The Verge

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…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is adding a new mobile feature that will automatically download show recommendations and movies based on viewer history. Downloads For You launches globally today for Android users, the company announced.You’ll need to opt in to use the feature. Once toggled on from the downloads tab, you’ll need to set how much space — 1GB, 3GB, or 5GB — you’ll want to use. More space equals more Netflix recommendations downloaded. TechCrunch reports that although Netflix’s full catalog is available with the feature, some downloads will be limited because of licensing restrictions. The platform continues to improve its offline watching options; Netflix launched Smart Downloads on Android in 2018, which automatically deletes... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix Netflix’s next Sherlock Holmes project, The Irregulars, just got a new teaser highlighting the dark, supernatural adventures yet to come on the eight-part series. The Irregulars, set to start streaming on March 26th, follows a group of “troubled street teens” who are “manipulated into solving crimes” by the “sinister Doctor Watson,” according to Netflix.The Irregulars is based in part on the Baker Street Irregulars, a group of street urchins in Arthur Conan Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes novels that helped Watson and the famous consulting detective gain a street-level view on London and handle some of the busy work of solving mysteries. Netflix’s version, created by Tom Bidwell, seems to take things in a far moodier and spookier... Continue reading…

Image: MySmartPrice Sony’s upcoming WF-1000XM4 earbuds may have been shown off in a leak, with a slimmed-down design. The leak from MyDrivers (via MySmartPrice) claims to show the sequel to Sony’s very good WF-1000XM3 — and if it’s real, it seems like a nice design upgrade.The new purported design does away with the large, Popsicle-stick-like design that sticks out of the user’s ear, and instead goes with a more modern style of bud that fits in your ear — similar to Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Pro. Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Last year’s WF-1000XM3, for reference. The leaked image shows a copper accent cylinder that acts as a design flair similar to Sony’s 1000XM3 headphones or its modern, high-end Walkmans. We’ll likely have to... Continue reading…

Photo by MOHD RASFAN/AFP via Getty Images A Malaysian news site was fined the equivalent of nearly $124,000 for five comments below an article. News outlet Malaysiakini has raised money to cover the fee of 500,000 ringgit, but human rights advocates say it was targeted for its reporting on government corruption, and they worry that the case could chill political speech online.The New York Times reported the verdict on Friday, when a panel of judges found Malaysiakini guilty of contempt of court. The outlet argued that it wasn’t responsible for reader comments, and it removed them after police warned that the comments illegally insulted Malaysia’s judiciary. But the court said it should have preemptively moderated the comments and never allowed them online.Malaysiakini is a... Continue reading…

Smoke rises from an illegally lit fire in a section of Amazon rainforest, south of Novo Progresso in Pará state, Brazil, on August 15th, 2020. | Photo by Carl de Souza / AFP via Getty Images Fires in the Amazon reached devastating new levels in 2020, new NASA satellite imagery shows. The space agency developed a new tool to track fires from space after Brazil’s Amazon suffered a record-breaking year of fires in 2019.Specialized sensors on satellites collect visible and infrared imagery, which NASA uses to detect thermal anomalies — basically hotspots caused by fire. Its satellites found 1.4 million of those anomalies in the Southern Amazon last year, compared to 1.1 million in 2019.“Fire activity was up significantly in 2020,” Douglas Morton, chief of the Biospheric Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said in the announcement today. “All types of fires contributed to the increase, including... Continue reading…

Russia’s Progress 77 cargo resupply ship is seen approaching the International Space Station through the window of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. | NASA SpaceX’s Crew Dragon astronaut taxi is doing “beautifully” so far in its first operational, long-duration stay on the International Space Station, NASA’s human spaceflight chief Kathy Lueders told The Verge. The capsule, named Resilience, sent three NASA astronauts and a Japanese astronaut to the station last November, and a trivial housekeeping task is the only unexpected hiccup faced by the crew.“We’ve been very, very happy with how things are going,” Lueders said in an interview. “The only minor thing we had was we’re getting some little bits of lint on the seal” where Crew Dragon connects to the ISS, she added. Astronauts have been floating in and out of the spacecraft for months, leaving behind a buildup of lint and dust.“I can... Continue reading…

