The Verge

The repairability score can be seen on the lower right of the product page. | Screenshot: Apple.com Apple has added iPhone and MacBook repairability scores to its online store in France to comply with a new French law that came into effect this year. MacGeneration reports that the rating takes into account features like how easily a device can be disassembled and the availability of repair manuals and spare parts. Links to each product’s final score, with details for how they were calculated, are available on this support page.The ratings for Apple’s products vary between products and generations. Its iPhone 12 lineup all have scores of six out of 10 for example, while the previous year’s iPhone 11s are rated lower at between 4.5 and 4.6. The improvement, according to the detailed scoring assessment, is due to the newer iPhones being... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony will allow the PlayStation 5 to make use of expanded SSD storage from this summer, according to a report in Bloomberg. The functionality is said to be coming in a firmware update that will activate the PS5’s M.2 expansion slot, which is currently disabled. Sony told The Verge ahead of the PS5 launch that the feature was “reserved for a future update.”Bloomberg’s sources say that the firmware update will allow for an increase in the speed of the PS5’s cooling fans. The PS5 has an extremely fast built-in SSD, and any compatible third-party drive will need to be equally fast in order to store and run PS5 games; that’s going to generate some extra heat.The PS5 comes with an 825GB SSD right now, leaving users with only 667GB of usable... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony has confirmed that Japan Studio, its internal video game developer based in Tokyo, will essentially wind down and refocus around a single team. In a statement to IGN, Japan Studio said as of April 1st it would be “re-centered to Team Asobi, the creative team behind Astro’s Playroom, allowing the team to focus on a single vision and build on the popularity of Astro’s Playroom.” In other words, get ready for more Astro games.Astro’s Playroom is a well-received title packaged with every PlayStation 5 console. It’s a 3D platformer designed to show off the advanced haptic feedback of the new DualSense controller. Before that, the same team developed Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, widely considered to be the standout exclusive PlayStation VR... Continue reading…

Image: Square Enix Square Enix just announced Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, a PS5-enhanced version of FF7 Remake that includes graphical improvements like “improved textures, lighting, and background environments.” But some users on ResetEra noticed one other potentially huge graphical upgrade: Cloud’s famously skinny arms may have gotten a bit beefier.Did Cloud get more swole for next-gen, like the PS5 itself?Clearly, this warranted a full investigation.Check out this image, from user Tyaren: Image: ResetEra user Tyaren And this GIF, from user Rickenslacker: GIF: ResetEra user Rickenslacker Convincing, right? These two images make a strong argument. But my Verge colleagues and I weren’t totally sure.... Continue reading…

Image: Activision The latest Call of Duty game collection may now be too big to fit the base 500GB PlayStation 4 hard drive (via IGN). According to the official Call of Duty blog, if you want to have the latest Call of Duty: Warzone update and the full Black Ops: Cold War and Modern Warfare package on your PS4, you’ll have to uninstall content you don’t use.The games make that somewhat easy to do by letting you remove certain modes — for example, if you only want to play Warzone, you could uninstall Black Ops’s single player, Zombie, and arcade modes, but it seems a bit ridiculous that you can’t fit three (or really, two and a half) games on an entire game console. That’s especially true since Activision sort of treats these three games as one thing:... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Telegram is updating its messaging app with options for auto-deleting messages, expiring invite links, and new unlimited groups, the company shared in a blog post. Much like Signal, Telegram received a burst of new users in the confusion over WhatsApp’s privacy policy and now the company is adopting features that were already part of its competitors’ apps, features which offer more security and privacy.Auto-deleting messages were already possible in Telegram’s encrypted Secret Chats, but this new update for iOS and Android adds the option to make messages disappear in any kind of chat. Auto-delete can be enabled inside of chats, and set to delete either 24 hours or seven days after messages are sent. Auto-delete won’t remove every... Continue reading…

