The Verge

Image: Qualcomm There aren’t enough chips to go around. The ongoing global semiconductor shortage means the difficulty of buying a PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, or high-end GPU from companies like Nvidia or AMD could go on for months — if not for the rest of 2021.And it’s not just gaming gear: car companies like Ford and GM are having problems with their truck production, Apple supplier Foxconn is warning of part delays that could last until 2022, 5G rollouts are getting delayed, and Samsung is warning of a “serious imbalance” in the semiconductor industry.There are a lot of reasons why this shortage is hitting now: trickled-down delays from COVID-19 shutdowns of factories last year, a surge in demand from customers stuck at home during the pandemic... Continue reading…

The Ring Floodlight Cam Wired Pro. | Image: Ring Ring has announced a new floodlight with an integrated camera called the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro. As its name suggests, the Floodlight Cam Wired Pro borrows several features from the recently released Video Doorbell Pro 2, including 3D Motion Detection with radar and a top-down view of someone’s movements in front of the camera, which the company calls Bird’s Eye View. The Floodlight Cam Wired Pro, which I will refer to as the Floodlight Pro from here on out, is available for preorder in either white or black starting today, April 7th, for $249.99, with shipments starting on May 6th, 2021. Ring is also keeping the original Floodlight Cam in the lineup at a new $199.99 price.Like the first Floodlight Cam, the Floodlight Pro is a... Continue reading…

Dell’s new 34-inch curved screen is a behemoth. Dell has announced four gaming monitors, three of which are curved, that are releasing in the US between late May and late June. It unfortunately isn’t sharing prices for them yet, but the company says that all of them support AMD FreeSync Premium or Premium Pro, as well as variable refresh rate (VRR). VRR should make them as good of a fit for consoles like the Xbox Series X and PS5 (though the latter console hasn’t actually received its promised VRR update yet). This feature limits screen tearing as the frame rate adjusts due to hits or gains to performance.Starting off big, the company has a new 34-inch ultrawide, curved gaming monitor (pictured above, model S3422DWG) that has a 1800R curve, which won’t envelop your peripheral vision... Continue reading…

The 1991 made-for-TV film features glorious low budget special effects and shonky costumes. You may think you’re familiar with The Lord of the Rings, but nothing can quite prepare you for an adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy text made in the Soviet Union.The made-for-TV film first aired on Leningrad Television in 1991 and was thought to be lost to time, as first reported by The Guardian. But the station’s successor, 5TV, recently unearthed a copy from its archives, and uploaded the entire work to YouTube in two parts.Low budget special effects and Soviet mood musicWith a running time of around 1 hour and 50 minutes, this adaptation focuses only on the first book of Tolkein’s trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, and is a riot of low-budget special effects, bizarre camera work, and Soviet mood music.Rather... Continue reading…

The Air 2S appears to have dropped DJI’s “Mavic” branding. | Image: Roland Quandt DJI’s unannounced Air 2S drone has leaked in a series of images posted by TechnikNews and WinFuture’s Roland Quandt. The images come after the drone was listed in an FCC filing last month, suggesting that a launch can’t be far away. The DJI Air 2S is expected to be an upgraded version of last year’s Mavic Air 2, with an improved camera and compatibility with new DJI accessories like its V2 Goggles and Motion Controller.Let’s start with the camera sensor. The new renders, as well as a teaser trailer shared earlier in the week by reliable leaker OsitaLV, show a drone with a 1-inch, 20-megapixel sensor. Although that’s lower resolution than the 48-megapixel 1/2-inch sensor found in the Mavic Air 2, its larger physical size should have big... Continue reading…

The first Surface Laptop with an AMD processor was the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3, pictured. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A pair of Microsoft support pages have appeared for the unannounced Surface Laptop 4, suggesting a launch may be imminent. One is a placeholder for an AMD version of the laptop, while the other is for an Intel model. Both were spotted by WalkingCat, an often reliable source of gadget leaks, who speculates that we might see them launched at a Surface event as soon as next week.The Microsoft support page doesn’t give many more details on the laptop, but a report from WinFuture last month fills in the details. The AMD processors used will reportedly be from its 4000 mobile series, and will include the Ryzen 5 4680U and the Ryzen 7 4980U. That’s a step up from the 3000-series chips used in 2019’s Surface Laptop 3, but anyone hoping to see... Continue reading…

