The Verge

Photo by Paul Hennessy/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the latest batch of 60 Starlink satellites into orbit Sunday, and returned to Earth successfully, landing on its Of Course I Still Love You drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, the company announced.Sunday’s mission marked a record ninth flight and landing for this Falcon 9 booster, SpaceX said, which was part of five earlier Starlink launches and the DM-1 mission for its Crew Dragon capsule.

Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images Honda has announced it will sell two electric SUVs in the US in the 2024 model year, and plans to introduce hybrid gas-electric versions of its best-selling models. It’s the second Japanese automaker that has recently announced a future EV in the United States; last month Toyota said it plans its first mass-market electric vehicle by the end of 2021.Dave Gardner, the head of sales for Honda of America, said last week one of the EVs will be an Acura, and the other will be a Honda brand, according to the Associated Press. He said more details would be coming later in 2021.Japanese automakers— and Toyota in particular— once were the leaders in hybrid vehicles, but have lagged American companies in the all-electric vehicle market in... Continue reading…

Photo by Kurt Krieger/Corbis via Getty Images The 63rd Grammy Awards ceremony will be held Sunday March 14th, as awards show season continues apace despite the coronavirus pandemic. The show will honor the best music of 2020 and all the performers, producers, and behind-the-scenes people who made it happen. As with most of this year’s awards shows, the Grammys look a bit different this year, broadcasting from “in and around” the Los Angeles Convention Center, but without a live audience.As is usually the case with awards ceremonies, there’s some controversy around this year’s Grammys. The Weeknd, whose song Blinding Lights topped music charts around the world in 2020, received zero nominations — the consensus seems to be it had something to do with the anonymous expert committees... Continue reading…

It’s Pi Day, the nerdiest of holidays because it’s all about a mathematical constant that represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter (yes, sometimes writing majors do pay attention in geometry class). March 14th has become known as Pi Day because it’s written numerically as 3.14 and pi starts at 3.14 ... and goes on indefinitely. Irrational number, indeed.In case you’ve forgotten the digits of pi, Google is celebrating (marking? observing? idk, choose the term that feels right to you) the day with an Easter egg game hidden in its calculator (also: TIL Google will bring up a calculator if you search for “calculator”).The pi symbol in the upper left corner of the calculator should have some twinkling stars around... Continue reading…

Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images Epic Games and Brazilian soccer player Neymar are teasing a likely appearance by the star athlete in Fortnite on March 16th, with clues coming via a couple of tweets. Eurogamer first reported the news, including a video tweeted from the Epic Games account showing Neymar’s No. 10 jersey. Neymar retweeted the video with the “eyes” emoji— not exactly confirmation, but another clue that something is brewing.

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images The middle eastern country of Oman has blocked the Clubhouse voice chat app saying it lacked the proper permit to operate, as some activists raised concerns that it was an act of censorship, Reuters reported.The Omani Telecommunications Regulatory Authority told news site WAF that communications applications operating in the country must get a permit from the authority. According to WAF, Oman “prohibits the use of several encrypted VoIP applications without an official license.”The Omani Association for Human Rights said in a statement that Oman’s government views “the authoritarian government of China as a role model,” and has banned the app even though it’s used by many Omanis “as a space to express their opinions freely without... Continue reading…

Free streaming platform Tubi has plans to branch out into original programming, Bloomberg reports, citing sources familiar with the company’s plans. The streamer will likely start with original movies, but is also exploring episodic TV shows, and is speaking with potential advertisers about partnerships, the report states.Fox Corp. acquired Tubi for $440 million last March, in an attempt to get in on the streaming wars. Before the acquisition, Fox didn’t have its own streaming offering. Fox said at the time it planned to offer a large number of its older shows and movies to Tubi subscribers for free, as well as some sports programming. There was no talk at that time of Tubi creating original content to try to compete with the likes of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A judge in California ruled Friday that Google has to face a class action lawsuit that claims the search giant secretly collects data from users even when they’re using its private “Incognito” mode, Bloomberg reported.Three users filed a complaint last June alleging Google has a “pervasive data tracking business,” and its tracking persists even if users take steps to protect their private information, such as using incognito mode in Chrome, or private browsing in Safari and other browsers. The lawsuit seeks at least $5 billion.Google had sought to have the case thrown out, but US District Judge Lucy Koh wrote in her ruling that the company “did not notify users that Google engages in the alleged data collection while the user is in... Continue reading…