Full-size image here. | Image: 343 Industries We got our first look at Halo Infinite, the next game in Microsoft’s huge franchise, back in July, and the results were... underwhelming. The graphics and visuals weren’t quite as impressive as you might expect from a next-generation game (the demo was running on a PC “that is representative of the experience that players will have on Xbox Series X”), and one vacant-looking enemy even became the infamous Craig meme. The game was delayed to 2021 a few weeks after the demo aired “to ensure the team has adequate time to deliver a Halo game experience that meets our vision.”On Thursday, though, developer 343 Industries shared new screenshots of Halo Infinite in 4K from an in-development PC version of the game, and the graphics look much... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is once again releasing an update to prevent a charging problem from killing MacBooks — this time it’s to fix a problem where 2019 and later MacBook Pros, and 2020 and later MacBook Airs were being damaged when connected to third-party USB-C hubs and docks (via MacRumors).It’s unclear how widespread the issues are, but a poll on Reddit had 74 out of 221 respondents report that their M1 Air or Pro had failed after using a hub. As with all polls, it’s best to take the results with a grain of salt, but there’s an indication that some people were experiencing issues.Most of the issues seemed to come from using a third-party dock, and while some of them seem to be from pretty obscure brands, there are a few recognizable ones that are... Continue reading…

Image: Square Enix Final Fantasy VII Remake’s soundtrack will be available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music Unlimited, and other music subscription services tomorrow, February 26th, Square Enix announced on Thursday. It will have an eye-popping (ear-popping?) 156 tracks, according to a press release.The game’s soundtrack was an excellent reimagining of the original game’s iconic music, and I frequently listen to it via random YouTube videos. The official arrival on streaming services should make listening to it much easier.

Image: Square Enix Square Enix announced two mobile games set in the Final Fantasy VII universe today. One is a battle royale game aiming for a 2021 release, and the other is Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, a compilation of all the games and stories set in the Final Fantasy VII universe (Final Fantasy VII, Advent Children, Before Crisis, Crisis Core, and Dirge of Cerberus). The latter is slated to launch sometime in 2022 on Android and iOS.According to a press release, Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis is a chapter-structured single-player experience that covers the entire timeline in one of the most popular installments in Square Enix’s RPG franchise. The compilation will feature all the events from each game, in addition to new story elements focusing on... Continue reading…

The enhanced version of Final Fantasy VII Remake for the PS5 wasn’t the only Midgar-related news today. Square Enix also revealed an even bigger surprise: a battle royale for mobile devices that’s set three decades before the original game. It’s called Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier, and it’s slated to come to both Android and iOS devices later this year.We don’t know much more about the game just yet, but, as the title implies, it’s centered on Soldier, a group of enhanced fighters that plays an important role in FFVII’s story. A multiplayer battle royale seems like a strange way to tell a story like that, but the trailer at least shows some iconic FFVII locales and what looks like fast-paced combat involving both weapons and... Continue reading…

The world of Final Fantasy VII Remake is getting bigger with a new episode featuring new characters — like Yuffie Kisaragi — and big quality-of-life changes for the PlayStation 5, called Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade.The PS5 version of the game will include a “brand-new episode” that has players play as ninja Yuffie Kisaragi on a mission to infiltrate the Shinra Corporation. Alongside the new content, the PS5 version is getting an update adding faster load times, a performance mode (that targets 60fps gameplay), and a graphics mode for 4K. There’s also a new photo mode.Existing PS4 owners of the original Final Fantasy VII Remake for PS4 will get the PS5 version for free but will have to pay extra for the additional Yuffie... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge For the early adopters of next-gen hardware Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AT&T today announced plans to spin out its various video businesses — DirecTV, AT&T TV, and U-Verse — into a new company that it will jointly control with TPG Capital. The deal sees AT&T holding on to a 70 percent stake in the company, with TPG getting the other 30. “The transaction to separate AT&T’s US video business into New DirecTV implies an enterprise value for the new company of $16.25 billion.”AT&T paid a total of $67 billion to buy DirecTV: it landed the satellite provider for $48.5 billion in 2014, and the rest was debt that AT&T took on. With this “premium new video entity” valued at less than a quarter of that, you can see how just how badly the original mega-acquisition has fared. “We certainly didn’t expect this outcome... Continue reading…