Image: Spotify Barack Obama is getting into the podcast game. Today, Spotify announced that the former president and rockstar Bruce Springsteen — yes, you read that right — will host a show called Renegades: Born in the USA exclusively for the audio platform. They’ll discuss “race, fatherhood, marriage, and the state of America,” per a press release, and the first two episodes premiere today for both free and premium Spotify users. The first season will contain eight episodes total.Higher Ground, the production company owned by Michelle and Barack Obama, signed a deal with Spotify in 2019, committing themselves to creating exclusive podcasts for the platform. Renegades is the second of those shows. The Michelle Obama Podcast debuted this past summer... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile has just announced a new monthly phone plan called Magenta Max that the company says is designed for the era of 5G. According to this press release, T-Mobile claims Magenta Max is “the first and only 5G consumer smartphone plan that can’t slow you down based on how much data you use.” That makes it sound like the carrier is doing away with what’s known as deprioritization, where your speeds are subject to slowdown after you exceed a certain amount of data in a billing cycle.“T-Mobile has lit up the highest-capacity 5G network available — a network so powerful it can start unleashing the power of 5G to deliver unlimited premium data,” the company said. Magenta Max promises “unlimited 4K UHD” video streaming compared to the... Continue reading…

Anthony and Joe Russo’s AGBO production company is entering the audio space in a new multiyear deal with Spotify, following its massive success with Extraction on Netflix and the upcoming Tom Holland-led feature Cherry on Apple TV Plus.The directors, best known for their work on Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame as well as sitcoms like Arrested Development, will produce several series for Spotify. The move comes at a time when Spotify is trying to assert itself as the dominant podcast platform. With the Russo brothers, known for their specific type of blockbuster storytelling, the company is looking “to tell more stories that have the power to span generations and territories.”Spotify has signed other deals with... Continue reading…

DC is launching another universe to tell its superhero stories — but this time, it’s not on HBO Max or Cartoon Network: it’s on Spotify.The publisher is working on nine shows for Spotify, including shows about Catwoman, Wonder Woman, the Riddler, Batgirl, Superman and Lois Lane, and more — although DC creative director Jim Lee didn’t give too much more information about what those shows entail right now.Spotify and DC Comics signed a podcasting deal last June. The multiseries, multiyear deal was part of a bigger partnership between Spotify and DC Comics’ parent company, WarnerMedia. The first project out of the partnership is Batman Unburied, which will explore the “darker aspects of Bruce Wayne’s psychology.”Competition within the... Continue reading…

In the US, 5G remains a work in progress, despite carriers waving “5G Mission Accomplished” banners for years | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The fourth industrial revolution will not be televised Continue reading…

If all goes according to plan, in a few years, Toronto’s esports teams will have a futuristic new home. Today, Overactive Media — the ownership group behind the Toronto Defiant of the Overwatch League and the Call of Duty League’s Toronto Ultra — announced plans for a new 7,000-seat venue in the city, which is designed to host both competitive gaming matches and other events like concerts. The venue is expected to cost around $500 million to build and open in 2025.The new arena will be located at Exhibition Place in Toronto, which is also home to BMO Field, where soccer club Toronto FC plays. It’s being designed by Populous, the prolific architecture firm behind recent projects like Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London and T-Mobile Arena... Continue reading…

At least one future is here right now. The prankster art / marketing collective MSCHF recently spent $74,500 to purchase a Spot robo-dog from Boston Dynamics. It mounted a Tippmann 98 paintball gun on its back and is allowing people around the world to remotely control the bot via their phones in an art gallery filled with its own work for two minutes at a time. MSCHF is calling it Spot’s Rampage, and the event is happening on February 24th at 1PM ET. Quoth MSCHF’s latest manifesto:

Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for NARAS The Paris-born electronic music duo Daft Punk are no more. The group, consisting of French musicians Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter, confirmed the breakup with an eight-minute video titled “Epilogue” excerpted from their 2006 science fiction film Electroma, according to Pitchfork, which also confirmed the news with Daft Punk’s publicist.Daft Punk formed in 1993 in Paris and would go on to have a monumental effect on the emerging house and techno scenes of Europe and later all of pop music around the globe, with landmark albums like 1997’s Homework and 2001’s Discovery and singles like “Around the World” and “One More Time.”A standout of Daft Punk’s early career included the anime film Interstella 5555: The 5tory of... Continue reading…

All five seasons of The Muppet Show arrived on Disney Plus this past Friday. And depending on which episode you are streaming, you may receive a content disclaimer warning of potentially offensive material featured in the episode.Disney included a content warning for 18 episodes of the comedy show. The disclaimer, as pictured below, has been added to some episodes, warning viewers that the episode featured may include “negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.” Despite the controversial material some episodes contain, Disney decided to leave these episodes to “acknowledge the [offensive content’s] harmful impact, learn from it, and spark conversation to create a more inclusive future together.” S... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Samsung released its Galaxy S21 phones in late January, and it isn’t taking long for its original price to plummet. The Galaxy S21 Plus with a 6.7-inch 120Hz OLED screen and 128GB of storage that originally sold for $1,000 is now $800 at Amazon, which is the steepest price cut yet. Making this deal even better is the extra $100 in savings Amazon is offering on the Galaxy Buds Pro wireless earbuds (knocking them down to $100) when you purchase them together. To take advantage of that bundle offer, highlight the orange “Extra Savings” box on the product page, then hit “Add both to cart.” Currently, the black, silver, and violet colors are available with this deal.The smaller Galaxy S21 is $100 off its usual price, making it $700 (with the... Continue reading…

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Samsung has launched support for electrocardiogram (EKG) readings and blood pressure monitoring on its Galaxy Watch Active 2 and Galaxy Watch 3 devices, according to SamMobile. The feature comes courtesy of the Samsung Health Monitor app, which is now available to download from the company’s app store in 31 additional countries. Prior to today, the features were restricted to owners of one of those two devices in South Korea and the US only.Samsung first announced last month it would be adding the features to its latest Galaxy Watch devices through software updates, considering both smartwatches have the requisite sensors used for measuring heart rate and blood pressure and performing an EKG. Image: Samsung Now,... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is planning to add text predictions to Word in March. The new feature will work similarly to Google Docs’ Smart Compose option, using machine learning to predict what words an author will need to speed up document creation. Microsoft originally announced a beta of text predictions last year, but Neowin spotted it’s now on the Microsoft 365 roadmap to reach all Word users on Windows next month.Word will highlight grayed-out predictions when users are writing a document, and the suggestions can be accepted using the Tab key or rejected by hitting Escape. Text predictions can also be completely disabled by Word users. Image: Microsoft Word text predictions. Microsoft also started rolling out identical... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Twenty-five years later, that’s still the case Continue reading…

Image: TikTok TikTok is announcing today that it’s taking a couple small steps to try and help people who are affected by eating disorders. To do this, it’s partnering with the National Eating Disorder Association (or NEDA) to have an eating disorder awareness week, and implementing two new features that aim to provide resources and support to those who need it.If a user searches TikTok for terms like “proana” (short for “pro-anorexia”), or “eating disorder,” the app will now show support resources, along with NEDA’s phone number. Currently, searching the terms only shows the support number, but the new interface will also provide users with advice on how to deal with an eating disorder. Image: TikTok Instead of just... Continue reading…

