The Verge

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple’s 2021 iPhones might finally have a smaller notch and, for some models, faster refresh rate displays, according to a new note from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. He also shared rumored information about other upcoming iPhones, including when we could see a foldable phone from Apple.Let’s start with the iPhone launching this year, which we’ll call it the iPhone 13. Kuo says the iPhone 13 lineup will consist of the same models as the iPhone 12, meaning that despite reports of poor sales of the iPhone 12 mini, the smaller phone could still get a refresh this year (via MacRumors). The two iPhone 13 Pro models will also have 120Hz refresh rate screens thanks to LTPO display technology, according to Kuo, finally bringing the iPhone on par... Continue reading…

A community vaccination site in New York City. | Photo by Michael M. Santiago / Getty Images All three COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States will help save lives and reduce hospitalizations. But the newly authorized Johnson & Johnson shot has some key advantages that experts say could help make the vaccination campaign more equitable.Unlike the first two vaccines, produced by Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine can be stored in the refrigerator and only takes one shot to protect people from COVID-19. It could be sent to community clinics, which are equipped to reach people in rural areas or who don’t have regular contact with the health system. Because it only takes one dose, it could help vaccinate people who might be difficult to reach twice, like people experiencing homelessness.... Continue reading…

The word discovery implies there’s something new to find, but I’ve spent the past few weeks steadily making my way through a show that’s been on the air for more than 20 years, thanks to Discovery Plus: House Hunters.Thanks to House Hunters (and House Hunters International, alongside Tiny House Hunters) my days spent inside, working from home and doing nothing but watching TV, have transitioned almost exclusively to Discovery Plus. It exists as white noise in my apartment: the buzzing of couples arguing over whether to pay the full $560,000 for a house in the nice neighborhood closer to the cute bistro or take a chance on the $480,000 home that needs some work but is way under budget emitting from my TV set. From the time I start... Continue reading…

Second screen in Google Meet. | Image: Google Google is adding a smattering of new features to Google Workspace today, including new tools for categorizing your focus time in Google Calendar and Chat, better ways to join Google Meet videoconferences with multiple devices, and a version of its office suite for frontline workers. It’s also taking Google Assistant for Workspace out of beta and making it generally available.The company is trying to categorize these features as part of a new push for what it calls “collaboration equity.” For Google, it’s a high-minded way of explaining the tools it’s trying to create so people working from home are not put at a disadvantage compared to people working from an office (when people are allowed back into offices, that is).The idea that... Continue reading…

Peter Beck’s Rocket Lab is going public. | Photo by Phil Walter / Getty Images Small launch firm Rocket Lab announced plans on Monday to go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, marking the latest deal in an industry where SPAC mergers are becoming increasingly common. The firm also unveiled a new rocket called Neutron that its chief executive said will be capable of launching humans.The SPAC deal values Long Beach, California-based Rocket Lab at $4.1 billion and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021. Once the merger is done, Vector Acquisition Corporation, the SPAC Rocket Lab is merging with, will change its name to Rocket Lab USA, Inc, and the Nasdaq ticker symbol will be RKLB.“This milestone accelerates Rocket Lab’s ability to unlock the full potential of... Continue reading…

Image: Riot Games Riot Games plans to host two big esports tournaments in Reykjavik, Iceland, the studio announced on Monday.The first will be League of Legends’ Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), which was canceled last year due to COVID-19. MSI is one of League of Legends’ marquee tournaments, pitting top teams around the world against each other. The event will begin on May 6th and end on May 23rd.One day later, on May 24th, Riot will kick off Valorant Champions Tour (VCT) Masters Reykjavik, which the studio says is the first live international tournament for the game. Ten teams will compete to earn points toward qualification for Valorant Champions 2021, the global tournament that concludes the Valorant esports season.Like many other esports, League... Continue reading…

Instagram Instagram wants more people to go live at once, so today, it’s launching Live Rooms. The feature, which will be available globally, allows four people to video chat in a live broadcast, compared to the previous limit of two. Instagram’s blog post today says it hopes the feature encourages people to start a “talk show or a podcast,” host a “jam session,” or collaborate with other creators.Going live with more people means the rooms could attract larger audiences. The followers of everyone participating will see the live room and, depending on their notifications, be pinged about it. (Anyone blocked by the active participants won’t be able to join the live, though.)The easy comparison to make here is to Clubhouse, the buzzy social audio... Continue reading…

