The Verge

“Infinite Bad Guy” featuring Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” music video. | Google/YouTube Somehow, perhaps by some cosmic intervention, I haven’t gotten tired of hearing Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” on the radio. Apparently, I’m not the only one because tens of thousands of people have gone to the effort of making covers of the song and uploading them to YouTube. In celebration of its music video passing 1 billion views, YouTube and Google Creative Lab have turned all of those covers into an interactive AI experiment. “Infinite Bad Guy,” which YouTube calls “the world’s first infinite music video,” collects thousands of covers and blends them together, using machine learning to align each one within quarter-beats of the original.Going to billie.withyoutube.com pulls up the original “Bad Guy” music video with cover videos on... Continue reading…

Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images The US government awarded a big transportation contract to Uber and Lyft this week, authorizing the ride-hailing companies to provide transportation to up to 4 million federal employees and their families.The General Services Administration, the procurement arm for the federal government, granted the five-year contract to Uber and Lyft, the companies confirmed. The contract is worth up to $810 million, though it’s unclear how much each company will receive.While individual federal employees have previously been able to use ride-hail services for travel, the new contract allows the companies to formally launch their services within agencies and directly work with officials to promote the service.“a natural next step for us”The... Continue reading…

Photo by VCG / VCG via Getty Images Today, China successfully launched its most ambitious mission to the Moon to date — this one designed to bring a handful of lunar rocks back to Earth before the end of the year. If successful, it’ll be the first time in nearly half a century that dirt from the Moon has been returned to Earth and the first time that China has retrieved materials from another world.The mission, called Chang’e 5, is the latest in a long line of lunar missions that China has been conducting over the last decade. In 2013, the country made its first soft landing on the Moon with Chang’e 3, making China just one of three nations to put a spacecraft on the lunar surface. Then in December 2018, China launched Chang’e 4 and successfully put a lander and rover on... Continue reading…

A California grand jury has indicted Apple’s head of global security on charges that he tried to bribe Santa Clara County officials to procure firearms (CCW) licenses, according to a news release. Santa Clara district attorney Jeff Rosen alleges that Thomas Moyer offered 200 iPads — worth about $70,000 — to Capt. James Jensen and Undersheriff Rick Sung in the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office, in exchange for four concealed firearms licenses for Apple employees.The charges came after a two-year investigation. “In the case of four CCW licenses withheld from Apple employees, Undersheriff Sung and Cpt. Jensen managed to extract from Thomas Moyer a promise that Apple would donate iPads to the Sheriff’s Office,” Rosen said in the news... Continue reading…

US President Donald Trump speaks with General Motors CEO Mary Barra during a meeting with automobile industry leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC on January 24th, 2017. | Photo by Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images General Motors announced today that it is abandoning Donald Trump’s effort to take away California’s ability to set fuel efficiency standards. The company, along with Fiat Chrysler and Toyota, previously backed Trump’s efforts to roll back fuel efficiency standards.Under the Clean Air Act, California has historically been allowed to set its own emissions standards, which are tougher than federal guidelines and typically set the bar for the entire auto industry in the US. California is the largest auto market in the US and the 10th largest in the world.“We are immediately withdrawing from the pre-emption litigation.”GM is now aligning itself with President-elect Joe Biden’s plans to hasten a transition to electric vehicles in an... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple on Monday announced an extension to its deadline for requiring in-app purchases for online events and classes offered within iOS apps to June 30th, 2021. Apple previously adjusted what types of events are subject to its in-app purchase policy and standard 30 percent cut back in September, with the original intention of requiring in-app purchases in all appropriate apps by December of this year.Apple cited the coronavirus pandemic, writing in a developer update posted to its website, “As the world fights COVID-19, we recognize that adapting experiences from in-person to digital continues to be a top priority.”This deadline extension means developers have more time to temporarily reap the full profits of their salesRequiring... Continue reading…

