The Verge

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…

Image: People Can Fly Outriders, the online shooting, looting, and superpower-slinging game from People Can Fly, finally has a way to pause, but to do it you’ll need to be using an Nvidia graphics card (via Kotaku). Despite working as a single-player game, Outriders requires an internet connection to play, which means pausing in the middle of a battle was impossible until this workaround. Even with your menu open, enemies could still attack you.Using Ansel, which is a feature of Nvidia GeForce RTX graphics cards that enables a kind of photo mode even in games without one built in, you can “pause” Outriders by pressing “Alt F2” on the fly, and get up and take care of business. Because Ansel is specific to the Nvidia’s Geforce Experience software, pausing is... Continue reading…

Yahoo Answers, one of the longest-running and most storied web Q&A platforms in the history of the internet, is shutting down on May 4th. That’s the day the Yahoo Answers website will start redirecting to the Yahoo homepage, and all of the platform’s archives will apparently cease to exist. The platform has been operating since 2005.Yahoo, which is now part of Verizon Media Group following the company’s sale to the telecom for nearly $5 billion in 2017, announced the change at the top of the Yahoo Answers homepage. The message links to an FAQ, which details the timeline of the shutdown. Starting April 20th, the platform will no longer accept new submissions, the FAQ explains.Users will also have until June 30th to request their data... Continue reading…

Nintendo has been rumored to be working on a bigger Switch for a while now, which reportedly could show up later in 2021. But YouTuber Michael Pick isn’t waiting around for a new model from Nintendo — he’s gone and built his own bigger Switch.Much bigger, as it turns out: almost six feet wide, compared to the regular Switch’s 9.4-inch size.“I really like the Nintendo Switch. It’s small, it’s portable — but it’s really easy to lose. And for me, that was a problem. So, I decided to fix that by making something that was just a little bit larger,” Pick said. That reads as a bit of an understatement when comparing Pick’s supersized model (which he says is the world’s largest) to the original. The gigantic version of the... Continue reading…

Image: Epic Games Epic is further stitching together its various platforms with a new Fortnite integration for its social video app Houseparty that lets you stream your gameplay to friends. The integration builds on an existing one that uses Houseparty’s video chatting capabilities to bring live video chat into Fortnite, and now this essentially does the reverse.That way, your friends can see you live both through your mobile phone camera and also the feed of your active Fortnite game. Think of it a bit like Twitch streaming without all the fuss and just for your friends instead of the broader public. Epic says the feature supports streaming from a PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, or PC right now. “We will let everyone know if we’re able to support more... Continue reading…

The LG V60 — launched in early 2020 — could be on the list for an Android 12 update. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge LG says it will continue to offer Android OS updates — including an upgrade to Android 12 — for some of its devices after it exits the smartphone business, but the company’s poor track record has us feeling skeptical it’ll follow through.In its press release and on a US FAQ page, LG says only that it will continue to provide some security and OS updates, but a page on LG’s Korean website spotted by XDA Developers specifically mentions that an “Android 12 OS upgrade will also be provided for selected models.” This page also notes that this is subject to change based on product performance, and that update availability may vary by region.LG wasn’t very reliable with updates even prior to its decision to get out of the phone businessLG... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Amazon’s bringing Zoom compatibility to more devices. The company announced today that it’s making the Echo Show 10 devices in the US compatible with the popular video calling software. Users who have their calendars linked up to the Alexa will have their meetings started automatically while people who haven’t done that can say, “Alexa, join my meeting” or “Alexa, join my Zoom meeting” to join one. This is the second Echo Show to gain Zoom access; the Echo Show 8 started supporting the videoconferencing platform in the US in December.The Echo Show 10’s camera tracks users as they move throughout a room, meaning callers can see the screen no matter where they sit or stand. Presumably, this functionality will work with Zoom, putting it on... Continue reading…

