The Verge

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Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Music can be said to be the universal language: while our tastes in tunes may differ, there are few people who don’t have their own favorite songs to listen to. New technologies have increased the quality of that music — however, we can’t all afford the types of speakers and headphones that offer the most superior sound.But if you’re a music fan with a strict budget, don’t despair. There are audio devices out there that offer good or even excellent sound without forcing you to take out a loan. The following are reviews of various speakers and headsets (both headphones and earbuds) that will allow you to really enjoy your playlist. Read on, and see if you can’t find something that will fit your needs perfectly.Headphones and earbuds ... Continue reading…

The Raspberry Pi 400 is a self-contained computer built into a keyboard. | Image: Raspberry Pi The Raspberry Pi Foundation has announced the Raspberry Pi 400, a compact keyboard with an ARM-based computer built in. Just plug it into a TV or monitor using one of its two micro HDMI ports, insert a microSD card, attach a power cord and mouse, and you’ve got yourself a basic computer for day-to-day tasks, coding, or media playback. It’s available starting today as a standalone machine for $70 or in a bundle including a mouse, power supply, microSD card, HDMI cable, and beginner’s guide for $100.The hope is the Pi 400’s form factor, plus these optional bundled items, makes it more approachable and user-friendly. That’s important when you’re selling an affordable computer, and it’s especially important when you’re selling an accessible... Continue reading…

Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher in ‘The Crown’ | Netflix I have only watched the new episode of The Mandalorian once (so far) but it is so great to have this fun, nerdy show back. I won’t spoil anything but it was A) nice to see The Baby aka Baby Yoda aka my green son, B) nice to see Timothy Olyphant and C) great to see the coolest show on streaming is still very, very cool. Check out the review of the first episode here, and look for weekly Friday recaps of new episodes on The Verge.This week’s trailers include the new season of the other best show on streaming: The Crown. Look I have eclectic tastes, OK?The Crown The sight of Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher was most welcome for this erstwhile X-phile, but also: DIANA! The series will finally catch up to the Charles-Diana marriage... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Over the past several months, conservative groups— including associates of President Trump— were often not penalized by Facebook for violating its rules because people at the company worried about the perception of anti-conservative bias, The Washington Post reported.The Post examined posts and ad spending along with internal Facebook documents. It found accounts that included Donald Trump Jr. and a pro-Trump super PAC were shielded from the platform’s most serious enforcement actions. For instance, according to the Post, Facebook removed a strike against Trump Jr. on Instagram — which is owned by Facebook— that would have led to him being labeled a “repeat offender” and could have meant a permanent ban under platform rules.Facebook... Continue reading…

The late Steve Jobs | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images A fake letter from Sean Connery to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs is making the rounds on social media following the actor’s death on Saturday. Just to reiterate: it’s fake, the product of humor site Scoopertino, which posts satirical articles about Apple and goings-on at its Cupertino (get it that’s the name) headquarters.The typewritten letter dated 1998 purports to show Connery’s outrage over Jobs asking him to appear in an Apple commercial. “I do not sell my soul for Apple or any other company. I have no interest in ‘changing the world’ as you suggest,” it states. “You are a computer salesman, I am fucking JAMES BOND!”But the internet loves things that are too good to be true, and Sunday morning, the “letter” was circulating on... Continue reading…

A robot by Disney Research uses realistic eye movements | Disney Research Once you get past the fact that it has no skin, the new robot from Disney Research is an impressive feat of robotics. First reported by Gizmodo, the new robot can imitate human facial movements, specifically blinking and subtle head movements.A sensor in its chest area (covered by a shirt, because the face is unsettling enough, thanks) alerts the robot when to turn and face a person in front of it, and its eye movements shift from direct eye contact to the rapid eye movements known as saccades. It also moves slightly up and down to mimic breathing.The robot was developed by engineers at Disney’s Research division, Walt Disney Imagineering, and robotics researchers from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and the California... Continue reading…

