The Verge

Raymond Hall/GC Images Marvel Studios’ Hawkeye TV series, which features Jeremy Renner reprising his role as Clint Barton and Hailee Steinfeld as Kate Bishop, will premiere on Disney Plus next fall.Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige confirmed the news during Disney’s big investor day event to help announce the date for their show. The show takes its inspiration from Matt Fraction’s acclaimed Hawkeye comics run that was published between 2012 and 2015.Hawkeye was one of the many shows Disney Studios announced as part of the initial Disney Plus lineup, alongside The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, and Loki. Both The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and WandaVision were supposed to debut this year, but due to ongoing delays and production issues... Continue reading…

Disney is moving several titles to Disney Plus, either for free or as part of its Premier Access window — but Black Widow isn’t one of them.The film was rumored to have a simultaneous release, like Warner Bros. is doing with its 2021 movies on HBO Max, but Disney executives shut down those rumors today during a streaming event. Black Widow is still slated for May 7th, 2021 (a release date that came after multiple delays this year). The May 7th date pushed Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to July 9th, 2021. Meanwhile, The Eternals moved to November 5th, 2021.It’s important to note that Disney is making crucial decisions on which films the company’s executives think can pull off box office wins and what games can be moved. B... Continue reading…

BioWare has released a new trailer for Dragon Age 4. After virtually no news since the game was first announced at The Game Awards back in 2018 (short of a reassurance that the game was still “in early production” earlier this year,) the studio released a teaser of what it will be like for players to return to Thedas.The new game will pick up where 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition left off: with the reveal that the player companion (and generally rude person) Solas was in fact the Elven god of betrayal Fen’Harel — also known as the Dread Wolf — in disguise, and that he’s actively working to destroy the world. The new title will presumably see players face off against the Dread Wolf as they work to preserve Thedas.Dragon Age 4 will be... Continue reading…

Marvel has debuted a new trailer for Loki, it’s upcoming Disney Plus spinoff series that will give Tom Hiddleston’s fan-favorite Avengers villain his own TV show. The company also announced a release date: Loki will debut on Disney Plus in May.The show is described as a “crime thriller,” and will see Loki facing off against the TVA, or Time Variance Authority. Owen Wilson’s unnamed character also appears in the trailer, sparring wits with Hiddleston in an elevator, before the trailer cuts over to plenty of action shots (that are harder to parse.) Hiddleston’s Loki has been one of the longest-running recurring characters in Marvel’s connected film universe, starting off in 2011’s Thor. Loki has since appeared as the main... Continue reading…

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was supposed to be Marvel Studios’ first big Disney Plus original series, but after ongoing delays and reshoots, the show will now premiere in March. Here’s a first look at what to expect.The show, which has six episodes, had yet to receive a proper teaser trailer until now — all that fans have seen is a brief 30-second montage of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, and Loki that aired during the 2020 Super Bowl. Filming shut down in March because of the pandemic, Disney confirmed at the time, and was forced to remain closed until a couple of months ago.The show takes place after the events of Avengers: Endgame. Steve Rogers has retired from his role as Captain America, choosing to live... Continue reading…

Disney has debuted a new trailer for its upcoming Disney Plus series WandaVision at its Investor Day, giving another look at the Marvel TV series ahead of its January 15th debut.WandaVision will see the return of Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) — aka, Scarlet Witch — and Vision (Paul Bettany) from the Marvel Cinematic Universe films in a classic, sitcom-inspired series.The show is definitely embarking into some weird territory, especially compared to the relatively normal superhero films that comprise the rest of Marvel’s film offerings.The show doesn’t just mark the start of a new era of Marvel TV shows, though; WandaVision will also kick off Marvel Studios’ “Phase 4” arc, due to the delays of both Black Widow and The Falcon and... Continue reading…

Fullbright, the studio behind the defining narrative game Gone Home, has announced its next project: a road trip adventure called Open Roads. The new game stars Keri Russell and Kaitlyn Dever as a mother and daughter traversing a desolate landscape, and the studio says it features “a unique and engaging interactive dialogue system” between the characters.Here’s the official description:

One of the most interesting musical performances at this year’s Game Awards was from an unknown pop group called OFK. The twist? Not only is it a virtual group, but next year they’ll star in a new game.The performance was the first reveal of We Are OFK, an interactive series that’s slated to debut next year. It sounds sort of like a documentary series, except for a fictional band, with a premise that’s a mix between the Gorillaz, K/DA from League of Legends, and Sayonara Wild Hearts.Here’s the description:

Wonder Woman 1984 director Patty Jenkins will take on the next main Star Wars movie, Rogue Squadron. The film is slated to be released in December 2023.This marks the first time a woman has directed a Star Wars movie, and the announcement comes just days before Wonder Woman 1984 is released on HBO Max. Rogue Squadrons will follow a group of fighter pilots as they band together through thick and thin to defend good against evil. It’s a fan adored part of the Star Wars universe — one that prominently featured in a popular Nintendo 64 game — and will help Lucasfilm leave the Skywalker Trilogy behind on the big screen.

Justin Simien — the writer, producer, and director of Dear White People — is creating a Lando Calrissian ‘event series’ for Disney Plus, fittingly titled Star Wars: Lando.The project is still in early stages of development, and Lucasfilm has yet to provide nearly any details on the project — including whether or not either Billy Dee Williams or Donald Glover, who have played the character in other live-action Star Wars installments, are attached to the project.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The best-selling video game console in the US last month was not any of the new hardware from Microsoft or Sony, but a three-year-old device from Nintendo. The Nintendo Switch and its Lite variant sold 1.35 million units last month, according to data from retail analytics firm The NPD Group.That marks the 24th straight month that Nintendo’s handheld topped the console hardware chart in the US market. Those figures only add to the good holiday news for Nintendo, which last month reported a 40 percent year-over-year increase in Switch sales to 6.86 million units in the quarter that ended September 30th.Nintendo Switch has been the best-selling console in the US for two years nowNow, there are a lot of caveats here. This is the US... Continue reading…

Hayden Christensen will reprise his role as Darth Vader in the Disney Plus series Obi-Wan Kenobi, Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy announced today.Christensen will star opposite his former Star Wars prequel colleague Ewan McGregor, whose reprising his role as the titular character. Obi-Wan Kenobi is set 10 years after the events of Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith. Anakin Skywalker has become Darth Vader and Obi-Wan is still trying to recover from his greatest defeat.

Image: Disney Star Wars: Andor, Disney’s new Disney Plus show starring Diego Luna as Cassian Andor from Rogue One, is launching in 2022, Disney announced at its investor day today. Production began two weeks ago in London, Lucasfilm’s Kathleen Kennedy said during the presentation.A brief trailer was shown of early production, which you can watch below. Given that the show is still a ways away, the trailer doesn’t reveal anything about the plot. It does reveal that there will be 12 episodes in the season, though, so that’s good to look forward to.

Fargo and Legion showrunner Noah Hawley is stepping into the world of Alien with a new show at FX.This marks the first TV series based on the popular movie franchise, according to FX chairman Jon Landgraf, who announced the show at Disney’s investor event today. Disney acquired the rights to the franchise when it acquired 21st Century Fox in 2019. Not much is known about the show, except for a brief description that referred to it as a “scary thrill ride set not too far in the future here on Earth. Hawley spoke briefly about it in an interview with Deadline at the end of Fargo’s fourth season this year.“I know that there’s an effort to reshuffle a lot of things post-Disney takeover and it was a conversation that I had a couple years... Continue reading…

Lucasfilm has announced two new Star Wars TV shows: Star Wars: Rangers of the New Republic, and Star Wars: Ahsoka, both of which will be spinoffs from The Mandalorian.