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images Responding to a petition on Monday, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas laid out a comprehensive constitutional framework for regulating Twitter moderation, signaling that Thomas and other conservatives are eager to take action against social media platforms.Thomas was writing in response to a case brought in 2017 by Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute, arguing that President Trump was violating the First Amendment by blocking critics on Twitter. A federal appeals court ruled in favor of the institute in 2019 and Biden’s White House has declined to contest that ruling, making it pointless to continue the case. But since an appeal was filed while Trump was still president, the court is formally required to respond.“... Continue reading…

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Health care company One Medical charged administration fees to some people receiving COVID-19 vaccines in Washington, DC, according to bills reviewed by The Verge. The company runs the COVID-19 vaccination site at DC’s Entertainment and Sports Arena. People vaccinated at this site were also prompted to sign up for a trial account with One Medical to receive the shots.One Medical told The Verge in a statement that an error in the billing system led to the charges, that impacted patients “are being notified,” and that they should disregard the bill. “We are monitoring daily to ensure that no new invoices are going out,” One Medical said.There is not supposed to be a charge associated with the COVID-19 vaccine, according to the Centers... Continue reading…

Image: Studio ZA/UM Disco Elysium: The Final Cut, an upgraded version of one of 2019’s most-acclaimed titles, hit consoles last week with the game’s release on PlayStation 4 and 5. But fans who have been looking forward to finally trying Disco Elysium on console (including myself) have run into many bugs, and developer ZA/UM still hasn’t released a promised update.Most of the bugs are small but annoying, like finicky controls or voice lines not triggering when they should. (That last one is particularly frustrating given that every line of dialogue is supposed to be voiced, which is a new change for The Final Cut.) But players are also reporting a bigger issue: some important quests can’t be completed at all. (Last night, I ran into one of these bugged... Continue reading…

The LG V30. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The US smartphone market just got more boring Continue reading…

The Pro 2 gives you more features for less money Continue reading…

Image: Disney / Marvel Marvel’s next spinoff series after WandaVision and the ongoing Falcon and the Winter Soldier will be Loki, a show dedicated to the trickster god of Asgard and the brother of Thor. And now we have another trailer, showing off longtime Marvel mainstay Tom Hiddleston in the title role and now a little more information on what exactly he’s been tasked with. The show will premiere on Disney Plus on June 11th.Loki is another dramatic tonal departure for Marvel, which has set up its spinoff series as experimental dives into various genres. This one feels more in line with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s love of alternative universe capers, though it’s channeling some serious Umbrella Academy vibes as Loki is asked by Mobius (Owen Wilson) to... Continue reading…

Supreme Court 1 (Verge Stock) In a ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court found that Google could legally use elements of Oracle’s Java application programming interface (API) code when building Android.“Google’s copying of the API to reimplement a user interface, taking only what was needed to allow users to put their accrued talents to work in a new and transformative program, constituted a fair use of that material,” the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-2 opinion, with one justice (Amy Coney Barrett) not taking part in the ruling. It overturned an earlier federal decision, which found that Google’s use of the API had constituted infringement.“Google’s copying of the API...constituted a fair use of that material”The court’s opinion concludes that APIs — which let... Continue reading…

If you ask me, $300 for a QHD gaming monitor that has Nvidia’s G-Sync compatibility and a fantastic IPS panel is a great price. That’s how much LG’s UltraGear 27-inch QHD model costs — down $100 from its usual price at B&H Photo and Amazon. This monitor has a subtle design and slim bezels, and in terms of features, it has a 144Hz refresh rate, 1ms response time, and covers 99 percent of the sRGB color spectrum. In terms of ports, it has two HDMI ports, one DisplayPort, and a 3.5mm output for desktop speakers or headphones.For those lucky enough to have gotten a new Nvidia RTX 30-series graphics card, or a powerful AMD GPU for their PC, or who have an Xbox Series X, a 1440p gaming monitor like this is a must-own piece of tech. Games will... Continue reading…