Photo by Noah Berger / AFP / Getty Images Outside of excited Apple executives, no one thought much of Apple TV Plus. Even with $6 billion allocated for content and a roster of talent that included J.J. Abrams, Reese Witherspoon, and Oprah Winfrey, little on Apple TV Plus shined at launch. With the exception of The Morning Show, Apple TV Plus barely managed to enter the conversation, while other new entrants like Disney Plus soared right out the gate.But streaming isn’t a sprint; it’s a marathon. The anniversary of Apple TV Plus arrives with the platform getting better each month, but it’s still not where Apple needs it to be.It’s impossible to ignore the most obvious flailing that Apple TV Plus is facing: there’s no back catalog to keep people around once they’ve finished... Continue reading…

No Malarkey Station appears in the Biden-Harris campaign’s new Fortnite map | Biden campaign With just a few days to go before the November 3rd presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign has launched a new custom map in Fortnite. First reported by Mashable, the “Build Back Better with Biden” map is located in “Reboot City,” and is aimed at promoting the campaign’s message that the environment and economy are connected. The solo-player, adventure-type map takes about 20 to 30 minutes to play, and made its debut Friday night.“Our digital program is built around how people spend time, and the most effective ways reach them in those places,” Christian Tom, the Biden campaign’s director of digital partnerships said in a statement to The Verge. “We see interactive, digital-first experiences like gaming as an... Continue reading…

Once again Riot has turned the opening ceremonies of the League of Legends World Championship final into a technological showcase. This year at Pudong Football Stadium in Shanghai, the ceremony was split into a few different parts: it opened with virtual K-pop group K/DA performed via augmented reality, which was followed by a melody of anthems from past Worlds events. At the end, as the players were introduced, a virtual, towering version of League character Galio — known as the stone colossus — appeared on stage.While the event wasn’t as visually impressive as last year’s holographic showcase, it was still an impressive feat considering the restraints created by the ongoing pandemic. The main cast of performers were virtual, but they... Continue reading…

The Acer Swift 3X is one of the first laptops to include Intel’s new GPU. | Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Earlier this month, the public got its first glimpse of Iris Xe Max, Intel’s new discrete GPU for thin-and-light laptops, at an Acer press event. Today, Intel revealed the full first wave of laptops that will include this GPU, some of which are available for purchase now in certain countries.The laptops include the Acer Swift 3X, the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 2-in-1, and the Asus VivoBook Flip TP470. The Inspiron 15 is available in the US at Best Buy; Acer has previously said to expect the 3X in the US in December. Both the Swift 3X and the Inspiron 15 are also available in China through JD.com. Intel says the Asus VivoBook is coming “shortly” to both the US and China. Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge Intel... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A jury in Texas has ruled that Apple has to pay VirnetX $502.8 million in royalties for VPN on Demand, a feature that lets iOS users access a VPN connection, Bloomberg reported. The two companies have been involved in a legal battle for ten years, with VirnetX— sometimes referred to as a patent troll — arguing that Apple’s VPN on Demand and FaceTime use its technology.Apple said in a statement it plans to appeal the decision: “This case has been going on for over a decade, with patents that are unrelated to the core operations of our products and have been found to be invalid by the patent office. Cases like this only serve to stifle innovation and harm consumers.”Earlier this year, a US appeals court rejected Apple’s request to... Continue reading…

One of the countless impacts of the coronavirus pandemic is that it halted the NYC Department of Sanitation’s recycling program that picks up your e-waste by appointment. The program is still paused, and it isn’t set to resume its normal cadence of accepting e-waste at drop-off sites until at least June 2021.Thankfully, you have a few short-term options if you need to get rid of some tech in the coming weeks.Earlier in the pandemic, the Lower East Side (LES) Ecology Center drop-off site near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn permanently shut its doors. It was one of the few drop-off sites in New York City that accepted and recycled e-waste, diverting 1 million pounds of e-waste from landfills in 2018, according to Christine Datz-Romero,... Continue reading…

Photo credit should read CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images Lately, I’ve been thinking about pandemic safety and Swiss cheese. It’s an uninspiring cheese, but it’s a good visual metaphor for a layered approach to infection control.This ‘Swiss Cheese Model’ has been around since at least the 1990’s, when it was proposed as a way of thinking about how accidents happen. During the pandemic, it’s been pressed into a different kind of service, used to visualize disease prevention instead of accidents.In a pandemic as widespread as this one, no single action can keep a person from getting sick. There will always be flaws (holes) in any approach. Washing your hands won’t keep you from breathing in the virus — and wearing a cloth mask won’t completely protect you if you’re stuck in a stuffy room with... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is introducing custom backgrounds for its Meet videoconferencing platform, the company announced in a blog post. If you use Meet in Google’s Chrome browser you should be able to access the feature in Chrome OS as well as on Windows and Mac laptops and desktops. The feature is “coming soon” to mobile, Google says.There’s no browser extension needed to activate custom backgrounds; you should be able to add a background image from your own photo collection or from a library of images provided by Google that includes landscapes, abstract art and (for some reason) offices. Google Google Meet custom backgrounds It may take up to a week before all Google Meet users can access the new custom background... Continue reading…

