The Verge

Internet data caps are not like pizza — where taking a slice could mean fewer slices for everyone else. I don’t think Verge readers have trouble understanding this concept? It’s been well-established that ISPs have no trouble delivering unlimited data, even during — say — a global pandemic when vast throngs of the population have suddenly found themselves working from home.This, however, did not stop WideOpenWest (aka WOW!) from using pizza to justify brand-new, possibly-never-before-seen data caps for its cable internet subscribers, starting June 1st, 2021, as Ars Technica reports.Here’s a portion of the email subscribers are receiving:

If you’ve been eagerly waiting for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga to fulfill the incredible promise of its stirring trailer from last August (see above), I have some bittersweet news: the game’s been delayed again. Developer TT Games tweeted on Friday that “we won’t be able to make our intended Spring release date,” which itself was a delay from the game’s original 2020 launch window.

Since 1996, spacejam.com has been an internet time capsule like few others still in existence — a largely pristine sample of the early World Wide Web and all the most advanced multimedia offerings available at the time, such as animated GIFs and Windows 95 screensavers. But 25 years later, it’s finally been supplanted; the new sequel Space Jam: A New Legacy, starring LeBron James, has taken over the URL to showcase the new movie’s very first trailer.Here’s what spacejam.com looks like today: But before you go boycotting the sequel, you should probably know that the original Space Jam website isn’t dead yet. In fact, it’s just one click away at spacejam.com/1996, and the new website lets you that original Space Jam logo... Continue reading…

A vaccine site that opened in Louisville, Kentucky on April 2, 2021, as cases rose in the state. | Photo by Jon Cherry/Getty Images This is a surreal moment in the pandemic, brimming with hope and fear.Here in the US we’re at the last leg in a marathon — vaccines are here, and appointments to get those shots are becoming more plentiful. People are planning for the moments they’ve put off for a year or more. The finish line is in sight.At the exact same time, our will to power through to the end just slammed into a wall. Restrictions are lifting while cases are still high, sending case counts through the roof. Hospitals are getting crowded again. Testing has dropped, leaving us with incomplete information as new variants take hold.“We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are and so much reason for hope,” said Rochelle... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Welcome to April. This month began with, frankly, too many brands insisting on making fools out of themselves. But now that the prankster holiday is behind us, we’re focused on deals that are still happening. This has been a fun week to write about deals because a little bit of everything has seen a discount. There have been several deals lately on game subscriptions, so my colleague Taylor Lyles put together a big up-to-date guide to help you find the best prices.Nomad’s Base Station Pro is half off until Saturday nightIf you have an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods and are still lamenting the fact that the AirPower charging mat never released, check out this deal. Nomad’s Base Station Pro does what the AirPower promised to do —... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has issued a rare public apology — but not to its workers, and with no real admission of guilt.Over a week ago, the company was caught publicly lying to Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) that its workers never feel the need to pee in water bottles (which is, in fact, a well-documented issue at Amazon because of how it robotically tracks and fires its laborers).Now, late on the Friday evening before Easter weekend, when few (hat tip to GeekWire) are paying attention, the company is apologizing to Pocan — and no one else. Amazon only apologizes for not being “accurate” enough, too — not for actually creating and contributing to situations where workers pee in bottles.The @AmazonNews account didn’t bother to tweet any of this, BTWIn... Continue reading…