Last week everyone was fixated on the “Right Up Our Alley” drone video that made us all nostalgic for bowling alleys. On Friday night, a VP at drone company DJI tweeted this video of a drone flight through a mostly-empty movie theater in Minnesota, and I don’t know about you but I really miss going to the movies. This video makes that longing about 100 times worse.According to its YouTube page the video is by SkyCandy, and is a one-take fly-through of Mann theaters’ Plymouth Grand in Plymouth, Minnesota. It was filmed using a DJI Air Unit and Rotor Riot Cinewhoop.The video is just over a minute long, but the drone takes us through the lobby — after being welcomed through the front doors by a masked theater employee— where people are... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After it reopened in defiance of health department orders last May, Tesla’s plant in Fremont, California saw 450 cases of COVID-19 through December 2020, new data from legal website PlainSite shows (via The Washington Post).Last March public health officials in Alameda County, where the Fremont plant is located, restricted all but “essential” businesses from remaining open as coronavirus cases surged across the country. Tesla fought the order but eventually shut down the plant on March 23rd. But a few days later, Tesla restarted production at the Fremont plant, even though it was in violation of the public health order. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter at the time that he planned to be on the factory floor with Fremont workers and t... Continue reading…

Customers try out Xiaomi Mi 10S smartphones at a Xiaomi in Rizhao, Shandong Province of China. | Photo by Liang Ya/VCG via Getty Images A federal judge has blocked the US Department of Defense from placing restrictions on Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi that were set to take effect next week.Just before former President Trump left office in January, the DoD designated Xiaomi as a “Chinese Communist military company,” (CCMC) making it subject to Trump’s executive order banning the US from investing in such companies. But late Friday, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras issued a preliminary injunction to prevent what he called “irreparable harm” to Xiaomi, saying the designation was “arbitrary and capricious.”Xiaomi said in court filings it would suffer “extreme and irreversible damage” to its business and reputation if the restrictions took effect, and has... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Billions of dollars have been spent fighting the pandemic, with a huge proportion of that money going towards vaccine development. Other areas of research have also gotten a big boost during the pandemic — and the results could make a huge difference to public health in the future.Here are some of the big winners in the pandemic-inspired funding race.mRNA Vaccines — The astounding success of both the Pfizer / BioNtech and Moderna vaccines has set the stage for the development of other highly-customizable vaccines in the future. The beauty of the vaccines is that they are basically blueprints — they use a genetic code to tell the body to build tiny molecular targets. The body’s immune system then goes to town on target practice and... Continue reading…

Wear OS Tiles give users a quick-glance option | Google Google says in a new blog post that it will now allow third-party developers to create custom Tiles for Wear OS. It first introduced Tiles in 2019, widgets that users could glance at and swipe among to get information about weather, calendar notifications, or stats like heart rate. All of the Tiles used to be directly from Google or the device’s manufacturer. Its Jetpack Tiles library for third-party developers is now in alpha. Google notes in the blog post:

An update to Overwatch’s Public Test Region (PTR) is bringing Nvida’s latency-reduction tech, called Reflex, to the popular esports title (via Engadget). The tech aims to help reduce the amount of time between when you click your mouse, and when you see the resulting action on screen, making the game feel more responsive. The fact that it’s coming to Overwatch was announced back in January, but it’s now available to players who can access the PTR, and who have the latest Nvidia drivers.If you haven’t been able to get your hands on one of Nvidia’s latest graphics cards, there’s still hope that you’ll be able to try Reflex out for yourself in Overwatch — the tech was announced alongside the 30-series graphics cards, but works on cards... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A public health authority has ordered Amazon to close one of its fulfillment centers in Canada for two weeks because of an uptick in the rate of COVID-19 infections at the facility. A public health investigation found that while the rate of COVID-19 infections has been decreasing in the area, the rate inside the Brampton facility, near Toronto, “has been increasing significantly.”Dr. Lawrence C. Loh, the medical officer of health for the Peel region where the facility is located, said the temporary closure was necessary to help stop the spread of the virus. “This Amazon facility is in a vulnerable community and employs thousands of people. Immediate action must be taken to protect these essential workers and the community where they... Continue reading…