Sean Connery, the Scottish actor who brought James Bond to the silver screen as part of a four-decade career, has died at 90, the BBC reported. Connery played Ian Fleming’s 007 spy in seven films, starting with Dr. No in 1962, a role he got without taking a screen test, according to Variety. He reprised the role in From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds are Forever, and Never Say Never Again.Connery died in his sleep in the Bahamas, according to the BBC, and had been in poor health for some time.Over the course of his prolific career, Connery won an Oscar— Best Supporting Actor for the 1987 film The Untouchables— and three Golden Globe awards. His filmography also includes star turns in The Man... Continue reading…

Ruined King: A League of Legends Story, the upcoming single-player League of Legends spinoff that will see the franchise debut on consoles for the first time, has released its first (albeit, vague) bits of information. It’ll launch sometime in “early 2021” on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Steam, and the Epic Games Store at launch, with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X / S versions set to follow shortly after. (PS4 and Xbox One players will be able to upgrade for free.)Along with news of a release window, Riot Forge also announced some additional details on what Ruined King will actually be: a single-player, turn-based RPG set in the Bilgewater and Shadow Isles regions of Runeterra (the planet on which League of Legends is... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Saturday is your last chance to get in on Best Buy’s multi-day sale, but don’t worry if you miss out. Black Friday is a few weeks away, and this year, retailers are offering very good sale prices almost every day. Wherever those deals come from, we’ll be putting them in deal posts for you to check out. What follows are the best deals that have made the rounds on The Verge earlier this week, as well as some new inclusions we think you’ll enjoy.Sony’s WH-1000XM4 wireless noise-canceling headphones come recommended if you want a comfy over-ear model with excellent sound quality and long-lasting battery life. Normally $350, they’re down to $278. This matches the lowest price yet.There are some big discounts happening on LG and Vizio OLED... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Woot is selling a batch of refurbished Pixelbook Go laptops starting at $530 for the base model with an Intel Core m3 processor, 64GB of storage and an FHD touchscreen display (usually $650 new), going up to $790 for the Core i7 model with 256GB of storage and 16GB of RAM. These have a 90-day warranty through Woot with the option available to extend coverage by a year with a SquareTrade protection plan. And despite not being retail units, the seller says they will receive software updates through Google through June 2026. Woot doesn’t make claims about their physical condition, which it usually does for refurbished products.As far as discounts go, the prices are good, though that isn’t the most interesting thing about these Chromebooks.... Continue reading…

Animation: Andre Zimmermann Everyone focuses on what’s blowing up on TikTok, but here’s something that’s been getting a bit of attention over on Byte: some playful little skeletons.Over the past month, designer Andre Zimmermann has been posting short looping clips of meddlesome skeletons getting into low-stakes hijinks, like running off with food from a table or knocking a plant off a ledge. “They sort of became these jerks,” Zimmermann said. “Like a cat.”They’re the furthest thing from spooky, but their mischievous antics feel a bit more comforting during what’s already a high-stress Halloween.Your browser does not support HTML5 video.My favorite of Zimmermann’s not-quite-spooky animations shows a humanoid collection of skulls dancing to a looping disco track.... Continue reading…

You’ll have to wait a bit longer for Panic’s odd little handheld: In an update published today, the company announced that Playdate will slip from its original 2020 window and now ship in early 2021.The device is the software developer’s first piece of physical hardware, a handheld with a unique crank alongside traditional buttons for controlling the device. Teenage Engineering co-designed the Playdate and it bears many of the company’s minimalistic touches in a bright, playful yellow. Image: Panic Playdate with final packaging. Panic announced in March that its staff was moving to work from home and that the Malaysian factory producing the Playdate had temporarily shut down. The company says adapting to... Continue reading…