A pressure vessel from SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket was found in a man’s farm last weekend. | Grant County Sheriff’s Office A pressure vessel from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage fell on a man’s farm in Washington State last week, leaving a “4-inch dent in the soil,” the local sheriff’s office said Friday.The black Composite-Overwrapped Pressure Vessel, or COPV, was a remnant from the alien invasion-looking breakup of a Falcon 9 second stage over Oregon and Washington on March 26, local officials said. The stage reentered the atmosphere in an unusual spot in the sky after sending a payload of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites to orbit.A Grant County, Washington property owner, who told authorities he didn’t want to be identified, found the errant COPV — roughly the size and shape of a hefty punching bag — sitting on his farm one morning last weekend. He reported... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google will soon be more selective about which apps on the Play Store can see all of the other apps you have installed (via XDA-Developers). As Ars Technica points out, your list of installed apps, innocent as it seems, can communicate to developers personal traits like dating preferences and political affiliations. So starting on May 5th, 2021, developers will have to provide a very good reason for why Google should let you access info like that.Android 11 apps that currently request the “QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES” permission can see the full list of apps you have stored on your device. But Google recently updated its Developer Program Policy and now considers that info to be “personal and sensitive user data,” restricting which apps are... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Two Coinbase employees have managed to find a heartwarming use for NFTs by incorporating them into their wedding, exchanging the digital tokens as part of the ceremony.Rebecca Rose and Peter Kacherginsky say that alongside their traditional Jewish ceremony, the couple also sent each other digital tokens as “virtual rings” to each other. In a Twitter thread about the wedding, Rose said that their virtual rings now exist on the blockchain “for all to see as proof of our commitment to each other.”

A leaked image of Spotify’s Car Thing. | Image: Spotify / Steve Moser Spotify’s much-anticipated in-car gadget, a voice-controlled music player known colloquially as the Car Thing, has just shown up in a handful of in-app renders unearthed by MacRumors contributor Steve Moser, who found the images in Spotify’s app code. These renders match up quite closely with photographs of the real deal submitted as part of filings to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which The Verge reported back in January.Thanks to these renders, we have a much cleaner look at the evolved Spotify Car Thing design, which includes a large knob on the right, a color screen, and four buttons on top. Earlier official company renders from back when the product was formally announced in 2019 showed off a much smaller screen.Y... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google’s next Pixel flagship — the presumably named “Pixel 6” — will reportedly feature a Google-designed GS101 “Whitechapel” SoC (system on a chip), a first for the company, as reported by 9to5Google and XDA-Developers.9to5Google’s report claims Google is working on two phones that will feature the Arm-based GS101 — presumed to be a flagship device to succeed last year’s Pixel 5 and a Pixel 4A 5G follow-up.XDA’s report, meanwhile, goes into further detail on the new SoC, claiming the GS101 chips will feature a “three cluster setup with a TPU (Tensor Processing Unit)” for machine learning applications. (For reference, Qualcomm’s own flagship Snapdragon 888 uses Arm’s Cortex-X1 / Cortex-A78 / Cortex-A55 as a triple cluster CPU setup.)... Continue reading…

Photo: Intel From consoles to cars, it seems like everyone is having a hard time getting enough chips Continue reading…

Photo by Peter Kneffel/picture alliance via Getty Images Microsoft has updated its events website to reveal the dates of Microsoft Build 2021. Per the new listing, the annual conference will take place from May 25th–27th this year. It will also be held virtually, along with many of Microsoft’s 2021 events.A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the dates to The Verge. “Please stay tuned for more information to come,” the spokesperson said.“Microsoft Build is where developers, architects, start-ups, and students learn, connect, and code together, sharing knowledge and expanding their skillset, while exploring new ways of innovating for tomorrow,” the website reads.

The global chip shortage has been a growing concern in the tech industry (and it has even grabbed the interest of the US president) as it starts to affect the production of more and more products, from cars to graphics cards to game consoles. For a great explanation of all the factors that have led to the shortage, you should read Bloomberg’s breakdown. It digs into factors like pandemic-fueled demand and the small number of companies actually able to produce the chips that now power so much of our digital lives.One of the most interesting features of the article is an interactive graphic that shows the customers and industries that make use of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which gives a great idea of the scale and... Continue reading…

