The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge While some Alabama Amazon workers were submitting their votes to unionize the company’s first US warehouse last week, something strange was happening on Twitter. Accounts seemingly belonging to warehouse workers were tweeting at users supporting the union or making unsavory comments about Amazon in general. Amazon’s anti-union Twitter army has been a subject of criticism and mockery for the last few years, inspiring a slew of accounts parodying actual Amazon ambassadors, but the Bessemer fight brought it all back into the spotlight.Over the weekend, one parody account, in particular, caught the attention of reporters and Amazon detractors across Twitter: @AmazonFCDarla. Darla’s profile picture looked fake, but the language used in her... Continue reading…

Image: Belkin Belkin has a new iPhone stand that’s useful enough to be interesting but annoyingly limited.The company’s “Magnetic Phone Mount with Face Tracking” works with the iPhone 12’s MagSafe feature, clipping your phone into place using the device’s built-in magnets. It then uses face tracking to follow you around the room, rotating so it’s always facing you.The catch is that this feature doesn’t work with video calls on Zoom, FaceTime, or any other similar service — surely one of the biggest potential use cases in a pandemic. In fact, judging by the product description, the tracking feature only works when recording video through Belkin’s own iOS app. That would mean you can’t even use the stand to make sure your phone is always facing you as... Continue reading…

There are a few different versions of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds — the game that popularized the battle royale genre and inspired a legion of competitors — which you can play on everything from your underpowered phone to your high-end gaming rig. At the end of April, however, the list will be one entry shorter: PUBG Lite, the free-to-play version of the ultimate life and death fight specced for lower-end machines, is going dark on April 29th. New downloads were shut down on March 30th.In its note to fans, Krafton, the game’s publisher, didn’t give a reason for the impending closure. Here’s what it said in full:

The new top-of-the-line Ring doorbell is expensive but works well Continue reading…

Image: Yekaterina Lisina / Photography by nikolayshlykov Resident Evil Village is coming on May 7th, but if you have been keeping up with the news surrounding the game, you may have heard about Lady Dimitrescu, a very tall woman who has become very popular on the internet. There have been a few cosplayers who’ve attempted to re-create the iconic villain, but the most recent cosplay from Yekaterina Lisina is arguably the best yet.Lisina, a former Olympian-turned-model, recently shared some content on Instagram of her cosplaying Lady Dimitrescu, even going so far as to re-create a parody of one of the trailers for the game. But don’t take my word for it, just check out the video she shared on her Instagram page:

Microsoft is bringing 16 original Xbox and Xbox 360 games to the company’s Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service today. Titles like Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, the original Banjo-Kazooie, and Fallout: New Vegas are all now available to stream to Android devices. Microsoft is also enabling touch controls for Jetpac Refuelled, Viva Pinata, and Viva Pinata TIP.The 16 games will be available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members and streamable to Android phones and tablets. “We’ve listened to the feedback, going all the way back to our earliest cloud gaming preview, and making games from previous generations available on mobile devices has been one of the most requested features by the community,” says Microsoft.Microsoft is also still... Continue reading…

Photo by Anna Kooris / Sundance Institute Social media has produced plenty of stories that have a ring of truth but are packed with ridiculous twists that seem way too good to be true. Thus it was with #TheStory, a 148-part Twitter thread by Aziah “Zola” Wells King — except her thread turned out to be a relatively true recounting of two women on a nightmare Florida road trip. Last year at the Sundance Film Festival, director Janicza Bravo turned that thread into a film that dramatizes the story without losing Zola’s sardonic charm.A24 is now releasing Zola in theaters this summer, and the first trailer was released online today. It’s a pretty good encapsulation of the movie, starring Taylour Paige as the semi-fictionalized A’Ziah King and Riley Keough as her volatile frenemy... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Due to a ‘technical issue’ Continue reading…

Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge The rise of assaults on the elderly, captured on security camera footage, raises questions about policing and what really keeps people safe Continue reading…