Image: Sennheiser Sennheiser is introducing some new mics for creators to use on consumer-level cameras and phones, including an update for its popular camera-mounted MKE 400 shotgun microphone and new phone-friendly lavaliere microphones.The updated MKE 400 shotgun microphone looks to be an upgrade in many ways from the previous version — it’s got a new design, which incorporates a windscreen (it also comes with a furry wind sock), a built-in headphone port, and, blessedly, can automatically turn on or off with your camera. It also now comes with a free wind blocker for when it gets really breezy. That should help reduce the number of times you finish recording, only to realize that you didn’t actually capture the audio you were hoping for (something... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge Swedish electric performance automaker Polestar says it will build the world’s first truly zero-emissions vehicle without relying on carbon offsets, which it described as a “cop-out.”The company, which was spun out of Volvo and Volvo’s parent company Geely, framed its effort to cut carbon emissions by changing the way its cars are made as a “moonshot goal” that would result in the world’s first carbon neutral vehicle by 2030.Carbon offsets, like tree planting, have become a standard way for car companies and other businesses to write off their carbon emissions by investing in renewable energy or conservation projects aimed at bolstering forests’ ability to naturally store carbon. But there’s growing evidence that offsets haven’t... Continue reading…

The Instax Mini 40 is an entry-level instant film camera with only two settings and two buttons. Fujifilm has announced the newest addition to the Instax Mini line of instant cameras, the Mini 40. Much like the Instax Mini 11, which was released last March, the Mini 40 is an entry-level instant film camera with only two settings and two buttons. But what sets this camera apart is its vintage film camera look, complete with a plastic faux leather body and metallic-looking plastic rails. It’s a $100 toy camera that instantly creates printed memories — and of course, it’s a blast to play with.Beyond the vintage camera look, the Mini 40 has the same mechanics as the $70 Mini 11. Pushing the large silver button under the lens compartment will pop the lens out and turn the camera on. Selfie mode is activated by pulling the outermost part... Continue reading…

NIU, maker of popular, affordable electric mopeds, showed off its first-ever electric kick scooter. The new two-wheeler will be available starting this summer in China, Europe, and North America.The NIU Kick Scooter will come in two variants, Pro and Sport. In the US, the Pro scooter will have a top speed of 19.8mph, while the Sport version will have a top speed of 17.4 mph. In Europe, both versions will have a regulated top speed of 25 km/h (15.5 mph). The Pro will have a range 31 miles (50 km) on a single 7.5-hour charge, while the Sport will have a range of 25 miles (40 km) on a single 5.5-hour charge.The NIU Kick Scooter will come in two variants, Pro and SportFor the drivetrain, NIU is offering a 350W motor and 486Wh lithium-ion... Continue reading…

Nintendo has announced Pac-Man 99, a new multiplayer game that’ll be included with its Nintendo Switch Online subscription service. Like Tetris 99 and the recently departed Super Mario Bros. 35, the game pits dozens of players against each other in a battle royale-style fight to the end.The game looks similar to the classic arcade original Pac-Man, but you can make it more difficult for opponents by munching on power pellets, eating ghosts, and sending “Jammer Pac-Man” over to their screens. There are eight different preset strategies you can use to screw with other players, for example by speeding up their game.

Nvidia is launching its latency-reducing tech, Reflex, for anyone who has a Nvidia graphics card and plays the PC version of Overwatch. The company tested the feature in Overwatch’s PTR servers in March, but now Reflex is live and theoretically available for competitive play. Nvidia claims Reflex reduces the time between pulling the trigger in Overwatch and the game rendering the shot on screen by as much as 50 percent, and now you can easily test that.Latency can be caused by a variety of things (internet speed can be a big factor in competitive play) but Reflex is focused on reducing latency caused by computer hardware. The longer the delay between a click and the game reacting, the better chance whatever the player was responding to... Continue reading…