Photo by Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images An independent committee of experts recommended Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration authorize the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for people over the age of 16. Now, the FDA will decide whether to follow that recommendation. The agency could announce a decision within days. If they do authorize the vaccine, health care workers could begin receiving the shots almost immediately.The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) met all day to review data on the vaccine, discuss plans for distribution, and outline plans for continued research.FDA scientists published a report about the vaccine on Tuesday, which analyzed data from the pharmaceutical companies and found that the vaccine was safe and... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees on Thursday during an all-hands meeting that they will not be required to get vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccine to return to the office once the social media giant begins reopening its facilities, according to a report from The Daily Beast. Facebook employs more than 50,000 corporate employees, a vast majority of which have been working from home since the beginning of the year. BuzzFeed News also independently verified the news as well.The company’s offices have been closed since March, and in May, Facebook announced a permanent work-from-home policy that gave employees the freedom to choose where they work going forward. But the plan since at least August of this year has been to reopen... Continue reading…

Headspace and Netflix are teaming up for a new show on meditation | Netflix Meditation apps and streaming services have been booming of late, with people locked down and stressed out during the coronavirus pandemic, so the next logical step was for meditation apps to launch streaming shows. Calm launched A World of Calm on HBO Max in October, and Headspace has just announced a three-series deal with Netflix that kicks off next month with the Headspace Guide to Meditation.Anyone who’s used Headspace will recognize the voice of co-founder Andy Puddicombe, a former Buddhist monk who advises you to “be kind to your mind.” The first series of eight episodes launches January 1st and will teach the benefits of the practice and provide guided meditations. The Headspace Guide to Sleep and an interactive experience... Continue reading…

Disney has announced a new combined bundle for its streaming services, which will offer Disney Plus, ad-free Hulu, and ESPN Plus for $18.99, a six-dollar increase over the company’s existing $12.99 streaming bundle (which only offers a version of Hulu with ads).That $6 price increase is the same as the difference between the standalone version of Hulu’s service with ads ($5.99 per month) and the ad-free version ($11.99 per month), so customers aren’t necessarily getting a deeper discount, but the pricing does mean that customers who prefer the ad-free version of Hulu will be able to take advantage of the bundle.Purchased separately, Disney Plus ($6.99 per month), ESPN Plus ($5.99 per month), and Hulu without ads ($11.99 per month)... Continue reading…

Star, Disney’s international answer to Hulu, will roll out in certain European countries, Canada, and New Zealand beginning on February 23rd, the company announced today.Star is a free tier within Disney Plus for subscribers in Europe, Canada, and New Zealand that will be fully integrated into Disney Plus. It will be accessible as the sixth brand tile in the app. Essentially, this will carry a number of shows from Disney’s other non-main franchise brands. That means shows from FX and movies from 20th Century will be available to stream. People will be able to opt in to choose if they want to watch shows with higher age ratings.The company is also introducing Star Plus to Latin American subscribers. The new streaming service will... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Disney has announced that it will bring a lot of original content directly to its Disney Plus streaming service over the next few years. The company is bringing “roughly” 10 Marvel series; 10 Star Wars series; 15 Disney live-action, Disney Animation, and Pixar series; and 15 all-new Disney live-action, Disney Animation, and Pixar features to Disney Plus.The commitment to launch so many shows directly on Disney Plus speaks to Disney’s confidence in the service in the long term. Disney announced that Raya and the Last Dragon will debut on Disney Plus as a Premier Access title the same day it hits theaters on March 5th, 2021. The company dipped its toes in launching directly on Disney Plus with the premiere of the live-action remake of M... Continue reading…

Disney will release Raya and the Last Dragon as a Premier Access title the same day it hits theaters on March 5th, 2021, the company announced today. Disney did not provide a price for the movie, but when Mulan shifted to Premier Access, it charged $30 for the title.Similar to WarnerMedia, Disney needs to have a continuous stream of new releases to keep people subscribed for $7 a month and bring in new subscribers. Also like WarnerMedia, most of the movies that Disney is moving to Disney Plus, bypassing a theatrical release, were box office gambles to being with.