Earlier today, Ubisoft released its own backward compatibility list to point out which older PS4 games won’t run on the PS5. Instead of sharing that list at Sony’s website, Ubisoft flagged the titles on its own website — but it appears that list may have been inaccurate, and the company has now taken it down.“We have pulled the Ubisoft Connect article and forum post regarding backwards compatibility for the time being as there may be inaccuracies involving the Ubisoft titles that will be playable on PS5,” an Ubisoft spokesperson told The Verge in an email.Prior to taking down the post, Ubisoft claimed that the following nine games would not work on PS5:

Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid The New York Post is back on Twitter, after Twitter updated its policy on policy changes. This story is going to be confusing, but not as confusing as Twitter’s attempts at moderation.To recap: On October 14th, The New York Post published a (contested and possibly part of a disinformation campaign, though this is absolutely not the point I am here to tell you about) story about Hunter Biden, the son of presidential candidate Joe Biden. Very little of the contents of the Post story are pertinent to the discussion we are about to have, except this: some of the materials in it, Twitter alleges, seem to be the result of hacking.Got all that so far? Great, there’s moreTwitter suspended The New York Post’s account... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Today, exactly one year after Apple first launched the AirPods Pro — and thus the same day the very first AirPods Pro owners will see their one-year warranties expire — Apple has launched a repair program that offers free repairs or replacements for another whole year if your AirPods Pro experience issues with noise cancellation or static.Specifically, Apple will fix:

Almost a quarter of all transactions at Starbucks stores in the US are mobile orders through the company’s app, an earnings document revealed yesterday. Ordering ahead through the Starbucks app is the company’s suggested way to get in and out of its locations faster during the pandemic, hopefully making it easier to maintain social distancing in the process.Starbucks launched “Mobile Order & Pay” in 2015, combining the company’s existing payment system with new online ordering features that let you order ahead for pickup at stores. This week’s new stats show how popular that feature has become, slowly growing over time until it dramatically increased over the course of 2020 — from 17 percent at the end of last year all the way to 24... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok got another reprieve from the Trump administration’s attempted ban today, as a federal judge in Pennsylvania blocked the government from moving ahead with restrictions that would have effectively shut down the app next month.The judge granted a preliminary injunction against a series of bans by the US Commerce Department that were set to go into effect on November 12th. The bans seemingly would have made the app unusable by restricting web hosting, content delivery, and more.TikTok is suing the Trump administration and Commerce Department to block its app from being banned, but this ruling actually came from another lawsuit: three TikTok creators who were concerned that the ban would prevent them from earning a living. The judge... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple’s latest iPhone 12 smartphone appears to be even more difficult for third-party companies to repair, according to a report from iFixit. Specifically, the new phone appears to run into issues if a user replaces the camera module, which renders the cameras almost totally unusable.The issue — first spotted by YouTuber Hugh Jeffreys — doesn’t appear to be a strictly hardware-related problem. As iFixit’s teardown notes, the iPhone 12 is actually a relatively good device when it comes to disassembly and replacement of various key parts.But should you actually swap a camera module from one iPhone 12 to another, it appears that the phone will reject the replacement part, with iFixit describing issues with the ultrawide camera and... Continue reading…

Lucasfilm Ltd. If you’re looking for some of the wider implications of The Mandalorian’s first season in the new premiere, now streaming on Disney Plus, you’ll probably be disappointed. You’re not going to learn anything about the “darksaber” wielded by Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) or any more about Din Djarin, the eponymous Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) than you already do. His goal this season is straightforward: bring The Child (“Baby Yoda” to everyone online) to its people. And in order to find The Child’s home, Djarin needs to find other Mandalorians.Which is to say that The Mandalorian’s second season begins similarly to its first: a masked man comes to town, searching for someone. Instead of his quarry, he finds trouble, which is a huge... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge These days, most of us tend to use our smartphone cameras for our full-time photographing needs rather than buy a separate product. After all, even lower-end cameras such as Google’s Pixel 4A or Apple’s iPhone SE both boast cameras that are as good as, if not better than, many of their more expensive peers. So why bother with a regular camera?Well, possibly because some people simply like having a separate camera. Some cameras, such as the GoPro, allow you to take photos in circumstances too rough for a phone, while others offer more special features. If you’re really serious about your photography, however, you’re going to be spending upward of $1,500 or more — way more — and that’s something that isn’t in everyone’s budget.What... Continue reading…