Image: JimmyFallon on Twitch Jimmy Fallon streamed Among Us on Twitch with a star-studded group in his debut on the platform Tuesday evening. The stream lasted about an hour, and near the end, more than 125,000 people were watching live.Fallon was joined by The Roots’ Questlove, Tariq Trotter, and Kirk Douglas; Stranger Things stars Noah Schnapp (who plays Will Byers) and Gaten Matarazzo (who plays Dustin Henderson); streamers Sykkuno and Rachel “Valkyrae” Hofstetter; YouTuber Corpse Husband; and Among Us developer InnerSloth’s community director, Victoria Tran. Parts from the stream will air on The Tonight Show next week, according to IGN.You can catch a replay of the stream on Fallon’s Twitch channel:Fallon also raised money for Feeding America during the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As we approach Google I/O 2021, the rumor mill has started pointing to new hardware, including a Pixel 5A and Pixel Buds A, a lower-cost set of true wireless earbuds that would slot in below the company’s main pair. Google seems to have gotten ahead of itself, however, as, according to 9to5Google, a new email contains an image of olive green Pixel Buds that aren’t part of the current lineup. The interior of the case is also color-matched to the buds, which isn’t the case with the second-gen Pixel Buds. Another clue that these are new is that the inside-facing part of the earbuds is also the same green.So with those things considered, we’re likely seeing the upcoming Pixel Buds A in this image. They look practically identical to the... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Trade-in provider Gazelle exited the online trade-in business back in February, and now the company says it’s changing its mind. Gazelle is back to accepting online trade-ins of iPhones, Samsung phones, Google Pixel devices, and iPads and other tablets on its website, the company confirms to The Verge. The program resumed accepting new offers on April 5th, a Gazelle representative clarified.“Earlier this year, we announced that we will no longer be offering our trade-in option on Gazelle. After careful consideration, including feedback from customers like you, we have decided to keep Gazelle Trade-In going. Today, we are happy to say, ‘We’re back, baby!’” reads an email Gazelle sent to prospective customers and shared with The Verge.... Continue reading…

Not a big fan of the design of this rumored Lenovo gaming phone, to be honest. Kind of looks like a Transformer in disguise. | Image: Weibo Lenovo’s next gaming phone has leaked, with a design that looks like a Michael Bay Transformer and a gaming PC merged together. It’s unlike anything I have ever seen on a phone before. I’m not sure if I like it.Pictures of what appears to be the phone were shown on the social media service Weibo recently, and I am speechless. Specifically, the dual-camera setup is located at the dead center of the phone, and there’s a built-in active cooling fan. It reminds me a lot of a Transformer, as you can see from the photo below.Now, Lenovo is not the first company to stick a cooling fan in a gaming smartphone. In 2019, Nubia’s Red Magic 3 had a cooling fan placed inside of the device. The Black Shark FunCooler Pro is an external cooling fan... Continue reading…

eBay Inc. eBay has announced a new addition coming to its mobile app: soon, you’ll be able to scan trading cards from popular games like Pokémon, Magic: The Gathering, and Yu-Gi-Oh! to more easily sell them on the online auction site.The new card scanning feature is set to arrive at the end of April, but it’ll only support Magic: The Gathering when it launches. Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! are planned to be added in May, with sports cards and “other collectible card games” on the docket for later in the year.Using the new scanning option, sellers will be able to just scan a card, at which point eBay will use the card’s details to help automatically build the listing. Sellers will still have to add additional information, like photos of the actual... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Alphabet shareholder Trillium Asset Management is pushing Google to adopt better whistleblower protections in light of the firing of prominent AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru. The $3.5 billion sustainable investment firm has filed a shareholder resolution asking the board of directors for a third-party review of current policies.“Reporting suggests that many Google employees who have resigned or been fired … publicly report retaliation after voicing human rights implications of company practices, including systemic workplace racism and sexism,” the resolution reads. “These red flags suggest the potential for culture, ethics, and/or human rights problems internally.”Trillium owns 63,078 Alphabet shares— a stake currently worth... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A Google researcher manager has resigned following the controversial firings of two female leaders in his organization. Samy Bengio, who oversaw the ethical AI team prior to a reorganization in February, is leaving to pursue other opportunities, according to Bloomberg. His last day will be April 28th.Bengio was a strong advocate of star AI ethics researchers Timnit Gebru and Margaret Mitchell, who previously co-led the ethical AI team. Gebru was fired in December while working on a paper about the dangers of large language models. Mitchell was terminated in February after using a script to search her emails for evidence of discrimination against Gebru.In a statement on Facebook in the wake of the firing, Bengio said he was “stunned”... Continue reading…