Disney Plus has amassed more than 86 million subscribers since launching in November 2019, CEO Bob Chapek announced. Disney also announced that Hulu has reached 38.8 million subscribers and ESPN Plus has amassed 11.5 million subscribers. Disney’s streaming services now have a combined total of 137 million subscribers.“Disney Plus has exceeded our expectations,” Chapek said.Disney Plus’ latest batch of subscribers came amid its expansion into parts of Latin America in late November. Just before the rollout, Chapek announced that Disney Plus had amassed just under 75 million subscribers globally. With its new milestone, Disney has accomplished in one year more than executives originally hoped to accomplish by 2024. To put it another... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is adding new screen time and game purchasing controls to its Xbox Family Settings app in anticipation of a gaming-filled holiday at home. Microsoft originally launched the app in preview during the summer, and it released the final version in September. But the company is now adding in more features so parents can better manage their children's playtime on the go.Alongside the current ability to set and manage the amount of time kids are able to play on their Xbox, parents can now also use Pause Screen Time to temporarily block an account as motivation to finish homework or hang out with family members. The block can be removed any time via the app or automatically turned off at the end of the day. If the blocked account... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google has announced today that it’s rolling out the ability for users to limit how many alcohol and gambling ads they’re shown (via Search Engine Land). This should be a welcome feature for users who may be sensitive to seeing alcohol use or gambling, or are looking to avoid those topics.While Google has previously allowed users to hide specific ads, this change affects ads category-wide. It’s also already had restrictions on the categories based on age and national laws — the change just lets users apply those limits to themselves.The settings for the two categories are separate, so if you’re fine with gambling ads but not alcohol ads, or vice versa, you can allow one but not the other. It’s worth noting that the feature only... Continue reading…

Image: CD Projekt Red CD Projekt Red’s (CDPR) highly anticipated new roleplaying game Cyberpunk 2077 is having a bit of a rough release, and now you can add potential copyright issues while streaming to its list of launch-day hiccups. The developer says until it has a fix ready, any potential Twitch streamers should turn off all in-game music to avoid any strikes on their channel.The developer first warned potential streamers on Wednesday, before Cyberpunk 2077 officially launched in all regions, that a certain song (CDPR didn’t say which one) during the game’s “Braindance” sequences might trigger a Digital Millennium Copyright Act strike. That’s even if you’re using the specific in-game setting designed to toggle off copyrighted music for this exact... Continue reading…

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Visa and Mastercard will stop processing payments on Pornhub following a report that found unlawful content on the site. Reuters reported that Mastercard will end support for Pornhub after confirming the presence of “unlawful content.” Visa said its own investigation is ongoing, but that it will suspend payment processing for the time being. The decisions come as Pornhub is making substantial changes to how it moderates content.“Today, the use of our cards at Pornhub is being terminated. Our investigation over the past several days has confirmed violations of our standards prohibiting unlawful content on their site,” Mastercard spokesperson Seth Eisen tells The Verge. “As a result, and in accordance with our policies, we instructed the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A new lawsuit from the creator of jailbroken iOS app store Cydia claims Apple used anti-competitive tactics that froze out Cydia and other would-be rivals when it created its App Store.Apple, the lawsuit states, “began coercing users to utilize no other iOS app distribution service but the App Store, coupling it closer and closer to the iPhone itself in order to crowd out all competition.” The company is seeking a jury trial and unspecified monetary damages: “This lawsuit seeks to open the markets for iOS app distribution and iOS app payment processing to those who wish to compete fairly with Apple, and to recover the enormous damages Apple caused.”Software developer Jay Freeman launched Cydia in 2007, before Apple had established... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge SMS messages have stopped working for some Android users, and it appears Google is rolling back some changes to help fix the issue.The issue seems to be due to a recent update to the Carrier Services app, which “enables the latest communication services from mobile carriers, including battery-optimizations and support for enhanced features in the Android Messages app,” according to the app’s description on the Play Store. The app has more than a billion installs.Version 50 of the app started rolling out on December 2nd, and reports of issues with SMS started hitting around then, according to 9to5Google. OnePlus, LG, Motorola, Samsung, and TCL phones have reportedly been affected. If you’re seeing issues, uninstalling the app fixes the... Continue reading…

Image: NX on Netflix (Twitter) Netflix is making a 3D animated Sonic the Hedgehog TV show, the company announced in a (since-deleted) tweet from its NX Twitter account. The series, set to debut in 2022, will be based on the character from the long-running Sega games, although there are no specific details yet as to what the show will entail.The series is being produced in partnership with Sega, along with WildBrain (a production company behind numerous popular children’s TV shows) and Man of Action Entertainment (best known for Ben 10 and Disney’s Big Hero 6 TV series.)Gotta go fastWhile there’s not much information about the series itself, Netflix’s teaser image shows a silhouette of the modern 3D Sonic design (as opposed to the chubbier and stubbier “classic... Continue reading…

