The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter flagged four tweets from President Trump on Saturday morning for making “potentially misleading claims about an election,” a company spokesperson said, continuing its attempts to try to rein in misinformation on its platform.The president tweeted, without evidence, that “tens of thousands of votes were illegally received after 8 P.M. on Tuesday, Election Day, totally and easily changing the results in Pennsylvania and certain other razor thin states.” He claimed thousands of votes were “illegally not allowed to be OBSERVED,” and said “bad things took place,” during a time when “LEGAL TRANSPARENCY was viciously & crudely not allowed.”The platform labeled a fifth tweet where the president claimed he had won the election “by a... Continue reading…

NBC About midway through Superstore’s season 6 premiere, a customer at Cloud 9, the big-box retailer that the NBC sitcom is set in, is absolutely livid at the idea that she has to wear a mask in the store. Furious at being asked to mask up or leave, she accuses the floor manager, Glenn (Mark McKinney), of working for Satan. Glenn, a devout Christian, is absolutely horrified: “That is the one person I would never work for!” he responds. It’s funny because it’s true: You have to sell your soul to someone to make rent in America, and there are plenty of buyers who aren’t the literal devil. That said, the non-devils don’t care about you either. As we see in Superstore, the staff of Cloud 9 has been left to fend for themselves in the middle of a... Continue reading…

Shoppers pass by a sign promoting the NHS COVID-19 app | Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images What happens when an app designed to help people navigate the real world doesn’t match up with reality? That’s what happened recently with a National Health Service contact tracing app in England and Wales, which failed to notify many users that they had been exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19.Like many contact tracing programs, the NHS app keeps track of when a user is close to other people who also downloaded the app. If someone tests positive, the app can send an alert to all their contacts, particularly the ones that they’ve been around the most. The app calculates a person’s risk based on a few factors, including how long they’ve been close to the person who tested positive. If the calculation passes a certain threshold, an... Continue reading…

Fortnite developer Epic Games announced a new promotion that allows players who make a real-money purchase in-game and are new Disney Plus subscribers to get up to two months of the streaming service for free. The offer is valid November 10th starting at 7PM ET through December 31st for players 18 years old or older in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand where Disney Plus is available.Any real-money purchases made in Fortnite beginning November 6th, including the purchase of its-in game V-Bucks currency, will qualify users for the offer. Purchases made with V-Bucks are not eligible, however. Once the two-month Disney Plus trial ends, users will be charged the monthly rate for a subscription unless they cancel.Epic is... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re trying to get some holiday (or personal) shopping done ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, this week hosted several great deals on wireless earbuds, tablets, and more that are still happening. Apple’s ever-popular and reliable AirPods fell to $100 for the first time (they’re usually around $130), which is the most affordable price we’ve seen. Both Amazon and Costco are offering the deal, if you’re interested in snagging a set. Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Apple’s AirPods Pro wireless noise-canceling earbuds don’t see as many steep price drops, but Back Market is selling refurbished models for $180 (normally $250 new). These are in “mint” condition, according to Back Market’s standards, and the... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The iPhone 12 has just barely launched, but we already have some idea what next year’s lineup could look like — according to TFI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple’s 2021 iPhones will keep the new form factor and screen sizes introduced with the iPhone 12 line, but offer an improved ultrawide camera on the high-end Pro and Pro Max models (via MacRumors).Kuo predicted the iPhone 12 line and now seems set to reveal what to expect from the 2021 models nearly a year before they launch. This time, Kuo says the ultrawide camera of the Pro and Pro Max will be upgraded from the current f/2.4, five-element lens setup to an f/1.8, six-element lens with autofocus. The larger aperture should let in more light, potentially enhancing low-light... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge A new video from Digital Foundry makes it immediately clear that the PS5 brings notable performance improvements to many PS4 games. The 30-minute video shows off a lot of big PS4 titles on running PS5, including Crysis Remastered, Dark Souls 3, Days Gone (with its PS5-exclusive 60fps framerate), Ghost of Tsushima (with its PS5-exclusive 60fps framerate), Hitman, Just Cause 3, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.I highly recommend that you watch it to see the games in action:In the leadup to the PS5’s launch, Sony promised that the “overwhelming majority” of the more 4,000 PS4 games would work on the new console, and we’ve seen some developers announce PS5-exclusive optimizations (like Ghost of Tsushima’s boost to... Continue reading…