Image: 20th Century Fox Avatar has once again retaken its crown as the most lucrative movie of all time, with James Cameron’s 2009 film reaching a new all-time box office high to beat out 2019’s Avengers: Endgame, which took the top spot with its $2.7902 billion take that year.But thanks to a re-release of Avatar in China, Deadline reports that Avatar has already grossed enough to push its box office total to $2.798 billion, which edges out Earth’s Mightiest Heroes once again for largest worldwide total.The surge in Avatar ticket sales comes as China theaters are re-opening in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has seen a rush of theatergoers eager to return to theaters. And seeing as most major Western film studios have yet to release new titles... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you missed Target’s PS5 restocks Thursday, you may be in luck. Best Buy has the PS5 Digital Edition and PS5 models up for purchase.According to the product listing, Best Buy will only allow you to pick up your newly purchased PS5 at a local Best Buy store. No home delivery is available for either model.Once you get your hands on a PS5, there are a few items you’re going to want to pick up for your console. Some of the most popular PS5 exclusives right now include Demon’s Souls Remake by Bluepoint Games and Spider-Man: Miles Morales.If you plan to play local co-op with family or friends, an extra DualSense controller might also be a good item to pick up.One thing I also recommend buying is a one-year membership to PlayStation... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is going to adjust its release cycles for Microsoft Edge to match the every-four-weeks release cadence for Chrome that Google announced last week.“As contributors to the Chromium project, we look forward to the new 4-week major release cycle cadence that Google announced to help deliver that innovation to our customers even faster,” Microsoft said in a blog post on Friday.The change will go into effect with Edge 94, which is targeted for a September release. Google has committed to making the switch with Chrome in Q3 with Chrome 94, but hasn’t given a specific month like Microsoft has.Like Google, Microsoft is also offering enterprises the option of a longer release cycle enterprise customers. On that Extended Stable... Continue reading…

Image: Pocket Pocket, an app for saving articles to read later, is rolling out a sorting option to Android users over the next few weeks that could solve my paralysis when choosing something to read. The new sort by time-to-read feature, spotted by The Verge’s Dan Seifert, means articles can be organized where they fit best, whether it’s the five minutes it takes to microwave lunch, or a 20-minute wait for the late bus.The feature appears in both the search section of the app, and as a sorting feature in your main list. A reader can sort their saved article search by length, choosing from Quick (less than five minutes), Medium (six to ten minutes), Long (eleven to twelve minutes), and Very Long (over twenty-one minutes). Your list of saved articles... Continue reading…

Image: Beeple MetaKovan, the pseudonymous founder of MetaPurse, is the buyer behind the $69 million winning bid for a Beeple NFT at Christie’s yesterday. It was the third-highest sale price ever for a work from a living artist.“When you think of high-valued NFTs, this one is going to be pretty hard to beat,” MetaKovan said in a statement published by Christie’s. “And here’s why — it represents 13 years of everyday work. Techniques are replicable and skill is surpassable, but the only thing you can’t hack digitally is time. This is the crown jewel, the most valuable piece of art for this generation. It is worth $1 billion.”The $69 million NFT represented a collage containing 5,000 mostly digital illustrations from Mike Winkelmann, better known as... Continue reading…

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images Over the last decade, hundreds of newspapers have disappeared largely due to Big Tech’s disruption of the ad market. Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on much when it comes to tech reform, whether it be content moderation or spinning off acquisitions, but they do seem to agree that local journalism needs saving.On Friday, a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing focused on the way Google and Facebook distribute news, and a new bill introduced earlier this week has already found Republican support. It’s one of the biggest legislative threats to tech that’s come out of the years-long antitrust debate, and much of its political force comes from the precarious state of local journalism.“The crisis in American journalism has become a... Continue reading…