The Mandalorian just jetpacked into your living room | Google/Disney Google and Disney have teamed up for a new AR experience featuring The Mandalorian and yes, Baby Yoda is involved. The Mandalorian AR experience “puts you in the shoes of a bounty hunter following the trail of Mando himself, Din Djarin, and The Child,” according to a blog post by Matthieu Lorrain, head of creative, AR partnerships at Google. Players can interact with the characters in AR and capture scenes from the app for sharing. Google/Disney The Mandalorian is scanning your kitchen The app is built on ARCore, Google’s developer platform for building augmented reality experiences, and uses its ARCore Depth API, which enables occlusion — when an AR object is blocked from view by other real objects in a scene... Continue reading…

Steve McQueen’s Widows was one of the best movies to come out in 2018: it was a smart, slick crime thriller that showed the acclaimed filmmaker could follow up a challenging drama like Shame and 12 Years a Slave with tremendous crowd-pleasers. Two years later, he’s back with his follow-up effort: Small Axe, which is five whole movies now streaming on Amazon Prime. We knew McQueen was good, and now it’s undeniable that he has the range.While it presents as a TV series — and that’s how the BBC is airing it across the pond — it’s best to think of Small Axe as five full-on movies, with a new one premiering every Friday. (My suggestion: watch it right after The Mandalorian.) Each film / episode features an entirely new story with a... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony’s PlayStation 5 user interface could really use some work, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the simple act of trying to turn the thing off.On most recent consoles, it’s been pretty easy to shut down the device with just the controller. Simply press and hold the PS button / Xbox button / home button, and the UI will helpfully show you an option to power down the console in some way. This is true for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. It takes just a few seconds, and I can happily end a gaming session.But turning off the PS5, for no good reason that I can figure out, is a needlessly cumbersome process. Instead, when I press and hold the PS button — the behavior I have used for years to start the process —... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Amazon’s Echo Buds are getting new fitness features that allow the true wireless earbuds to track your workouts. According to Amazon, the Echo Buds now have the ability to track walks, runs, and other workouts, all initiated with Alexa voice commands.The Echo Buds rely on built-in accelerometers for tracking steps, and this is used in combination with personal stats entered into a “workout profile” in the Alexa app for other data. Amazon says using your height and weight, in combination with the steps tracked by the accelerometer, the Echo Buds can calculate the distance of your runs and walks and the amount of calories burned. The duration of your workout is calculated using timestamps, and your overall pace is calculated by the... Continue reading…

An enthusiastic gamer creates her workspace Continue reading…

To promote the sequel to Ready Player One — a book about a treasure hunt inside a virtual universe — author Ernest Cline has partnered with the hit kids game Roblox to re-create something akin to the plot of the original novel: a hunt for clues and prizes inside a virtual world.Roblox says the treasure hunt will take place across seven different game worlds. The first world is already open, but it sounds like the event really kicks off on December 1st when a Q&A with Cline and Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki will air inside the game. Players will be “awarded virtual goods” specific to the Ready Player Two event for completing the treasure hunt.“Roblox is the closest thing to the Oasis in real life.”Warner Bros. previously partnered with R... Continue reading…

Next year, Comcast plans to charge home internet customers in northeastern US states for going over 1.2TB of data in a month — a cap that’s already in effect for customers on non-unlimited plans in other parts of the country.In January and February, Comcast will give its Xfinity customers not on an unlimited plan a “credit” for any data usage charges over 1.2TB during those months to ease them into the new limits. Then, starting in March, non-unlimited customers who exceed 1.2TB in a month will be charged $10 per 50GB of data, for a maximum of $100.Customers who go over the limit will get one “courtesy” credit per 12 months, so if you go over 1.2TB in March, you get a grace period for April. If you go over again in May, you’ll pay... Continue reading…

Nov. 18, 2020: The Smithsonian’s National Zoo’s giant panda cub received a clean bill of health from Zoo veterinarians during his third veterinary exam. They listened to his heart and lungs, checked his eyes and mouth, and tested the range of motion in his limbs. The cub also received his second canine distemper vaccine. | Image: National Zoo The National Zoo and other Smithsonian institutions closed their doors to visitors again today because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the zoo’s webcams are still live, including the Giant Panda Cam, which will keep broadcasting adorable footage of the institution’s newly named baby panda during the latest shutdown.“little miracle”The National Zoo just announced the panda’s name today: Xiao Qi Ji (SHIAU-chi-ji), which is Mandarin for “little miracle.” The zoo left the naming up to voters, who cast almost 135,000 votes online last week for their favorite moniker. Xiao Qi Ji beat out four other options, including Xing Fu (my personal favorite, which translates to “happy and prosperous”) and Zai Zai (a Chinese nickname for a boy).Xiao Qi... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’re using a recent version of Microsoft’s Edge browser, you might have noticed that the way URLs copy and paste has changed. As of Edge version 87 for Windows or 88 for macOS, you’ll find that by default trying to copy and paste a URL from an address bar will paste the title of a webpage as a hyperlink rather than its URL directly.So instead of seeing:

The Sonos Move wireless speaker | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Sonos has discounted several of its speakers for the week leading up to Black Friday, including the portable Move, Beam soundbar, and Sub add-on. All three models are $100 off, a significant discount from their regular prices.Sales on Sonos speakers are rare — we typically only see meaningful discounts on them during the holiday shopping season. The company discounted the Move for the first time just a week ago; this week’s sale matches that price should you have missed it.Sonos MoveThe Sonos Move is the company’s first portable speaker with a built-in 11-hour battery that lets you easily move it from room to room, outside, or even take it to an entirely different location. It has similar sound quality to the smaller Sonos One and... Continue reading…

Neo: The World Ends With You, the follow-up to Square Enix’s 2007 cult classic for the Nintendo DS, will launch for PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch in summer 2021, the developer announced today. The action roleplaying game returns players to the Shibuya district of Tokyo.Few details about Neo: The World Ends With You have been released. As Rindo, players will once again participate in the Reapers’ Game, which plays out through a series of missions that will determine whether the player is erased from existence itself. A trailer released today teases a return to the series’s colorful, fictionalized take on Shibuya, as well as a new cast.The World Ends With You first launched for Nintendo DS more than a decade ago to critical acclaim.... Continue reading…

Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images Foxconn is reportedly planning to assemble Google server components at its beleaguered Wisconsin factory. According to Bloomberg, Foxconn landed a deal with Google and is establishing assembly lines for making circuit boards, aiming to start mass production in the first quarter of next year. Foxconn confirmed to Bloomberg that it was developing computing and infrastructure “capabilities” but did not name customers.Bloomberg suggests that Google is expanding American manufacturing to win more government contracts, and one source said Foxconn was the only manufacturer that could assemble the necessary components inside the US.Meanwhile, a Google deal would throw Foxconn a lifeline. Foxconn won billions of dollars in subsidies for its... Continue reading…

Google Assistant now lets users schedule lights and other devices to turn on and off at specific times with its “scheduled actions” feature, according to Android Police, which cites Google Assistant developer documentation.Google Assistant has worked with Hue and other smart lights for some time, to turn them on and off and to set alarms, but now you can tell your Assistant exactly when you want to turn on lights and other devices in a smart home.One caveat: you have to be really specific if you want to schedule the lights (or other devices) to turn on or off a day in the future. Just saying something like, “Hey Google, turn the lights on tomorrow at 8PM,” isn’t enough. You’d need to say, “Hey Google, turn on the lights Tuesday at... Continue reading…

Oomba was a startup designed to make a lot of money from the games industry — instead, everyone played each other Continue reading…

Gift ideas for the creators in your circle Continue reading…

Waze is finally coming to Apple CarPlay’s new multiscreen dashboard. This is sure to come as welcome news to devotees of the Google-owned navigation app, who have been waiting for over a year for it to work with the much-improved, upgraded version of CarPlay.A tipster who is beta testing the new feature sent us this image of Waze operating in CarPlay’s new Split View function. Apple rolled out the new dashboard as part of last year’s iOS 13 software update, but it was limited to only work with Apple Maps at the time. Previously, CarPlay required bouncing between different screens to see a track name while getting directions to a destination. With Split View, you can see a map, what’s currently playing on the car’s stereo, and the next... Continue reading…