Sometimes you just want an electric car with decent range, low-key technology, and not much else Continue reading…

Right-wing social media website Gab has reportedly been hacked, and CEO Andrew Torba said on Twitter that “demon hackers” were to blame, using a transphobic slur to describe them.Wired first reported that a hacker, who goes by “JaXpArO and My Little Anonymous Revival Project,” carried out the hack to expose Gab’s users. Private messages from some 15,000 Gab users were used to create a dataset of more than 40 million posts from the site, including private posts. User profiles, some users’ hashed passwords, and passwords for groups also were affected by the hack, which reportedly used a SQL injection vulnerability to siphon some 70GB of data.Activist data transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), plans to share the... Continue reading…

Photo by Kena Betancur/VIEWpress via Getty Images Walmart is dropping its $35 minimum order requirement to qualify for its Express two-hour delivery service, the retailer announced on Monday. The move puts Walmart’s e-commerce platform on better footing to compete with Amazon Prime, which has offered customers same-day delivery for certain items in specific markets through its Prime Now service since 2016.Walmart’s Express service promises two-hour delivery of “Walmart’s food, consumables and general merchandise assortment,” which includes produce, pantry items, household essentials, and other products. It typically costs $10 on top of a standard delivery fee ranging from $7.95 or $9.95, but Walmart waives the delivery fee if you subscribe to its Prime-like Walmart Plus subscription.... Continue reading…

Photo by Adam Schultz for White House / Flickr On Sunday night, President Joe Biden released a message of support for unionizing Amazon workers in Alabama, while sternly denouncing anti-union efforts by employers. The message comes in the midst of a contentious union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer. And while Biden stopped short of an explicit endorsement of the fledgling Bessemer union, he was broadly enthusiastic about the benefits of collective bargaining.“I made it clear during my campaign that my policy would be to support unions organizing and the right to collectively bargain,” Biden said in the statement. “I’m keeping that promise.”It’s rare for a sitting president to publicly support a union drive, and the statement is careful not to direct workers to vote in... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The Apple Watch Series 5 is seeing some big discounts at Best Buy. You can get a good deal on a standard GPS-enabled model, but I think the best deals are on the options with cellular capability. The 40mm Apple Watch Series 5 (silver aluminum case with a black-and-white Nike band) is $319, down from $500, and it supports GPS and cellular networks if you pay to put it on your monthly plan. The bigger 44mm version of this colorway costs $349, which is also a good deal. Prices go up from there, but it’s a smart way to save compared to the cost of a newer Apple Watch Series 6.In case you were wondering exactly how the Series 5 differs from the newer models, including the Apple Watch SE, check out this comparison post to help you decide. In... Continue reading…

Samsung’s flagship Chromebook is less expensive and better than before Continue reading…

Photos: Coco Van Oppens Photo In Monster Hunter, Milla Jovovich plays an outsider. Her character, a US Army ranger named Artemis, is mysteriously transported from our world to a fantastical realm filled with giant and dangerous monsters. American soldiers aren’t something you’ll find in any of Capcom’s Monster Hunter games. But Jovovich believes Artemis helped provide an important perspective — almost serving as a stand-in for a player jumping into their first experience with a Monster Hunter game.“When my character gets transported into the Monster Hunter world I was able to see it with the same eyes as when I first saw the game,” she tells The Verge. “I was just like ‘Whoa, it’s so beautiful.’ We really wanted people to feel like that when they watch the movie,... Continue reading…

The teaser image for the March 8th event. | Image: OnePlus OnePlus CEO Pete Lau is teasing a “moonshot” announcement on March 8th, when the company expected to reveal details about its next flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 9. “Something new is on the horizon” a teaser site reads, alongside a photograph that looks an awful lot like the famous “Earthrise” photograph from the Apollo 8 mission. That photo was taken with a Hasselblad camera, the 180-year-old Swedish company rumored to be partnering with OnePlus on its upcoming phones.In the past, manufacturers have also used photographs of the Moon to advertise the capabilities of their phones’ zoom cameras for astrophotography, indicating that this could be a key feature of the OnePlus 9 lineup.The tease comes days after tipster Ishan Agarwal told... Continue reading…