Image: Lordstown Motors General Motors-backed EV startup Lordstown Motors has been accused of fabricating some of the 100,000 preorders for its forthcoming Endurance electric pickup and misleading investors, the public, and government regulators about how much progress it’s made in developing the truck.The accusations come in a new report from short-selling firm Hindenburg Research — the same firm that published a report about hydrogen trucking startup Nikola that led to the founder resigning his position and a major restructuring of that company’s business. Hindenburg says in the report, published Friday, that it has taken an unspecified short position in Lordstown Motors, meaning it stands to make money from the startup’s stock price falling.The... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge I have been listening to robot-made music all week. No, not Daft Punk, but randomly generated music posted every hour by a Twitter bot, @MelodyBot3456. As you’d expect from auto-generated music, the short songs (if you can call them that) are often bizarre and regularly veer in unexpected and hilarious directions.Each song applies a random instrument, tempo, time signature, and key to melodies that, most of the time, make absolutely no sense. Take this one, for example, made with an instrument called “Mario Paint” that only vaguely sounds like something from Mario Paint’s famous music composer:

Who needs a plastic wristband when you can use your iPhone to do the same thing? | Image: Disney In 2013, Walt Disney World resort offered the MagicBands — a plastic bracelet that made it easy to perform numerous services such as park tickets. And now, almost a decade later, the company is finally making your trip to the most magical place on Earth a little more modern with MagicMobile, a digital pass accessible through your iPhone and Apple Watch starting later this year.As an alternative to spending money on a plastic NFC wristband, the MagicMobile pass will be added to your Apple Wallet. Guests can then use their iPhone or Apple Watch to gain entry into the park. Disney has not said exactly when MagicMobile will officially be available but confirmed Apple devices would get access to the service and features first.Disney... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Teaching AI systems to understand what’s happening in videos as completely as a human can is one of the hardest challenges — and biggest potential breakthroughs — in the world of machine learning. Today, Facebook announced a new initiative that it hopes will give it an edge in this consequential work: training its AI on Facebook users’ public videos.Access to training data is one of the biggest competitive advantages in AI, and by collecting this resource from millions and millions of their users, tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon have been able to forge ahead in various areas. And while Facebook has already trained machine vision models on billions of images collected from Instagram, it hasn’t previously announced projects... Continue reading…

Photo by Paul Clarke / Wikimedia Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the world wide web, writes in a new post on the internet’s 32nd anniversary that governments must work to ensure global broadband access by the year 2030 in order to bridge the digital divide and better hold tech companies accountable.“Governments need to pass effective laws that govern technology and hold companies to account for creating responsible products and services,” Berners-Lee writes in the post co-authored by his Web Foundation co-founder Rosemary Leith.“Far too many young people remain excluded and unable to use the web to share their talents and ideas.”“Far too many young people remain excluded and unable to use the web to share their talents and ideas,” the post states. And for every... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge LG’s German website has revealed its Android 11 update roadmap — at least for Europe — and the news isn’t too encouraging. With the exception of the LG Velvet 5G, most of the company’s phones won’t get Android 11 until the back half of 2021, with the vast majority of devices not seeing the update until at least Q4 2021 (long after Android 12 should be available, if Google’s release schedule is similar this year).It’s worth noting that the released schedule is only from LG’s German site. It’s possible that time frames will be different in other regions, that LG could add more devices over time, or that the updates will simply take less time to develop than the company expects. The slow update speed isn’t entirely... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast The Vergecast, our chat show discussing the week in tech news featuring our reporters and editors.This week, co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn talk to Verge deputy editor Elizabeth Lopatto about the rise in interest of NFTs. Elizabeth explains the basics of how NFTs work and what someone actually owns when a transaction takes place.In the second half of the show, Verge deputy editor Dan Seifert stops by for a gadget roundup — there’s a review for the wild Asus ROG Phone 5, some rumors of OnePlus’ new flagship device, and the announcement of Sonos’ first fully mobile Bluetooth speaker.Listen here or in your preferred podcast player to hear the full discussion.Stories... Continue reading…

