The Verge

Image: Anker Anker has released a new MagSafe-compatible battery pack that can attach directly to your iPhone to offer charging without the need for a cable, 9to5Google reports. The Anker PowerCore Magnetic 5K Wireless Power Bank will launch on March 3rd for $39.99, beating Apple’s own rumored MagSafe battery product to market — with one big caveat.The PowerCore Magnetic 5K Wireless Power Bank sports a 5,000mAh battery and Anker’s usual power bank design, including an LED indicator light to let you know how much power is left in the device. The device also features USB-C output for charging with a cable as well. An extra 5,000mAh is a meaningful boost, especially for the smaller iPhone 12 mini, but it’s limited by the device’s lack of MagSafe... Continue reading…

Image: Alex Moukala While the Nintendo Wii might be most famous for ushering in an era of motion-based controls for console games, one of its most lasting legacies is the fantastic music in some of its system apps. Remember the Wii Shop Channel song? It’s still so good. And over the past day, producer and composer Alex Moukala has kicked off a trend celebrating another one of the system’s famous songs by making funky remixes of the Mii Channel music.Here’s the original version if you haven’t heard it in a while:Now listen to Moukala’s phenomenal take:

Qualcomm Haptic feedback on Android phones running the Snapdragon 888 chipset might get noticeably better starting in the second half of 2021. Qualcomm recently announced (via 9to5Google) that it’s working independently with a company called Lofelt to enhance haptics through software, not hardware.That initially read as a puzzling decision, since hardware — not software — seems to play the bigger role in the quality of the vibration. But this actually sounds very clever, definitely more clever than Lofelt’s Basslet vibrating wearable that it launched on Kickstarter in 2016.Outside of some high-end LG phones, most Android phones deliver muddy or rattling vibrations that don’t feel that great. Even the best ones can’t compete with Apple’s Taptic... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Konami’s Frogger game series is apparently getting turned into a game show, set to be streamed on NBC’s Peacock. The show’s contestants will apparently have to go through “physically demanding” obstacle courses and will be asked to “dodge treacherous traffic, leap over snapping gators and hop over hungry hippos to conquer the course.” One would hope those are simulated using foam and rubber. Otherwise, there could be some liability issues.The show promises longer episodes than normally expected from a game show: according to a promotional email, they’ll be an hour long (currently, 13 have been ordered). To be fair, I’ve definitely played over an hour of Frogger before without even thinking about it, and as fun as the game is, it’ll... Continue reading…

Here’s the ThinkPad T14s Gen 2. | Lenovo Lenovo has announced a number of updates to its ThinkPad line. We’re getting upgrades to the lightweight ThinkPad X13 and convertible X13 Yoga, as well as the high-end T-Series, the budget-oriented L-Series, and the P-Series of mobile workstations.The biggest news is that all of these models have gotten spec bumps. Each series includes models with AMD’s Ryzen 5000 mobile processors as well as Intel’s 11th Gen vPro chips. They’re also getting connectivity upgrades, including some options for Wi-Fi 6E on the Intel systems and Wi-Fi 6 for the AMD ones. Some models support 5G as well.The news I’m personally most excited about is that the X13 i (Intel), X13 (AMD), and X13 Yoga (Intel) are getting 16:10 displays. Manufacturers across the... Continue reading…

Image: NBC In mid-2020, Friends moved to HBO Max exclusively. On January 1st, 2021, The Office made a similar move, leaving Netflix to stream solely on Peacock. The shows, whose moves cost a combined $1 billion roughly, were designed as anchors for the new streaming platforms: they would bring subscribers in and keep them subscribed.Neither WarnerMedia nor NBCUniversal has given hard insights into how much Friends or The Office have driven subscriptions or retention, but new data from research firm Antenna provides some interesting context about the latter show. Here are the basics: The Office arriving on Peacock drove more signups than the nationwide launch, including a notable uptick in people signing up for the $10-a-month premium plan that... Continue reading…