Plastic waste along the shores of Hong Kong. | Photo by Nick Mallos / Ocean Conservancy The US is responsible for way more of the plastic polluting the world’s oceans than previously thought, a new study reveals. When it comes to the countries that contributed the most to coastal plastic pollution, the US could rank as high as third in the world, it estimates.“[The US] outsourced our waste problem to developing countries”“Plastic pollution globally is at crisis level,” says Nick Mallos, senior director of the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy’s Trash Free Seas program and co-author of the paper published today in the journal Science Advances. “Most problematic is that rather than looking the problem in the eye, for more than 30 years, [the US] outsourced our waste problem to developing countries,” Mallos says.For years, Asian... Continue reading…

We’ve been waiting months to see what next-gen games and ray tracing will truly look like on the Xbox Series X. Today, we’re getting a first good look at the next-gen Xbox’s ray-tracing capabilities, thanks to Watch Dogs: Legion. Set in London, the game includes drones, self-driving cars, and lots of historical sites to explore.As it’s often wet and dark in Watch Dogs: Legion, the game also includes a lot of reflective puddles, shadows, and bright neon signs that are perfect for ray tracing. The Xbox Series X enhanced version of Watch Dogs: Legion will include ray-traced reflections, improved shadow quality, and even variable refresh rates. Watch Dogs: Legion running on the Xbox Series X. The Xbox Series X version... Continue reading…

Photo by Kyle Gustafson / For The Washington Post via Getty Images The classic Discord ringtone is going to sound a little different this Halloween. Today, the company revealed a remixed version of the sound effect, which adds some spooky elements to the iconic chime. It’s a short, breezy clip that wouldn’t feel out of place at a haunted house.You can check it out in the clip below, which extends the tune into a six-hour long video.The new ringtone was created by hyperpop duo 100 gecs, though it’s not clear how long it will stick around for.It’s been a pretty big year for Discord as the pandemic has caused millions of people to shift to gaming as a social outlet. Back in June, Discord announced a $100 million funding round with plans to become a more ubiquitous communication tool. More recently, the... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple has rolled out its Apple One subscription bundle, which combines several services — including Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and Apple Arcade — for a single monthly price. Apple One also includes additional iCloud storage, with the allotment going up the more you pay.Apple One comes in three different tiers:

With only four days until the US presidential election, Instagram is cracking down on hashtags. The company announced yesterday that it would temporarily get rid of the “recent” tab on hashtag pages to potentially stop the spread of “harmful content” around the election. Typically when you search a hashtag on Instagram, you can choose between browsing the “top” posts or the most recent. Now, it seems you can only view the top ones.Both Instagram and its parent company Facebook have taken steps to try to prevent misinformation across various platforms ahead of and during the election. Facebook said earlier this month it took down 120,000 posts across both Facebook proper and Instagram that violated its voter interference policies. The... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple One, a bundle combining services like Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, and Apple Arcade into one monthly subscription, is now available. The bundle was first announced at an event last month, before Apple confirmed the release date yesterday. Currently, you can subscribe to the bundle via the App Store on iOS. Open the store, head into the account page by tapping the profile icon on the top right, tap subscriptions, and you should see the option to subscribe to Apple One. However, on Apple’s site itself, the bundle is currently listed as “Coming this fall.”At launch, there are three different tiers available, which range in price from the $14.95 Individual tier to the $29.95 Premier plans. With the Individual plan, you get Apple Music,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A Russian hacking group known as Fancy Bear targeted the emails of Democratic state parties in Indiana and California earlier this year as well as progressive think tanks, Reuters reported. The attempts were apparently not successful and were flagged by Microsoft, according to Reuters, with targets that included the Council on Foreign Relations, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Center for American Progress.The Russian embassy denied the allegations to Reuters, calling it “fake news.”Fancy Bear has been connected to GRU, a Russian military intelligence agency, and in 2018, the Department of Justice indicted 12 members of GRU for hacking the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Fancy Bear was previously linked to the... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge This week on The Verge’s flagship podcast, The Vergecast: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) yells at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, gadget makers are going to QVC, and it is weird phone season once again.Hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn talk to Verge senior reporter Adi Robertson about the latest congressional hearing with the big tech CEOs — this time about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Dorsey attended the hearing over video in front of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Adi explains what everyone had to say.In the second half of the show, Ashley Carman stops by to talk about the newest episode of her video series In the Making, which is about how live shopping channels like... Continue reading…