As it promised, Nintendo will pull Super Mario 3D All-Stars, the Switch compilation featuring Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy, from shelves at the end of the day — both digital and physical. This final day in March 2021 is your last chance to get the game digitally on your Nintendo Switch, and it could be the last day you’ll be able to find it in cartridge form (that is, without spending more than the retail asking price of $60).If you already got the game or are fine without it, scroll on. But if you’ve even considered picking it up to play in the future, you might as well take the plunge today.There are other pressing deals to share with you, including Nintendo’s Game & Watch handheld console that... Continue reading…

The Crew Dragon capsule poised to fly four civilian astronauts to space this year is getting an upgrade: a glass dome will be added at the top to give space tourists a 360-degree view of the cosmos. Plans for the window were announced on Tuesday as SpaceX and the team managing the tourist mission, Inspiration4, revealed the full crew for the upcoming expedition.The glass dome-shaped window replaces Crew Dragon’s docking adapter at its nose since the spacecraft won’t be docking to the International Space Station. It’s similar to the famed cupola aboard the International Space Station, but Crew Dragon’s appears to be an uninterrupted sheet of glass, with no support structures dividing the window’s view.

Hello Games is releasing a major update for No Man’s Sky today. Called “Expeditions,” it adds seasonal events to the game in which players begin from the same planet and set off on a plotted journey.The developer released a short trailer alongside the news today. Each expedition is themed and is intended to bring the game’s community together in a shared adventure. As players progress, they’ll earn exclusive rewards for their troubles, including parts and ship designs. The update will also include quality-of-life fixes to UI, combat, and more.Hello Games has continued to update the game extensively since its release in 2016. This year marks No Man’s Sky’s fifth anniversary; the developer has said previously it has more content in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is highly effective in 12- to 15-year-olds, the companies announced today in a press release. None of the children who received the vaccine in a clinical trial developed COVID-19, and they all developed strong antibody responses. There were no serious side effects.The study included 2,260 participants. Around half received the two-dose vaccine, and the other half received placebo injections. There were 18 cases of COVID-19 found in the placebo group and none in the vaccine group.Based on the study, the vaccine was 100 percent effective in this age group. The study was small, though, so it’s difficult to say if that number will hold up in a larger group. “But obviously, it looks good for the... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The legislation disappeared before a scheduled vote last week, and now it’s likely done for the year Continue reading…

A selection of the new mixes Spotify will generate for you. | Image: Spotify Spotify Mixes are a new family of personalized playlists populated with songs you already like and then supplemented with additional songs Spotify thinks you’ll like, based upon your favorite artists, genres, or music decades. The new Mixes are rolling out globally starting today for both free and premium Spotify subscribers.The music streaming service already offers a similar feature in the form of Daily Mixes, which appear in the same “Made for You” section. However, the problem with Daily Mixes is that it can be a little hard to work out the unifying theme of each playlist based on their vague names like “Daily Mix 1” and “Daily Mix 2.” Sometimes you can work it out from the included songs, but other times it can be more mysterious.... Continue reading…