Image: Motional Add Motional to the very short list of companies that have tested fully autonomous vehicles on public roads. The Hyundai-Aptiv joint venture announced that it has tested its vehicles without safety drivers behind the steering wheel on public streets in Las Vegas.The tests, which took place in February, came less than three months after the company received the green light from the state of Nevada to test its vehicles without a human safety driver. “Multiple driverless vehicles” were tested, conducting maneuvers such as “navigating intersections, unprotected turns, and interactions with other road users, including pedestrians and cyclists,” the company said.Of course, there are some caveats. A Motional employee remained in the... Continue reading…

The Mate X2 has an 8-inch screen that folds inward. | Image: Huawei Huawei has announced the Mate X2, its first all-new foldable device since 2019’s Mate X. The new phone has received a radical redesign compared to the original device, with a large screen that unfolds from the inside of the device rather than around the outside. For using the phone while folded, the Huawei Mate X2 has a second screen on its outside, similar to Samsung’s approach with the Galaxy Fold series. Images of the phone were leaked minutes ahead of its official announcement by Evan Blass on Voice.This being a Huawei device, the Mate X2 will launch without support for Google’s apps or services, which is likely to severely limit its appeal outside of China. According to Huawei’s site, the phone will run on EMUI 11.0 based on... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Clubhouse has confirmed one of its users was able to siphon off audio feeds from the invitation-only app and make them accessible from a third-party website, raising security concerns about the fledgling service. A Clubhouse spokesperson told Bloomberg that “multiple rooms” were affected, and that the user behind the breach had been “permanently banned.” It said “safeguards” have been put in place to prevent a repeat, though it reportedly declined to provide specific details.The incident is a reminder for Clubhouse users to be careful about sharing sensitive information in conversations held via the invite-only iOS app. This is especially important for any Chinese citizens or dissidents using the app, or any users concerned about state... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge WhatsApp has detailed what will happen to users who don’t accept its new privacy policy in an FAQ on its website. Starting May 15th, its functionality will become more limited, and users will no longer be able to send or read messages from the app. They’ll still be able to receive calls and notifications, but this will only be possible for a “short time.” Speaking to TechCrunch, the company confirmed this period will last a few weeks.The new privacy policy has been controversial among some users, who worry that it allows WhatsApp to share their private messages with its parent company Facebook. However, messages between individuals on WhatsApp are end-to-end encrypted, so only their recipients can see their contents. What the new... Continue reading…

Image: Hayden Smith / speedbird5280 (Instagram) Airlines in Japan and the US have grounded dozens of Boeing 777 aircraft after the dramatic engine failure that United Airlines flight 328 experienced over Denver this weekend. According to the National Transportation Safety Board’s ongoing investigation, two fan blades on the plane’s number 2 engine had developed fractures.The Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency airworthiness directive that requires “immediate or stepped-up inspections of Boeing 777 airplanes equipped with certain Pratt & Whitney PW4000 engines.” The administration noted that this was likely to result in aircraft being removed from service.Boeing has also told airlines to stop flying planes equipped with the engine, according to The Wall Street... Continue reading…

You would think the entire world would know how the Zoom world works by now. Lawyers can be cats, congressmen are sometimes inverted, but pants are not actually optional. That didn’t keep the Oakley Union Elementary School District’s board of trustees from badmouthing parents during a public WebEx call — suggesting that parents just “want their babysitters back,” or want to go back to ingesting marijuana (via Gizmodo).

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge There’s a popular stereotype that Apple’s computers are largely immune to malware. Not only is is that incorrect, it appears that sophisticated hacker(s) might have been toying with the idea of a heist or drop nasty enough they’d have needed to cover their tracks. As Ars Technica reports, security researchers at Malwarebytes and Red Canary discovered a mysterious piece of malware hiding on nearly 30,000 Macs, one designed to deliver an as-yet-unknown payload, and with a self-destruction mechanism that might remove any trace that it ever existed. They’re calling it Silver Sparrow.Red Canary’s own blog post goes into more detail, including how they discovered multiple versions targeting not only Intel, but also newer Macs based on Apple’s... Continue reading…