Skydio’s X2 drone is aimed at enterprise and military customers. | Image: Skydio Skydio has become the first US dronemaker with a valuation of more than $1 billion, a signal of deeper investment in American-made drones after the US government blacklisted Chinese manufacturers. The California-based Skydio raised $170 million in a Series D funding round led by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, as first reported by The Financial Times.Skydio’s drones are best known for their self-flying tech, which allows the aircraft to autonomously navigate obstacles and track users on the ground. The company released its first drone in 2018, the $2500 R1, aiming the product at consumers. It followed this up with the smarter and much cheaper $999 Skydio 2 in 2019, and last year announced its first drone aimed specifically at enterprise... Continue reading…

A stealthy look for the elusive console Continue reading…

Scan documents directly into Mail, Finder, and other Mac apps. | Image: Apple The iPhone’s Notes app has a powerful document scanning feature built right into it, and today I learned that this scanner can be controlled directly from a paired Mac in a variety of apps. It’s an incredibly useful tip for Mac users as it cuts out the awkward middle steps of having to transfer it from phone to computer, or grabbing it from the Mac’s Notes app after it syncs. Shoutout to TikTok account @keyboardshortcuts for bringing it to my attention.Besides Notes, the iPhone’s scanner can be accessed from a number of different Mac apps, including the Finder, Mail, Messages, and Pages 7.2 and later. To use it, control-click (or right-click) in the window you want to scan the document into, select “Import from iPhone or iPad,” and then... Continue reading…

The first electric power sports vehicle to emerge from the new collaboration between Polaris and Zero Motorcycles will be a battery-powered Ranger utility side-by-side. The companies didn’t provide any details about the vehicle’s range, battery pack, or price, but they did say that production on the new UTV (or utility terrain vehicle) was expected to start in December 2021.Ranger is the number one-selling brand in the Minnesota-based Polaris’ lineup of utility vehicles. More details are forthcoming, a spokesperson said, but the goal is to “build a better Ranger with more torque, more power, more hauling, the capabilities needed to give customers the advantage. Electric allows Polaris to do this.”Polaris and Zero Motorcycles signed a... Continue reading…

Lime is getting back to its roots. The scooter company formerly known as LimeBike says it will invest $50 million to grow its shared electric bicycle network, including adding a new model of bike and doubling the number of cities in which it operates.Lime got its start with shared bikes, only to quickly pivot after Bird first introduced the concept of dockless electric scooters in 2017. The company dropped the “bike” from its name and started phasing out its bikes in 2019. But the following year, Lime acquired bike-share company Jump from Uber, and suddenly, bikes were back on the menu.50 new cities by the start of 2022Now, the company is doubling down on shared electric bikes, with plans to launch in “a dozen” new cities in North... Continue reading…

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Hollywood Foreign Press Association In a year of ongoing movie delays and stalled television productions, it’s no surprise that this year’s Golden Globes winners were dominated by streaming services — in particular, Netflix.However, before getting into the winners of the evening, it’s impossible to ignore that this year’s Golden Globes were surrounded by a number of important controversies. Last week the Los Angeles Times published an in-depth feature investigation into the questionable ethics involving all 87 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the voting body that selects Golden Globe winners every year. Some members were flown to Paris and put up in expensive hotels on Netflix’s dollar for on-set visits to Emily in Paris, which was nominated for... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge A cybersecurity firm found that bots were promoting GameStop stock on social media before and after the stock’s frenzied rise last month, Reuters reported. Massachusetts-based PiiQ Media says social media bots promoted Dogecoin, GameStop, and other “meme” stocks in posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. The firm estimated that tens of thousands of bots participated, but it’s still unclear how much influence they had or didn’t have on the rise and fall of GME and other stocks.Shares in GME skyrocketed in January as Reddit users on r/wallstreetbets rallied around the stock in an attempt to squeeze hedge funds that had bet against the video game company. PiiQ told Reuters it detected “patterns of artificial behavior” in... Continue reading…

