partnership with Italian engineering and design startup Silk EV.The car was first teased in February, but the two companies gave it a proper debut at Auto Shanghai 2021 this week. FAW and Silk EV are only making 99 of them and will start taking orders by the end of this year. They didn’t announce a price tag and also didn’t share many specs for the S9 (besides that the internal combustion engine will be a V8). It was designed by Walter de Silva, known for his past work with Alfa Romeo, Audi, Volkswagen,... Continue reading…

Dakd Jung’s ferrofluid speaker. | Image: Dakd Jung A speaker made by artist Dakd Jung, spotted by Gizmodo, visualizes music with ferrofluid, a liquid filled with tiny magnetic particles. The ferrofluid, a viscous black blob, reacts to an electromagnetic device and dances around in sync with the sounds being played.The video shows Jung’s process for putting the speaker together: treating the glass container so the ferrofluid won’t stick, sanding the 3D-printed casing, and wiring up the electromagnetic device. The full prototype in action is a little less mesmerizing than his initial test that’s shown in the video because the blob breaks apart, but Jung says the speaker is still in development. He’s used ferrofluid in artworks before, including a huge ferrofluid panel and a ferrofluid... Continue reading…

Image: Google Android 12’s third developer preview has arrived, and among its host of updates are new OS-level tools to help app developers get more out of the camera and haptic hardware found in modern Android flagships. App launch animations, call notifications, and linking between apps are among the other tweaks made in this release.It’s a developer-focused beta, meaning much of this could change before Android 12’s full release later this year. However, it’s likely to be the last preview before Android 12 enters beta next month and receives an official unveiling at Google I/O, meaning the preview should provide some useful hints about Google’s priorities for the next major version of Android.First up, the preview gives developers more options... Continue reading…

The feature can alert you to the sound of a crying baby or turn on a lamp when light levels dip. | Image: Samsung Samsung has launched a beta program to help put some older Galaxy phones to new uses. Owners of certain phones can download an update to turn the device into a smart home sensor with some neat functions — it can detect the sound of a crying baby or turn on a lamp when it gets dark. The program is limited to certain models launched in 2018 or later, which is fairly limited, but it’s a nice, accessible offering that could help users get a little more use out of their old devices.Announced at CES earlier this year, the company is launching the program in the US, UK, and Korea starting today. By downloading a software update through the SmartThings app, users can access two basic functions. The first is an audio sensor that detects the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Among the more than 75 million people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in the United States by the second week of April, there were only 5,814 reports of coronavirus infections — a staggeringly low number that shows just how effective the shots are.Because the vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective, some breakthrough infections were inevitable and expected. Still, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is watching them closely. Studying those cases will help experts make sure the vaccines are working as expected and understand any factors that make it more likely that a vaccinated person would get sick.Currently, the CDC has a national database where state health departments can send reports of any cases of COVID-19 in people... Continue reading…

An AirTag. | Apple Apple’s AirTags have one feature not mentioned during the announcement yesterday: they’ll work with Android to a limited extent. As 9to5Mac noted, there’s a support article on Apple’s site that details how AirTags will work with an Android device if you don’t have your iPhone handy.The way AirTags function is by securely communicating with Bluetooth devices and iPhones equipped with ultra-wideband that are in the area. If AirTags exclusively worked with Apple devices it would severely limit their effectiveness, particularly in regions where iPhones aren’t as popular as Android. Image: Apple Any NFC-equipped phone should be able to just tap the AirTag to get more details. AirTags won’t work out of the box with... Continue reading…

These can snap onto any phone thinner than 11.5mm | OnePlus OnePlus CEO Pete Lau tweeted pictures of some attachable gaming triggers the company has created, and they’re made for more than just OnePlus’ phones. SlashGear and Android Headlines noticed them being teased during the unveiling of the OnePlus 9 back in late March, but they’re available online now in India from the OnePlus site for 1,099 rupees, which converts to roughly $15. OnePlus hasn’t confirmed that these gaming triggers will be releasing globally, and the company wouldn’t comment on pricing and availability when I reached out.These triggers can be clipped around the edge of most phones (any Android or iOS device, so long as they’re less than 11.5mm thick with a case on). If you want to do some mobile gaming but hate touch... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge OnePlus has announced that it plans to bring new features, like an always-on display mode, a 12-hour watchface, and more to its new smartwatch with future software updates. The news came with the announcement of the Watch’s first software update after its release, which OnePlus says it’s starting to roll out. This release aims to fix the issues we experienced with heart rate and activity tracking, among other bugs.The lack of an always-on display was one of the ways we found the Watch to be lacking when we reviewed it, so it’s a standout feature among the planned updates. While that feature alone won’t make the device a great smartwatch, it will at least make it more useful as a timepiece. However, it will be interesting to see how... Continue reading…