The ‘Hey, Google’ logo appears above the front wheel arches of the new Fiat 500 vehicles | Image: Google / Fiat As vehicles are increasingly defined by their digital features, tech companies are seeking out ever-closer partnerships with carmakers. A new collaboration between Google and Fiat, though, is the most extreme we’ve seen yet.Three new special edition Fiat 500s — the Fiat 500, 500X crossover, and 500L MPV — have been branded with Google livery that extends from using the tech giant’s corporate colors in the cars’ seat upholstery to placing “Hey Google” badges above their front wheel arches. Having this sort of branding inside a car is not unusual, but this is the first time we’ve seen a tech company’s logo appear on a vehicle’s exterior.A press release from the Italian automaker (translated by Google, of course) boasts that the vehicles... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has started testing a new version of its Edge browser on Xbox consoles. The software giant provided access to the Chromium version of Edge to Xbox Insiders earlier this month, offering an early look at the improved browsing capabilities coming to the Xbox One and Xbox Series X / S. I’ve had a chance to try out this early version over the past few days, and I’ve been able to test Discord, Stadia, and other web services running inside Edge on the Xbox. It’s like having the full version of Edge from PC running on your TV.The Xbox version of Edge looks almost identical to the one you can find on PC or Mac right now. It even includes features like vertical tabs and Collections. Like Edge on PC and mobile, the Xbox version also... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Huawei has released its annual report and financial information for 2020, demonstrating the effect that US sanctions had on its business last year. The report shows that while revenue from North America and Europe has fallen significantly, stronger performance in China has allowed the company to record higher sales and net profit than a year ago.Huawei doesn’t report traditional quarterly earnings, since it’s a private company with an unusual employee ownership structure. Its annual reports tend to be the best look at how it’s actually performing.The company’s revenue for 2020 was 891.4 billion yuan (~$136 billion), a 3.8-percent increase on 2019. Net profit was up 3.2 percent to 64.6 billion yuan (~$9.86 billion). 66 percent of... Continue reading…

Image: Facebook Facebook is introducing a handful of new features that will give users greater control over their News Feed, including an easier way to turn off the feed’s algorithmic ranking and display content in the order it was posted instead.The changes build on previous tweaks to News Feed functionality. Last October, Facebook introduced a “Favorites” tool that allows users to select up to thirty friends and pages, prioritizing their content or displaying it in a separate feed. The company also offers users the option to sort their feeds by “most recent,” but buries these options in obscure menus.Facebook is now making these “Favorites” and “Recent” filters much more prominent, putting them right at the top of the News Feed as separate tabs... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Facebook’s VP of global affairs on the platform’s new changes, with Casey Newton Continue reading…

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images President Biden plans to announce a sweeping infrastructure plan Wednesday that includes $100 billion to connect every American to high-speed broadband internet over the next eight years.Biden is scheduled to unveil his $2 trillion “American Jobs Plan” in Pittsburgh later on Wednesday. The long-awaited infrastructure and jobs package contains funding for broadband expansion, semiconductor manufacturing, and slew of other interests like public transportation and helping consumers purchase electric vehicles. On a call with reporters Tuesday, an administration official said that the package would be paid for by changes to the corporate tax rate.Biden’s $100 billion figure for broadband expansion trumps most other effortsBiden’s $100... Continue reading…

Google Meet. | Image: Google Google will not introduce a 60 minute call limit on free Google Meet users at the end of March, the company announced in a tweet. Instead, it will now be begin on June 30th. Until then, anyone using the service’s free version will be able to host calls up to 24 hours in length, which Google refers to as “unlimited.”This is the second time Google has pushed back the introduction of call limits since opening up the service to free users last April. A 60 minute limit had originally been due to come into effect at the end of September, but that deadline was later pushed back to March when it became clear that many of us wouldn’t be able to celebrate the holidays in person with our loved ones.

Photo by Lorenzo Di Cola/NurPhoto via Getty Images It feels like just about every big tech company is working on a Clubhouse-like social audio feature — Twitter’s Spaces feature is rolling out now, Facebook is reportedly building one, Spotify is making one, Mark Cuban has one, even Slack is getting in the game. But now, the idea of the shared audio space, which started on Clubhouse largely as an exclusive club for tech venture capitalists and elites, has come full circle. Professional social network LinkedIn is working on an audio networking feature of its own, the company confirmed to TechCrunch.“We’re doing some early tests to create a unique audio experience connected to your professional identity,” LinkedIn said in a statement to TechCrunch. “And, we’re looking at how we can bring... Continue reading…