Image: Nikola Motors Zero-emission trucking company Nikola has shuttered its so-called Powersports division and is pausing work on an electric personal watercraft and off-road vehicle first announced in April 2019. Nikola stopped work on the projects as part of a larger push to focus on getting its first hydrogen-powered truck out the door, following a number of stumbles in 2020.“We still own the NZT and WAV rights and have put the projects on pause. We may consider moving forward with them at a later time,” a spokesperson tells The Verge. “Right now we are focusing on commercial trucking and hydrogen infrastructure.” Photos by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Nikola started pursuing an electric watercraft back in 2017 after it bought up one of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok has agreed to pay $92 million to settle a class action lawsuit over alleged privacy violations, which included claims that the app collected “highly sensitive personal data” to track users and target ads to them. TikTok rejected the allegations but said it didn’t want to spend time litigating the issue.“While we disagree with the assertions, rather than go through lengthy litigation, we’d like to focus our efforts on building a safe and joyful experience for the TikTok community,” a TikTok spokesperson wrote in a statement sent to The Verge.A settlement for 21 combined lawsuitsThe settlement combines 21 proposed class action lawsuits against TikTok over an assortment of alleged privacy violations. The lawsuit makes some... Continue reading…

Hulu has released the first trailer for MODOK, its upcoming animated show that will see Patton Oswalt voice the titular Marvel villain in a more light-hearted, Robot Chicken-style take on the franchise’s usual portentous superhero dramas. The show also got a release date: it’ll debut on May 21st on the streaming service.MODOK (Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing) has been a long-running bad guy in Marvel Comics as the leader of the evil scientific group AIM. (A more serious take on the character serves as the primary antagonist for Square Enix’s Avengers video game, released last year.)In the new Hulu animated series, MODOK has managed to bankrupt AIM, resulting in the supervillain being fired as the organization’s leader and... Continue reading…

Image: EA The next Dragon Age game will no longer have multiplayer aspects, according to a new Bloomberg report. The game, made by EA-owned studio BioWare, had reportedly “been designed with a heavy multiplayer component,” but it has been turned into a single-player game “in recent months.”However, we still haven’t seen much of the game since it was first announced with a brief teaser trailer in December 2018, and we don’t know what the multiplayer component could have looked like. Even though the game has been in the works for some time — development started in 2015, reports Bloomberg — there’s still no release date for it just yet, meaning it could be a ways off, and things could change. BioWare recently showed fleeting glimpses of the game in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Oxford University disclosed on Thursday that one of its research labs dedicated in part to studying COVID-19 suffered a cyberattack, following an investigation from Forbes indicating external access to a number of the lab’s systems.The lab is part of Oxford’s Division of Structural Biology, known as “Strubi.” There’s no indication the lab or its research had any direct connection to ongoing COVID-19 vaccine development conducted by the Oxford Vaccine Group and the Jenner Institute. But it’s unclear exactly what data may have been compromised.Forbes says it was shown proof of the intrusion by Alex Holden, the chief technology officer of a cybersecurity firm called Hold Security, who provided screenshots showing access to lab equipment... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook has decided whether to adopt recommendations the Facebook Oversight Board made last month when the board decided its first round of appeals from users. Among its responses, Facebook said it would not loosen standards on taking down COVID-19 misinformation, but it would test informing users whether a human or an automated filtering system deleted their post.The Oversight Board made 17 recommendations based on the six cases it examined. Unlike the board’s decisions regarding the appeals cases, Facebook is not required to adopt the recommendations, but it agrees that it will at least consider them. However, several of the responses were noncommittal, with one promising to “continue to explore how best to provide transparency [...]... Continue reading…