If you’re still unsure of what Paramount Plus is, don’t worry — you’ll learn soon, because ViacomCBS is going to spend a good portion of 2021 trying to get you to sign up for it.Paramount Plus is ViacomCBS’s rebrand of its current streaming service, CBS All Access. The revamped streamer will carry live sports (including NFL games that air on CBS), live news, and thousands of films and TV shows from its networks. Those include Nickelodeon, MTV, BET, Comedy Central, and both current and library programming from CBS. As the company prepares to end 2020 with “at least” 19 million paid subscribers in the United States, and plans to expand in 2021, executives used their time on an earnings call today to try and convince skeptical investors... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google Photos is a superb photo management and editing app. As it has grown in popularity, Google has made the occasional attempt to monetize Photos — most recently by launching a subscription service where customers receive a selection of 10 printed shots every month. But now, according to XDA Developers (and also highlighted by Android Police), Google might be planning to reserve certain editing tricks — some that were previously available for free — for Google One subscribers. That’s one way to start ruining a beloved service, Google. Maybe rethink this.Inside the code for the latest update to Google Photos, there are strings that clearly point to the app moving in this direction:

Image: Disney Disney’s live-action adaptation of Mulan, one of the company’s biggest streaming titles this year, will finally be available on physical media next week. You’ll be able to get it on 4K UHD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on November 10th.Mulan’s physical media launch marks the end of a whirlwind release schedule brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The movie was originally set to premiere in theaters on March 27th, but was delayed to July 24th due to pandemic-related theater closures. As the year wore on, closures forced another delay to August 21st, which then was followed by another — and indefinite — delay.In early August, Disney made the notable call to have Mulan exclusively premiere on Disney Plus on September 4th, though subscribers... Continue reading…

A gray wolf in fresh snow, in Montana. | Photo by Dennis Fast/VWPics/Universal Images Group/Getty Images Colorado will need to bring people together to ensure the wolves’ survival Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify appears to be interested in launching a subscription podcast service that would offer access to original shows or exclusive episodes for a monthly fee. The potential service was described in a survey sent out through Spotify’s app, which was reported on by Andrew Wallenstein, president of Variety’s Intelligence Platform.The survey describes at least four possible subscription podcast plans, ranging from $3 to $8 per month. The cheapest plan would include “access to exclusive interviews and episodes,” but would still include ads. The most expensive plan would include access to “high quality original content,” early access to some episodes, and no platform-inserted ads. None of these plans would include access to Spotify’s premium... Continue reading…

It’s the third day of the US presidential election, and the country is finally starting to get some clarity on who actually won the race. As states have been finalizing their vote counts, election maps have been updating their colors. And now, as a result, we have these.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As many predicted it would, the outcome of the 2020 election is taking many days to determine. A surge of misinformation on social networks, led by President Trump and his family, has challenged social networks’ content policies and drawn fresh attention to their enforcement capabilities. It’s too early to answer whether the platforms have risen fully to the 2020 challenge. Given the bellicose nature of the Trumps’ pronouncements this week, their hardest work is very likely still ahead of them.But in the meantime, I think it’s not too early to ask a related question: how did platforms handle the 2016 challenge in 2020?After all, it was the aftermath of Trump’s election win that reshaped public opinion about tech platforms, drew broad... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge While eyes were on the presidential election, the United States reached a devastating milestone in the COVID-19 pandemic: on November 5th, there were 121,504 reported cases of the disease, according to The New York Times. That marked two straight days with over 100,000 reported cases. This isn’t a peak; it’s another step on a steady climb. That daily case number will likely continue to grow.“We are in big trouble,” wrote global health experts Abraar Karan and Ranu Dhillon on WBUR.In the spring, the center of the pandemic in the US was in the Northeast. Over the summer, Southern states were hit the hardest. Now, the virus is everywhere — there’s no particular hotspot, and things are bleak across the country. Cases are climbing in n... Continue reading…