T-Mobile will start selling the Inseego 5G MiFi M2000 today. | Image: Inseego T-Mobile might look as thought it’s late to the game by unveiling its first 5G hotspot today, along with a variety of 5G standalone hotspot plans. After all, Verizon and AT&T have offered 5G hotspots for a while now (although they began with significantly limited coverage). But T-Mobile’s particular blend of wide 5G coverage and better-than-LTE speeds means the device should be more accessible to more people.Plus, the carrier’s standalone 5G hotspot plan is priced to compete, starting at $30 for 10GB and $40 for 30GB, and topping out at 100GB for $50. In comparison, AT&T’s standalone hotspot plans start at $60 per month for 15GB; Verizon’s offerings start at $80 for 15GB of 5G.T-Mobile’s standalone 5G hotspot plan is priced to... Continue reading…

Image: Apple In 2016, Apple launched a new iPhone app called Music Memos. It was meant to expand on the built-in Voice Memos app’s ease of use while adding some features for musicians. You could record something with an acoustic guitar or piano in uncompressed audio, and Music Memos would detect the chords you played and could also add in drum and bass backing tracks that kept with your tempo. You could name those tracks and give them star ratings, or tag certain parts of a recording like the bridge or chorus.But considering how infrequently Apple updated Music Memos after its release, it’s fair to assume that the app never took off like the company might’ve hoped. It was an awkward middle child between the wonderfully simple Voice Memos and more... Continue reading…

Image: Ubisoft Ubisoft is willing to give you a $10 coupon if you play its battle royale game, Hyper Scape on PC anytime between now and December 17th at 11AM ET. It’s a great deal if you’ve been eyeing some of Ubisoft’s new games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla or Immortals Fenyx Rising.The real kicker is that because Hyper Scape is free to play, Ubisoft is basically giving players free money (albeit, money you can only spend on Ubisoft games). Image: Ubisoft Ubisoft’s Connect has more information in the store page. There are just a few catches: you have to use the coupon by January 31st 2021, the game you buy has to cost at least $14.99, and the code can’t be applied to future preorders. Apart from that, there’s not a whole... Continue reading…

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaking about his renewable energy roadmap at a community solar garden in Arvada, Colorado, in 2019. | Photo by Joe Amon / MediaNews Group / The Denver Post / Getty Images A coalition of 25 governors today renewed calls for a green recovery to the economic downturn caused by COVID-19. They also called on Congress to pass a stimulus package that bolsters clean energy job growth.“This is a crisis”It’s an investment that’s also needed to tackle the severe effects climate change is already having on states. “This is a crisis, and that’s why we really made it a goal from the very start to lead the way in renewable energy,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis tells The Verge.The governors, including Polis, are part of the US Climate Alliance, formed in 2017 as a response to President Donald Trump’s decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement. They pledged to keep states on track to meet the goals of the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter is making it even easier to spread your tweets far and wide to every social media platform imaginable. Starting today on iOS (support is coming “soon” for Android), you’ll be able to add tweets into a snap as a sticker. Before, if you wanted to share a tweet on Snapchat, you would have to take a screenshot of it and share that, without having access to any of Snapchat’s camera or editing features.If you want to share a tweet to Snapchat, press the share button on a public tweet (private tweets aren’t supported, for obvious reasons) and select the Snapchat icon from the share carousel. You can then create a snap as usual, except you’ll have your selected tweet as a sticker that you can manipulate. You can then share the snap as... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber sent letters today to every US governor asking that their drivers and delivery people be classified as essential workers and given prioritized access to COVID-19 vaccines. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended the first batch of vaccines go to health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities, with essential workers — including those in transportation — following in a second phase. But it’s up to each state to decide the specifics of their vaccine distribution plan.“After nine months on the frontlines keeping their communities running, we are asking governors in all 50 states to prioritize drivers and delivery people for early vaccine access,” said Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi in a... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google is making it even easier to work with Microsoft Office files, with the company now allowing users to directly edit attached Office files in Gmail, much like it already allows with Google Docs or Sheets files.Google Workspace (the recently rebranded G Suite, which encompasses Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and Calendar) has offered compatibility with Office files from Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for some time. But previously, documents had to be imported into Google Drive in order to edit or modify them — while emailed attachments were only able to be viewed.The new workflow, however, streamlines that process considerably. Now, you can directly open and edit an Office file using the Google Docs editor just by clicking on it... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google is making it even easier to work with Microsoft Office files, with the company now allowing users to directly edit attached Office files in Gmail, much like it already allows with Google Docs or Sheets files.Google Workplace (the recently rebranded G Suite, which encompasses Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and Calendar) has offered compatibility with Office files from Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for some time. But previously, documents had to be imported into Google Drive in order to edit or modify them — while emailed attachments were only able to be viewed.The new workflow, however, streamlines that process considerably. Now, you can directly open and edit an Office file using the Google Docs editor just by clicking on it... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google, Dell, Intel and a handful of other major tech companies in the IT and cloud computing industries have banded together to tackle joint problems around security, remote work, and other enterprise issues that have only become more important during the coronavirus pandemic. The consortium these companies have formed is called the Modern Computing Alliance, and its founding members also include Box, Cirtrix, Imprivata, Okta, RingCentral, Slack, VMWare, and Zoom.The Modern Computing Alliance will initially be focused on four areas: performance; security and identity; remote work, productivity, and collaboration; and health care. The goal is to pool knowledge and resources toward solving shared problems around how companies perform... Continue reading…