A screenshot from The Great Ace Attorney Collection. | Image: Capcom Capcom announced that it will be releasing two classic games in the Ace Attorney series in English for the first time this July. The new collection, titled The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, bundles The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve in one package that will be available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Steam for $39.99 on July 27th.Unlike the Ace Attorney games starring Phoenix Wright, which take place in modern day, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles are set in the late 19th century during the Meiji period and the Victorian era. You play as Ryūnosuke Naruhodō, a defense attorney and an ancestor of Wright, to try to prove that your clients are innocent in court.There’s a character named... Continue reading…

There’s now a much greater range of emoji to react with. | Image: Zoom This week’s Zoom update includes a couple of quality of life improvements for anyone using its annotation or emoji reaction features, the company has announced. Meeting participants can now use any emoji that was previously available in Zoom chat to react during a meeting, up from the six meager options that were available previously. These include emoji with different skin colors. Hosts can also restrict emoji reactions to the standard six, if they prefer, and for larger accounts the full emoji set must be manually enabled by admins or account owners.The service’s annotation feature is also being enhanced. Anyone who’s used Zoom’s annotation feature to draw text on the presentation screen will know how annoying it quickly becomes when... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple’s latest iPad Pro might look very similar to the model it’s replacing, but it contains several major upgrades on the inside. It’s got the same powerful, energy-efficient M1 chip as the latest MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and now the redesigned iMac. Cellular models have made the jump to 5G. The front-facing camera can zoom and pan to keep you in focus on video calls. But aside from the processor, the biggest technical leap is exclusive to the 12.9-inch iPad Pro: it’s what Apple calls the “Liquid Retina XDR,” a new display that adopts Mini LED backlighting to achieve higher brightness and greater contrast than any iPad (or Mac) that the company has ever made.Apple says the 12.9-inch iPad Pro can reach 1,000 nits of... Continue reading…

Life is Strange: True Colors. Early in development, before the team at Deck Nine Games had settled on a main character or even a story for the next Life is Strange game, they knew the general theme they wanted to tackle. “We did know early on that we wanted to explore empathy,” says Felice Kuan, senior staff writer on Life is Strange: True Colors. “We were particularly interested in pushing that concept as far as we could.”The result was Alex Chen, a new protagonist who has the power to see, experience, and manipulate the emotions of those around her. At the outset of the game — which launches in September — Alex moves back home to live with her brother, who then dies in an accident. She’s forced to use her powers to find out exactly what happened.“We were looking... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is removing its requirement for an Xbox Live Gold subscription to play free-to-play multiplayer games today. The software maker has been testing this removal over the past few weeks, and now every Xbox One and Xbox Series S / X owner will be able to play free multiplayer games without Xbox Live Gold. Microsoft is also unlocking Xbox party chat and the Looking For Groups (LFG) feature as part of this rollout.The Xbox Live Gold changes mean popular games like Destiny 2, Call of Duty: Warzone, Fortnite, Apex Legends, and many others will no longer require a subscription. More than 50 games will now be free-to-play. The changes certainly make the $299 Xbox Series S console a lot more appealing as a device for free-to-play... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Roku is officially getting into original content. The set-top box maker announced Roku Originals, a new brand, in a press release today. Roku says it will debut over 75 original series and films this year on its free, ad-supported network, The Roku Channel. Quite a few of these original new shows will come from the Quibi library of content Roku got in a fire sale in January 2021.Earlier this year, Protocol spied a job listing that suggested Roku would be investing in original content beyond the Quibi stuff it now owns. Free, ad-supported content is still a relatively new but growing area in streaming. Peacock, Paramount Plus, and even Plex have all had some success wooing viewers with totally free stuff they can watch on their set-top... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge “Identity shapes what we want to share and what we want to broadcast, [so] it is part of our content,” says Yana Calou, PR director of Trans Lifeline. The nonprofit operates a peer support and crisis hotline and offers microgrants to trans and nonbinary recipients. More recently, it launched a streaming discovery tool called Peer2Peer that functions as a searchable directory. Broadcasters can tag themselves in categories like “trans,” “Black,” or “lesbian,” and viewers can search for the tags they want to see.With Twitch reluctant to allow identity-based tagging, marginalized viewers’ ability to find streamers and associated communities of people like them has been limited. But when a group of streamers approached Trans Lifeline about... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge At Best Buy, you can get a refurbished set of the Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro truly wireless earbuds for $110 today in the silver colorway. This model released just a few months ago alongside the Samsung Galaxy S21, and at most retailers they still sell for their original $200 price. The lowest price we’ve seen recently for a new set is $165, and that’s bound to happen again at some point. But if you’re all about saving money, this refurbished deal can’t be beat. The Galaxy Buds Pro provide the “best sound quality yet for Samsung earbuds,” according to audio expert and Verge reviewer Chris Welch.These come with a charging case, a USB cable, and three pairs of ear tips.Oculus is set to announce some VR games later today, April 21st, and... Continue reading…