The most powerful companies on the internet have never been less popular in Washington, and industry-wide regulation has never seemed so close. So on March 1st at 2PM ET, The Verge is hosting an event about regulating the internet — from antitrust to privacy to the many proposals for changing Section 230.Like a lot of things in 2021, we’ll be holding this event remotely, meeting over video and taking live audience questions online. It’s free, and you can register online right now.The event will kick off with a keynote from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), one of the sponsors of the SAFE TECH Act, as she discusses how she’s approaching tech regulation across a variety of issues as well as her agenda for the next congressional term.After... Continue reading…

The view of NASA’s Perseverance rover looking up at its parachute, which reads “Dare Mighty Things” in a hidden code, while zooming through the Martian atmosphere before landing. | Image: NASA / JPL The parachute that helped NASA’s Perseverance rover land on Mars last week unfurled to reveal a seemingly random pattern of colors in video clips of the rover’s landing. But there was more to the story: NASA officials later said it contained a hidden message written in binary computer code.Internet sleuths cracked the message within hours. The red and white pattern spelled out “Dare Mighty Things” in concentric rings. The saying is the Perseverance team’s motto, and it is also emblazoned on the walls of Mission Control at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the mission team’s Southern California headquarters.

Tony Hawk in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2. | Image: Activision The very good remaster of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 is hitting next-gen consoles and the Nintendo Switch this year. The game will launch on the PS5 and Xbox Series X / S on March 26th, but there’s no specific release date for the Switch release beyond “2021.” The game was first released last year for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.On next-gen consoles, you’ll be able to play the game at 120fps at a 1080p resolution or at 60fps in 4K, according to a blog post. (The PS5 and Xbox Series X can run at a native 4K, while the Xbox Series S version can run at 1440p and upscale to 4K.) The next-gen version will also offer spatial audio.

The Google Maps app is getting a true dark mode, at least on Android. The company announced today that it is finally widely releasing the dark theme option that it’s been testing in the app since September 2020.The dark mode, which takes things much further than the previously available night mode color option, will be accessible in the app’s settings menu, under “theme.”Google announced the dark mode rollout as part of a batch of new features coming to Android, including some updates to Android Auto. In addition to custom wallpapers, Android Auto is now going to feature games as well. Trivia Crack, Jeopardy!, Song Quiz, and Google’s own Are You Feeling Lucky? will be available. The games can be accessed through the assistant by... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge | Images: Dominion Energy The race is on to build them Continue reading…

Image: Q Games PixelJunk Raiders is the next exclusive coming to Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service. The title, a third-person rougelite that sees you battle through procedurally generated alien environments, will release on the Stadia platform on March 1st. It’ll sell for $19.99 (€19.99), and it will be included free with a Stadia Pro subscription. An announcement trailer bills PixelJunk Raiders as “Only on Stadia,” suggesting this isn’t a timed exclusive like Crayta.The announcement notes that PixelJunk Raiders supports Stadia’s State Share feature, which has previously been used with the Hitman games to let players to share specific parts of missions with one another. In PixelJunk Raiders, the feature allows your “placed turrets, traps and... Continue reading…

The Atari arcade cabinet game Race Drivin’ was ported to the Atari ST in the summer of 1991, and then ported again to the SNES a year later. It was the sequel to 1989’s Hard Drivin’, and while it boasted numerous improvements over its predecessor — it could model a car with four wheels, as opposed to Hard Drivin’s two — it was still not particularly fast.The SNES console port ran at a slideshow-y 4 frames per second. And when the Genesis port arrived in 1993, Electronic Gaming Monthly’s January 1994 issue gave the game a capsule review. It reads in full:

With two-way charging, the Ioniq 5 could supply power for a full range of electrical devices Continue reading…

2021 is a big year for competitive Valorant, with developer Riot kicking off an ambitious, yearlong esports circuit called the Valorant Champions Tour. But the company is also looking to make the scene more diverse with a separate competition called VCT Game Changers, which it says will “create competitive opportunities for women and marginalized genders within Valorant.”The program will include a series of “top tier” competitions throughout 2021, but perhaps more important is an academy series designed to foster new talent. Here’s how Riot describes it:

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Sony is planning to bring more of its PlayStation games to PC. First up will be Days Gone this spring, Sony president and chief executive officer Jim Ryan told British GQ. Developer Bend Studio also confirmed the news via Twitter, adding: “Stay tuned for more details.”In the past, Sony has shown reluctance to port games to PC, though it notably eased its stance last year when it announced Guerilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn would receive a PC port, which launched last August. Asked why the company seems to have changed its tune, Ryan told the publication that there are a few factors at play.