Boost Mobile, owned by Dish Network, serves 9 million customers — more than half of which rely on the older CDMA network. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Dish Network issued a new letter to the Federal Communications Commission this week, as reported by Axios, highlighting the urgent situation it faces if T-Mobile moves ahead with its planned January 2022 CDMA network shutdown. “We believe that T-Mobile’s actions raise significant competition and public interest concerns,” the letter states. It would be a blow to Dish’s business, but most importantly, millions of Boost Mobile customers would feel the impact as a result.Boost Mobile, a former Sprint MVNO sold to Dish as part of T-Mobile’s acquisition, serves 9 million customers. According to the letter, more than half of them rely on CDMA service. Its prepaid service is an accessible alternative to contract plans for low-income customers;... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Google is killing off its dedicated Google Wifi app for managing its routers, rolling that functionality over to the Google Home app as the company continues to “help our customers control and manage all their connected products in one place and enable routines across them.”The switchover to the Google Home app will come in two phases: first, Google will disable most of the functionality of the Google Wifi app on May 25th. Starting then, users will only be able to view the current status of their networks — but any changes, including adding new routers or access points — will have to be done in the Google Home app.Starting on May 25th, users will have to use the Home app to make any changes to a Google Wifi setupThen, sometime in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla delivered nearly 185,000 cars in the first quarter of 2021, more than it produced over the three-month period, according to numbers the company shared on Friday. Tesla has been ramping up production capacity and just nearly missed CEO Elon Musk’s goal of delivering 500,000 cars in 2020.Of the cars Tesla delivered in Q1 2021, nearly 183,000 were Model 3 and Model Y vehicles, more than the 180,000 of those models produced in Q1. On top of the Model 3 and Model Y deliveries, the company also sold an additional 2,020 Model S cars that had been produced in previous quarters.Tesla could beat last year’s 500,000-car goalTesla announced redesigns for the Model S and Model X in January 2021, which added new powertrains, higher range... Continue reading…

Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for The Recording Academy Bruno Mars is the latest celebrity to jump into the virtual world of Fortnite. Today, developer Epic Games announced that the battle royale game would be getting a new Mars emote — essentially an in-game dance — set to the singer’s song “Leave the Door Open.” Players will be able to buy it starting at 8PM ET tonight.Fortnite is steadily becoming a place filled with real-world stars, whether it’s streamers like Tyler “Ninja” Blevins or the upcoming appearance of Brazilian soccer star Neymar. Music, in particular, has been a big focal point for the game. Marshmello and Travis Scott both held massive in-game concerts with millions of virtual attendees, BTS debuted a music video, and Epic even created its own soundstage to host shows from... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Easter is on Sunday, and if you celebrate the holiday but won’t be able to visit your family this year, a Zoom call is a great substitute to ensure you can still connect with your loved ones. A few devices support Zoom, including Amazon’s Echo Show 8, which is on sale for $75 at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. Normally, this device costs $130.Amazon is also discounting its Fire HD 8 tablets, knocking $30 off the usual retail prices. You can buy the Fire HD 8 tablet for only $60, or you can get the Fire HD 8 Plus for $80. Unlike the previous Fire HD 8 models, the latest tablets have a USB-C port for faster charging, and the HD 8 Plus supports wireless charging, too.B&H Photo has discounted the Galaxy S21 line with up to $200 in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are big business now, at least for the moment. Everything from one of Creepy Chan’s first Myspace posts to a New York Times article has been put up for sale. (The Times piece went for the Ether equivalent of $560,000.) But they weren’t always a speculative, suspiciously scammy garden. In fact, according to Glitch CEO Anil Dash in a new piece in The Atlantic, the whole thing started as a project kludged together for a hackathon that brought artists and technologists together.It all started in May 2014, Dash writes, when he was paired up with the digital artist Kevin McCoy. “This was around the peak of Tumblr culture, when a raucous, wildly inspiring community of millions of artists and fans was sharing images... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Waymo CEO John Krafcik has announced that he’ll be stepping down from his role as CEO. Tekedra Mawakana, Waymo’s chief operating officer, and Dmitri Dolgov, the company’s chief technology officer, will work jointly as co-CEOs going forward.Krafcik didn’t provide a detailed explanation for his departure or what he’s planning on doing next. “After five and a half exhilarating years leading this team, I’ve decided to depart from my CEO role with Waymo and kick-off new adventures. To start, I’m looking forward to a refresh period, reconnecting with old friends and family, and discovering new parts of the world,” he commented in a blog post announcing the move. In a statement to employees obtained by CNBC, Mawakana and Dolgov... Continue reading…