Image: NASA / JPL NASA’s mini Ingenuity helicopter survived its first night all alone on the surface of Mars after getting dropped off by Perseverance on Saturday. Weathering frigid Martian temperatures, the newly deployed rotorcraft passed an important test of independence, giving engineers confidence to proceed with a series of warming-up exercises in preparation for its first flight this weekend.“That was one of the huge, huge achievements that we’ve been looking forward to, and now we can move on to the rest of the mission,” Teddy Tzanetos, Ingenuity deputy operations lead, said on Monday on a NASA live stream. “And now we’re on our own. We’re a separate spacecraft on Mars on our own energy.”The four-pound, solar-powered craft arrived on Mars... Continue reading…

Threes designer Asher Vollmer is launching a new studio, Vodeo Games, and announced the company’s first game, a turn-based adventure called Beast Breaker.Beast Breaker stars Skipper, a tiny mouse warrior fighting mosaic monsters. The game relies on tactical choices via pinball-like mechanics; players can also craft equipment to assist them on their journey. It’s heading to Nintendo Switch and PC this summer. Vodeo released a brief trailer alongside the news today that shows off the game’s quick gameplay and colorful art style.On its website, Vodeo says it plans to release small, intimate games “full of complex, interlocking systems that can take years to fully master,” once every year. The studio is already teasing a second one as... Continue reading…

Photo by JEWEL SAMAD/AFP via Getty Images Leaving a missed call on someone’s phone usually signals that you should call them back — but at one point in India, it was communication in its own right. A new feature by Atul Bhattarai in Rest of World examines the Indian culture that grew up around missed calls — and the startups that took advantage of it.In basic terms, a “missed call” means dialing a person but hanging up before they can answer. Hanging up without talking let users send a basic message (“I called”) without getting charged for minutes or SMS messages — like paging someone without a pager. Bhattarai focuses on ZipDial, a company that turned missed calls into a robust advertising business and a way to experience some of the features of online life without paying for... Continue reading…

Ikea and Sonos are starting to tease the next products that the two companies have collaborated on. The furniture giant today posted an Instagram story that directly mentions the “Symfonisk” line and flashes the Sonos logo at the end, so there’s little doubt that new hardware is coming soon. Two fresh filings have also just appeared at the Federal Communications Commission.The Verge can exclusively share details on what’s coming. The first new product, covered in this filing, is a revamped version of the Symfonisk table lamp. It’s expected to be sold for around the same price ($179) as the original product, which basically stuffed the sound quality of a Sonos Play:1 into the body of a lamp.But from what The Verge understands, the $99... Continue reading…

Image: Signal Signal announced on Tuesday it’s now testing a new peer-to-peer payments system in the beta version of its apps. Appropriately called Signal Payments, the new feature right now supports only one protocol: the MobileCoin wallet and its companion cryptocurrency MOB. MobileCoin has a close relationship with Signal co-founder and CEO Moxie Marlinspike, who advised the company prior to its most recent round of funding announced last month.“The first payments protocol we’ve added support for is a privacy focused payments network called MobileCoin, which has its own currency, MOB,” wrote Jun Harada, Signal’s head of growth and communication, in a blog post. “As always, our goal is to keep your data in your hands rather than ours; MobileCoin’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Nick Statt / The Verge Facebook says Oculus Rift S headsets “generally” won’t be replenished as they disappear from store shelves, marking the end of the virtual reality system’s life span. As UploadVR reported yesterday, Facebook has confirmed that “generally speaking, as channels sell out of stock, they won’t be replenished moving forward.” The PC-tethered headset is unavailable through Oculus’ store, and it’s out of stock on retail platforms like Amazon and Walmart in the US, except from third-party sellers.Facebook announced last year that it would discontinue the Oculus Rift S in 2021. While the headset was a successor to the landmark Oculus Rift, it compromised on features like screen resolution and refresh rate, particularly compared to high-end... Continue reading…

Photo: Nvidia Nvidia’s RTX Voice feature that eliminates background noises that would otherwise come through your microphone debuted exclusively on costly RTX graphics cards. My colleague Taylor Lyles wrote back in September 2020 that the company patched RTX Voice software to run on older GeForce GTX, Quadro, or Titan-branded GPUs all the way back in September 2020, but I was just reminded of it today from Tom’s Hardware.Given that Nvidia’s newest RTX 30-series graphics cards are pricey and tough to find (as are just about any kind of somewhat capable GPU), this is a good way to extend the utility of older hardware if you don’t want to upgrade yet. If your graphics card is running Nvidia’s 410.18 driver, models down to the GTX 600-series released in... Continue reading…

Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images “Who do you blame for Yahoo Answers getting shut down?” reads one of the final queries ever submitted to the venerable advice service. As of press time, it has garnered more than 250 responses, all from those who’ve regularly doled out their imperfect observations to countless eighth-graders, chronic hypochondriacs, political firebrands, and curious stoners throughout the 15-year life span of the site.The premise of Yahoo Answers was simple: ask any question you want and receive solutions from anyone in the world. “[It] likely doesn’t turn a profit … instead of spending the money necessary to moderate they just decided to close the whole thing down,” theorizies a user named Bill, who has penned 11,182 of these answers during his career... Continue reading…

Image: Getty Images General Motors just confirmed it’s making an all-electric version of the Chevy Silverado pickup truck, the company’s bestselling vehicle. The new truck will be powered by GM’s new EV battery and will offer around 400 miles on a full charge.The company did not immediately say when the electric Silverado will go on sale, but GM president Mark Reuss said at an event on Tuesday that the company will also make commercial fleet-focused versions of the truck. GM has been teasing an electric Silverado for months now. It previously said it may not release a pickup EV until mid-decade and hadn’t officially announced the truck was coming until Tuesday.The electric Silverado will be made at “Factory Zero,” the recently rebranded Detroit-Hamtramck... Continue reading…

Wisk Aero, a joint venture between Boeing and Kitty Hawk, is suing rival air taxi firm Archer Aviation for allegedly stealing its trade secrets and infringing on its patents. Wisk is seeking unspecified monetary damages and an injunction against Archer to prevent it from using the allegedly stolen technology. In response, Archer says it has “no reason to believe” that it possesses any of Wisk’s intellectual property.In a complaint filed in the US District Court of Northern California, Wisk said it is suing Archer “to stop a brazen theft of its intellectual property and confidential information, and protect the substantial investment of resources and years of hard work and effort of its employees and their vision of the future in urban... Continue reading…

Illustrator by Alex Castro / The Verge The technology and social media we use every day constantly bombard us with things we’ve shared in the past or advertise to us based on who they think we are. Those past posts can be fun to relive, and every once in a while, those targeted ads do actually work. But Wired senior writer (and former Verge staffer) Lauren Goode published a powerful and personal story about how these technologies can also haunt us with memories of times we may want to forget.In the essay, Goode describes how she called off her wedding in May 2019, and ever since, she has grappled with technology reminding her of her former relationship and the wedding that didn’t happen. Here is just one devastating passage:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube wants the world to know that it’s doing a better job than ever of enforcing its own moderation rules. The company says that a shrinking number of people see problematic videos on its site — such as videos that contain graphic violence, scams, or hate speech — before they’re taken down.In the final months of 2020, up to 18 out of every 10,000 views on YouTube were on videos that violate the company’s policies and should have been removed before anyone watched them. That’s down from 72 out of every 10,000 views in the fourth quarter of 2017, when YouTube started tracking the figure.The figure measures enforcement of YouTube’s own rulesBut the numbers come with an important caveat: while they measure how well YouTube is doing at... Continue reading…

Phil Collins being taken at Face Value. | Image: The Verge Tech companies don’t just want to identify you using facial recognition — they also want to read your emotions with the help of AI. For many scientists, though, claims about computers’ ability to understand emotion are fundamentally flawed, and a little in-browser web game built by researchers from the University of Cambridge aims to show why.Head over to emojify.info, and you can see how your emotions are “read” by your computer via your webcam. The game will challenge you to produce six different emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, and anger), which the AI will attempt to identify. However, you’ll probably find that the software’s readings are far from accurate, often interpreting even exaggerated expressions as... Continue reading…

Microsoft is starting to submerge its servers in liquid to improve their performance and energy efficiency. A rack of servers is now being used for production loads in what looks like a liquid bath. This immersion process has existed in the industry for a few years now, but Microsoft claims it’s “the first cloud provider that is running two-phase immersion cooling in a production environment.”The cooling works by completely submerging server racks in a specially designed non-conductive fluid. The fluorocarbon-based liquid works by removing heat as it directly hits components and the fluid reaches a lower boiling point (122 degrees Fahrenheit or 50 degrees Celsius) to condense and fall back into the bath as a raining liquid. This creates... Continue reading…