Sony is encouraging PS4 and PS5 owners to stay at home during the pandemic by bringing back its “Play At Home” initiative, allowing PlayStation owners to redeem free games starting in March and concluding in June.Starting March 1st at 8PM PT / 11PM ET until March 31st at 8PM PT / 11PM ET, both PS4 and PS5 owners will have the chance to redeem 2016’s Ratchet and Clank at no cost; PS5 owners previously had access to a free version of the game via the PlayStation Plus Collection.Sony originally announced the Play At Home initiative last year, when the company offered PS4 owners free digital copies of Journey and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection. Unlike the free PlayStation Plus games that are available each month, you do not need... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony’s PlayStation 5 (alongside the Xbox Series X and S) has been nearly impossible to buy since its launch back in November. Those shortages will likely continue for a bit longer, according to Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. But stock should pick up in the second half of the year, he says.The news comes from a series of interviews with Ryan from The Washington Post and the Financial Times, where the PlayStation boss reflected on the past several months since the PS5’s launch and the road ahead for the next-generation console.“Demand was greater than we anticipated,” Ryan said, explaining the ongoing stock issues for the console. “That, along with the complexities of the supply chain issues, resulted in... Continue reading…

RODE Rode has released a sequel to its Wireless Go mobile microphone system, the Wireless Go II, which is meant to offer an easy way for video creators to record audio from two people at once.Like its predecessor, the Go II is a compact wireless microphone pack designed for the creator who wants a lighter gear bag in the field (or is on a budget), while still being able to use a dedicated off-camera audio system. With this next generation, the Go II now offers dual channel recording for two sources, an extended wireless range for a more stable transmission, and on-board recording capabilities as a failsafe alternative.For dual channel recording, Rode includes two separate clip-on transmitters in the box — both with an on-board... Continue reading…

Image: Sony The next entry in Polyphony Digital’s long-running Gran Turismo franchise has been delayed to 2022, GQ reports. In a statement, Sony said Gran Turismo 7 has been impacted by “COVID-related production challenges,” which means its planned 2021 release date has been shifted to 2022.“With the ongoing pandemic, it’s a dynamic and changing situation and some critical aspects of game production have been slowed over the past several months,” the statement reads. “We’ll share more specifics on GT7’s release date when available.”“We’ll share more specifics on GT7’s release date when available”News of the game’s delay came on the same day that Sony announced a new next-gen virtual reality headset for the PS5. Although it’s yet to reveal an... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales There’s a wide variety of deals happening in the tech space, including TVs, computer components, and more. Starting with a gadget that’ll give you some fast transfer speeds, SanDisk’s Ultra 1TB NVMe SSD is $100 at Best Buy. That’s a great price for this kind of capacity, given it’s much faster than your standard SATA SSD. SanDisk covers this model with a five-year warranty. In terms of how you can use it, make sure your PC’s motherboard has an open M.2 2280 slot, or get crafty and buy an M.2 enclosure to turn it into a fast, compact external drive like the one shown above.Someday, Sony will enable the PS5’s M.2 slot for an SSD of this size and shape, but until it does I wouldn’t recommend buying one expressly for that reason. Just to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Lately, the consumer internet — that set of products devoted to building and monetizing large networks of people — has started to feel rather buzzy. A space that had been largely emptied out over the past five years is once again humming with life. The products are compelling enough, and growing fast enough, that Facebook and others have begun trying to reverse-engineer and copy them.It still doesn’t seem quite real to me, and yet everywhere I look the signs are there: social networks are competitive again.Today, let’s tour this weird new landscape and talk about what it means — and doesn’t mean — for the tech giants and the governments trying to rein them in.I. How competition endedIf I had to put a date on when competition ended... Continue reading…