Luke Goodman, owner and founder of Out of Darts, is pictured in their Vancouver, WA factory and warehouse on February 25th, 2021. Inside the DIY Nerf arms race Continue reading…

WarnerMedia is set to launch an ad-supported tier for its HBO Max streaming service this June, and executives are hoping that having a cheaper option will help boost subscriber growth.AT&T didn’t provide additional information in a press release sent out, including price or exact launch date, but noted that HBO Max will also launch in about 60 markets outside of the US in 2021. WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar recently spoke about the incoming advertisement supported tier at the Goldman Sachs conference, noting that “most people on this planet are not wealthy.”“And so if we can wake up and use price and be able to kind of invent and do things elegantly through advertising to reduce the price of a service, I think that’s a fantastic thing... Continue reading…

A screenshot from the Resident Evil 4 HD Project. Albert Marin has taken some very specific vacations. In Wales, he visited Raglan Castle to snap pictures of its stone wall. At the Palau Güell in Barcelona, he took meticulous photos, not of the building itself, but of the marble floor and its unique veins.His trips followed in the steps of Capcom, which put bits of real-world architecture found across Europe into Resident Evil 4, which was originally released over 16 years ago. “I collected a great number of locations the game’s developers use as source material,” Marin told The Verge.Fast forward to 2021, and Marin is now seven years into a project to remaster Resident Evil 4’s blurry GameCube-era graphics into crisp HD, in part using high-resolution photos he’s taken of everything... Continue reading…

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 Ultra | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Woot has discounted Samsung’s Galaxy Note 20 line today, with up to $500 in savings available depending on which phone you buy. You can buy the Galaxy Note 20, which comes in mystic green and features 8GB of RAM and a 6.7-inch 1080p LCD screen for only $600. Alternatively, you can get the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra for $200 more, which comes in mystic bronze and features 12GB of RAM and a 6.9-inch 1440p OLED screen.These prices are for the unlocked versions, and both include 128GB of storage; however, only the Note 20 Ultra features a microSD slot, allowing you to expand your storage if you choose.Best Buy has discounted Western Digital’s 14TB 3.0 external hard drive. You can get it for only $220; that’s $90 off its usual $310 price tag.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Here’s what it’s like to craft live on stream Continue reading…

Photo by Michael Reynolds-Pool/Getty Images Writing in USA Today on Friday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) made a surprise endorsement of a fledgling union at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama. In the op-ed, Rubio frames the union drive as a necessary response to the encroaching power of Amazon, a longtime target for Republicans.“When the conflict is between working Americans and a company whose leadership has decided to wage culture war against working-class values, the choice is easy — I support the workers,” Rubio writes in the op-ed. “And that’s why I stand with those at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse today.”Rubio says Amazon “wages culture war against working-class values”Workers at the Bessemer warehouse are in the process of voting on whether to unionize, as overseen by the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Laurent Hrybrk Voice control provides unique opportunities for accessibility — and some complicated setup Continue reading…

President Biden has been silent on his plans for NASA but excited about the agency’s recent successes — here, he virtually congratulates the team that landed NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars last month. The Trump administration’s Moon-to-Mars program has already dodged the fate of many past presidential space programs: cancellation under new leadership. Last month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced the Biden administration’s support for Artemis, NASA’s flagship lunar agenda.It was a rare passing of the baton between two administrations at odds with one another in virtually every other area. And it quelled some industry fears that Biden would shelve the moonshot plan entirely. While still in its infancy, the Artemis program unleashed a wave of industry momentum, partially thanks to an energizing, yet wildly unrealistic target date of 2024 for planting boots on the Moon.To get a sense of what’s next for Artemis and NASA,... Continue reading…