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge Apple CEO Tim Cook rarely provides details on unannounced products, but he offered some hints about Apple’s thinking on augmented reality and cars in an interview with Kara Swisher for The New York Times this morning.When it comes to augmented reality, he agreed with Swisher’s framing that the tech is “critically important” to Apple’s future and said it could be used to enhance conversations.“You and I are having a great conversation right now. Arguably, it could even be better if we were able to augment our discussion with charts or other things to appear,” Cook said. He imagines AR being used in health, education, retail, and gaming. “I’m already seeing AR take off in some of these areas with use of the phone. And I think the promise... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has determined that Amazon retaliated against two activist employees when it fired them in April of last year, as first reported by The New York Times.The determination is part of the board’s ongoing response to a labor complaint against Amazon, although it’s not a legal ruling in itself. Still, the determination indicates the NLRB is prepared to accuse Amazon of unfair labor practices in connection with the case, and that puts the company under significant pressure to settle the case with the fired employees.“We are on the right side of history and the right side of the law”The two employees at the heart of the case, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, organized the Amazon Employees for... Continue reading…

LG’s Wing was a uniquely designed device released last year. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge LG is exiting the smartphone business, the company confirmed today. The decision will “enable the company to focus resources in growth areas such as electric vehicle components, connected devices, smart homes, robotics, artificial intelligence and business-to-business solutions, as well as platforms and services,” LG said in a statement.Existing phones will remain on sale, and LG says it’ll continue to support its products “for a period of time which will vary by region.” The company hasn’t said anything about possible layoffs except that “details related to employment will be determined at the local level.” LG says it expects to have completed the business’ closure by the end of July this year.The move has been rumored for several... Continue reading…

Image: Genesis Hyundai’s luxury vehicle brand Genesis used 3,281 drones to create its logo over Shanghai’s skyline on March 29th in celebration of the brand’s arrival in China. That number of drones sets a new Guinness World Record for “The Most Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) airborne simultaneously,” according to a Genesis press release.You can see a picture of the Genesis logo formation at the top of this post. Genesis also made a video that showed off some additional drone formations, including a hand, two of the company’s cars, and... a double helix?Genesis’ record edges out the previous one held by Shenzhen Damoda Intelligent Control Technology, which used 3,051 drones in a display on September 20th. Here’s a video of that display, which I... Continue reading…

Image: Activision TiMi Studios, the Tencent-owned developer of huge mobile hits Call of Duty: Mobile and the MOBA Honor of Kings, earned a staggering $10 billion in revenue in 2020, according to an April 1st Reuters report.Reuters’ article says those earnings make TiMi the “world’s largest developer,” according to its sources. While it’s unclear exactly what metric that is defining, it’s a undoubtably a huge number. For comparison, Activision Blizzard (which publishes the Call of Duty franchise) posted 2020 revenues of $8.09 billion, nearly $2 billion less than TiMi’s reported $10 billion.TiMi’s games are some of the biggest in the worldWhile TiMi might not be a household name, its games are some of the biggest in the world. Call of Duty: Mobile... Continue reading…

Image: Marvel Studios Hi, it’s Jay, and I’m holding down the fort for Kim today, which means I get to do a trailer roundup. I apparently picked a good week to take this responsibility, as there were a lot of good trailers to pick from — it seems like media companies are gearing up for a big year in movies and TV shows.Let’s get right into it.Black WidowMy wife and I spent the first part of this year watching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, and as we got further along, we couldn’t believe that Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow didn’t have her own movie yet. So as you might expect, we’re very excited to see Black Widow, especially after the new trailer that came out on Saturday.Black Widow will debut on July 9th in theaters and on Disney Plus as a $30... Continue reading…

Image: NASA NASA’s Perseverance rover, which is currently roaming around Mars, has dropped off the mini helicopter Ingenuity ahead of the four-pound aircraft’s historic first flight.Ingenuity dropped four inches from the belly of Perseverance to the surface of Mars. While four inches might not seem like a very big drop, getting Ingenuity to successfully stick the landing is still a significant milestone, as the helicopter had to go through a multi-day process of flipping from a horizontal position on the rover to a vertical position before it was set down. (It also had to survive a seven-month trip through space to get to Mars. NBD.)