Image: Bungie Destiny 2, Bungie’s long-running online sci-fi shooter, has a year of substantial changes ahead of it, according to a new roadmap the studio detailed in an extensive blog post published on Thursday. While the game’s next major expansion, The Witch Queen, has been delayed to early 2022, Bungie says it has major overhauls planned for nearly every aspect of the game — from the competitive multiplayer Crucible mode to how players progress and become more powerful across the game’s seasonal expansion model.One of the biggest changes slated for Destiny 2 is a major crossplay implementation that will, for the first time, allow players on PC and players on consoles to join one another for activities. In its blog post, Bungie said crossplay is... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Facebook has introduced a new “Hey Facebook” wake word for its family of Portal smart displays and the Oculus Quest platform. The company only formally announced it was gradually rolling out to Quest headsets, but its Portal support page now lists “Hey Facebook” as an alternative to “Hey Portal.” A look through the Wayback Machine shows it used to only list “Hey Portal” as recently as February 5th, 2021.Oculus owners can fret a little less knowing that it’s launching as an opt-in feature, buried in the Experimental Features panel within the headset’s settings. Oculus says it will remain that way, too, which was smart to mention, knowing that some users might fear it’ll become mandatory. You can also still use the Voice Commands app to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft’s Xbox Live service is down, preventing users from signing in to the service. The Xbox Live problems started at around 3:15PM ET today, and Microsoft has confirmed it’s investigating the outage. “We are aware that users may not be able to sign-in to Xbox Live at this time,” says Xbox support. “Our teams are currently investigating to fix this issue.”If you’re not already signed in to your Xbox, the sign-in process will fail with an error, preventing access to certain services like Xbox Party chat. Some apps may also fail to launch without the core Xbox Live services being online, and a number of games will also not launch correctly.Microsoft has marked the Xbox Live issues as a “major outage” over at the company’s Xbox status... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Fisker Inc. quietly settled a previously unreported trade secret lawsuit with Volkswagen-backed solid-state battery company QuantumScape last July, The Verge has learned. The suit, filed in April 2019 in Santa Clara Superior Court, was centered on a former QuantumScape employee who brought thousands of confidential documents with her to a new job at Fisker Inc. in late 2018 and early 2019.While the lawsuit played out, Fisker Inc. locked away those documents and the work done by the employee, and even “quarantined” battery cells made while she worked there, though it ultimately argued the information was public domain. As part of the settlement, Fisker Inc. ultimately agreed to delete or destroy the documents the employee brought with... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Valve has been compelled by a California court to provide sales data on more than 400 Steam games to Apple and possibly reveal its yearly sales, revenue, and profits to Apple as well. The iPhone maker subpoenaed Valve for the data as part of its ongoing dispute with Fortnite developer Epic Games.According to a Wednesday order by Judge Thomas Hixson, Valve will have to provide yearly sales and pricing data on 436 games that are available on both its PC game distribution platform, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. Apple has requested the data so it can define the video game market in its case against Epic.In a filing published on February 18th, Valve had argued that Apple’s demands were overly broad. Apple had asked for even more data in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitch is removing the anti-union ads that its parent company, Amazon, was running on the platform. The ads showed Amazon employees talking about why they want to vote no on unionization and directed viewers to Amazon’s “DoItWithoutDues” website. A Twitch spokesperson said the ads “should never have been allowed to run on [the] service,” as they violate its political advertising policies.Twitch also says that it is “evaluating [its] review processes to ensure that similar content does not run in the future.”The ads were reported by More Perfect Union; their removal was first reported by Rod Breslau.The ads were the latest entry in a long campaign aimed at disrupting organization efforts at an Amazon warehouse outside of Birmingham,... Continue reading…

Microsoft’s Xbox Series X | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you missed Target’s early morning Xbox Series X restocks today, you have another chance today to secure Microsoft’s next-gen console. A Walmart spokesperson told The Verge that the retailer will have the Xbox Series X and Series S available for purchase today, February 25th, at 3PM ET.Walmart told The Verge you will have two options to pay for both consoles — with a one-time payment or pay with Xbox All Access, which requires a monthly payment for 24 months. Xbox All Access is a bundle that splits the cost of an Xbox console; Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which includes both versions of the video game streaming service; access to xCloud; and Xbox Live Gold.If you are buying either an Xbox Series X or Series S, there are a few... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Nvidia supposedly launched a $329 graphics card today, the GeForce RTX 3060, but I’ve yet to see much proof.Orders began today at 9AM PT / 12PM ET for a card whose listed prices ranged from $329.99 all the way up to $629.99, averaging $471. Those aren’t scalper prices, mind you. They’re the retail prices set by Nvidia’s partners.As far as I can tell, the only places that actually claimed to stock a card for $329.99 were Newegg and EVGA’s own website, and neither simply put the card on sale: Newegg is only raffling off chances to buy the cards, and EVGA has a queue where you hit a “notify me” button. In both cases, you wait for the company to hopefully email you back with good news. Screenshot by The Verge N... Continue reading…