All modern means of communication rely on glass, from the Gorilla Glass on our phones to the infotainment screens in our cars. Most of the time, the glass is right in front of us, but when it comes to the internet — whether it’s 5G, Starlink satellites, or Wi-Fi — it’s easy to miss the 750,000 miles of fiber optic cables currently running under our oceans.These tiny strands of glass carry our photos, emails, and video chats from our phones to data centers to friends and family all across the world. It’s through these hair-thin strands of fiber that we are able to instantly communicate to almost anyone, anywhere, and it all relies on a 5,000-year-old technology: glass. Image: Alix Diaconis / The Verge A... Continue reading…

Apple’s new AirTag trackers are finally here after years of rumors. The $29 trackers work with Apple’s Find My network, utilizing both Bluetooth and UWB technology to help owners track anything from their keys to their bags.But the design of the new trackers is somewhat controversial: unlike most Bluetooth trackers, Apple’s iteration doesn’t include a built-in key ring loop. The subsequent debate has shattered the tranquility of The Verge’s newsroom over whether Apple’s somewhat Spartan design is brilliant or bogus. Well, at least between two of the most genteel Verge staffers, Jon Porter and Chaim Gartenberg. Image: Apple Artist’s rendering of an AirTag design featuring a keychain hole punch. Jon Porter,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The European Union has published a new framework to regulate the use of artificial intelligence across the bloc’s 27 member states. The proposal, which will take years to implement into law and will be subject to many tweaks and amendments during this time, nevertheless constitutes the most ambitious AI regulations seen globally to date.The regulations cover a wide range of applications, from software in self-driving cars to algorithms used to vet job candidates, and arrive at a time when countries around the world are struggling with the ethical ramifications of artificial intelligence. Similar to the EU’s data privacy law, GDPR, the regulation gives the bloc the ability to fine companies that infringe its rules up to 6 percent of... Continue reading…

iPad Pro 2021 | Image: Apple Apple has announced the next generation of its iPad Pro line. But most of the biggest changes for Apple’s flagship tablet are largely on the inside. The latest iPad Pros feature a new eight-core M1 processor; the same chip featured in the most recent model refreshes for the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and the newly announced iMac.Like last year, the iPad Pro comes in two sizes: 11 inches and 12.9 inches. The 12.9-inch model this year also includes a new Mini-LED screen, which Apple is branding as a “Liquid Retina XDR” display. The iPad Pro 2021 refreshes also include support for Thunderbolt 3 and USB 4, in addition to 5G connectivity. Both iPad Pros also feature a new 12-megapixel ultrawide camera that can automatically track... Continue reading…