Snap Snap is finally ready to compete with TikTok and will pay creators to post on the platform. The company is officially announcing a new section of Snapchat today called Spotlight that’ll surface vertical video content from users that’s more meme-like and jokey instead of the day-in-the-life content Snap previously encouraged. Imagine, basically, TikTok but in Snapchat.To entice people to post snaps regularly, the company says it’ll divvy up $1 million between the most popular creators on the app per day through the end of 2020. This means if someone has a particularly viral video, they might earn a large chunk of the $1 million pot. It doesn’t matter whether that person has a massive number of subscribers; the amount people receive is... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge We’ve got all of the best deals for this year Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Nikon is bringing back its promotion that allows you to stream its entire online curriculum of photography classes at no cost, just in time for the holiday season.Now through December 31st, you can stream all classes featured at the Nikon School Online. Normally, these classes cost between $15 and $50 each. Each course is taught by a professional photographer and features in-depth lessons to improve your photo-taking skills.However, it is important to note that although it is called the “Nikon School Online,” you do not need to own a Nikon camera to take advantage of these free courses. A few classes focus on Nikon-specific gear, but most of the classes available focus on photography as a skill set and how to improve.Nikon previously... Continue reading…

The game featured a rare box layout and was in excellent condition. | Image: Heritage Auctions Super Mario Bros. 3 now holds the title of the most expensive game ever, after a sealed copy from 1990 sold for $156,000 at an auction last Friday. Bidding started at $62,500, and 20 bidders were involved in the auction. The NES game handily beat out the previous record-holder, Super Mario Bros., which sold for $114,000 in July.According to Heritage Auctions, which sold the game, the game’s record-breaking price came down to a couple of factors. The first was its relatively rare box design, which has the word “Bros.” formatted to the left on its front, where it slightly obscures Mario’s hand. Later versions moved the word to the center-right.The game had a rare box design and was in excellent conditionHowever, this rarer design only... Continue reading…

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images California has long been ground zero for autonomous vehicle testing in the US, but the state has never allowed companies to use those vehicles to make money from a commercial ride-hailing service. That changed last week when the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved two new programs that allow autonomous vehicle operators to launch their own robotaxis in the state.The CPUC, which is in charge of creating regulations for AVs in fleet services (e.g., taxis and ride-hailing), has been working on the new rules for several years now. The two new programs — the Drivered Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Program and the Driverless Autonomous Vehicle Deployment Program — “allow participants to offer passenger service, shared... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Valve has officially announced that the PS5’s DualSense controller is now supported in Steam. Games using the Steam Input API can now recognize the controller and display the correct button prompts. They’ll also be able to access the DualSense’s LED, trackpad, rumble, and gyro features, though there’s no mention of support for its adaptive triggers. The functionality is currently available in Steam’s public beta client, with plans for a full release “after further testing.”Steam has been gradually rolling out support for the DualSense over the past couple of weeks. It started by adding support for the controller itself, before adding and refining compatibility with advanced features like its trackpad, rumble, and gyro. Notably absent... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A COVID-19 vaccine developed by the UK’s Oxford University and AstraZeneca has an average efficacy of 70.4 percent, according to interim analysis announced today. In trials, the vaccine’s effectiveness varied depending on the dose amounts given. When two full doses were given a month apart the effectiveness stood at 62 percent, but this rose to 90 percent when the vaccine was given first as a half dose, and then as a full dose.The announcement follows promising early results from vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, and Moderna, which both appear to have slightly higher 95 percent efficacy rates. However, according to BBC News, the Oxford vaccine has the advantage of being cheaper and easy to store, since it can be transported and... Continue reading…