George Floyd died in police custody in May 2020 | Getty Minneapolis is hiring social media influencers to share “city-generated and approved messages” during the trials of four former city police officers charged in the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, according to the Minnesota Reformer. The Minneapolis city council approved the plan on Friday, which calls for six influencers to be paid about $2,000 each to spread the city’s messages with Black, Native American, Hmong, and Latino communities.The goal is to “address/dispel incorrect information” by using “trusted messengers,” part of a program the city refers to as its Joint Information System to share “timely and relevant information” with the public during the trials.“Through the Communications and Neighborhood and Community Relations... Continue reading…

MyHeritage An AI-powered service called Deep Nostalgia that animates still photos has become the main character on Twitter this fine Sunday, as people try to create the creepiest fake “video” possible, apparently.The Deep Nostalgia service, offered by online genealogy company MyHeritage, uses AI licensed from D-ID to create the effect that a still photo is moving. It’s kinda like the iOS Live Photos feature, which adds a few seconds of video to help smartphone photographers find the best shot.But Deep Nostalgia can take photos from any camera and bring them to “life.” The program uses pre-recorded driver videos of facial movements and applies the one that works best for the still photo in question. Its intended purpose is to allow you to upload... Continue reading…

Photo by VALERIE MACON/AFP via Getty Images Awards season in Hollywood begins Sunday, February 28th, with the 78th Golden Globe Awards, hosted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The Golden Globes, usually considered a harbinger of who may take home awards at other shows like the Oscars, will look a bit different this year thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. The hosts and presenters will be in different locations in the US and around the world.Streaming services have finally come into their own at the Globes, with Netflix leading the pack of with 20 total nominations for its television shows; Hulu has six total nominations, Apple TV Plus has two, and Disney Plus has one. In the motion picture categories (the Globes honor films and TV shows), Netflix leads the way with 22... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Despite its relentless promotion of 5G phones and the fact that it spent more than $45 billion bidding on a new faster spectrum, Verizon support now is advising people on Twitter to turn off their phones’ 5G access to preserve battery life.In a Sunday morning tweet, Verizon support helpfully suggested that “one way to help conserve battery life is to turn on LTE” if users found their batteries were “draining faster than normal.” That step would, of course, turn off 5G in a phone that has it available. It’s also worth pointing out that you don’t actually “turn on LTE” when doing this step — LTE is always enabled as a fallback for the 5G network. But Verizon is obviously being cautious so as not to actually tell its customers to “turn... Continue reading…

Samsung Galaxy Chromebook 2 | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Samsung’s latest Chrome OS laptop, the Galaxy Chromebook 2, is now available for purchase at Best Buy. The Chromebook 2 was first announced at CES in January and features a new QLED display, 360-degree hinge, and a striking red paint job. It starts at $549.99 for a Celeron model and goes up to $699.99 for a Core i3 version, putting it at the higher end of Chromebooks.That price is the most significant thing about the Chromebook 2 because it’s considerably less than the Galaxy Chromebook that debuted a year ago. The older Chromebook had an 4K OLED screen and came with a stylus — neither of which you’ll fine with the new model — but it also cost just under $1,000 when it came out. In our review, we found despite the gorgeous screen and... Continue reading…

Supporters of former President Donald Trump flew a US flag with a QAnon symbol outside the Capitol on January 6th. | Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images The teaser video for Q: Into the Storm, an upcoming documentary series from HBO about the QAnon conspiracy movement has a lot of deplatforming experts concerned; it looks more like a preview for a spy thriller than a careful examination of the umbrella group of conspiracy theories.The breathless tone might be effective at building hype, but it has many disinformation experts concerned. Ben Collins, one of the leading journalists covering online radicalization, tweeted that the trailer was “being marketed in a way that could recruit more people.” Promoted by HBO as a series that “charts a labyrinthine journey to unmask the mastermind behind QAnon,” critics pointed out that the trailer felt a lot like “a recruitment video for Q.”

