The Verge

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…

On Saturday, Post Malone will hold a virtual concert to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Pokémon franchise. If that combination wasn’t strange enough, today, he revealed one of the songs he’ll be performing: a cover of Hootie & the Blowfish’s mid-’90s hit “Only Wanna Be With You.”I’m not entirely sure how much crossover there is between Post, Hootie, and Pokémon fans, but the song is definitely a real thing. You can listen to the cover in the video above, and The Pokémon Company says “the song will be included as part of Post’s headlining appearance” at the virtual concert, which will be airing on February 27th at 7PM ET. You can watch the live stream on both Twitch and YouTube.Elsewhere, it also looks like we may be getting some... Continue reading…

Trying to find friends can be stressful on its own, but when you’re a sea monster trying to blend in with the residents of an Italian town who just so happen to hate sea monsters, it’s even more anxiety-inducing.This is the basic premise of Luca, Pixar’s new animated film coming later this year. The movie follows Luca Paguro, a 13-year-old sea monster who wants to see what life is like above the sea, and his friend Alberto Scorfano, who loves the human world. Together, they take on human-looking forms and explore around an Italian town, trying to live a carefree life and enjoy the simple things that humans may take for granted, like bicycles and gelato.If that sounds a little like The Little Mermaid, one of Disney’s most popular... Continue reading…

It’s rare to find a button that is almost universally hated, but the infamous touchpad on the Apple TV’s Siri Remote might be the exception. Even over half a decade after its introduction, it stands as one of the most reviled pieces of hardware around.The failings of the Apple TV remote don’t just stem from a bad touchpad (and don’t get me wrong: it is bad) but from a larger misunderstanding on Apple’s part of what makes a good remote and the fundamental purpose of those devices.The typical TV remote is big and ugly, but it’s also extremely easy to find and navigate thanks to differing patterns of buttons that make it clear what you’re touching even without checking. Generally speaking, no one has ever been too confused about how to... Continue reading…

When the first Bravely Default launched in 2014, it represented a return of sorts. Developer Square Enix made its name with classic turn-based roleplaying games like Final Fantasy, but those eventually gave way to bigger, more cinematic experiences. With Bravely Default, Square was going back to its roots. It may have technically been a new franchise, but the game was pure classic Final Fantasy-style adventuring. It even introduced a novel battle system to help it from retreading too much new ground.So where does that leave a sequel? Bravely Default II — technically the third game in the series, following 2016’s Bravely Second: End Layer — does all of the same things that made the original so interesting. But seven years later, it... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon Amazon’s head of Fire TV, Kindle, and its new Luna cloud gaming service departed the company this month. Marc Whitten has joined Unity as an executive on the company’s Unity Create business. Unity is a cross-platform game engine that many developers use to get their games running across multiple devices.Whitten’s departure, spotted by Matthew Ball on Twitter, comes less than six months after Amazon launched an early access version of Luna, the company’s new cloud gaming service. It also comes during the same month Google announced it’s shutting down its in-house game development studios for Stadia. That’s left the writing on the wall for Stadia, as it increasingly looks like Google will focus on licensing the underlying tech it has... Continue reading…

A new seaweed-based supplement could reduce a potent greenhouse gas released in burps — sheep burps, that is.Diana Zlotnikov is a farmer in New York with plenty of burping sheep who release methane as a byproduct of their digestion system. Methane is a gas that has 28 times the warming capacity of carbon dioxide. Farming can produce a ton of CO2 and methane gas — two of the largest threats in greenhouse gases. Together they make up nearly 50 percent of all emissions and threaten the climate of our planet.Five years ago, Diana started her farm with regenerative agriculture principles in mind — she implemented practices that would not only reduce the carbon footprint of her livestock but would help negate it. Diana has designed her farm... Continue reading…

No Founder’s Edition this time, so say hello to EVGA Continue reading…

Wynn Resorts Podcast studios are now a Las Vegas attraction. Wynn Resorts announced today that it’s investing $3.5 million in Blue Wire, a sports podcasting network, in a deal that’ll include the build out of a podcasting studio in the Wynn Las Vegas’ lobby. That studio will host Blue Wire podcast personalities as well as star athlete guests to entice people to visit the hotel, get excited about sports, and hopefully place bets on them. Wynn runs a subsidiary business called WynnBet, which handles sports betting, and the team specifically eyed Blue Wire to promote that brand.Craig Billings, president of Wynn Resorts, says the studio will be “activated” during March Madness and NFL kickoff, for example, to bring energy to the hotel around sports,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge PlayStation fans, rejoice. Sony is hosting the first State of Play live stream of 2021 today. The 30-minute presentation will feature 10 new games coming to the PS4 and PS5, along with updates on some upcoming third-party and indie games that appeared at Sony's PS5 showcase last June.Sony has not unveiled what games will be announced during today’s event, but the company has a ton of highly anticipated games slated to launch this year and possibly into 2022. These include Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which will launch exclusively on the PS5 on June 11th, and Horizon Forbidden West, which is expected to come out sometime this year on the PS4 and PS5.WHEN DOES THE PLAYSTATION STATE OF PLAY EVENT START?The live stream starts today,... Continue reading…

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Pokémon might be renowned for its cooperative gameplay, delightful spinoffs, and making an intimidating genre approachable, but the franchise also has a long history of creative and interesting gadgets.The series is bursting with technology. The original in-game pokédex clearly takes inspiration from early Palm Pilot-like devices, for example. And if you think about them, pokéballs are technological marvels: they somehow transform living creatures into particles that can be transported across the world (and in the TV show, the pokéballs can even shrink). So it’s not all that surprising that there have been many Pokémon-themed toys and hardware.We’ve collected just a few of the many memorable Pokémon gadgets in honor of the series’ 25th... Continue reading…

Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge Ever since Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville recorded an almost undecipherable version of the French song “Au Clair de la Lune” in the mid-19th century, it’s been clear that the technology that you use to produce and listen to sounds can affect your experience. Even now, about 150 years later, the quality of your gear can mean the difference between a tinny, nearly unrecognizable noise or a fully realized aural experience.As you can imagine, the people here at The Verge spend a lot of time listening to a variety of digital sounds — whether it’s online meetings, music, podcasts, videos, or sound checks of their own multimedia productions. We asked the staff what their favorite devices were to either listen to, enhance, or produce their... Continue reading…

Nerf maker Hasbro has heard you loud and clear, Adam Savages of the world: you want to be able to shoot foam projectiles for days, without carrying around a belt full of magazines or constantly stooping down to reload.Today, the company’s announcing Nerf Hyper, a new line of blasters that not only shoots harder (up to 110 feet per second) than any stock blaster but also features the company’s fastest reloads yet, thanks to a smaller foam projectile that takes up so little space, you can fit 40 of them inside a pistol-sized blaster. That’s unheard of in Nerf. You can clip on (or carry around) 50 or 100 round canisters to quickly top them up, much like a paintball gun. Image by Hasbro The Hyper Rush-40, with the... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The PlayStation 5 is Sony’s latest gaming console and just like Microsoft’s Xbox Series X / S it’s in high demand and limited supply. If you are looking to buy a PS5, you have a shot at securing the $500 model with a disc drive right now at Target, while supplies last.After you secure your PS5 (or if already own one), you should consider picking up a few items that will help you get the most out of your next-gen console. One such accessory is an additional DualSense controller in the event one controller’s battery dies and you want to keep playing but prefer not to be tethered by the charging cable.A one-year subscription to PlayStation Plus is also good to pick up if you have yet to renew your membership or are new to the service.... Continue reading…

Image: Valve Steam’s Remote Play Together feature, which lets you stream local multiplayer games with friends over the internet, will no longer require every player to have a Steam account. The new functionality, which is currently in beta, lets Steam users invite a friend to their game with a link, after which they’ll be prompted to install the Steam Link app if they don’t have it already.There are limits to the new feature. Games will need to already support the Remote Play Together feature for it to work (there are filtering options to find these titles), and only one friend without a Steam account can join a multiplayer session. If you want to add more, they’ll need to have accounts.To try the feature out, head to your friends list in the... Continue reading…

Zoom has previously supported AI-generated closed captions for paid accounts. | Image: Zoom Zoom plans to roll out support for automatic closed captioning to free accounts this fall as part of its efforts to make the service more accessible, the company has announced. If you’re a free account holder who needs access to the feature before then, Zoom is allowing users to manually request access to the Live Transcription feature via a Google Form linked to in its announcement.Automatic transcriptions aren’t an entirely new Zoom feature. The service has previously offered AI-powered live transcription for all its paid accounts. Otherwise, meeting hosts have had to manually add their own captions, or use a third-party service. But now the feature will become available to the millions of people that rely on Zoom’s services for... Continue reading…

The basic TV option reportedly appears at setup. | Image: Google / 9to5Google Google TV, the search giant’s latest attempt at TV software, will include a new “Basic TV” mode that strips out a TV’s smart features in favor of providing simple access to live TV and HDMI inputs, 9to5Google reports. It’s a potential boon to anyone that ever wanted to dumb-down their smart TV because they prefer an external streamer or because they value privacy.Google TV debuted on the new Chromecast, where it offered a new interface built on Google’s existing Android TV software, but will soon be offered as built-in software for TCL and Sony’s upcoming TVs.According to 9to5Google, you can select the “Basic TV” mode at setup. Doing so strips out the operating system’s apps, content recommendations, and Google Assistant support. It’s... Continue reading…

A new update to popular podcast player Overcast includes a major overhaul of its Apple Watch app. The Apple Watch support is notable at a time when third-party app development for the platform is not necessarily in a great spot, though the Watch itself continues to grow in popularity.Overcast’s update reorganizes the app UI from top to bottom, adding some features that otherwise were only able to be accessed through the phone version. The main screen has large buttons for settings and syncing above a scrolling list of your shows and access to the “now playing” screen.That screen now includes a button on the bottom right that takes you to more detailed info on the podcast and lets you adjust its playback speed, as well as giving you... Continue reading…

The PUBG universe is expanding with a new mobile title for iOS and Android called PUBG: New State, which catapults the battle royale ahead in time for a more futuristic take on the massive multiplayer genre.Set in 2051, PUBG: New State takes place years after the current PUBG games (which are set in approximately modern times) on a new map called Troi and promises to bring with it a slew of near-future weapons and vehicles, like drones and deployable combat shields. Based on the early images, it’s a similar vibe to fellow shooter Call of Duty’s semi-futuristic military tech from games like Black Ops 3 and 4.The new game is also set to dive deeper into the lore of the overall PUBG universe, which is apparently a thing that... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Australian government has passed a new law requiring Google and Facebook to negotiate with news outlets to pay for their content or face arbitration.“This is a significant milestone,” said Josh Frydenberg, the Liberal party’s deputy leader who spearheaded the new law. “This legislation will help level the playing field & see Australian news media businesses paid for generating original content.” The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) says the law will address “a significant bargaining power imbalance between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook.”The new code has seen fierce oppositionThe new code has seen fierce opposition from the two tech giants. The most vocal of the two has been... Continue reading…