One Night in Miami | Amazon Prime Video I am currently suffering from The Crown withdrawal after finishing Season 4, and (like pretty much everyone) predicting we’ll see Emmy nominations for Gillian Anderson (Margaret Thatcher) and Josh O’Connor (Prince Charles). Also I’m very on board with this suggestion that Erin Doherty deserves her own Princess Anne spinoff series (please get on this asap, Netflix). She’s spectacular.I’m not quite ready to commit to a new streaming series yet so went to the backlog of movies I have queued up; I tried to get into Queen’s Gambit but honestly, I don’t get the hype about that movie, the dialogue is so clunky. I even went so far as to open an actual physical book yesterday (lol) before restarting Season 1 of The Crown (hi Claire Foy and John... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s new ephemeral tweets, known as fleets, are supposed to last for only 24 hours. But a bug is causing fleets to not totally disappear, remaining accessible well past their expiration dates. First reported by TechCrunch, the bug allows fleets to be viewed and downloaded by other users, but without notifying the fleet’s author.“We’re aware of a bug accessible through a technical workaround where some Fleets media URLs may be accessible after 24 hours,” a Twitter spokesperson said in an email to The Verge. “We are working on a fix that should be rolled out shortly.”The “workaround” referenced appears to be a developer app that could scrape fleets from public accounts via Twitter’s API. The Twitter API doesn’t return URLs for... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Lipovsky / NBC / NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images Charli D’Amelio is the first TikTok creator to hit 100 million followers. She’s the first by some distance, too — only two other creators have cracked 50 million. On TikTok, that makes her more than twice as big as Will Smith, three times as big as The Rock, four times as big as Selena Gomez, and five times as big as Kylie Jenner and Ariana Grande.It also means she reached 100 million subscribers in record time. On YouTube, it took 14 years before any channel hit 100 million. D’Amelio only started posting to TikTok in May 2019, and the app has only been available (under its current branding, at least) since August 2018.TikTok doesn’t have many opportunities for creators to make moneyIt’s a huge milestone for both her and the app, but... Continue reading…

This is the new fourth-generation Echo speaker. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Amazon has unveiled a heap of Black Friday deals to give you an early start on your holiday shopping. While we expect many more deals across all categories of tech for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, these ones are focused on Amazon-made devices. This is especially good news since there are a bunch of new products seeing their first price cuts, including Amazon’s ball-shaped Echo speakers and Eero’s fastest mesh Wi-Fi routers. Plus, there are some solid deals on Fire TV streaming devices.Smart speakers and displays

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Ahead of Black Friday 2020, one of the best Nintendo deals is available early. If you are looking to buy a Nintendo Switch, Best Buy has a bundle that includes the console, a digital code for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and three months of Nintendo Switch Online for just $300. It’s a unique deal — the Nintendo Switch costs $300, a copy of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe costs $60, and three months of Nintendo Switch Online is $8.The Nintendo Switch included with the bundle is the updated model, as confirmed to us by a spokesperson at Best Buy. The updated Switch model includes two more hours of battery life than the original model. While in handheld, the updated Switch can be used anywhere between 4.5 hours to nine hours on a single charge, depending on... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter will transfer the @POTUS account to President-elect Joe Biden when he’s sworn in on Inauguration Day, the company told Politico. Twitter will transfer the account to Biden even if President Donald Trump hasn’t conceded — which he still hasn’t done, despite the election widely being called for Biden earlier this month.“Twitter is actively preparing to support the transition of White House institutional Twitter accounts on January 20th, 2021,” a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement to The Verge. “As we did for the presidential transition in 2017, this process is being done in close consultation with the National Archives and Records Administration.”Other presidential accounts, including @whitehouse, @VP, and @FLOTUS, will be... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Universal Electronics Inc. (UEI) has introduced its version of the notoriously unpopular Apple TV remote “specifically developed and designed” for cable, satellite, and MVPD (multichannel video program distributor) customers, the company announced.The remote uses Bluetooth low energy or infrared to connect with the box, has a microphone to speak commands to Siri, and its universal remote function allows control of TVs and audio devices from any brand or manufacturer. It has backlit keys, which activate via an ambient light sensor, a button to flip through channels, and a mute button, according to UEI.“We’re excited that customers worldwide will soon be able to enjoy this new remote, designed specifically for the growing number of... Continue reading…

The iPhone 12 Pro Max has an enviable camera | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge The iPhone 12 Pro Max is Apple’s biggest iPhone ever, with a 6.7-inch display that boasts a camera system our reviewer called “one of the most confident smartphone cameras.” In its latest teardown, iFixit shows how big this impressive camera actually is compared to other iPhones. iFixit The iPhone 12 Pro Max camera is quite large The primary wide-angle sensor “dwarfs the iPhone 12’s sensor,” iFixit says, coming in around 47 percent larger. But it has the same 12 MP resolution as the smaller model. The 12 Pro Max’s sensor-shift image stabilization system— found on most DSLR cameras— adds bulk to the large main camera, iFixit found.The 12 Pro Max’s L-shaped battery is the largest among all current iPhone... Continue reading…