Travelers wearing protective masks walk past a sign pointing towards a Covid-19 testing location in Terminal 5 at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) in New York, U.S., on Friday, March 26, 2021. | Bloomberg / Contributor via Getty Images People who are fully vaccinated “can travel safely within the United States,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in new guidance issued today. Until now, the agency advised people to “delay” both domestic and international travel even if they had been vaccinated.The CDC’s new recommendations also allow fully vaccinated travelers to avoid self-quarantine after traveling domestically. They can also skip COVID-19 tests before and after a trip, unless their destination requires it.If traveling internationally, fully vaccinated people will still need to be tested for COVID-19 before returning to the US and upon arrival. But they won’t be required to self-quarantine. “International travel poses additional risks and even... Continue reading…

Image: Heritage Auctions A sealed copy of the NES classic Super Mario Bros. sold for an incredible $660,000 at Heritage Auctions on Friday, more than quadrupling the previous record for the most expensive game ever.This isn’t the first time Super Mario Bros. has held the record: a mint copy of the US version of the game sold for $114,000 in July 2020 (which broke the record of $100,150 set by another copy of Super Mario Bros. in February 2019). In November, however, a different title set a new record: a sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 sold for $156,000, making it the most expensive video game ever sold until today.Here is what makes the version of Super Mario Bros. that sold today so special, according to Heritage Auctions:

Disney Plus is getting a big influx of classic Star Wars shows and movies in the newly added “Star Wars Vintage Collection,” which brings retro Star Wars content to streaming.The most notable addition is the animated short The Story of the Faithful Wookiee — which famously saw the introduction of fan-favorite character Boba Fett as part of the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special, which aired in 1978 and was never released again. The short had previously seen the light of day as an Easter egg on the 2011 Blu-ray box set of the first six Star Wars movies, but the Disney Plus debut marks the broadest release of The Story of the Faithful Wookiee to date. It’s also the first time any piece of The Star Wars Holiday Special has... Continue reading…

If you missed your chance to win the actual Xbox Series X refrigerator born from memes making fun of the console’s fridge-like look, I have some good news for you: there may be another way to get your hands on a Series X-shaped cooling appliance in the future.Last night, to help Xbox defeat Skittles in the final round of Twitter’s inaugural #BestOfTweets Brand Bracket (yes, you read that right), Xbox marketing boss Aaron Greenberg promised that if Xbox won, Microsoft would make actual Xbox Series X mini fridges. That promise seems to have been enough to give Xbox the edge because Xbox indeed defeated Skittles on Friday morning with 50.5 percent of the vote.It seems like Microsoft is going to make good on its promise, as Greenberg said... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Samsung is dropping the price of its ultra-premium Galaxy Z Fold 2 5G by $200, bringing the foldable smartphone down to $1,799.99 compared to its initial $1,999.99 launch MRSP. Even after the price cut, the Z Fold 2 5G will still cost you more than flagships from pretty much all of Samsung’s competitors, but it’s perhaps the best folding phone yet — and it certainly offers functionality that traditional handsets can’t match.The new lower price is available for the unlocked model as well as carrier versions of the Z Fold 2 5G from Verizon and AT&T. Remember that Samsung is also now giving buyers of the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and Z Flip 5G an extended 100-day return policy. That’s a show of confidence in this wave of foldables after the... Continue reading…

Microsoft is delaying the full reopening of its offices — the company’s “Stage 6” phase of its hybrid workplace plan — until September 7th at the earliest. This marks a delay from its originally planned July window.“Based on our continued consultation with health and data experts, we’ve shifted our earliest date for the full opening of our U.S. worksites to September 7, 2021. We continue to review the situation on a local basis in each region/country/state where we work and will adjust dates by country as needed,” a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to The Verge. Image: Microsoft Microsoft’s hybrid workplace dial. Microsoft executive vice president Kurt DelBene explained the decision to delay the full... Continue reading…

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.This week, Nilay and Dieter talk with Verge deputy editor Dan Seifert about this week’s rumors about the next big Apple product announcements after invites were sent out for the company’s annual WWDC event, which will again be virtual-only. After more AR headset leaks, the crew also discusses whether Apple has the bandwidth to support all of its product categories, especially with the Apple TV left alone for some time.Later in the show, senior reporter Ashley Carman joins to discuss her coverage of social audio platform Clubhouse.... Continue reading…