Build-A-Bear has finally revealed what its new Animal Crossing: New Horizons-themed lineup will look like with two stuffed animal versions of fan-favorite Isabelle and infamous loan shark (loan raccoon?) Tom Nook, decked out in island outfits that match the game.Of course, because it’s 2021, you simply can’t just buy a hot item like an Animal Crossing Build-A-Bear doll — you’ll need to sign up for a PlayStation 5-style queue, which will then randomly assign you a place on line to buy the bears (are they still bears if they’re a dog and a raccoon? How does Build-A-Bear’s taxonomy system work?) today, April 6th, at 11AM EST / 8AM PST.Right now, Build-A-Bear has only showed off those two characters, although its possible that the company... Continue reading…

After being removed and replaced by Red Dead Redemption 2 nearly a year ago, Grand Theft Auto V will return to Xbox Game Pass for consoles on April 8th, and it will also be coming to Microsoft’s cloud gaming service, xCloud.Despite being almost eight years old, Grand Theft Auto V is still widely popular and one of the bestselling games of all time. Since its release in 2013, the game has been ported to PS4 and Xbox One, and it will receive a next-gen port for the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S later this year.The release on xCloud will allow players to play the game, including the GTA Online mode, on the go without being tethered to their console. xCloud is included for users subscribed to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, though the service is... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Over at Amazon, you can save $80 on the Apple Watch Series 6. Normally $400, you can buy the 40mm model with GPS for only $320 if you buy the wearable in red. The sale price on the product listing notes $385, but the retailer will knock an additional $65 off that price at checkout to bring it down to $320.The Series 6 is currently the flagship watch by Apple and features an always-on display in addition to new sensors that allow users to keep tabs on their blood oxygen levels.If you are looking to buy Apple’s most affordable iPad, Best Buy has a deal on the 128GB storage model, which you can buy for only $380 — $50 off its usual retail price of $430. This iPad model includes a 10.2-inch display, an A12 Bionic processor, a Smart... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge By now, you have probably heard of the huge Facebook data breach, in which upwards of 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries had personal data leaked online, including phone numbers, Facebook IDs, birthdates — you name it.Your first question will be, of course, how to check whether you are part of that breach. There are a couple of places out there where you can find out whether your data has been compromised.One well-known site that tracks data breaches is Have I Been Pwned. Just follow the link to the site and put in your email address or phone number. You will find out not only if you’ve been part of the Facebook breach, but also any other breaches in which your data may have been compromised.Troy Hunt, creator of Have I... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Professor Steve Hanke and investor Nic Carter on the two sides of the bitcoin debate Continue reading…

The tiny, lightweight speaker has a ton of functionality, but don’t expect sound quality miracles Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge E3 2021 will take place June 12th-15th this year as a free, “reimagined, all-virtual” event, the Entertainment Software Association announced today. Organizers announced that the lineup includes companies such as Nintendo, Xbox, Capcom, Konami, Ubisoft, Take-Two Interactive, and Warner Bros. Games. Sony is notably missing from that list so far.E3, gaming’s biggest annual conference in North America, typically takes place in downtown LA every June and attracts a mix of developers, press, and consumers. Last year’s event was canceled in April due to COVID-19. In its absence, Geoff Keighley launched Summer Game Fest in partnership with many developers to deliver game reveals and news; the digital event is also returning this June.E3 is... Continue reading…