Photo: 100 Thieves Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag made his name in Call of Duty. He started his career as a professional player before shifting to become a YouTube star and, eventually, co-owner of gaming lifestyle brand 100 Thieves. But when the new Call of Duty League launched earlier this year, 100 Thieves didn’t field a team, despite much success in the now-defunct CWL. In a heartfelt video posted last year, Haag cited the high costs associated with the franchised league as one reason. But that’s going to change in 2021: the CDL’s latest team is the Los Angeles Thieves.“For the last year, we’ve just felt a gap, or a hole, at the core of our community,” Haag tells The Verge. “It didn’t feel right, after winning two major championships, to be not a part of C... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In the wake of a Facebook ban and dimming electoral hopes for President Trump, the “Stop the Steal” movement is finding a home on smaller platforms and in-person rallies. A movement supporting Trump’s false claims of election fraud and hoping to halt the ongoing vote-certification process, Stop the Steal groups are currently promoting pro-Trump rallies in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia, and organizing through platforms like Parler and Discord.“President Trump has the votes,” wrote Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon supporter newly elected to Congress, on Parler. “But the Democrats, Big Tech, and the Fake News Media are trying to STEAL this election. You and I cannot let that happen! This is the biggest VOTER FRAUD operation in... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge With so much news this week in different sections of The Verge, The Vergecast recorded two episodes to cover it all.The first episode is dedicated to the policy news coming out of the 2020 presidential election. While the counting of votes continues, The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, and Adi Robertson discuss what steps social media platforms have taken to limit misinformation during the practice of democracy.Additional reading:

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge The Apple Watch SE is $50 off at Target, which drops it down to $230. This is the lowest price we’ve seen for this new smartwatch, which launched in September as the cheaper, step-down alternative to spending hundreds more on the Apple Watch Series 6. The SE lacks an ambient display, but it features many of the same specs as the Series 5 smartwatch, including the S5 processor, the W3 wireless chip, and 32GB of storage.If you want the LTE-enabled model, you can get that one for $50 off, too. Normally $360, it’s down to $310 at Target. With this one, you can use the Family Setup service, which essentially turns the Apple Watch SE into a GPS tracker for kids. Check out my colleague Dan Seifert’s real-world experience using that with his... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Preorders for the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max are officially live, and with it, Apple has also offered more pricing and release information on the next wave of iPhone 12 accessories, including the MagSafe Duo charger and the leather cases for the new phones.The MagSafe Duo has officially gotten a $129 price tag, which includes the charger itself (that can charge both an Apple Watch and an iPhone 12 at the same time) and a 1-meter-long USB-C to Lightning cable. Not included in that price is a power brick, although Apple recommends that you buy its own 20W USB-C power brick for an extra $19. And while Apple has updated the product page, there’s still no release date or preorder option — just a note that the charger is “coming... Continue reading…

New operators from Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will be available in Warzone. | Image: Activision The latest entry in the Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, will launch on November 13th. But what does that mean for the series’ free-to-play battle royale, Call of Duty: Warzone, which is itself based on 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare? In a lengthy blog post, the games’ developers, Infinity Ward and Raven Software, break down how content will be synchronized across the three titles in the future.The big takeaway is that weapons, cosmetics, and other unlockables (including attachments, perks, and killstreaks) will be shared across the games. That means weapons from both Cold War and Modern Warfare, including blueprints and camo variants, will be available in Warzone, creating “the largest weapons arsenal ever... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro Three days after Election Day, President Trump is still tangling with moderators in an effort to spread false claims about supposed election fraud. The president tweeted eight times on Thursday night and saw fully half of the tweets restricted by Twitter, blocking retweets and replies as it has done with previous infractions. The tweets came after a lull of several hours, during which a number of the president’s surrogates sent out tweet-length statements through other channels.“Twitter is out of control,” the president said in one of the unlabeled tweets, “made possible through the government gift of Section 230!”The tweets include the allegation that election observers were prevented from entering counting stations in Philadelphia... Continue reading…