Last year, House Judiciary Committee lawmakers topped off a yearslong investigation into anti-competitive behavior in the tech industry by bringing in some of the most powerful chief executives in the market. Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai headlined one of the biggest must-watch hearings last summer and they faced tough lines of questioning from lawmakers who (for the most part) did their homework, prepped with thousands of pages of evidence alleging illegal business practices.Lawmakers shined a light on some of tech’s shady business practices, and now they’re getting ready to finish the job. On Thursday, the House Judiciary’s subcommittee on antitrust returned for... Continue reading…

An operator works during the mooring of an undersea fiber optic cable at Arrietara beach near the Spanish Basque village of Sopelana on June 13, 2017. | Photo by Ander Gillenea / AFP via Getty Images The web of undersea cables that transmit data around the world could one day be used to track earthquakes and tsunamis, according to new research. During a test run last year, one of Google’s fiber-optic cables was able to successfully pick up on nearby earthquakes by detecting distortions in light pulses sent along the cable. It’s a new approach to an idea that researchers have been working on for the past several years.Can we find a less expensive way to cover the ocean with geophysical sensors?“Can we find a less expensive way to cover the ocean with geophysical sensors? There’s already this telecommunication cable infrastructure out there. If you can turn them into sensors, that’s wonderful — and that’s what we’re doing now,” says... Continue reading…

An illustration showing Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket standing on its launchpad in Cape Canaveral, Florida. | Blue Origin Blue Origin is delaying the debut launch of its massive, centerpiece rocket New Glenn to late 2022, the company announced Thursday, citing a key Pentagon contract it lost out on to rival firms SpaceX and United Launch Alliance as the reason for the delay.New Glenn is a massive, partially reusable heavy-lift rocket designed to launch anything from national security payloads and commercial satellites. Its first flight was previously slated for sometime in 2021.“The current target for New Glenn’s maiden flight is Q4 2022,” the company said in a statement on Thursday. “The Blue Origin team has been in contact with all of our customers to ensure this baseline meets their launch needs.”Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin’s founder and currently the... Continue reading…

Twitter safety mode mockup. | Image: Twitter Twitter plans to introduce a way for you to automatically block and mute abusive accounts, the company announced at its Analyst Day presentation on Thursday.It appears the feature will be a toggle you can turn on in a new “safety mode,” according to a slide in the Analyst Day slide deck. Here’s Twitter’s description of how the toggle will work if you flip it on: “Automatically block accounts that appear to break the Twitter Rules, and mute accounts that might be using insults, name-calling, strong language, or hateful remarks.”With the new safety mode, Twitter will automatically detect accounts that “might be acting abusive or spammy” and limit how those accounts can engage with your content for seven days, according to the slide.W... Continue reading…

Twitter’s mockup of its Super Follows feature. | Image: Twitter Twitter announced a pair of big upcoming features today: the ability for users to charge their followers for access to additional content, and the ability to create and join groups based around specific interests. They’re two of the more substantial changes to Twitter in a while, but they also fit snugly into models that have been popular and successful on other social platforms.The payment feature, called Super Follows, will allow Twitter users to charge followers and give them access to extra content. That could be bonus tweets, access to a community group, subscription to a newsletter, or a badge indicating your support. In a mockup screenshot, Twitter showed an example where a user charges $4.99 per month to receive a series of... Continue reading…