Photo Illustration by Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The Food and Drug Administration has authorized the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, which only needs one dose and can be stored in regular refrigerators. It’s the third COVID-19 vaccine to get sign-off from the agency.The vaccine can be administered to people 18 years and older. It protects against serious disease, and clinical trials did not flag any dangerous safety problems. In the United States, it was 72 percent effective against severe and milder COVID-19. It was slightly less effective in South Africa, where a variant form of the coronavirus is widespread. Early data also suggested that the shot might prevent asymptomatic infections, but researchers need more data before they can say that for sure.The Johnson & Johnson... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is finalizing its Xbox Game Streaming app for Windows PCs, which includes access to streaming games from the company’s xCloud service. We’ve managed to get access to the latest version of the Xbox Game Streaming app for Windows, an unannounced and unreleased app. Once released, the app will let Windows users stream games from their Xbox Series S / X consoles, and from xCloud.Currently, you can’t stream games from the new Xbox consoles to Windows PCs, as this is unsupported in the existing Xbox Console Companion app. This new app will solve that, and also bring xCloud streaming to Windows PCs for the first time. We first got a look at this xCloud app for Windows last year, and it has improved a lot since then.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A federal judge on Friday gave final approval to a $650 million Facebook class action privacy settlement and ordered the 1.6 million members of the class in Illinois who submitted claims to be paid “as expeditiously as possible.”Chicago attorney Jay Edelson sued Facebook in Cook County Circuit Court back in 2015, alleging that the platform’s use of facial recognition tagging was not allowed under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. The lawsuit claimed that Facebook’s Tag Suggestions tool, which scanned faces in users’ photos and offered suggestions about who the person might be, stored biometric data without users’ consent in violation of the Illinois law.The case became a class action lawsuit in 2018. In 2019, Facebook m... Continue reading…

Sony PS5 | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony’s latest gaming console, the PS5, is one of many gaming gadgets that are pretty hard to find in stock right now due to mostly online-only sales. If you are trying to get your hands on one, Best Buy has restocked the PS5 and PS5 digital edition right now, while supplies last.Similar to today’s Xbox Series X / Series S restocks, the retailer is releasing small waves of PS5 stock right now.After you secure your PS5, you should consider picking up a few items that will help you get the most out of your next-gen console. I strongly suggest buying a one-year membership to PlayStation Plus and purchasing an extra DualSense controller. A one-year membership to PS Plus also gives you access to the PlayStation Plus Collection, a digital... Continue reading…

The path to WandaVision hasn’t been an easy one for Kevin Feige and the Marvel Studios team. Well, at least the path to Wanda Maximoff.Wanda Maximoff, one of the most powerful characters both in the MCU and the comics, found herself the child of divorced parents. There was Disney on one side that wanted to use the character in its Marvel Cinematic Universe films, and 20th Century Fox on the other that technically owned her rights. Marvel’s team found a way to make the character work, but something always felt off.Following Disney’s acquisition of 21st Century Fox, and everything becoming one giant family, things have changed — and so much of how this can benefit the MCU became clear in WandaVision’s penultimate episode.[We’re seven... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Update February 26th, 2021 12:05PM: Best Buy still has both consoles in stock, but the retailer is releasing small waves of inventory every few minutes, so if you’re unable to buy one immediately, it’s worth trying again in a few minutes.Best Buy has restocked both of Microsoft’s next-gen consoles the Xbox Series X and Series S. Like some other gaming gadgets released late last year, these consoles are extremely difficult to buy, but if you move quickly, you have another chance to buy one right now.Whether you buy the digital-only Series S or the more powerful Xbox Series X which includes a disc drive, you may want to consider picking up a few accessories that will help you get the most out of your new gadget, such as an extra... Continue reading…

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio This week, NASA released a grim four-minute timelapse of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, a mesmerizing display of last year’s record-breaking string of tropical commotion.2020’s season “smashed records with an unprecedented 30 named storms, marking the fifth year in a row with above-average hurricane activity,” NASA said in a blog accompanying the video.The agency’s Scientific Visualization Studio used a complex algorithm to process and merge hordes of data from an array of weather satellites in orbit, combining it with estimates and observations from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Climate Prediction Center and National Hurricane Center.The product is a fascinating four-minute and 26-second look at... Continue reading…