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Personal data from 533 million Facebook accounts has reportedly leaked online for free, according to security researcher Alon Gal. Insider said it verified several of the leaked records.“The exposed data includes personal information of over 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries, including over 32 million records on users in the US, 11 million on users in the UK, and 6 million on users in India,” according to Insider. “It includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, bios, and — in some cases — email addresses.”If that 533 million number might sound familiar to you, that’s because this information is apparently from the same dataset that people could pay for portions of using a Telegram bot,... Continue reading…

Genesis Noir is set at the start of existence, reimagining the Big Bang and the natural expansion of the universe as the violent end result of a love triangle gone wrong. It’s a marriage of jazz and film noir in a point-and-click adventure game that sometimes works better as an audiovisual plaything than it does a series of puzzles. But the game’s visual style is a clear standout.The monochromatic, abstract, line-drawn look that makes Genesis Noir so unique comes from a host of influences: classic film, Italian literature, other indie games. The real mystery to solve was combining those ideas in a way that makes sense — and it actually ended in a playable game.Genesis Noir creative lead Evan Anthony’s jumping-off point was Cosmicomics,... Continue reading…

More good stuff, same light weight Continue reading…

Hummer has unveiled the SUV version of its electric pickup truck, which comes with up to 300 miles of range and will sell for a suggested retail price of up to $110,595 for its first edition. Reservations for that model are already full, according to GM’s website.GM, which is producing the electric Hummers under its GMC brand, said the SUV will go into production starting early 2023, with less pricey variants starting at $90,000 in the spring of 2023 and a low-end $80,000 variant with a 250-mile range in the spring of 2024. Previously, the company said that its electric pickup truck will start assembly at the end of 2021, starting with the most expensive trim level. Like the pickup, the SUV’s $90K-and-up trim levels... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Now that the street price of an Nvidia RTX 3070 is over $1,200, it’s temping to think scalpers, bots and cryptocurrency miners got them all — but the latest Steam Hardware Survey suggests at least some of them are making their way into gaming PCs, too. As TechSpot reports, the 3070 in particular appears to have become Steam’s fastest growing GPU, and the 17th-most popular graphics accelerator on Steam with a 1.29 percent share overall. The top 20 GPUs on Steam, as of March 2021. The RTX 3080 also commands 0.87 percent, the RTX 3060 Ti has 0.39 percent, and the pricey RTX 3090 claims 0.34 percent of the market — for a total of 2.89 percent Ampere cards.That not bad, especially considering AMD’s rival RX 6000 series... Continue reading…

Dark Patterns are user interfaces designed to trick you into doing what their creator wants. When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, he didn’t stop asking his supporters for money. The emails kept coming in. But by the end of his four years in office, according to a new report in The New York Times, they had begun to look an awful lot like a scam.By June 2020, the Trump campaign had begun using dark patterns, computer interfaces designed to trick users, to automatically sign up campaign contributors to donate far more money than they had intended — recurring monthly donations, recurring weekly donations, even a one-time surprise “money bomb” per month — by pre-checking the checkboxes for each option, burying the fine print under paragraphs of bold text, and forcing his supporters to wade through it all and opt... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Uber was sued in 2014 for discriminating against blind people and their guide dogs, and agreed to change that as part of a $2.6 million settlement two years later. But apparently, that didn’t entirely happen.Uber will now pay an additional $1.1 million to a blind woman who says said she missed work, missed her birthday celebration, missed Christmas Eve church services, and was left out in the dark, in the rain, and other such humiliations because Uber drivers refused to carry her and her dog on 14 different occasions — a number of which happened after Uber finalized its 2016 settlement.“Uber allowed drivers who discriminated against disabled riders to continue driving without discipline,” an arbitrator concluded this week (via The... Continue reading…