Samsung has been toying with AR glasses for years, most recently trotting out an extremely basic set of image-projecting goggles on the CES 2020 stage, but I’ve never seen the company suggest it might like to build an actually ambitious augmented reality wearable computing device — until perhaps today.WalkingCat, a fairly reliable source of gadget leaks, has published two new concept videos that show off some of the fun things a pair of “Samsung Glasses Lite” could do, like projecting a giant virtual screen where you can play your games, letting you kick back in your private movie theater, give you a giant virtual computer monitor, fire up an auto-dimming “sunglasses mode,” or act as an instant first-person-view screen for your DJI... Continue reading…

Photo by Avery White / The Verge Pop quiz: which is the better deal, $500 off a Razer Blade laptop, or $150 off an Asus Zephyrus G14? It might hinge on whether you need a webcam, because in practically every other way the Asus is the laptop I’d buy today.That’s not to say there’s anything particularly wrong with the Razer Blade 15 Base at today’s unheard of price of $1,099 at Amazon (regularly $1,599): aside from the paltry 256GB of solid state storage, you’re looking at a speedy 6-core Core i7-10750H processor, GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics that should competently tackle yesteryear’s biggest titles, a 144Hz 1080p screen, plus plenty of ports packed into an attractive black CNC aluminum chassis with single-zone RGB lighting. The deal ends midnight PT Sunday. ... Continue reading…

The FAA seems satisfied with its investigations into Elon Musk’s last two SpaceX Starship tests, each of which ended in an explosive crash, and the conclusion of those investigations should clear the way for a new SN10 flight in the very near future. In fact, Musk just tweeted there’s a “good chance of flying this week!”Late last month, we broke the news that SpaceX had violated its launch license with its Starship SN8 launch in December, but an FAA spokesperson now says that matter has already been settled, according to CNN’s Jackie Wattles.As for the SN9, which similarly exploded during a landing attempt on February 2nd, the FAA says it “failed within the bounds of the FAA safety analysis” and “its unsuccessful landing and explosion... Continue reading…

Image: Hayden Smith / speedbird5280 (Instagram) A United Airlines flight experienced a dramatic-looking engine failure just after takeoff from Denver International Airport on Saturday afternoon. UA328, originally headed to Honolulu, quickly circled back to the airport and made a safe landing after the pilots calmly made a “mayday” call to air traffic control. There were no injuries among the 231 passengers and 10 airline staff on board, according to the FAA.Since it’s 2021, the incident was thoroughly captured with both photos and video. Passengers shared video of what looks to be a significant right engine failure, with visible damage, flames, and trailing smoke:

Image: Forest of Illusion Dinosaur Planet is an unreleased Nintendo 64 game by Rare that ultimately evolved into Star Fox Adventures for GameCube. But thanks to the preservationists at Forest of Illusion, it’s now possible to play that unfinished, original title. A build of the game from December 1st, 2000 — well into its development cycle — was retrieved from a disc purchased from a private collector.Screenshots of the game feature Fox McCloud; as noted by Eurogamer, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto was reportedly influential in pushing the developers to shift the game into a Star Fox title. Digital Foundry’s John Linneman uploaded 20 minutes of gameplay, and here you can also see Fox replacing one of the original game’s intended protagonists, Sabre.

That disclaimer at the bottom would prove relevant. | Image: Blizzard Despite its later-than-usual timing and going completely virtual for the first time, yesterday’s BlizzCon keynote brought with it some big news and exciting trailers. It also featured a musical performance from Metallica. The band isn’t new to BlizzCon, having first appeared at the conference in 2014.Viewers on many platforms (including Blizzard’s own Twitch and YouTube channels) heard a performance of Metallica’s 1984 tune “For Whom The Bell Tolls.” Several Twitch streamers broadcasting BlizzCon muted the feed during Metallica’s appearance to avoid any potential DMCA troubles.But on the Twitch Gaming feed that was also carrying the stream, well, things took an amazing turn. Within seconds of the song beginning, the audio was... Continue reading…