DC Comics and Fortnite developer Epic Games are joining forces on a new Batman and Fortnite-themed crossover comic book. The six-issue miniseries, titled Batman / Fortnite: Zero Point, will debut on April 20th. Two issues will then launch in both May and June before the series concludes with a final issue on July 6th.Longtime Fortnite fans might have perked up at the mention of the Zero Point, a reality-warping ball of energy that is hovering over the middle of the Fortnite island and is the catalyst for this season’s many brand crossovers. (Just yesterday, Ellen Ripley and the Xenomorph from the Alien series were added to the game.) It seems the Zero Point will play a key role in this comic miniseries, according to this plot summary:

Netflix is constantly looking for its next big franchise hit — a new Stranger Things or The Witcher. And the trailer for Shadow and Bone teases that the upcoming fantasy series could be next.The first trailer for Netflix’s adaptation of the series showcases the series’ main protagonist, Alina, a map maker who discovers that she harbors a special power that can prevent the world from being swallowed up in darkness threatened by a terrifying sea-of-sorts called the Fold.Shadow and Bone is Leigh Bardugo’s fantasy series that has swept readers by storm. The book, which introduces readers to the Grisha universe — a world inhabited by special people who practice a form of spell work known as small sciences — has become immensely popular on... Continue reading…

During today’s Pokémon Presents presentation, the company unveiled new gameplay footage for New Pokémon Snap, the long-awaited sequel to the N64 classic. The new footage showed off the lush and colorful settings that you will explore across the Lental region.New Pokémon Snap will have players assuming the role of a pokémon photographer who will collaborate with the region’s pokémon expert, Professor Mirror, and his assistant Rita to observe pokémon in their natural habitats. Gameplay remains similar to its predecessor but introduces some new mechanics, such as a photo-sharing feature that will allow you to share your photos online, plus a ranking system so you can compete with other players across the globe.The new footage is just one... Continue reading…

A virtual symposium on the internet’s most important law Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast The Vergecast, our chat show to discuss this week in tech news featuring our reporters and editors.This week, co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn start off the show with Verge reporter Allison Johnson to discuss the state of 5G in America: T-Mobile bringing back their unlimited 5G plan with no throttling, the results of the C-band spectrum auction, and whether Dish is serious about building a 5G network.

At a special live-streamed event today, The Pokémon Company revealed something fans having been waiting a long time for: an open-world Pokémon adventure. The next major entry in the franchise will be called Pokémon Legends: Arceus, and it looks to be a huge evolution of the long-running RPG formula. The developers describe it as a “pre-make,” which offers “a new challenge and a new frontier for the Pokémon world.”The story takes place in the Sinnoh region, at a period that appears to be long before other Pokémon games, and will include a number of iconic monsters like Piplup, with your choice of starters including Rowlet, Oshawott, and Cyndaquil. It’s expected to launch worldwide on the Switch in early 2022.Here’s the basic premise:

Pokémon Diamond and Pearl will be remade for Nintendo Switch. The Pokémon Company announced the news today during a special Pokémon Presents broadcast. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl will launch in late 2021.Diamond and Pearl launched in 2006 for Nintendo DS. The game introduced the Sinnoh region, home to pokémon such as Bidoof, Luxio, Drifloon, and Arceus. The updated versions have a cute, chibified look, though both are “faithful remakes” of the originals. A trailer released alongside the news today teases familiar locations and faces in the Switch version, as well as some quality of life upgrades. Pokémon Home developer Ilca is working on both games alongside longtime Game Freak director Junichi Masuda .There’ve... Continue reading…