EVGA’s RTX 3060 graphics card | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge Nvidia’s new RTX 3060 will be available to purchase starting on Thursday, February 25th at 9AM PT / 12PM ET. Unlike other GPUs in the RTX 30 series, Nvidia is not making a Founder’s Edition of the RTX 3060, but other manufacturers like EVGA and Gigabyte are making their own iterations of the RTX 3060. The price is said to be $329, but as has been the case for the past year, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to find it available for that. Retailers that have posted listings are already marking up 3060 cards to $390 or more, which is much closer in price to the step-up 3060 Ti.The Verge’s Sean Hollister reviewed EVGA’s iteration of the RTX 3060 and noted in his review that although the GPU’s price makes it more competitive to buy, you’re... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Update February 25th, 2021 12:48PM ET: Both GameStop and Target have run out of stock. If you are looking to buy the Xbox Series X, Walmart plans to restock the console at 12PM PT / 3PM ET today. You can find additional information here.Update February 25th, 2021 09:07AM ET: GameStop has run out of stock, but Target now has supply available for both the Xbox Series X and Series S.The Xbox Series X and Series S consoles have been available to purchase since last fall, but actually finding one to buy has been extremely difficult. If you are looking to buy either console, Target has both models in stock, and they are available for preorder while supplies last.Regardless of which console you buy, you may want to consider picking up a... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge City pop is a genre defined by nostalgia. Though, as Cat Zhang writes, that nostalgia is algorithmically generated — and its recent popularity is wrapped in the acceleration of global exchange and a whole Western mythology of Japan as the capitalist future. Yesterday, Zhang published an elegant capsule history of the genre in Pitchfork, which also explains why the music is surging in popularity in the US.Naturally, it started in Japan. “The upswing of city pop likely originates with the Japanese themselves: a few decades ago, domestic crate diggers started critically reevaluating vintage Japanese music, or wamono,” Zhang writes. Then, some decades later, it hit Western ears.“Japanese music isn’t particularly accessible overseas: The... Continue reading…

The Virtual Desktop app for the Oculus Quest has been updated to enable the wireless streaming of PC VR games natively over Wi-Fi, eliminating the need to go through the complex multistep sideloading process I outlined here. Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time the app has sported this feature. Its developer introduced it in the app in 2019 but claims it was forced to remove it because Oculus was developing its own wireless streaming solution.According to an interview with UploadVR, Guy Godin, the app’s developer, submitted the feature recently to Oculus’ App Lab, which is a newly launched fork of the Oculus Store for early access games and experiences. But interestingly, Oculus approved the feature for the app in the main store... Continue reading…

Spotify Spotify’s making it easier to parse your liked songs. The company is rolling out a new feature today that’ll let users filter their liked songs by genre and mood. This way, you can enjoy more of what you like without compromising on the vibe. I, for example, have songs that would be fun in the club but also folky songs for relaxation time, both of which are under my liked songs umbrella. This new feature would let me decide what mood I’m in and then listen.To access the filters, you have to have at least 30 liked songs. You can then go to your library, tap into liked songs, and select a filter that’s listed across the top. You can remove that filter whenever you like and swap in a new one. These filters will change as you like new... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge Behind the claims of sexism and racism at Atlanta’s premier tech startup Continue reading…

Image: USPS Only 10 percent of the United States Postal Service’s new fleet of mail trucks will be battery-powered despite President Biden’s desire to convert the entire government fleet, USPS head Louis DeJoy revealed in Congressional testimony on Wednesday. The other 90 percent will be gas-powered, though the trucks — which are being built by defense contractor Oshkosh — are supposedly designed to be converted into electric vehicles down the road.When DeJoy was asked why it wasn’t the other way around, he said he was willing to talk to the Biden administration but that the USPS doesn’t “have the 3 or 4 extra billion [dollars] in our plan right now that it would take to do it.” The USPS mail vehicles make up about a third of the entire government... Continue reading…

Photo-Illustration: by Vulture; Photo by Mario Perez/ABC An oral history of Lost’s daring, divisive finale, our last truly communal broadcast TV experience. Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Oculus Quest 2 standalone VR headset has been tough to find throughout the pandemic. Several retailers now have it back in stock, but only at Newegg can you snag one and get a complimentary gift card with your purchase. The headset with 64GB of storage costs $299 and includes a $10 Newegg gift card, while the 256GB model is $399 and comes with a $20 gift card. If you’ve considered getting a headset, you might as well buy it from a place that’ll give you a freebie.In addition to the headset, Newegg is including gift cards with other accessories made for the Oculus Quest 2. The zip-up carrying case for the headset is $50 and includes a $5 gift card. The Elite strap that dramatically improves the Quest 2’s fit and comfort is also $50... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge A starter pack for exercise Continue reading…