Over at The Markup is an alarming story about a rash of phishing scams that have been targeting gig workers for Postmates. Drivers are receiving phone calls from people claiming to be Postmates employees, who urge the workers to give over their login details — usually under the guise that it’s necessary to keep a driver account in good standing or avoid claims of fraud.Once the scammers obtain that info, they switch the debit card information on the account — Postmates makes weekly deposits of a worker’s earnings, but instant transfers can also be requested — and then drain the balance of everything that’s in there. The Markup has spoken to many Postmates gig workers who’ve been preyed upon with this scam, and others are using Reddit... Continue reading…

Healthcare workers wait for their first dose of the first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in Bogata, Colombia. | Photo by Juancho Torres/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images As the pandemic drags on, experts are exploring ways to stretch still-limited vaccine supplies to get as many people protected as possible. One idea that’s resurfaced this week involves allowing more time in between the first and second doses of the two-dose vaccines. This time, though, there’s some additional data that suggests it might work.Here’s the idea: two leading vaccines, made by Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna require two doses. But their early data showed pretty significant protection after the first dose. That got people thinking — is it worth giving more people partial protection with just one dose? Or should they stick to the schedule and fully vaccinate fewer people?Back in December, some experts encouraged researchers... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge This is the first time in recent memory where several deals we’ve written about through the week are still available. It’s always great when readers have an extended window of time to snag a deal. So, below you’ll find a few of our favorite picks from the week, along with one new exclusive deal for Verge readers. I won’t keep you in suspense, it’s on the Pixel 5. We worked with a partner to secure some refurbished units that are in great condition. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Snag a refurbished Google Pixel 5 for under $600The lowest price for a like-new refurbished Pixel 5 on Amazon is $610, but you can save more with this reader-exclusive deal from Daily Steals. It’s offering Verge readers a few... Continue reading…

Photo by Daniel Knighton / WireImage The creator of The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman, released a new cat-themed mobile word game called Kitty Letter earlier this week that feels like playing one of his silly comic strips. That feeling was intentional, Inman told me.“My comics have always been rhetorical,” he said. “You don’t interact with the comic, you have no say in it, you’re just experiencing it. So, with [Kitty Letter], I got a chance to introduce some elements where people get to play the comic, and I thought that was a lot of fun.”Kitty Letter has a structure that Inman described as “Scrabble combined with Clash Royale.” Your goal is to beat your opponent by spelling words from a combination of letters at the bottom of your phone’s screen. When you spell a word, you’ll... Continue reading…

Ease your way into the joys of commuting by electric bike Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / Images by Daft Punk, Alex and Martin, and Alterian Inc. As a visual artist who also makes beats in the anonymity of my bedroom, I’ve always wondered how Daft Punk managed to craft not only their music, but their visual presence. A masterpiece unto itself, the Daft Punk helmets transform two anonymous musicians into otherworldly beings. Arbiters of funk and electro. Ambassadors of sound. Gods of the synthesizer. You get it. The helmets allow the musicians to detach themselves from reality and bring the audience into their universe. It leaves the musician in mystery, and until today, the genesis of the helmets was a mystery to me too.In a tweet thread by @daft_wub, you can see the whole process from sketch to final, including electrical schematics and initial sculpts of the helmets. They also... Continue reading…

Blizzcon happened a little later than usual due to the pandemic, but the first virtual version of Blizzard’s games convention still had some interesting news and trailers. The opening keynote covered most of the big franchises, like World of Warcraft and Diablo, along with some more obscure classics.If you missed the event, you can catch up on all of the biggest news right here.Blizzard Arcade CollectionThe first announcement was one of the most unexpected: three of Blizzard’s more obscure games are being bundled into a new package called the Blizzard Arcade Collection. Lost Vikings, Rock & Roll Racing, and Blackthorne have all been ported to modern platforms, including PC, Xbox One, PS4, and the Nintendo Switch. And they include... Continue reading…