Detective Pikachu. Pokémon is a phenomenon, one that’s lasted a steady 25 years built on a foundation of approachable roleplaying games. On the DS, Nintendo’s bestselling piece of hardware, three of the top 10 bestselling titles are mainline Pokémon games. It’s a franchise that perpetually serves as a system seller despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that it evolves at a glacial pace. But that’s only true of the core Pokémon experience. While those RPGs have been infamously resistant to change, the many, many Pokémon spinoffs are a different story. In fact, many of Pokémon’s biggest success stories, from the blockbuster film Detective Pikachu to the staggering success of Pokémon Go, were a result of this experimental attitude.Without these offshoots,... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony is working on a next-generation VR headset for the PS5. The headset won’t launch this year, but Sony is announcing early plans to make it available on the PS5 at some point in the future. Sony’s new VR headset will include an improved field of view, resolution, and even a single cord to make it easier to use.“We’re taking what we’ve learned since launching PS VR on PS4 to develop a next-gen VR system that enhances everything from resolution and field of view to tracking and input,” says Hideaki Nishino, Sony’s head of PlayStation platform and planning. “It will connect to PS5 with a single cord to simplify setup and improve ease-of-use, while enabling a high-fidelity visual experience.” Photo by James Bareham /... Continue reading…

Evil Geniuses CEO Nicole LaPointe Jameson on reinventing the industry Continue reading…

Qualcomm Chip maker Qualcomm has introduced a new reference design for augmented reality glasses: an AR “smart viewer” you can tether to a phone or PC via USB-C. Called the XR1 Smart Viewer, the system is meant to be lightweight and look (sort of) like sunglasses, while also enabling features like hand tracking and spatial awareness. The first glasses based on its design are set for release in mid-2021.The XR1 is designed as a consumer-focused “must-have accessory” for phones and computers, rather than a self-contained product. It uses two 1920 x 1080 OLED displays with a 90Hz refresh rate, plus an array of cameras, to add a virtual overlay to the real world. The camera array can also support hand tracking as a control scheme, and it can detect... Continue reading…

Brent Rose for The Verge Fitbit is launching an exclusive wellness program for Fitbit Premium subscribers called Mindful Method. The program is created by alternative medicine specialist Deepak Chopra and builds on the company’s focus on stress management that started with the Sense smartwatch.Mindful Method encompasses over 30 audio and video sessions on topics like mindfulness, sleep, stress management, wellness, and the mind-body connection, Fitbit says. The program is taught by Chopra, a renowned author and wellness expert, with more sessions from Chopra planned to be released over the coming months.From biofeedback to bioregulationIn a press presentation of the new program, Chopra led attendees through a sample meditation from Mindful Method. Overall,... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Alex Castro | Photography by Spotify The company wants to be at the center of creator monetization Continue reading…

Today marks the launch of Star. It’s a new section of Disney Plus for international audiences that will offer more mature R-rated films, TV shows from FX, and other shows and movies that Disney owns the rights to but don’t fit into Disney Plus’ family-friendly image.Star is effectively Disney’s solution to the fact that Hulu doesn’t exist in international markets. It marks a way for the company to expand on the value proposition of Disney Plus to international customers with the most crucial currency any streaming service has to offer: a bigger library of content.What that means is that international users are about to get a massive influx of movies and shows available on Disney Plus, through Star, that won’t be available for US... Continue reading…

Image: Google Google is struggling to fix one of its new Stadia games, after closing down its own in-house game studios earlier this month. Journey to the Savage Planet debuted on Stadia on February 1st, the same day Google shut down its Stadia studios and fired a number of developers.Journey to the Savage Planet was developed by Typhoon Studios, a studio Google acquired to build out its first-party Stadia titles. Players of the game have found it’s riddled with bugs on Stadia, including game breaking issues that won’t let certain players get past the main menu.The game launched on Stadia earlier this monthEurogamer reports that Reddit users have been complaining about the issues for weeks, and it’s not clear who will actually fix it. As employees... Continue reading…