Something my mom said about the recent streaming landscape stuck with me while watching a three-hour event for Paramount Plus.“I’m sometimes searching on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, [and] HBO when I’m bored, and I often am, and I still can’t figure out what I want to watch,” she said. “Maybe too much choice isn’t always good!”Companies like ViacomCBS, Disney, Apple, Amazon, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, and even Fox would say otherwise. They’re in the midst of pivoting to a streaming-first or streaming-focused strategy, figuring out their way into the world with individual platforms — many of which come with a plus sign at the end. More, the plus sign signals; more, more, more. Paramount Plus is just the latest, and arguably the last,... Continue reading…

A photo of the nightside of Venus taken by the Wide-field Imager on Parker Solar Probe. | NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Laboratory/Guillermo Stenborg and Brendan Gallagher The Parker Solar Probe, NASA’s closest eye on the Sun, was whizzing by Venus last summer for a gravity assist when it snapped a striking new image of the planet’s mysterious nightside, revealing a surprisingly clear view of the Venusian surface.The spacecraft, launched in 2018, is in the midst of its seven-year journey to study the Sun from 4 million miles away, the closest any human-made object has gone before. To do this, Parker Solar Probe needs to use the gravity of Venus to help tighten its orbit around the Sun through a series of seven flybys, nudging itself closer to the star with each pass.Those scenic passes are valuable opportunities to catch intriguing shots of Venus.The image taken by Parker Solar Probe’s Wide-field... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Coinbase has publicly filed paperwork to list its stock on the NASDAQ exchange, a huge step forward in the first major public offering for a cryptocurrency company. Coinbase’s S-1 was published on Thursday morning, after being confidentially submitted to the SEC in December.In an attached letter to investors, founder Brian Armstrong presented cryptocurrency as an equalizing force in financial markets — and Coinbase as the company at the forefront of that change.“If the world economy ran on a common set of standards... the world would be a more fair and free place”“The current financial system is rife with high fees, unequal access, and barriers to innovation,” the letter reads. “If the world economy ran on a common set of standards... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge India has announced new regulations for social networks and other web services in the country, particularly “significant social media” companies with large user bases, like Facebook and Twitter.India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) announced the rules earlier today. They require social media companies to establish a “grievance redressal mechanism” for users, including official “grievance officers” who acknowledge complaints within 24 hours and resolve them within 15 days. Services must also remove nudity and sexually explicit content within 24 hours of a user flagging it.“Significant social media intermediaries” face additional responsibilities. These companies must appoint India-based officials that work... Continue reading…

Amazon Music is finally coming to Google’s set-top box operating systems, with a new app rolling out for Google TV (currently just available on the latest Chromecast) and Android TV starting today.The app will function similarly to Amazon Music on other devices. Subscribers to Amazon Music Unlimited (which costs $7.99 per month for Prime members or $9.99 per month) will be able to access the full music library, similar to Spotify or Apple Music. Regular Prime Members will get access to a curated list of songs and playlists, while users without any subscriptions will get access to Amazon Music’s ad-supported options.It’s by no means the first music app on Google’s hardware — in addition to Google’s own offerings, services like Spotify... Continue reading…

Framework A San Francisco-based startup called Framework has just launched an ambitious project: a thin, lightweight productivity laptop that it claims can be “upgraded, customized, and repaired in ways that no other notebook can.”Framework founder Nirav Patel told The Verge that the company aims to address his long-standing frustrations with consumer technology companies. Patel was one of the original Oculus employees and has worked for Apple as well. During that time, he says he “saw an industry that felt incredibly broken across the board.”“As a consumer electronics company, your business model effectively depends on churning out constant tons of hardware and pushing it into channels, and into market, and into consumers’ hands, and then sort... Continue reading…

CLAY ENOS/NETFLIX Netflix’s next big-budget action movie is almost here: Army of the Dead from director Zack Snyder sees a squad of mercenaries battling their way into Las Vegas to pull off a massive heist. The catch is it’s set after a zombie apocalypse has ravaged the city, so instead of the usual Vegas barriers of casino security and mob bosses, the crew will have to fight through hordes of the ravenous undead to try to get the score of a lifetime.The first trailer for Army of the Dead doesn’t show off much, but we do know that Dave Bautista (Guardians of the Galaxy) will be leading the the show. Snyder, of course, is no stranger to big action films and zombie movies, in particular, having directed the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead (as well as his... Continue reading…