Image: Summer Game Fest Summer Game Fest, which debuted last year as a digital “celebration” of video games with news, events, and playable content, is returning this year, kicking off in June. We don’t know much about what to expect just yet, but “the roster of participating publishers and developers, along with an event schedule outline, will be revealed in the coming weeks,” according to a press release.One thing is already on the agenda, though. There will be a Day of the Devs: Summer Game Fest Edition, which will “digitally spotlight a select group of upcoming indie and AAA video games.” Day of the Devs will be curated by Geoff Keighley and the Day of the Devs team, comprised of Double Fine Productions and iam8bit.The COVID-19 pandemic remains a threat... Continue reading…

We already knew MLB The Show 21 would be the first entry in the Sony-published series to arrive on Xbox consoles. And today, Microsoft revealed the next entry in the long-running baseball franchise will also be available on Xbox Game Pass for consoles when the game releases on April 20th.According to the blog post, the Xbox One and Xbox Series X / S versions will be playable on Microsoft’s video game subscription service. The game will also be available on Android devices via xCloud, which is available at no additional cost if you are subscribed to the pricier Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier.MLB The Show 21 is a huge win for Xbox owners. In the past, the series has been exclusive to PlayStation platforms, while competitors released for... Continue reading…

Photo by Kara Verlaney / The Verge You may come across the occasional writer who will claim (wrongly) that they don’t need an editor, but you will seldom, if ever, meet a writer or editor who will say they don’t need a copy editor.The role of a copy editor is often misunderstood or underestimated by those not in the business. Kara Verlaney, senior copy editor for The Verge, when asked to explain the role of a copy editor, put it this way: “Copy editing is about maintaining consistency and accuracy, which is what gives sites like The Verge the authority to tell our audience about a subject. Beyond checking for grammatical errors and extolling the Oxford comma, copy editors also monitor things like sensitivity and tone, style, source diversity, and clarity. The Verge’s... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Nomad’s well-designed Base Station Pro is a Qi wireless charger that can charge up to three devices simultaneously — perfect if you have a phone, watch, and earbuds. If its $200 price tag has been a stumbling block, Nomad is offering a 50 percent discount on the charger until Sunday, April 4th, at 2:59AM ET (Saturday at 11:59PM PT if you’re on the West Coast). To get this price, enter the code VOX at checkout. If you have an Apple Watch, you can also add the Apple Watch attachment for $5.My colleague Chaim Gartenberg reviewed the Base Station Pro when it released in August 2020. What makes this different from most other Qi wireless charging pads are its Aira FreePower coils, which allow for a better connection to your device’s own... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Clubhouse had an incredible year in one most of us would rather forget. The live audio app launched during a pandemic; gained more than 10 million downloads for an invite-only, iOS-only app; and succeeded to the point that most every social platform wants to copy it. Congrats to Clubhouse.The company now faces its biggest challenges yet, however. For one, the pandemic is waning, and people might be more interested in real-life socializing instead of conversations facilitated through their phone. Anyone advertising their backyard as the next great Clubhouse competitor has a point. But for the people who do end up wanting to talk to each other online, they’ll soon have a lot more places to do so. In case you haven’t kept up: Twitter, F... Continue reading…

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

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you have been keeping up with PS5 news, you will know that it is nearly impossible to find this console right now because of the short supply and mostly online-only sales. If you don’t mind buying a bundle, which includes additional items alongside the PS5, GameStop has restocked several PS5 bundles right now.There are two bundles we found that may be worth a buy if you are interested in what each package contains.The PS5 Digital Edition bundle — which includes the console, plus one-year subscriptions for PS Plus and PS Now, an extra DualSense controller, and a $20 GameStop gift card — is selling for $600, or about $200 more than the console alone goes for. Purchasing all of these items individually would tally up to the same... Continue reading…

Finnish developer Supercell is best known for its mobile games Clash of Clans and Clash Royale, and today, it announced plans to expand that fantasy universe in a big way. Supercell revealed that three new Clash titles are in development. “On top of offering a new Clash experience to current players, we want to broaden Clash to new audiences who haven’t experienced Clash before,” the developer wrote in a blog post.The games include: Clash Quest, a turn-based tactical adventure game; Clash Mini, a virtual board game where you build teams of adorable miniatures; and Clash Heroes, a co-op action roleplaying game. Supercell also notes that they’re all fairly early in development and will likely change in some ways as things progress.In... Continue reading…

Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for WeWork The problem of making a documentary about a showman is that it’s hard not to be ensnared by him. WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn is so focused on WeWork’s turbulent co-founder, Adam Neumann, that it ultimately loses the plot.WeWork, you may recall, was the subject of a tremendous scandal around the disclosures in the S-1 document required for its IPO. (The company is now attempting to go public using a SPAC, which means someone other than the SEC is doing the due diligence.) WeWork, premiering April 2nd on Hulu, is director Jed Rothstein’s abbreviated retelling of the events around the troubled company — but a lot of the weird details that made the WeWork story so riveting are lost.Neumann lifts a leg, lets... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple’s gaming subscription service just got a massive influx of new titles. The headliner is Fantasian — the latest release from the creator of Final Fantasy — which is joined by other titles like new versions of NBA 2K and The Oregon Trail, and World of Demons from PlatinumGames. As part of the update, the service is getting two new categories of games: Apple calls them “Timeless Classics” and “App Store Greats.”For the greats, Apple is adding a number of high-profile mobile hits to the service, including Threes, Monument Valley, Mini Metro, and a remaster of Cut the Rope. Timeless classics, meanwhile, refers to iconic games like backgammon, solitaire, and Zach Gage’s recent takes on chess and sudoku. While most Arcade games are... Continue reading…

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge OnePlus’ new line of smartphones — the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro — are now available for purchase at several retailers. A successor to the OnePlus 8 and 8 Pro, the 9 and 9 Pro start at $729.If you want to hear our thoughts before you buy, check out our review video for the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro above. Additionally, you can check out our written reviews linked below.WHERE TO BUY THE ONEPLUS 9

Fantasian, a new role-playing game from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, is available now for Apple Arcade. The game is playable on iOS, Mac, and Apple TV.Fantasian is the latest from Sakaguchi’s studio Mistwalker, which he founded in 2004; the developer has since released games such as The Last Story and Blue Dragon. Although Fantasian uses traditional RPG elements like turn-based battles, it’s been designed with handcrafted physical models — more than 150 dioramas in all.Fantasian features touch controls but, according to Sakaguchi, is intended to deliver a console-like experience on mobile devices. The game follows an amnesiac hero searching for a way to regain his lost memories. In a previous interview with The Verge,... Continue reading…

Photo: Warner Bros. Ava DuVernay’s New Gods and James Wan’s The Trench are no longer being developed at Warner Bros., according to The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline, and Variety. The two films, set to explore two of the more unusual parts of the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), seemed like they could have been interesting diversions from the tone and style established in films like Justice League and Batman v Superman. But in the turbulent world of DC film adaptations, nothing is certain.James Wan made a pivot to superhero movies with Aquaman in 2018, bringing an action-packed, slightly more goofy energy to a cinematic universe that was sorely needing something fun. As a spin-off, The Trench was Wan returning to the horror roots he established with Saw and The... Continue reading…

Netflix just released the first good look at Yasuke, its upcoming anime based on the true story of a Black samurai who lived in Japan during the 16th century. Despite the real-life source material, the show takes a few liberties with the story, as you can see in the fantastical first trailer.Here’s the basic synopsis from Netflix:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Over the past several months, Twitter has been working hard to bring its Clubhouse-like audio chat rooms feature, Spaces, to users on iOS and, as of last month, Android. A logical next place for Spaces to show up would be on the web, and unsurprisingly, Twitter is working on the feature for browsers, the company confirmed to The Verge.We decided to ask Twitter about Spaces on desktop after seeing this tweet from app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, which shows what Spaces preview cards could look like when viewed on the web.