Oppo has teased a new wireless charging solution that works when a phone is up to 10 cm (3.9 inches) away from a charging pad. The company has shown off its Wireless Air Charging tech in a 30-second clip on its Weibo page to coincide with MWC Shanghai. The clip shows the Oppo X 2021 rollable concept phone, announced in November, charging above the pad, even when held at an angle. The technology offers charging speeds of up to 7.5W, Oppo says.The Chinese manufacturer is the latest to announce a truly wireless air charging solution, following Xiaomi and Motorola’s teases from earlier this year. Back in January, Xiaomi announced Mi Air Charge Technology, which it says can charge multiple devices at 5W “within a radius of several meters.”... Continue reading…

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has posted an interactive 360-degree view of the Perseverance landing site on Mars in 4K resolution. It’s the latest jaw-dropping imagery to return from the mission, including that incredible video of the rover plunging through the Martian atmosphere before being “skycraned” down to the surface of the red planet.The 360-degree video was captured by Perseverance’s color Navcams perched atop a sensing mast above the rover. The scene can be navigated in a browser or in the YouTube app on your phone or 4K smart television. The images were captured on February 20th, two days after the Perseverance landed in the Jezero Crater.Perseverance has a total of 23 cameras, the most of any Mars rover to date: 16 for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook will restore news content to its platform in Australia after the government agreed to amend its proposed News Media Bargaining Code. In an update posted today, Facebook’s William Easton, managing director of Australia and New Zealand, said that the company is “satisfied that the Australian government has agreed to a number of changes and guarantees that address our core concerns.” News content will return to the platform “in the coming days,” Easton said.Facebook and Google have been at loggerheads with the Australian government about an upcoming law that will require them to pay publishers for content shared on their platforms. In response to the proposed bargaining code, Facebook took the extreme measure last week of blocking... Continue reading…

Photo by Elizabeth Lopatto / The Verge More that 4,300 SpaceX employees volunteered to be part of a COVID-19 antibody study co-authored by CEO Elon Musk in 2020.The study, which was recently published in the journal Nature Communications, shows evidence that infected people who exhibited milder symptoms developed less of an immunity to COVID-19 than those who got sicker from the disease. The group behind the study found some evidence that suggests there’s a particular threshold of antibodies that could provide immunity, though they wrote that “the precise levels [...] associated with protection from re-infection remain unclear.”Vaccines also produce a much stronger immune response than cases with little to no symptoms, the authors note. They hope that this research, and o... Continue reading…

Image: LG LG Electronics has told The Verge that the company’s phone with a resizable screen, the LG Rollable, has not been put on hold. “I can firmly deny that any such decision on future mobile products has been finalized,” says an LG spokesperson. The denial comes in response to a report from Yonhap News that LG had reportedly told parts suppliers that the Rollable had been put on hold and that they could request a refund for their development efforts.Denying that a final decision has been made is not quite the same thing as reassuring everyone that the Rollable is still coming in 2021, but it could reflect the general uncertainty that comes with designing, manufacturing, and shipping complicated electronics during a global pandemic. And it... Continue reading…

Screenshot: The Verge Google has finally added Apple App Store privacy labels to its Gmail app, almost a month after we ran an article wondering what was taking so long (via MacRumors). The app is the second major Google app to get the labels, after they were added to YouTube when it was updated earlier this month.So how does it look? Well, that’s up for you to decide. The app apparently shares your coarse location and user ID with advertisers, as well as information about your interaction with advertisements. According to the privacy label, though, it doesn’t collect your name, physical address, or phone number (though as an email client, Gmail obviously collects your email address). Location data is also used for analytics and there are some features of... Continue reading…