Photo by Walid Berrazeg/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The ongoing global shortage for electronic components continues, and Foxconn — which handles manufacturing for Apple, among other major tech heavyweights — has announced that it’s starting to see the impact of shortages. According to Young Liu, Foxconn’s CEO, the company won’t be able to fulfill some of its orders due to those shortages, which he expects will last until at least the second quarter of next year, Nikkei reports.“The [supply in the] first two months of this quarter was still ok, as our clients are all very big, but we started to see changes happening this month,” Liu reportedly told investors during the company’s latest earnings call.The impact of the shortages isn’t expected to be large, at least for now: Liu expects... Continue reading…

The first generation Snap Spectacles. Snap, the company behind Snapchat, is planning to continue its push into hardware devices with a new pair of augmented-reality glasses and a drone, according to a report by The Information. The Spectacles will reportedly include displays so the wearer can see the AR effects without having to use their phone — a feature that was notably missing from the all the Spectacles that came before.One of The Information’s sources says that the new Spectacles will be meant for developers and creators, rather than consumers — though you could probably argue that, at $380, the Spectacles 3 are already mostly limited to that market as well. As the article points out, though, the intention is likely to have the developers make lenses and experiences... Continue reading…

Gocycle e-bikes are small but still great for long commutes. | Image: Gocycle Gocycle, the maker of some of the most eye-catching and adaptable electric bikes on the planet, is back with its fourth-generation e-bike. The G4 series brings a new motor, better tires, lighter carbon-fiber components, and more to improve upon what’s already one of our favorite e-bikes. But before you get too excited, know that the G4 range starts at a suggested retail price of $3,999. The G4, G4i, and G4i Plus models are all available for preorder now.For the money, Gocycle makes a very premium e-bike that we’ve found to be equally suited to long commutes and multimodal travel due to its compact quick-fold design with wide high-volume tires. That tradition continues with the G4 models.The new motor is probably my favorite change and... Continue reading…

Image: Steven Crowder’s YouTube channel Two weeks ago, after YouTube revealed its definition of hate speech was so narrow that it couldn’t remove a wildly racist tirade for being wildly racist, we wondered out loud what it would take for YouTube to stop promoting conservative commentator Steven Crowder as an official YouTube Partner and allowing him to profit from those tirades.Today, we have a partial answer: YouTube has officially suspended Steven Crowder’s main channel from the YouTube Partner Program indefinitely, which includes removing his ability to run ads.It’s also banning him from uploading videos for a full week after his latest infraction: a now-removed video that reportedly challenged the legitimacy of the vote in Nevada. YouTube has a policy against false... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube has announced it’s experimenting with hiding dislikes to discourage “dislike mobs” from deliberately downvoting videos from creators and channels. The experiment is a different implementation than the solutions the company had previously discussed, but it is similar to other attempts platforms like Instagram have taken to nip targeted attacks in the bud.In the current setup, stats for both likes and dislikes are viewable in a creator’s individual YouTube Studio page, but only likes will be displayed publicly on a video. In a support article explaining the test, YouTube says that dislikes can negatively impact a creator’s well-being and “may motivate a targeted campaign of dislikes on a creator’s video.” Basically, the idea is... Continue reading…

Four years after accusing Qualcomm of abusing monopoly power to charge phone makers additional licensing fees for its modems — and seven months after seemingly losing that battle in a federal circuit court — the Federal Trade Commission has decided to throw in the towel. It’s no longer planning to appeal to the Supreme Court, which means the case is done.If that were all, I probably wouldn’t be writing it up for The Verge since things are exactly where we left off in August. But then I saw the FTC’s explanation for why it’s dropping the case, and... well, just read it:

Image: Volkswagen of America Volkswagen of America lied about rebranding to “Voltswagen” in an effort to draw attention to the lone electric vehicle it’s currently selling in the United States, Reuters and The Wall Street Journal have reported. It was a marketing stunt done ahead of April Fools’ Day.This all started when Volkswagen of America “accidentally” published a draft version of a press release announcing the change on Monday, which was first reported by CNBC. The company had declined to comment on the report, and spokesperson Mark Gillies repeatedly declined to say whether the name change was a marketing stunt.The automaker, which pleaded guilty to deceiving regulators about the true pollution levels of hundreds of thousands of diesel vehicles, then... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube is facing employee calls to remove a rap song that allegedly encourages violence against Asians, according to a report from Bloomberg.Rapper YG’s “Meet the Flockers” is a detailed description of a burglary — a relatively common trope in rap music — but it opens with a specific reference to Chinese communities: “find a Chinese neighborhood, cause they don’t believe in bank accounts.” In light of the recent rise in street violence against Asians, a group of YouTube employees argued that message was straightforwardly dangerous, ultimately asking the Trust & Safety team to remove the video.But YouTube ultimately declined to remove the song, citing the platform’s exception for “educational, documentary, scientific, and artistic” (or... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s built-in web content filter for iOS and macOS has apparently been blocking any searches containing the word “Asian” for almost a year, and the error is finally getting fixed, according to a new report from Mashable. The issue shows up when you’re using a device that has the “Limit Adult Websites” content restriction turned on. But it’s not just blocking adult websites; it’s blocking almost any searches relating to Asian culture, including “Asian market,” “Asian culture,” and even “stop Asian hate.”The Verge was able to confirm that the above searches were blocked on devices running current versions of Apple’s software (iPadOS 14.4.1 and macOS 11.2.3) with the content restrictions turned on. The searches are blocked on both... Continue reading…

To help make travel during the pandemic a little less stressful, Apple Maps will now display travel guidance information provided by the Airports Council International (ACI) so you know what to expect before you take off or land at your destination.The travel guidances — like mask requirements, health screenings, and quarantine guidelines — will be displayed on an individual airport’s place card in Apple Maps, with links to official airport guidance websites as well. The information should be viewable on iPhones, iPads, and Macs — though, currently, only airports that are participating in the ACI’s Health Measures Portal will feature the new information. Image: MacStories Travel guidances in Apple Maps on iPhone.... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge A little-known behavior in Chrome OS could reveal a user’s movements through Wi-Fi logs. Leveraging Chrome OS’s Guest mode feature, the attack would require physical access to the device, but it can be executed without knowing the user’s password or having login access.The bug was flagged to The Verge by the Committee on Liberatory Information Technology, a tech collective that includes several former Googlers.“We are looking into this issue,” said a Google spokesperson. “In the meantime, device owners can turn off guest mode and disable the creation of new users.” Instructions for turning off Guest browsing are available here.“anyone with quick physical access to the device could potentially get in as guest”The bug stems from the... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Ingrid Fung hadn’t anticipated that her post on LinkedIn would cause a stir. She’d written about escalating anti-Asian violence, reposting a graphic that said attacks on Asian Americans had risen dramatically in the past year. The message might have drawn racist comments on Twitter or Facebook, but this was the world’s biggest professional social network — one where people had to use their real names and list their employer. What was the worst they would say?“This statistic is crap and from a questionable source,” wrote one user who took issue with the data collected by the nonprofit Stop AAPI Hate. “...I would not be surprised if AAPI isn’t [Chinese Communist Party] backed.” Another user said she was propagating “CCP narratives.”Fung,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is reportedly working on custom silicon chips for its hardware network switches, according to The Information. The chips, which could help Amazon improve its internal infrastructure as well as AWS, are said to be the result of Amazon’s $350 million acquisition of Israeli chipmaking firm Annapurna Labs back in 2015.Amazon building the silicon for its switches could help it solve bottlenecks and issues in its own infrastructure, especially if it’s also custom-building the software that runs on them. Amazon already builds its own switches, but it’s reliant on Broadcom for the silicon that powers them. It makes sense for the company to want to completely control those machines, especially given how important its web services... Continue reading…