Spider-Man: Miles Morales certainly owes a lot to the massive success of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the 2018 animated film that helped catapult Miles’ iteration of the webslinging hero to new heights of popularity.So it’s fitting that players will be able to suit up in Spider-Verse’s now-iconic spray-painted version of Miles’ black-and-red suit in Spider-Man: Miles Morales. But developer Insomniac Games didn’t just make a simple skin; the studio actually replicated Spider-Verse’s bold, comics-inspired animation style for the Spider-Verse suit’s gameplay, right down to the Ben-Day dots and altered frame rate. Combat is even punctuated with flashes of on-screen onomatopoeia.And it looks spectacular, at least in the short video... Continue reading…

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge It has been a busy few days when it comes to covering deals. Both Best Buy and Amazon launched a deluge of early Black Friday deals, letting you take care of some holiday shopping (for your family or just you) before the calendar flips over to November. Definitely check out Best Buy’s deals if you haven’t already, which include big price drops on OLED TVs from Vizio and LG as well as the return of Prime Day deals on Sony’s WH-1000XM4. Then, if you want to pick up some Amazon tech, many of the company’s Echo and Fire TV products are discounted, too. Steam is even hosting a big Halloween sale on PC games.Lenovo’s Chromebook Duet with 128GB of storage (shown above) usually costs $300, but right now, it’s $229 at Best Buy. This is the best... Continue reading…

Photo by Sebastian Willnow / picture alliance via Getty Images The hottest decorations this Halloween may turn out to be PVC pipe covered in orange duct tape or painted a garish, spooky purple. From Chicago to Washington state, people are rigging up “candy chutes” to send Twix and Milky Ways into the waiting buckets of trick-or-treaters from a safe distance during the pandemic. They range from simple slides all the way to elaborate feats of puppetry — and they’ll be called into action tomorrow.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Remember Quibi, short-lived media company and purveyor of bizarre shows like Murder House Flip and a horror anthology featuring a golden arm? It’s only been a little over a week since the mobile-first, shortform streamer announced it was shuttering, but already the first of its unreleased shows has found a new home: Lil Yachty’s dramedy, Public Figures, is headed to HBO Max. It seems pieces of Quibi might live on — whether you watched it or not.Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman’s efforts to sell Quibi outright to big companies like Apple and WarnerMedia was one of the first indications that things were about to go bottoms up at the young company. The attempts that followed to sell off Quibi’s unreleased content all but confirmed the... Continue reading…

There are any number of VPN services you can use to help protect your privacy and security with an encrypted internet connection, and now Google has its own. Well, technically, it already did, but only for Google Fi cellular subscribers on Android smartphones. Now, the company’s announcing it’ll throw in an Android-based VPN free of charge to any 2TB Google One cloud storage subscriber in the US — and will expand to iOS, Windows and Mac and other countries “in the coming months.” As you can see in the image above, you’ll need to be on the 2TB Google One plan which costs $9.99 a month or $99 per year, so it’s not exactly a free VPN. But if you’re interested, this Google GIF shows you how to turn it on: A new... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google parent company Alphabet’s third quarter revenue increased 14 percent from the year before, led by a rebound in advertising revenue for both Google and YouTube. YouTube brought in $5 billion in advertising revenue in the third quarter of 2020 — a sign that advertisers who pulled back on their spending because of the coronavirus earlier in the year may be returning to something resembling normal.YouTube now has more than 30 million music and premium paid subscribers — 35 million, including free trials — and YouTube TV has more than 3 million subscribers. That’s especially strong, since YouTube TV announced a monthly price increase from $50 to $64.99 in June. And in what may be a sign of the times, views for guided meditation... Continue reading…