Image: SpaceX Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite-based internet provider, will double in speed “later this year”, according to a tweet by Elon Musk, posted as a reply to someone who had just received their Starlink beta kit (via CNET). The company currently promises speeds between 50 to 150Mbps, and Musk specifically calls out a 300Mbps goal in his tweet.While 300Mbps isn’t unheard-of speed, it’s faster than many people currently have access to, especially in the low-to-medium population density areas that Musk talks about targeting in a second tweet.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Lucid Motors is going to become a publicly-traded company on the New York Stock Exchange in a deal that will leave the electric vehicle startup with $4.4 billion in cash. The California startup, which is majority-owned by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, plans to start shipping its first luxury electric vehicle — the 500-mile range Air sedan — later this year. An electric SUV is slated to follow in 2023.Much like many other startups in the automotive space have done over the past year, Lucid Motors is skipping the traditional path to becoming a publicly-traded company and is instead merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Specifically, Lucid Motors is merging with Churchill Capital Corp IV, which is already... Continue reading…

Image: Twisted Metal Wiki Sony is bringing back its Twisted Metal franchise, but this time it’s going to be a TV show, not a video game. According to Variety, the show is moving ahead in its production, with the writers of Deadpool and actor Will Arnett signed on as executive producers.The Twisted Metal games center mainly around getting in a heavily armored car and blowing other drivers up. The series, which the head of PlayStation Productions calls “one of the most beloved franchises from PlayStation,” started on the original PS1 and got releases on the PS2 and PS3 as well (though my personal favorite was the PSP version, which I sunk hours upon hours into). The series went dormant during the years of the PlayStation 4, however, with no signs of a console... Continue reading…

Dish Network chairman Charlie Ergen wants to make American wireless great again. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Dish Network co-founder and chairman Charlie Ergen underscored the company’s commitment to building a 5G wireless network on today’s Q4 2020 earnings call. He restated the intention to bring 5G online in its first major cities by the end of Q3 2021 — that’s the period running from July through September — and was bullish on Dish’s ability to boost the US’s somewhat dismal global position in terms of wireless network offerings.Ergen spent several minutes on today’s call recapping what the company has done so far in its network-building effort. With its acquisition of Boost Mobile last year, it’s currently offering prepaid service as an MVNO on T-Mobile’s network, but it has also been accumulating its own spectrum to make the move to a... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Last November, Microsoft debuted two next-gen consoles — the Xbox Series X and the more affordable Xbox Series S. If you are looking for the more affordable next-gen Xbox, Best Buy has the console in stock right now.The Xbox Series S variant costs $299, is smaller, and is less powerful than the $500 Series X. One other important thing to note is the Xbox Series S is a digital-only console, meaning it lacks a disc drive to play physical games.If you plan to buy this console, you may want to consider picking up a few accessories that will help you get the most out of your new gadget, most notably an additional controller if you are playing a game with a local co-op with a friend or family member.As far as storage goes, both... Continue reading…

Hayley Arceneaux | Image: St. Jude Hayley Arceneaux, a physician assistant at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, will join the first all-civilian trip to space, SpaceX announced today. She will orbit Earth for up to five days in the Crew Dragon capsule as part of the Inspiration4 mission. Crew members are being selected based on “mission pillars of leadership, hope, generosity and prosperity,” according to the press release for the mission. Arceneaux, SpaceX said, will represent hope.Diagnosed with bone cancer at 10, she had some of the bones in her left leg replaced with titanium as part of her treatment. She was treated at St. Jude, where she now works with children who are being treated for lymphoma and leukemia. With the upcoming mission, Arceneaux will become... Continue reading…