Images: Cadillac Cadillac has announced that its first electric car, the Lyriq, will start at $59,990 before tax, license, and dealer fees. The luxury brand of General Motors also said the electric SUV will be available for reservations starting in September ahead of the start of production in the first quarter of 2022. The Lyriq SUV will officially go on sale shortly after that in the first half of the year.The Lyriq got a proper debut last August, but that was technically still just a show car. The photos Cadillac showed off Wednesday as it announced pricing are of the final production version. You’d be forgiven if you didn’t notice the difference; even Cadillac says that there have only been minor changes since then, like the addition of an extra... Continue reading…

image: Bandai Today, Bandai is announcing the Tamagotchi Pix: a combination of its classic Tamagotchi pet-rearing toy line with a new built-in camera for taking pictures with your digital pet.The Pix is shaped like a hatching egg, with the top part of the “broken shell” working as a shutter button. Using the camera, you can insert yourself (and friends) into photos with your Tamagotchi, with appropriately cute photo frames. We’ve reached out to Bandai for more information about the camera quality.Photos taken with the Pix are stored locally, and any photos you take will appear in a feed that documents your time with your pet. Bandai frames this as a sort of on-device social media, but because the Pix can’t connect to Wi-Fi and sharing photos is... Continue reading…

People demonstrate at the ‘Stop Asian Hate March and Rally’ in Koreatown on March 27, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. March 27 is the #StopAsianHate National Day of Action against anti-Asian violence. On March 16th, eight people were killed at three Atlanta-area spas, six of whom were Asian women, in an attack that sent fear through the Asian community amid a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes. | Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images With new tools and new technology, groups like Project 1907 want to fix hate crime statistics Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The FBI says it used facial recognition technology to track down and arrest an individual suspected of taking part in the US Capitol riots earlier this year. The case, which was first reported by The Huffington Post, is notable for the FBI’s acknowledgement that it used facial recognition not just to confirm a suspect’s identity, but to discover it in the first place.According to an affidavit shared online by the Huffington Post, federal agents tracked down an individual named Stephen Chase Randolph using crowdsourced images from the riots (including those shared on Twitter by a group known as SeditionHunters). They searched these pictures on the web using “an open source facial recognition tool, known to provide reliable results,” and... Continue reading…

The new iPad Pro’s front-facing camera can digitally pan and tilt to track video conference participants. | Video: Apple Apple has confirmed that the digital pan and zoom feature of the new M1 iPad Pro’s front-facing camera can work with any video conferencing app, not just FaceTime. That opens the door for popular apps like Zoom and Microsoft Teams to make remote work and e-learning blend more seamlessly into the realities of pandemic life — a hybrid lifestyle that’s likely to continue even after the outbreak subsides.Center Stage, as Apple brands it, keeps video conferencing participants properly framed even as they move about a room by combining machine learning with a fixed 12-megapixel sensor touting an ultra-wide 122‑degree field of view. We’ve seen similar tracking on the Portal TV, Echo Show 10, and even the Xbox Kinect accessory. But those are... Continue reading…

Images: Gogoro Gogoro is branching out of home country Taiwan in the biggest way yet, as it just announced a partnership with major two-wheeler manufacturer Hero MotorCorp to bring its swappable battery and scooter tech to India. As part of the deal, Hero will build electric scooters based around Gogoro’s tech, and will also install Gogoro’s battery-swapping stations in cities throughout the country.Electric vehicles could help eat away at some of India’s pollution, and Tesla is even wading into the market. But building out charging infrastructure to handle passenger EVs is going to be a challenge for any company that wants to build a business there.It’s a different story for scooters, and especially the ones made by Gogoro, which was founded by a... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge A one-man Bunco Squad is poking holes in Apple’s App Store image Continue reading…

Leaked images appeared to show a new fitness-focused VR headset from HTC. HTC has downplayed leaked images that appeared to show a new fitness-focused VR headset built by the firm. Pictures and details of the HTC Vive Air leaked online earlier this week on a design award website but HTC now says the headset is “only a concept.”“It’s exciting to see our concept piece, the VIVE Air VR headset, win an iF Design Award,” the company said in a statement given to UploadVR. “While this is only a concept, the design language has elements and inspirations you’ll see elsewhere in our products. We’re not ones to rest on our laurels, so although it’s great to win this award, we have business to attend to — hopefully we’ll see you on 11/12 May at ViveCon.” The HTC Vive Air claimed to be made from... Continue reading…