A smaller spinoff that cleverly builds off the original Continue reading…

The pack-in game is so much more than a tech demo Continue reading…

The real star of Sony’s new console is its controller Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Something Tom Warren said in today’s Vergecast (forthcoming!) has stuck with me: the ideal next-gen gaming console would combine the games and controller from the PS5 with the chiller design and software ecosystem of the Xbox. Couldn’t agree more — but in consumer tech, as in all things, you rarely get everything you want.His reviews of the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S landed yesterday and we can expect reviews of the PS5 imminently. Tom’s reviews contain lots of fascinating little details about each console, but I came away convinced that I think most people will want to pony up the extra money for the Series X. Even if you don’t have a 4K TV now, your next set likely will be one and the Series X will work best with it. Plus, the... Continue reading…

60 hours of battery life from a single charge. | Image: Motorola Motorola has announced the Moto G9 Power, a budget handset with one standout feature: a huge 6,000 mAh battery that Motorola claims will deliver up to 60 hours of battery life. It’s not the biggest battery we’ve seen in a device of this caliber (Samsung’s Galaxy M51 has a 7,000 mAh battery, for example) but it’s still certifiably chunky.The Moto G9 Power will cost €200 in Europe (around $235), though exact dates for availability are unclear. It’ll also be coming to “select countries” in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East in the weeks to come, reports Android Authority, though there’s no mention of a US launch.Other specs for the device include a 64-megapixel triple camera array on the rear, 16-megapixel lens on the front,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Earlier this week, the bitcoin community was shocked when a digital wallet containing roughly $1 billion in bitcoin — thought to be proceeds from the now-shuttered dark web drug marketplace Silk Road — was emptied by an unknown individual. Now, those responsible for cleaning out the funds have revealed themselves: it was the US government.The Department of Justice announced on Thursday that it had seized the wallet’s contents as part of a civil forfeiture case targeting the Silk Road. The government said it retrieved the roughly 70,000 bitcoins with the help of an unnamed hacker, whose identity is known to the government but who is simply referred to as “Individual X” in court documents.“Individual X” allegedly hacked the Silk Road’s... Continue reading…

AMD has beaten Intel’s performance advantage in desktop PCs with its new Ryzen 5000 series CPUs. That’s the verdict from a range of reviewers this week that have been testing AMD’s flagship $799 Ryzen 9 5950X with its 16 cores and 32 threads. Even the entry level Ryzen 5 5600X offers some impressive performance at just $299.AMD’s Ryzen 9 5950X steals the performance crown from Intel in gaming in most tests. Tom’s hardware has the 5950X beating Intel’s Core i9-10900K comfortably in an average of eight games at 1080p and 1440p. Some other games are closer, but AMD’s latest Zen 3 chips beat Intel’s equivalents for single-threaded performance too.Anandtech saw similar gaming performance results, with the 5950X beating the i9-10900K in the... Continue reading…

The service lets users in India send and receive payments directly in chats. | Image: WhatsApp Facebook is rolling out its WhatsApp payment service for users in India after receiving approval from the country’s regulators. The service first launched in India as a beta in 2018, but a full rollout was delayed for years by concerns about data storage and sharing. It’s an important launch for what is WhatsApp’s biggest market, home to some 400 million users.India’s regulatory body for retail payments, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), gave its approval to WhatsApp on Thursday, with Facebook confirming the rollout of the service just hours later in a blog post. The news was significant enough for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to create a video (embedded below) explaining some of its features.“Now you’re going to be... Continue reading…