Alleged leaked renders of the upcoming Xperia 1 III. | Image: OnLeaks Sony has, in a very low-key way, just announced that its upcoming Xperia event will be on April 14th (via Droid Life). The news comes from the Xperia YouTube channel’s banner, where it lays out that there will be a new product announcement happening at 4:30PM Japan Standard Time — that’s 3:30AM EST, or 12:30AM PT (if you feel like burning the midnight oil to watch live).The banner gives no real hints as to what will be announced, but there have been a few rumors floating around — one about a new flagship, the Xperia 1 III, and one about the return of the Xperia Compact, which could end up being an Android answer to the iPhone Mini. Image: Sony It’s worth noting that there are other rumors that mention new versions... Continue reading…

Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge When Apple introduced its controversial MacBook Pro redesign in 2016, the company probably didn’t know it was setting itself up to get sued — but not only is a class-action lawsuit now underway for their infamous butterfly keyboards, it’s looking likely there’ll be a second one for their notoriously fragile display cables, too. Judge Edward Davila has decided to let the “flexgate” lawsuit go forward, ruling that Apple should have known that they would fail and yet kept selling them anyhow.“The court finds that the allegations of pre-release testing in combination with the allegations of substantial customer complaints are sufficient to show that Apple had exclusive knowledge of the alleged defect,” the judge wrote (via Law360 and 9... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images Former President Donald Trump’s ban on guest worker visas has expired, allowing foreign workers to reapply for entry into the United States. The news is a win for tech companies including Apple, Twitter, and Google, each of which vocally opposed the policy.Former President Donald Trump said the ban was a response to rising unemployment in the United States, due to the coronavirus pandemic. On the campaign trail, Joe Biden pushed back on this claim, calling it an attempt to distract from the Trump Administration’s failure on the virus.The ban focused on H-1B visas, but impacted a broader range of workers, NPR reports. Executives at big corporations and students participating in work-study programs were also caught up in the fray.W... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Atari, the corporate entity / brand of Theseus, has just made around $110,000 by selling —you guessed it — NFTs (shout out to Ars Technica for doing the math). The tokens in question are 3D models of the Atari 2600 game cartridge for Centipede — 10 of them black, 100 of them red.The NFTs are being sold as part of the Atari Capsule Collection — which is basically a bunch of Centipede and Pong-themed NFTs being sold by the company that now owns the Atari brand. The company and its intellectual property have been bought and sold so many times it’s almost hard to keep track, but the current incarnation of it is mainly known for trying to build hotels and struggling to make a game console. This NFT, labeled as version 1 of... Continue reading…

It sounds like something out of a children’s movie — after French police arrested three Polish thieves who attempted to steal toys in June 2020, specifically Lego sets. Now authorities are trying to address a growing trend of Lego robberies by warning business owners and parents, The Guardian reports.According to a report in Le Parisien, the thieves were part of a gang that would stay in hotels near Paris, drive around in an Audi, and “raid” toy stores for valuable Lego sets to resell in Poland. The thieves were caught robbing a PicWicToys toy store, after being spotted in 2019 and 2020 at two separate European toy stores, La Grande Récré and Maxi Toys. French police are reportedly “building a case” against the gang in response, The... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Samsung announced its Galaxy SmartTag line of item trackers in January, and at the time, it said the premium SmartTag Plus, which has ultra-wideband (UWB) technology that enables more precise tracking of an item in relationship to you than Bluetooth does, would be releasing later this year. Now, though, there are some clues that the SmartTag Plus could be coming out soon, possibly as early as April 12th.Perhaps the most telling hint pointing to the SmartTag Plus’ imminent arrival is that retailer B&H Photo already has the black model of the device available for preorder, with an “expected availability” of April 12th. Here’s a link to the B&H listing if you want to try to preorder a SmartTag Plus for yourself. But since Samsung hasn’t... Continue reading…

Art: Duotrope Duolingo, the popular language learning app, offers a wide variety of languages in its list of courses. While it’s known for teaching well-known tongues such as French, Spanish, and Chinese, it has also added courses in languages that are less widely used, such as Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Hawaiian — and now, as of April 6th, its 40th language: Yiddish.While Yiddish in the US is known more for some of the words that have entered the popular lexicon (“He’s such a schmuck!”), it is actually a full-scale language. An amalgamation of High German, Hebrew, and Aramaic, with a smattering of Slavic languages (and more recently, English), before World War II, it was widely spoken by Jewish communities living throughout Central and Eastern Europe.... Continue reading…