Verizon stopped activating phones on its 3G network several years ago. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After years of delays, Verizon says it will finally shut down its 3G CDMA network at the end of 2022 — and the company means it this time.Verizon initially targeted 2021 for the shutdown and later revised with a more ambitious goal of 2019. That didn’t happen, and as recently as January 2021, the company said the plan was on hold indefinitely. Now, Verizon has confirmed an official shutdown date of December 31st, 2022, and a statement that “the date will not be extended again” on the company’s news site leaves no room for ambiguity.This move won’t affect anyone who has activated a phone with Verizon in the past few years; the company stopped activating 3G-only phones in 2018. Verizon is also keen to point out that it will be the last... Continue reading…

SAM YEH/AFP via Getty Images Chip designer Arm has announced Armv9, its first new chip architecture in a decade following Armv8 way back in 2011. According to Arm, Armv9 offers three major improvements over the previous architecture: security, better AI performance, and faster performance in general. These benefits should eventually trickle down to devices with processors based on Arm’s designs.It’s an important milestone for the company, whose designs power almost every smartphone sold today, as well as increasing numbers of laptops and even servers. Apple announced its Mac computers’ transition to its own Arm-based processors last year, and its first Apple Silicon Macs released later in the year. Other manufacturers like Microsoft have also released Arm-based... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is forging ahead with its third-party cookie replacement technology Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red Polish game studio CD Projekt Red announced a sweeping restructuring plan on Tuesday, just months after the disastrous launch of its much-hyped title Cyberpunk 2077. One of the key goals of the new plan brings “a change in the way [the studio] develops video games,” according to a press release. The changes will allow CD Projekt Red to work on “multiple AAA games and expansions in parallel” starting in 2022.Cyberpunk 2077 launched in December after years of hype; the first teaser trailer for the game was released in January 2013. And following the huge success of CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3, expectations were sky-high for the studio’s cyberpunk RPG, especially following the glitzy and action-packed trailers shown in the months... Continue reading…

Frictional Games If you like puzzles and eerie deserts, but not darkness and horrifying ghouls, Swedish studio Frictional has a new version of its game Amnesia: Rebirth for you. A less stressful “Adventure Mode” is being added to Rebirth today via GOG, Steam, and the Epic Store. The game’s PlayStation version will get Adventure Mode in the coming weeks.Amnesia: Rebirth, released last year, is a strong sequel to the notoriously scary Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Adventure Mode removes encounters with Rebirth’s numerous monsters, as well as special effects that damaged its protagonist Tasi’s mental state. It also adds light to the game’s spookier levels, so players won’t have to ration matches or face the darkness. And Frictional says it’s adding bonus... Continue reading…

Fortnite for the Nintendo Switch is getting a patch that will boost performance in portable and docked modes. Epic Games says the game will run with a more consistent frame rate across the board “with fewer hitches,” though it’s still not 60 frames per second. And while the game will still use dynamic resolution to make visual adjustments on the fly to keep things running as smoothly as possible, the target resolutions in handheld and docked modes have gotten upgrades, too, seeing a 38 percent boost.In handheld mode, the game has gone from 1000 x 560 up to 1170 x 660, which is closer to the Switch display’s 720p resolution. In docked mode, it’ll go up to 1560 x 880 instead of topping out at 1390 x 780. That’s a little closer to native... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge One of the most frustrating tasks for many of us these days is finding how and where to get an appointment for a COVID-19 vaccination. It can be a real exercise in exasperation: the websites are often difficult to navigate and prone to frequent crashes; in addition, after finding an open appointment slot and filling out multiple pages of questions, you are often told that the opening has disappeared.In view of all this, we’ve tried to gather as much helpful information as we can about ways to research and snag vaccination appointments for yourself and others. We’ll update this as more information presents itself.Research the vaccination qualifications in your stateTo begin with, it’s a good idea to try to pin down if you or the person... Continue reading…

Photo by Spencer Platt / Getty Images Three months after the United States’ COVID-19 vaccination campaign began, researchers are starting to collect data showing that the vaccines are just as good in the real world as they were in the clinical trials testing them. Recent studies have consistently shown that the vaccines don’t just protect against symptoms — they reduce the risk that someone will get infected with the coronavirus, a signal that they’ll reduce the spread of the virus, not just prevent sickness.The Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech vaccines were both around 95 percent effective at protecting people against symptomatic COVID-19 in large trials. It was never guaranteed that they’d perform just as well when they were distributed to the general public. Despite the... Continue reading…