Photo by Manabu Takahashi/Getty Images Panasonic is working with one of Japan’s biggest railway companies to solve a new problem that has sprung up in recent years: a rise in people dropping wireless earbuds onto train tracks.JR East, the part of Japan’s formerly private railway group that covers the Tokyo and Tohoku regions of the country, says that there were 950 incidents of dropped earbuds across 78 Tokyo train stations in the July-September quarter, Jiji Press reports. The figure apparently accounts for a quarter of all dropped items.According to JR East, station staff normally use a grabber-style “magic hand” tool to pick up larger items that fall onto tracks, like hats or smartphones. But the gravel between the rails makes smaller objects — like, say, a left AirPod... Continue reading…

Xiaomi has announced the Mi Box 4S Pro, a streaming box capable of 8K video playback. The product was revealed on Weibo and is already available to order in China for 399 yuan, or about $60.The box has 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and supports HDMI 2.1. It comes with a Bluetooth remote that offers voice control. It’s not clear exactly which services will have 8K content available, or whether there are other ways to view your own 8K files on the device.The Mi Box 4S Pro runs Xiaomi’s own MIUI for TV software. A company representative tells Android Authority that there are currently no plans to share for a global release, although Google’s own new Chromecast is an excellent option in the US at $49.99. (But no 8K support, of course.)X... Continue reading…

Facebook Facebook plans to put the name of the winner of the US presidential election at the top of Facebook and Instagram once it’s been projected by a majority of media outlets, the company says. The company also will label presidential candidates’ posts with a link to its voting information center, according to Facebook spokesperson Tom Reynolds.The company plans to “show the candidate’s name in notifications at the top of Facebook and Instagram that say ‘A Presidential Winner Has Been Projected — <name> is the projected winner of the 2020 US Presidential Election,’” Reynolds explained in an email to The Verge. Facebook Facebook will put the name of the winner of the US election on Facebook and Instagram Facebook... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook is seeing an increase in worrying activity around the US election, according to reports from The New York Times and BuzzFeed News. According to BuzzFeed News, which viewed a post on Facebook’s internal message board, the company has been tracking a rise in “violence and incitement trends” associated with hashtags and keywords.Facebook did not respond for comment about a potential rise in the organization of violent activity on its platform by the time of publication, but Facebook spokesperson Liz Bourgeois told BuzzFeed News that the company is “staying vigilant in detecting content that could incite violence during this time of heightened uncertainty.” In a statement given to The Verge and others, Facebook said that the... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple debuted a collection of privacy features when it announced iOS 14, but the company’s privacy “nutrition label” concept did not arrive with the launch of the new operating system in September. Today, Apple announced that developers will be required to provide the information for those “labels” starting December 8th.Like a normal nutrition label that lists ingredients and caloric content, these privacy “labels” should give you a better idea of what’s going on inside an app before you download it from the iOS App Store or Mac App Store. The labels will list what information an app collects, and present that visually on the app page, much like looking at the backs of labels in a grocery store. Image: Apple A... Continue reading…

President Trump spoke Thursday evening at the White House | Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Cable networks, broadcast networks and Twitter cut short their broadcasts of President Donald Trump’s speech from the White House briefing room Thursday; some outlets fact-checked the president’s unproven statements rather than carry them live.Trump began his remarks by baselessly claiming that Democrats were committing “fraud” and trying to “steal” the election. “If you count the legal votes, I easily win,” the president said, even though the counting of legal votes is still happening. There are several key states, including Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Arizona, which are still tallying votes. Neither the president nor the Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, has enough electoral college votes yet to win. Many of those... Continue reading…

Elon Musk has branched out from rockets and cars into booze — as Tesla has launched Tesla Tequila on its website today. If you have $250 burning a hole in your pocket, you can pick up your very own lightning-shaped bottle. A screenshot of Tesla’s website. The original branding was Teslaquila, but that must have been jettisoned somewhere along the way. (Well, the idea did start as an April Fools’ Day joke.) Orders are limited to two bottles, and only people in some states can receive them because of “industry regulations.”