Geoff Keighley speaks at the 2019 Game Awards in Los Angeles. | Photo by JC Olivera/Getty Images Geoff Keighley doesn’t get enough sleep. It’s December, which means he’s averaging four or five hours on a good night. “One of the toughest things about [the Game Awards] is that I’m hosting it, and I’m also producing it,” he says. Sure, he’d probably be a better host with more rest, but there’s an added benefit to knowing the whole thing front to back. He could do this in his — ah, never mind.This year, the 20-hour days leading up to the annual Game Awards on December 10th look a little different. Seating charts for an event of hundreds used to keep him up late, but now, group gatherings are a quaint concept. COVID-19 safety precautions have made the whole process a little stranger. “It’s obviously an evolving situation so we’re kind... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Germany’s competition watchdog is investigating Facebook for tying its social app to its Oculus virtual reality headsets. Today, the Bundeskartellamt or Federal Cartel Office (FCO) announced a probe of the increasingly close link between Facebook and Oculus, arguing that it could hurt competition in both VR and social networking.The new Oculus Quest 2 headset requires signing in with a Facebook account rather than a separate Oculus ID, and that’s raised antitrust concerns. “Linking virtual reality products and the group’s social network in this way could constitute a prohibited abuse of dominance by Facebook,” said FCO president Andreas Mundt. Mundt noted that Facebook is a dominant social network in Germany and plays a large role in... Continue reading…

One of my favorite things to do whenever new consoles come out is see how sports games run on them. It’s not that I necessarily expect them to be all that different on more powerful hardware — quite the opposite, in fact. Since sports games tend to depict enclosed, fixed environments and need to have perfectly smooth performance every year, they’re normally stable and reliable whatever system you play them on.If you look at FIFA, NBA 2K, and Madden, for example, they already run at native 4K and 60 frames per second on the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X — a pretty rare achievement for most games on those machines. But that means when it comes to the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, 2K and EA have had to figure out new ways to make the next-gen... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge As the holidays get closer (and with some arriving now — Happy Hanukkah!), we’re searching for tech deals that make for easy, relatively affordable gifts. It’s always nice when the selection fits a particular theme, but sometimes you’ve got to take what you can get. Like today, wherein we have a great buy one, get one half off deal on some Nintendo Switch games at Target, a solid deal on lightly used Sony WH-1000XM4 wireless, noise-canceling headphones, and a few other odds and ends.Nintendo Switch game dealsSome of Nintendo’s own titles for the Switch are looped into a buy one, get one half off deal at Target, including must-have games like Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Party, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Mario Tennis Aces, Splatoon 2, and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge For years, critics have argued that Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram was a missed opportunity to rein in the company. But now, they’ll have the chance to actually undo it. On Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission joined with 48 state attorneys general to call for a court-ordered divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp — essentially, forcing Facebook to undo both acquisitions and spin them back into independent companies.Regulators are still a long way from making that happen, but for the first time, it’s a possibility that Facebook can’t ignore. And for Instagram users, it raises a question that’s both alarming and tantalizing: what would Instagram look like without Facebook?In the years since the 2012 acquisition,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro I.After writing about the potential breakup of Facebook for years, it’s somewhat surreal for me to see the prospect actually arrive. But it’s here: the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 to sue Facebook for illegally maintaining a monopoly in social networking, arguing it has used acquisitions and harsh restrictions on third-party developers to prevent competitors from ever gaining a foothold.If successful, the FTC’s case — which was joined by 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam — could force the company to divest itself of Instagram and WhatsApp, radically reshaping the digital economy. The move comes less than six weeks after the Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit accusing Google of also maintaining an illegal... Continue reading…

Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t just one of the biggest games of the year; it’s also one of the most technically demanding. CD Projekt Red’s ambitious roleplaying game takes place in a huge, dense open world, and — as anyone who has ever played a Bethesda game can attest to — technology is often a step behind the designers in these kinds of experiences. Glitches and bugs are not uncommon occurrences, and early demos are far cries from what the game may look like on the standard hardware most players have in their living room.Cyberpunk is also somewhat unique in that it’s releasing across a number of different platforms at launch — nine, to be exact. We initially reviewed Cyberpunk on PC, where we ran into a handful of glitches that were annoying... Continue reading…

In 1902, famed inventor and futurist Nikola Tesla set up shop on Long Island to begin work on his grandest experiment yet. He imagined the construction of a worldwide wireless power delivery system: a network of towers that could light up cities, send communications, and even power aircraft in the sky, all without wires. On the grounds of his lab, he built the first prototype transmission device, a massive structure that came to be known as the Wardenclyffe Tower.Today, of course, we live in a profoundly wired world. Over-the-air communication is ubiquitous. But with a handful of exceptions like cellphones and toothbrushes, we still send and receive electricity through wires.So what went happened to Tesla’s big ambition? We traveled to... Continue reading…

The Game Awards What better way to finish off 2020 than with a bunch of new game announcements? That’s what you can expect when you watch The Game Awards, hosted by Geoff Keighley. As the name implies, it’s also when individuals and companies receive accolades for their work in making the best games of the year. It’ll be hard to top last year’s unveiling of the Xbox Series X, but there should still be a few surprises we won’t see coming.Unlike in years past, this event is online only, so there won’t be any attendees. That should speed up the doling out of awards, making way for the game announcements. It’s what we’re all watching for, right? Here’s how you can tune in.When do the Game Awards start?It’s all happening on Thursday, December 10th. You... Continue reading…

Amazon Fulfillment Center with solar panels in Baltimore, Maryland. | Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images Amazon now claims that it is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world. The company’s investment in wind and solar projects grew to 6.5 GW, enough to power 1.7 million homes in the US for a year. That surpasses Google, which previously said it held the title as the biggest corporate buyer with 5.5 GW of renewable energy projects under contract.Amazon surpasses GoogleThe move is part of Amazon’s commitment to limit the damage it does to the planet. Last year, it pledged to reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2040, meaning it will take measures to reduce its planet-heating pollution as much as possible and then cancel out the rest with carbon offsets. It also said its physical infrastructure would run... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge You might have run into trouble messaging someone on Facebook or Instagram this morning. A service outage took down Facebook Messenger and Instagram DMs for many users, with new messages failing to send and old messages failing to load.The outage appears to have started around 4:30AM ET and gotten worse (or, at least, more widely noticed) in the following hours. The website Downdetector, which monitors website outages, showed a spike in users reporting issues with these services that peaked around 8:30AM.Facebook says the disruptions have since been resolved. “Earlier today, some people have experienced trouble sending or receiving messages on Messenger, Instagram or Workplace Chat. The issue has since been resolved and we apologize... Continue reading…