SpaceX will launch a total of 12,000 satellites it needs for its Starlink space-to-ground internet service | Photo by Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images Beginning at noon PT/3PM ET Saturday, a group of SpaceX engineers working on the Starlink satellite project will answer questions on Reddit about its Better than Nothing Beta program. The ultimate goal of the Starlink program is to provide global internet coverage from space, and SpaceX launched the public beta test last month, after introducing a private beta over the summer.Beta users had to buy all of the Starlink ground equipment for $499 and then pay a $99 monthly fee for active service to participate in the program. An email to those invited to the public beta said users could “expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system.” The... Continue reading…

A volunteer in Los Angeles distributes food to people financially hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. | Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images Celebrating Thanksgiving during a pandemic is weird. It’s more stress, more risk calculations, more staying away from people you’d normally draw close to. It feels sucky and dark and I know there’s a lot of people like me who are going to be so grateful for 2020 to be over. But as much as this year has been the worst, it’s also shown us how we humans can be a lot better when we actually try.This year, I’m thankful for the researchers who have worked carefully and swiftly to develop extremely promising vaccine candidates. They took an impossible task and got it to the finish line in record time.I’m thankful for the volunteers who were willing to enroll in clinical trials, and put their bodies on the line to help those researchers... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Employees at Tesla’s Fremont plant are “essential workers” and therefore exempt from new statewide COVID-19 health orders, CNBC reported. The California Department of Public Health says manufacturing is considered an “essential workforce” — and that applies to Tesla’s manufacturing, too.California Governor Gavin Newsom announced new measures such as a “limited stay-at-home order” to slow new coronavirus cases in the state. The rules, which take effect Saturday, prohibit non-essential work and personal gatherings between 10PM and 5AM.The carmaker fought previous, stricter shelter-in-place orders in the spring. In March, Alameda County officials initially told the company it was not exempt from an order requiring nonessential businesses... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Airbnb’s chief trust officer Sean Joyce left the company after just six months in 2019 because the former FBI deputy director took issue with the company’s data sharing practices in China, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.For years, Airbnb has disclosed that it shares information such as phone numbers and email addresses with the Chinese government when a user books a rental in China. That happens whether the user is a Chinese citizen or a foreign visitor — a policy that’s required from all hospitality businesses operating in the country. Joyce, who Airbnb hired in May 2019 to protect the platform’s users, was concerned with Airbnb’s willingness to share data. Joyce also objected to the scope of the data shared, such as... Continue reading…

Amazon and HBO-owner WarnerMedia finally came to an agreement this week to bring HBO Max to Amazon Fire TV devices, nearly six months after the streaming service first launched. But as part of that agreement, Amazon will be removing HBO from Amazon’s Prime Video Channels selection starting next year, according to CNBC.Amazon Prime Video Channels let you subscribe to individual streaming channels for a monthly fee and watch them on Amazon. But the HBO Prime Video Channel has some differences from HBO Max. HBO Max offers everything you’d get with a normal HBO subscription as well as additional movies, shows, and original series.As WarnerMedia is trying to build its subscriber base for HBO Max, it seems the company wants to remove some... Continue reading…

A Moderna trial participant has his arm disinfected before before receiving the vaccine. | Photo by Amanda Andrade-Rhoades for The Washington Post via Getty Images Pfizer / BioNTech’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines have a lot in common: they’ve both been highly effective in clinical trials, they’re both gene-based vaccines, and they also each require two doses. That last point is pretty standard for vaccines. “If you look at all the FDA approved vaccines, the vast majority will require multiple doses,” says Otto Yang, an infectious disease specialist at UCLA Health. Here’s why some of the most promising coronavirus vaccine candidates are no exception.A vaccine works by exposing the body to a small part of the virus so that the immune system can learn to recognize it. More than one dose means more opportunities for the immune system to figure out exactly how to counter a future infection. The... Continue reading…