The dice are equipped with RGB lights and can communicate via Bluetooth. | Image: Systemic Games / Kickstarter Sometimes it’s nice to get away from technology for a bit, settle down with some friends, and play an entire role-playing game using just pen, paper, and lots of dice. But if that’s a little low-fi for you, then there’s always Pixels, a new set of electronic dice with built in Bluetooth and RGB LED lighting. The dice have launched on Kickstarter, with prices starting at $39. As of this writing, over 14,000 people have already backed the project for a total of over $2 million pledged.The main attraction here is obviously the colorful RGB lighting, which creator Systemic Games promises will be customizable and programmable via a companion app. The Pixels are also waterproof, charge wirelessly via companion charging cases, and can go for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has detailed the efficiency improvements it made with Chrome 89, the latest version of its browser released earlier this month. Depending on whether you’re using the browser on Windows, macOS, or Android, Google says the browser should use less resources, launch quicker, and feel more responsive to use. There’s no mention of any improvements specifically for users on iOS.The exact benefits vary by OS. Across platforms, Google says Chrome is able to reclaim as much as 100MiB (or over 20 percent on some sites) by using foreground tab memory more efficiently, and on macOS it’s saving up to 8 percent of its memory usage based on how it handles background tabs (something which Chrome already does on other platforms). Google says these... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Facebook has nearly 10,000 employees in its division working on augmented reality and virtual reality devices, according to a report in The Information based on internal organizational data. The number means the Reality Labs division accounts for almost a fifth of the people working at Facebook worldwide.This suggests that Facebook has been significantly accelerating its VR and AR efforts. As UploadVR noted in 2017, the Oculus VR division accounted for over a thousand employees at a time when Facebook’s headcount was 18,770 overall, indicating a percentage somewhere north of five percent.Since then, Facebook has shifted its VR focus away from Oculus Rift-style tethered headsets by releasing the Oculus Quest and Quest 2, which are... Continue reading…

Los Angeles theaters will be allowed to reopen at 25 percent capacity next week, according to the LA Department of Public Health (via Variety). The restrictions are being lifted, almost exactly a year after they were put in place, because Los Angeles County believes it will reach the number of vaccinations required by California to move into the next phase of reopening. The movie capitol’s theater re-opening comes a few weeks after New York’s, meaning that two of the biggest movie markets will once again be uncapping their projectors.As Variety notes, this doesn’t mean that the theaters will be able to open as soon as the ban lifts — they’ve been closed for so long that they’ll have to re-hire and train staff, which could take a week or... Continue reading…

President Joe Biden just announced that he will direct states to make all adults eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations by May 1st. He also said that the federal government will launch a website on May 1st that will let people check where they can get a vaccine near them. He made both announcements during his first prime-time televised address as President on Thursday evening.“All American adults will be eligible to get a vaccine no later than May 1st,” says Biden. “That doesn’t mean everyone’s going to have that shot immediately. But it means you’ll be able to get in line beginning on May 1.”The administration also plans to increase the number of places administering vaccinations and expand the group of medical professionals who can give... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A Black woman who interviewed at Facebook last year says she was told the company was “looking for a culture fit” before being rejected, according to The Intercept. She’s now one of four people who’ve recently complained to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) about allegedly racist hiring and promotion practices at the tech giant.The woman says she was well-suited to the managerial position on Facebook’s Global Impact Partnerships team due to her work experience and relevant doctoral degree, The Intercept reports. Yet she alleged that during in-person meetings, she “sensed that the interviewers were not prioritizing her interviews because all of the interviews seemed rushed after making her wait for several hours.” The... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft released a new Xbox update earlier this week that brings toggles for Auto HDR and FPS Boost and improvements to better support the new Xbox Wireless Headset. But there was another big feature that wasn’t mentioned in the official release notes: the update also fixes “many” of the Xbox Series X controller disconnect issues that have cropped up, according to the Xbox team’s Jason Ronald.