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has successfully stored a small cache of rocks that it grabbed from the surface of an asteroid named Bennu last week, sealing the pebbles inside the vehicle’s belly. The asteroid particles will now remain inside the spacecraft over the next three years, as OSIRIS-REx makes its way back to Earth.OSIRIS-REx grabbed the sample on October 20th of last week, more than four years after launching from Earth on its mission to touch an asteroid. Using a thin robotic arm, the vehicle lightly tapped the asteroid Bennu, stirring up rocks on the surface and pushing some of the pebbles up into the spacecraft.OSIRIS-REx was a little too good at this sample grabWhile the maneuver worked as planned, OSIRIS-REx was a... Continue reading…

Photo: Sony Sony PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan says virtual reality won’t be a meaningful part of interactive entertainment in the near future. Ryan indicated to The Washington Post that VR still has a long way to go, although he emphasized that Sony isn’t giving up on the medium. The statement suggests that an update to Sony’s PlayStation VR headset is years away.“I think we’re more than a few minutes from the future of VR,” Ryan told the Post. “PlayStation believes in VR. Sony believes in VR, and we definitely believe at some point in the future, VR will represent a meaningful component of interactive entertainment. Will it be this year? No. Will it be next year? No. But will it come at some stage? We believe that.” He notes that the upcoming... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Even without Prime Day, Amazon had a blockbuster quarter. Its net income nearly tripled from this time last year, as retail store closures and coronavirus restrictions encouraged people to spend big online. In its earnings report today, Amazon said it made $6.33 billion in net income, up from $2.13 billion during the same quarter a year earlier.Amazon’s Prime Day — which has previously been held in July — was delayed until October, so it didn’t give a boost to this quarter’s results. The corporate holiday / sales event offers days of discounts, helping to drive purchases during an otherwise slower season. Even without it happening this summer, Amazon’s net sales reached $96.1 billion for its third quarter, up from $70.0 billion the... Continue reading…

Apple’s big services bundle that will bring together products like Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, and Apple News Plus, will launch tomorrow, the company’s chief financial officer, Luca Maestri, told Bloomberg.Apple first announced Apple One during a September event, breaking down the different tiers that customers will be able to access. There are three different bundle tiers people can choose: Individual, Family, and Premier.The Individual plan gives subscribers Apple Music, Apple TV Plus, Apple Arcade, and iCloud storage (50GB) for $14.95 a month. The Family plan ups the amount of iCloud storage to 200GB of iCloud storage for $19.95 a month and adds an Apple Music family plan (the Arcade and TV Plus benefits are the same... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple today announced its fiscal fourth quarter earnings, reporting $64.7 billion in revenue and earnings per share of $0.73 in a quarter that was “led by all-time records for Mac and services,” according to CEO Tim Cook.Like last quarter, Apple’s Mac and iPad lines showed strong performance as people continue working and learning from home due to the continued COVID-19 pandemic. The Mac had its biggest quarter ever, tallying $9 billion in sales.Apple introduced the latest iteration of its entry-level $329 iPad in September, increasing the device’s performance. The mid-tier iPad Air got a more significant makeover with a new design — now matching the iPad Pro — and a much faster processor. iPad sales were up 46 percent from the... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Among the tech platforms, no company, perhaps save Twitter, has had as contentious of a year as Facebook. The social media giant spent the last three months dealing with a notable ad boycott and one of the messiest and most complicated election cycles in US political history. Yet, Facebook’s handling of its many issues around political advertising, moderation, and election interference have had seemingly no effect on its bottom line, as the company just reported an astonishing quarter of revenue and user growth.The company reported a 22 percent year-over-year increase in revenue to $21.2 billion, as well as a 12 percent increase in profit to $8 billion. Its user growth is also still in the double digits, with 12 percent more people... Continue reading…

The Whizz app displaying locations for Waba Grill, its first partner | Image: Whizz As businesses tighten entry restrictions because of the pandemic, delivery and ride-share drivers are struggling more than ever to find open and usable restrooms. An app, playfully named Whizz, is trying to help. Described as being developed “by gig workers for gig workers,” Whizz is a bathroom finding app that is partnering with restaurants to provide gig workers with some much-needed relief.The app displays partnered restaurant locations on a map, currently limited to Southern California and some locations in Arizona and Nevada. Users pick a nearby restaurant and show an employee their phone to gain access to their bathroom. While several public bathroom finder apps already exist, Whizz’s strategy is different in that it’s seeking... Continue reading…