Image: Marvel New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will allow movie theaters in New York City to open with a limited audience capacity for the first time in nearly a year.As part of the restrictions, theaters will only allow a maximum of 50 people to sit in any one screening (restricting capacity to 25 percent). Attendees must wear masks and sit in their assigned seats. The theaters will also have to implement advanced air filtration systems, according to Cuomo. While theaters outside of New York City have been allowed to reopen over the last few months, high case numbers in the city have prevented people from going. Theaters originally shut down because of the pandemic in mid-March 2020.Allowing New York City theaters to open is a big deal, especially for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Epic Games will give Fortnite players 1,000 V-Bucks if they ever purchased an in-game loot box, presented within the game as “loot llamas” containing randomized items, as part of a proposed class action lawsuit settlement to be approved later this week.While Fortnite’s massively popular battle royale mode has never contained randomized loot boxes, the game’s cooperative survival mode, “Save the World,” did — at least until 2019 when Epic changed its loot box system to allow players to see the item inside prior to purchase.Now, anyone who purchased a randomized loot box prior to their discontinuation will have the 1,000 V-Bucks (roughly $8) deposited automatically into their accounts over the next two to three days. The decision is... Continue reading…

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge Samsung has announced that it’ll be extending the amount of time that its Galaxy smartphones and tablets will be getting security updates. Now, devices released from 2019 and onward will receove at least four years of security updates.Previously, Samsung offered either monthly or quarterly security updates for at least the first two years of a device’s life span, the frequency of which is determined by the device itself. More premium phones like the Galaxy Note or Galaxy S lines get monthly updates, while budget-friendly models like 2020’s Galaxy A71 5G get quarterly updates. Samsung also drops some of its higher-end devices down to quarterly updates after a certain point in time, like the Galaxy S8 lineup.It’s important to note that... Continue reading…

Image: Instagram Instagram is announcing that it’s adding resources for people affected by eating disorders to its social platform. If users search for hashtags or content that’s potentially related to disordered eating, the company will guide that user to resources or help lines provided by the National Eating Disorders Association (or NEDA) in the US, as well as others in the UK, Australia, and Canada.Instagram says that currently, it tries to blur out potentially triggering content in search results, and it does direct people to generalized crisis support, but it should now direct users to resources specifically designed around eating disorders. In its blog, Instagram also says that it plans to show the resources if someone is trying to share eating... Continue reading…

NASA on Monday released a trove of video footage showing its Perseverance rover landing on Mars after plunging through the planet’s atmosphere, unveiling the most in-depth views of a Mars landing ever.

Velodyne, which makes LIDAR sensors crucial for the operation of autonomous vehicles, has removed its founder, David Hall, as chair of the company’s board following an investigation, Reuters reports. Hall’s wife, Marta Thoma Hall, has also stepped down as chief marketing officer.The investigation, which started in December 2020, concluded that the Halls “each behaved inappropriately with regard to Board and Company processes, and failed to operate with respect, honesty, integrity, and candor in their dealings with Company officers and directors,” the company said in a statement.David Hall had previously stepped down as chairman of the board “voluntarily,” the board said, and transitioned to a new role as executive chairman. Marta... Continue reading…

Images: Karma Automotive Electric vehicle startup Karma Automotive has fully revealed its newest hybrid car, the GS-6. While it shares the same design as the company’s ultra-luxury sedan, the Revero GT, Karma is pricing the GS-6 at nearly half the price — $83,900 — in a bid to reach a much wider set of customers.Karma says it’s able to do that because it plans to make more cars at its California production plant, is making them more efficiently, and has streamlined its supply chain, according director of public relations Jeff Holland. “It helps that our parent company also owns our battery supplier A123 Systems, but over the past few years we have also seen a substantial reduction in the cost of lithium ion batteries and other EV-related components including... Continue reading…

Valheim is on a trajectory like nothing we’ve ever seen. The Viking-themed indie survival game has been shooting up the Steam charts, selling 3 million copies in an unheard-of 17 days. And people aren’t just buying it on a whim; they’re actively playing it, too. On Sunday, the game reached 500,000 simultaneous players, according to SteamDB, leaving the charred remains of four other all-time Steam player count records in its wake.As of Friday, February 19th, the game had already passed Postal and Grand Theft Auto V to become the ninth most-played game on Steam at peak, but now it’s surpassed the records for Among Us, Life is Strange 2, Fallout 4, and Terraria to reach the No. 5 slot, according to Steam Charts. It’s going... Continue reading…