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge The latest Windows update has been causing problems for some printer owners, according to a report from Windows Latest (via Gizmodo). Users are reporting that they’re getting a blue screen when they try to open the print dialogue from Notepad, Office, or other programs. (You know that annoyingly ambiguous error message that’s like “Your PC ran into a problem and needs to restart”? It’s that one.)Microsoft is aware that attempting to print in certain circumstances can blue screen your PC, and has listed the bug on the Windows 10 Support page. The company doesn’t appear to have issued a fix at this time. “We are presently investigating and will provide an update when more information is available,” that website currently reads.It’s not... Continue reading…

T-Mobile hopes to expand the service to 7 to 8 million customers in the next five years | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge At an analyst event on Thursday, T-Mobile revealed that its long-awaited 5G home broadband service will launch later this month, which it confirmed to The Verge. A 4G version of the service is currently in pilot testing with 100,000 households. By the end of the year, T-Mobile says it hopes to extend the service to 7–8 million customers within five years. There’s no confirmed launch date for the service yet, but we’ll know more later this month.The company has been promising 5G-based wireless broadband since before its acquisition of Sprint, saying that the merger would make it possible to offer service that would challenge the dominant cable companies. Before the deal was approved, T-Mobile went ahead and started testing out the... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Spotify is making a podcast about its own history, and the first two episodes are well worth a listen for the details on the jump from piracy to streaming, how the company decided to build its business, and the technical details of how it did so. There are also some fun interviews included, with the podcast featuring stories from Sean Parker, inventor of Napster, and Lars Ulrich of Metallica.In the podcast, the Spotify founders discuss the history of piracy in Spotify’s home country, Sweden, to give context about its development environment. It goes into the existence of Sweden’s Pirate Party, an actual political party that once held several seats in the country’s parliament. The founders also discuss how they wanted to take the ease of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Pakistan has banned TikTok yet again, citing objectionable content on the shortform video app. This is the second time the ByteDance platform has been banned in Pakistan, following a brief 10-day shutdown in October of last year.Last fall, TikTok was banned for hosting “immoral” and “indecent” videos, but the company was able to assure the Pakistani government that videos would be moderated “in accordance with societal norms and the laws of Pakistan,” and the app resumed operations a week and a half later.

Gogo in-flight internet STOCK Gogo will be delaying the rollout of its 5G network, pushing it back from 2021 to 2022. According to LightReading, the global chip shortage is to blame for the delay, though Gogo didn’t provide any direct details about how the shortage was setting it back.Gogo isn’t the only one feeling the sting of the global chip shortage: graphics cards, CPUs, and game consoles have become infamous for being in short supply, and car manufacturers are having to slow down production lines because of the supply constraint. The situation has gotten to the point where President Joe Biden has signed an executive order calling for a review of the chip supply chain.The company, known for providing in-flight Wi-Fi, had a difficult 2020: it did several rounds... Continue reading…

Bob Wulff Tenet, the latest film by director Christopher Nolan, arrived on Blu-ray in December 2020, but now it has been released in another physical format: Game Boy Advance cartridges. Via Engadget, YouTuber Bob Wulff managed to fit the two-hour, 30-minute time-bending film with a nearly incomprehensible plot on five cartridges, compressed down to a 192 x 128 resolution that looks blurry even on the GBA’s 240 x 160 display. The worst (best) part of the experience might be that it runs at six frames per second. They even made bespoke labels for each cartridge that are, actually, very well done.Now, before you ask aloud “why?” just say “thank you, Bob Wulff!” instead. This obviously doesn’t need to exist, but the promise of these little displays... Continue reading…

T-Mobile is keen to stay ahead of the 5G competition | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge During its virtual analyst event today, T-Mobile outlined some bold plans for expanding its 5G coverage and speeding up its current offerings. The company says that by the end of 2023, it will cover 90 percent of Americans (about 300 million) with what it calls Ultra Capacity 5G (its faster mid-band and mmWave service). It also plans to cover 97 percent of Americans (approximately 320 million) by the end of 2022 with its slower low-band 5G, which it calls Extended Range. Currently, 125 million are covered by Ultra Capacity, with Extended Range covering 287 million.Additionally, those currently covered by Ultra Capacity 5G will see an increase in average speeds from 300Mbps up to 400Mbps, thanks to additional megahertz devoted to 5G,... Continue reading…