Image: Square Enix Yesterday, Square Enix announced that it plans to release an enhanced version of Final Fantasy VII Remake for PS5, and there is a free next-gen upgrade available if you own the game digitally or physically. You can purchase a physical copy of the game right now for $30 at Amazon. Note that if you plan to take advantage of this deal, you will need to own a PS5 with a disc drive to claim your free PS5 copy.Although the game will be free on PlayStation Plus beginning March 2nd, Sony confirmed that the PS Plus version will not be eligible to receive a free upgrade. So, you’ll either need to buy the next-gen version, which starts at $70, or buy the PS4 version, the latter of which I think is the better deal.While on the topic of next-gen,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to adopt a program that provides emergency discounts of up to $50 per month toward broadband internet service for low-income households. The Emergency Broadband Benefit Program also provides up to $75 per month for households on Native American land and a one-time discount of up to $100 on a tablet or computer for those who qualify.The $3.2 billion for the program was approved by Congress in December as part of a $900 billion coronavirus relief package. The subsidies are available to households that already participate in an internet provider’s low-income or pandemic relief program, subscribers to its Lifeline program, households with children receiving free or... Continue reading…

Citizen Citizen, the app that turns everyone into a crime reporter, now wants to track helicopters. The company announced today that it’s introducing helicopter tracking to the app, which will explain to users why there are flying vehicles overhead.The team tells The Verge it employs a 24/7 group to review 911 communications, and now they’ll review data about police helicopters, too. Like any other info on Citizen, users can add their own videos and comments about the incident while Citizen verifies it on its end. When possible, the team will include a “related incident” for a helicopter spotting that’ll better explain the situation. That way, if the helicopter pertains to a missing person report, for example, that report will be linked.The... Continue reading…

Capcom finds itself in an interesting position with Monster Hunter Rise, its new title for the Nintendo Switch. 2018’s Monster Hunter World was a huge triumph, bringing the series to a Western audience accustomed to home consoles and PCs and becoming one of the company’s bestselling games ever. But in doing so, it had to abandon some of the biggest factors behind Monster Hunter’s Japanese success: portability and local multiplayer.Since Capcom started work on Monster Hunter World, though, the Switch has become a global hit, and on paper it sounds like it should be a perfect system for the series. It’s much more capable than the PSP and 3DS hardware that made Monster Hunter a social phenomenon in Japan, while offering the flexibility to... Continue reading…

Final Fantasy VII Remake, the modern retelling of the 1997 PlayStation classic, will be free for PlayStation Plus subscribers beginning March 2nd. It is important to note the PS4 version of Final Fantasy VII Remake available for users with an active PS Plus subscription will not be able to receive a PS5 digital version of the game, which was announced yesterday at Sony’s State of Play event.Final Fantasy VII Remake launched last April exclusively on PlayStation 4 and serves as the first of an unknown number of entries in an episodic retelling of the original game. The game is also backward compatible on PlayStation 5, but yesterday's State of Play confirmed that a next-gen version of the game will release on June 10th and will take... Continue reading…

Its built-in stylus is useful and enjoyable, but the Stylo 6 is too slow to recommend Continue reading…

Image: LastPass A security researcher is recommending against LastPass password manager after detailing seven trackers found in the Android app, The Register reports. Although there is no suggestion that the trackers, which were analyzed by researcher Mike Kuketz, are transferring a user’s actual passwords or usernames, Kuketz says their presence is bad practice for a security-critical app handling such sensitive information.Responding to the report, a spokesperson from LastPass says the company gathers limited data “about how LastPass is used” to help it “improve and optimize the product.” Importantly, LastPass tells The Register that “no sensitive personally identifiable user data or vault activity could be passed through these trackers,” and users... Continue reading…

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Nvidia has started to roll out support for Resizable BAR, a feature of PCI Express that can boost frame rates in certain games by up to 10 percent. The new RTX 3060 graphics card is the first to include Resizable BAR, which allows certain CPUs to access the full graphics frame buffer, instead of being limited to reading just 256MB blocks. Support for other 30-series GPUs will be available in late March.You’ll need the right CPU, motherboard, and graphics card to utilize this new feature, and Nvidia is working with both AMD and Intel to provide chipset support. AMD’s Zen 3 CPUs are supported, alongside Intel’s 10th Gen processors and the company’s upcoming 11th Gen S chips. Image: Nvidia Nvidia’s Resizable BAR... Continue reading…