Game of Thrones editors may not have caught a coffee cup, and editors missed a water bottle in a Downton Abbey promotion photo, but my favorite accidental addition to a show is the crew member who made their way into the most recent Mandalorian episode.The crew member — we have to assume they’re a crew member, but The Verge has reached out to Disney for more information — appears at approximately 18:54 in The Mandalorian’s “Chapter 12” episode. Consider this your warning for light spoilers ahead.The scene in question features Greef Karga (Carl Weathers), Cara Dune (Gina Carano), the Mandalorian (aka, Din Djarin, played by Pedro Pascal), and the blue criminal from the series’ very first episode taking on a batch of stormtroopers.... Continue reading…

This illustration shows the rear of the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich spacecraft in orbit above Earth with its deployable solar panels extended. As the world’s latest ocean-monitoring satellite, it is launching on Nov. 21, 2020, to collect the most accurate data yet on global sea level and how our oceans are rising in response to climate change. | Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA plans to launch a satellite tomorrow that will follow the effects of climate change on the world’s oceans and gather data to improve weather forecasts. The satellite will continue NASA’s three decades-long work to document rising sea levels and will give scientists a more precise view of the coastlines than they’ve ever had from space.“The best front seat view on the oceans is from space”“The best front seat view on the oceans is from space,” says Thomas Zurbuchen, head of science at NASA.The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite will launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. NASA’s live coverage of the event will start at 8:45AM PT on its website, with the launch expected to take place... Continue reading…

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images President-elect Joe Biden is preparing to take over from President Donald Trump, but his transition team isn’t getting the level of cybersecurity support usually provided by outgoing administrations, according to The Wall Street Journal. That could mean Biden’s team is more vulnerable to cyberattacks than if it had the full support and resources of the federal government.Typically, a departing administration would help the transition team with things like setting up government email accounts and making sure those accounts are protected, reports The Wall Street Journal. But the Trump administration has stopped federal agencies from providing that support, leaving the Biden transition team to take care of its own cybersecurity.The team... Continue reading…

HBO’s upcoming TV adaptation of The Last of Us just took a big step forward in actually happening: the network has given the show a series order, with series creator Neil Druckmann working as both a writer and executive producer alongside Craig Mazin (Chernobyl). HBO’s Carolyn Strauss, who executive produced both Game of Thrones and Chernobyl, will also serve as an executive producer on The Last of Us.Per the official synopsis, the TV series seems to be adapting the first game in the series: “The story takes place twenty years after modern civilization has been destroyed. Joel, a hardened survivor, is hired to smuggle Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, out of an oppressive quarantine zone. What starts as a small job soon becomes a brutal,... Continue reading…

T-Mobile is adding 33 channels from its $10-per-month TVision Vibe service for free to all of its pricier TVision Live plans as it deals with ongoing complaints from cable companies like Discovery over how it offers channels.“Current TVision Live customers and anyone who signs up for a TVision Live service package gets an additional 30+ top-rated entertainment channels from TVision Vibe included,” the press release notes.As Variety notes, T-Mobile’s press release frames the newly added channels as a holiday deal, but the reality is likely a little bit more complicated: it’s a temporary solution as T-Mobile works to deal with issues raised by its cheaper $10-per-month Vibe plan, which offers channels from AMC, Discovery, and Viacom at... Continue reading…

Amazon is adding new X-Ray features to its music streaming service, which let you see extra pieces of trivia about the music you’re listening to. The feature is available globally across “tens of millions” of songs, and Amazon says there are extra “fun facts” available for popular songs in the US and UK.X-Ray isn’t an entirely new feature for Amazon. It’s already available on the company’s Prime Video streaming service where it shows information like which actors are in a current scene, and it’s previously been able to show real-time lyrics for songs in Amazon Music. What’s new are the additional pieces of trivia the feature now shows about tracks. These range from interesting tidbits about an artist’s backstory to more perfunctory... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile has added support for the 988 emergency mental health services number more than a year and a half ahead of the Federal Communications Commission’s deadline, the company announced on Friday. T-Mobile customers who dial 988 will be connected to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (NSPL) and its network of crisis centers across the US. T-Mobile says it is the first carrier in the US to make 988 available to its customers.T-Mobile chief technology officer Abdul Saad said in a statement that making the shorter emergency number available to customers was “a matter of urgency for us, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic continues and the holiday season approaches.”In 2019, the FCC released a report suggesting a three-digit... Continue reading…