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook and TikTok have blocked hashtags that were being used to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories about the presidential election. The hashtags generally revolved around unfounded claims that Democrats are trying to manipulate the election to defeat President Trump.On Facebook, the blocked hashtags include #stopthesteal, which has been broadly used to make unsubstantiated claims of election fraud by Democrats, and #sharpiegate, which incorrectly alleges that the use of Sharpie markers caused Trump votes to go uncounted in Arizona. TikTok blocked #sharpiegate, #stopthesteal, and the more general term #riggedelection. Both sets of blocked hashtags were spotted by TechCrunch.Social media companies have been trying to quickly... Continue reading…

The iPhone 12 mini (left) and iPhone 12 Max Pro (right). Apple’s iPhone 12 and 12 Pro are the “default” size iPhones this year. But Apple also has two more new devices: the iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max. One is Apple’s smallest iPhone in years — and the other is its biggest iPhone ever.Here’s a first look: From left to right: the iPhone 12 mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. iPhone 12 miniIf you’ve seen the iPhone 12 already, it’s basically that, but smaller. Same processor, same cameras, same design, same everything. But instead of a 6.1-inch screen, the iPhone mini has a 5.4-inch display.But thanks to the iPhone X-style bezel-less design, the 12 mini is actually a physically smaller phone compared to the bezeled, 4.7-inch design that Apple has used on... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge For people who stumbled their way onto One American News Network (OANN)’s YouTube channel over the last few days, it might be easy to think President Trump won the 2020 election.Videos titled “Trump won. Dems try to pull a fast one” and “Trump Won. MSM hopes you don’t believe your eyes,” started appearing on OANN’s YouTube channel on November 4th — one day after people cast their votes in the federal election. The videos are full of lies predicated on people’s fears that would trigger moderation on another network, including:“It appears that Trump won by such a large margin, now they’re actually pumping out illegal ballots into the battleground states to actually beat him.”“They think that they can add 100,000 votes that no one gets... Continue reading…

Photo: Uber Uber is ready to take its Prop 22 victory show on the road.The ride-hail company celebrated its stunning win in California, where voters approved Proposition 22, a ballot measure that exempts gig economy companies from having to classify their workers as employees. In an earnings call with investors, Uber also outlined its plan to push for similar legislation at the national level.“We feel strongly that this is the right approach,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said Thursday. “We should be adding benefits to gig work to make it better, not getting rid of it altogether in favor of an employment only system.”Going forward, Uber plans to “loudly advocate” for more Prop-22 style legislation, and is making it a priority to “work with... Continue reading…

Image: Cook and Becker / Sucker Punch Productions Sucker Punch Productions’ Ghost of Tsushima is one of the most visually breathtaking games of the last generation, making it a fitting swan song for the PlayStation 4 in the lead-up to next week’s launch of the PlayStation 5. Now, you can take some of the role-playing adventure’s most iconic scenes and frame them on your wall, thanks to a new partnership the studio formed with video game concept art store Cook and Becker.The new six-print series contains a blend of visual styles, from traditional Japanese woodblock printing to Asian landscape-inspired painting. The prints, all giclée with white bordering, cost between $100 and $125, with options to have Cook and Becker frame the print in various material options for an added fee. (It’s... Continue reading…

Update November 5th, 8:00PM ET: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket successfully took off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and deployed the GPS III SV04 satellite about an hour and a half later. The Falcon 9’s first stage also successfully landed on SpaceX’s drone ship following takeoff.Original Story: Thursday night, SpaceX is slated to launch a new, upgraded GPS satellite for the US Space Force from Cape Canaveral, Florida — the latest spacecraft intended to help modernize the current GPS fleet. This will be the fourth GPS satellite of its kind to launch in the last three years, and the third one to be launched by SpaceX.The satellite going up on this flight is GPS III SV04, which will become one of 31 primary GPS satellites in orbit. This vehicle... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber is still getting pummeled by COVID-19, as the raging pandemic continues to drag the company’s ride-hailing business down. Uber lost $1.1 billion over the last three months, with its adjusted net revenues down 20 percent compared to the third quarter of 2019.Gross bookings in its ride-hailing division, or the amount of money it takes in before paying drivers, fell 50 percent year over year. It’s grim position, but also a steady improvement over the second quarter, in which Uber’s ride-hailing business was down 73 percent year over year. Still there was no mistaking the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the company’s core transportation business. Uber brought in $2.8 billion in adjusted revenue, an 18 percent decline year over... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As of Thursday morning, a huge Facebook group called “Stop the Steal” was organizing rallies and fundraising to challenge election results across the US. The group accumulated more than 300,000 members in the less than 48 hours it existed before Facebook removed it on Thursday afternoon.“In line with the exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension, we have removed the Group ‘Stop the Steal’ which was creating real-world events,” a Facebook company spokesperson said in a statement. “The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from members of the group.”“We have removed the Group ‘Stop the Steal’ which was creating real-world... Continue reading…

Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images If you haven't already done so in the lead-up to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S, it’s time to toss aside what you’ve come to expect from a new console launch. This one’s going to feel different. Sony today confirmed that its retail partners will only be taking online orders when the console goes on sale next week on November 12th, and now Best Buy is saying that it won’t be making any of the next-gen consoles available to walk-in customers for the entirety of the holiday season. It’s buy online or nothing.“While our stores won’t have devices for purchase on launch day or throughout the holiday season, keep an eye on BestBuy.com, where they’ll be available for purchase as soon as we have them available,” Best Buy’s Katie Huggins... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge With just a week to go until the PlayStation 5’s launch, Sony has shared three new videos to help people set up their new consoles on launch day. The videos not only give us a better look at the console’s new UI, but also reveal a few handy features in the PS5’s settings.One video shows how to set up your PlayStation account on the new console. After you connect your PS5 to the internet, you’ll be presented with two ways to sign in. One option is to fill in standard sign-in ID and password boxes, a process that I personally dread — it’s cumbersome to type in my credentials with a controller. But Sony will also let you sign in by scanning a QR code with the PlayStation app, which seems a heck of a lot easier to me.Another video shows... Continue reading…

Cars arrive to Tesla Powerpack Launch Event at Hornsdale Wind Farm on September 29th, 2017, in Adelaide, Australia. The Hornsdale battery was the largest in the world when it came online in 2017. | Photo by Mark Brake / Getty Images A battery covering an area the size of a football stadium is planned to come online next year in Victoria, Australia. French renewable energy company Neoen announced yesterday that it received a contract to build the 300MW battery, which would become one of the largest in the world.The battery is supposed to stabilize Victoria’s gridThe battery is supposed to stabilize Victoria’s grid and prevent some of the blackouts that have beleaguered the state in recent summers. It also supports Victoria’s renewable energy goals and helps move Australia away from coal, which is still the country’s primary source of energy.“Victoria is taking a decisive step away from coal-fired power and embracing new technologies that will unlock more... Continue reading…

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, the big-budget time-bending thriller that arrived during the pandemic to lackluster domestic box office numbers, is scheduled for a home release on December 15th, Warner Bros. Pictures announced on Thursday.The film arrived in theaters starting in August after multiple delays and after Warner Bros. decided not to pish the release to next year, as many other studios have done. Tenet so far has grossed $350 million worldwide, but Nolan and Warner Bros. were hoping for a much better showing for a film with a budget exceeding $200 million.Tenet struggled at the box office due to pandemic-induced theater closuresMuch of the poor performance of Tenet is attributed not to its quality — critics generally like it,... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google on Thursday announced family sharing for its Stadia cloud gaming service, bringing one of the more consumer-friendly features of digital game marketplaces to its platform. Family sharing will allow any group of Stadia users linked through Google’s Play Family Library system to use one digital license for a game purchase across multiple accounts. That way, you only need to buy one copy of a game for a parent and child or two siblings to both play it separately with separate save data. And in a nice move, only one account needs a Pro subscription to be able to claim free games and share them with the group.Google says the feature is rolling out starting today and may take about a week or so to reach all users. Earlier reports from... Continue reading…