Game of Thrones has often been called out for its near-Shakespearean levels of intrigue and theatrical drama. So it’s not exactly a surprise that the next move for the franchise is to the stage: a new Broadway show based on George R.R. Martin’s popular fantasy series is now in the works, according to a new report from The Hollywood Reporter.The goal is to stage the Game of Thrones play starting in 2023, with plans for productions in New York City, London’s West End, and Australia. Dominic Cooke is set to direct, with Simon Painter and Tim Lawson on board as producers.Coming in 2023The play is said to be a prequel set during The Great Tourney at Harrenhal, 16 years before the events of Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire book series (and G... Continue reading…

Nora the polar bear. | Image: Beth Nakamura /The Oregonian In early November 2015, a polar bear cub named Nora was abandoned by her mother at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, leaving her fate in the hands of a team of veterinarians and zookeepers. The Loneliest Polar Bear: A True Story of Survival and Peril on the Edge of a Warming World tells the story of the frantic effort to keep Nora alive and well, from the struggles of replicating polar bear milk to an hours-long surgery to fix a broken bone in her leg.But the book, an expansion of author Kale Williams’ 2017 series about Nora for The Oregonian / OregonLive, goes beyond the life of a single bear. It details the political battles over the existence of climate change, debates about the ethics of zoos, and the already disastrous effects of... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google’s Area 120, an internal incubator program for experimental projects, is releasing a new app today called Stack that borrows the technology underlying the search giant’s powerful DocAI enterprise tool for document analysis. The end result is a consumer document scanner app for Android that Google says vastly improves over your average mobile scanner by auto-categorizing documents into the titular stacks and enabling full text search through the contents of the documents and not just the title.“I joined Google a couple of years ago when my education startup, Socratic, was acquired. At Socratic, we used Google’s computer vision and language understanding to make learning easier for high school students. I wondered if we could apply... Continue reading…

League of Legends is one of the most popular games in the world, and it has been for the better part of a decade. But it’s also incredibly intimidating: a 5 vs. 5 competitive experience with all kinds of complex rules and quirks. It’s not a game you pick up and understand right away. That’s part of what makes Wild Rift, a new spinoff for mobile, so surprising. It takes the core of League and packages it in a way that makes it much more approachable for newcomers. This is by far the best way to start playing.First, it’s important to note that Wild Rift isn’t a direct port of League. Instead, it’s a new version designed specifically for mobile (and, at some point in the future, consoles). It still feels like League in a lot of ways, but... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The refurbished Kindle Oasis has sold out at Woot after about an hour of this post being live. Unfortunately, refurbished versions of the current model are a little over twice the cost of the $100 version this post originally highlighted, but it’s an option if you need to buy today. One big perk is that the newer version has a display with an adjustable color temperature that might make reading a little easier on the eyes wherever you are.Another solid deal happening at Woot is on the Beats Solo Pro wireless headphones that have active noise cancellation. We’re including them here today because they’ve dropped another $5 below the best price yet. You can get the light blue color for $145, while the others available are $150. These are... Continue reading…

Image: Adobe Adobe has launched a new bundle for iPad creators. The Design Mobile Bundle is available for $14.99 a month or $149.99 a year, and it includes access to iOS Creative Cloud apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, Fresco, and Spark, as well as services like Adobe Fonts and 100GB of cloud storage. Unlike Adobe’s other bundles, this won’t get you access to its desktop apps. Adobe says the bundle saves you 50 percent compared to paying for each app separately and that “they all work with touch and Apple Pencil.”Adobe’s mobile apps have come on a lot in the last couple of years. Photoshop only arrived on the iPad back in 2019, lacking many of the features of its desktop counterpart. But over time, Adobe has continued to add features, including a... Continue reading…