Creators will have the option of editing captions once they’ve been generated. | Image: TikTok TikTok creators will soon be able to add automatically generated captions to their videos as the app attempts to make itself more accessible. The option to add auto captions will appear in the editing page after a video has been uploaded or recorded. TikTok says the feature will be available in American English and Japanese at first, but it plans to add support for more languages “in the coming months.”The platform is adding the feature to make TikTok videos easier to watch for deaf and hard of hearing viewers. However, a TikTok dialogue box also says the feature is useful for anyone watching videos “when it’s difficult or inconvenient for them to listen to audio.” Creators can edit their captions after they’ve been automatically... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Yelp is rolling out a new tool that will allow businesses the option to identify themselves as Asian-owned, chief diversity officer Miriam Warren announced today. The new optional attribute will make it easier for Yelp users to find and support Asian-owned businesses easily.Business owners will be allowed to edit their existing listing on Yelp and select the attribute that notes they are an Asian-owned business. The feature will be available when a business owner logs in to their Yelp for Business account. Once enabled, users who filter by “Asian owned” restaurants will find a list of businesses near their location that have self-selected that attribute. Yelp previously rolled out similar attributes for businesses to display, such as... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google has started rolling out the April Android security update for Pixel phones, and it looks like it’s brought some performance improvements to the most recent devices. Google says the update includes “performance optimizations for certain graphics-intensive apps and games” on the Pixel 5 and 4A 5G, and, as noted by XDA Developers, some testers are noticing substantially improved GPU performance on the Pixel 5.Anandtech previously found that the Pixel 5 turned in much worse GPU results than other phones using the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chip. Now, the site’s reviewer Andrei Frumusanu says that performance on his Pixel 5 has been “essentially doubled” from the review’s initial figures and is now “in line or better than other... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Apple TV 4K hasn’t been updated for more than three and a half years, which is an eternity in technology. But 9to5Mac reports that the new tvOS 14.5 beta references support for 120Hz refresh rates — a capability that no currently available Apple TV models have — which could indicate Apple is working on a new version of its set-top box.While it’s not clear what Apple may use a 120Hz refresh rate for in a new Apple TV, one of the more intriguing possibilities is for smoother gaming, like what’s offered with 120Hz support on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. Apple has been showing increased interest in gaming as of late, so it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise if the new Apple TV had more gaming-focused features.For example, Apple... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Over a year into the pandemic, we’ve seen a wide variety of masks, from totally unsafe fashion pieces, to RGB nightmares, not to mention a bunch of other stylish options. But if you think you might have an idea for a better mask that more people might want to wear, the US government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) has announced a competition to design “the next generation of masks” — with a potential $500,000 total prize waiting for the winners.The Mask Innovation Challenge was created in partnership with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH, an organization under the CDC) to address some of the common complaints leveled at masks, like the fact they can fog up glasses,... Continue reading…

The founders of Hipmunk are launching a new startup today that’s aimed squarely at taking on their own former product. Called Flight Penguin, it’s a Chrome browser extension that simultaneously searches a bunch of airline websites and then presents the results in a familiar format. Rather than taking a commission or affiliate fee, Flight Penguin will instead charge its users $10 per month — it’s designed for people who travel a lot (or, since there’s still a pandemic on, people who will imminently travel a lot).Flight Penguin is also not pulling any punches when it comes to its rhetoric: it promises that there will be “no collusion” with the airline industry, specifically noting that “Some of the largest travel sites hide flights from... Continue reading…

If you had to choose: would you choose a sharper screen on your smartphone, or a smoother-scrolling one? This year, budget phone buyers may be asking themselves that question: the OnePlus Nord N100, Moto G50, and the new Samsung Galaxy F12 and M12 all refresh their screens 90 times per second (which is good!) but with a lower-than-optimal screen resolution of 720p. That’s the same resolution as a Galaxy Nexus from 2011.Compared to your average iPhone, that’s a paltry number of pixels. Since the iPhone 4 debuted in 2010, every Apple handset has offered at least 326 pixels per inch (PPI), enough so you can’t make out those individual pixels with the naked eye at typical viewing distances. (The marketing term is “retina display.”) Here,... Continue reading…

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images Social audio app Clubhouse will let all users pay other creators starting Monday. It’s the first monetization tool built right into the app. Clubhouse says it won’t take a cut of payments, meaning that creators get the entirety of what somebody sends them. Not everyone will be able to receive payments just yet, though; that will be rolling out in waves, “starting with a small test group,” Clubhouse says.To pay a Clubhouse creator who can receive payments, tap on their profile, then tap on the “Send Money” button, and then choose how much you send them. You’ll also have to pay a “small card processing fee” that goes to Stripe, which is Clubhouse’s payments processing partner. The first time to try to pay someone, Clubhouse will ask you... Continue reading…

Photo: Sean Hollister / The Verge You would think that something as critical as a town or county’s drinking water supply would be well-protected — you know, like how America’s nuclear armament was isolated from the internet and even relied on eight-inch floppy disks until just recently? And yet we’ve now had two instances where someone was able to remotely log into a municipal water supply in a way that could have harmed people.Remember the story of the Florida water treatment facility where someone was able to change the chemical levels? Something similar happened in March 2019 in Kansas’ Ellsworth County, too, where 22-year-old Wyatt Travnichek now stands accused of shutting down the region’s water cleaning system “with the intention of harming” it, according to a... Continue reading…