The Verge

Amazon’s latest entry-level smart speaker has a new design, but few other improvements over the last model Continue reading…

Coinbase has announced that US customers can now join the waitlist for its Coinbase Card, a debit Visa card that allows customers to spend cryptocurrency anywhere Visa cards are accepted. Coinbase claims it’s “the easiest, quickest way to spend your crypto worldwide.” Previously, the card was only available in Europe.There are a number of debit cards around the world that allow you to spend cryptocurrency (you’ll soon be able to do so with Paypal as well). But many platforms require you to load funds onto the card in order to spend them. The Coinbase Card eliminates the middleman, instead pulling funds directly from your Coinbase account. Other cards are limited to one or a few currencies; the Coinbase Card supports more than 30,... Continue reading…

Image: Logitech Logitech’s new trackball mouse, the Ergo M575, is a successor to the 10-year-old Ergo M570. It offers better battery life and now connects over Bluetooth Low Energy, making it compatible with a broader range of devices. Battery life is rated at 24 months when using Logitech’s USB receiver (up from 18 months), or 20 months when connecting over Bluetooth. It’s powered by a single AA battery and costs $49.99 (£44.99).Trackball mice take a little getting used to, but they’re great for smaller desks because you don’t have to move them around to control your cursor. If you’re struggling with a lack of space while working from home, then this can make them a great alternative to a traditional mouse. Image: Logitech T... Continue reading…

After unveiling its new Zen 3 Ryzen 5000 processors earlier this month, AMD is announcing its new lineup of Radeon RX graphics cards for desktops today, which it promises will be “by far the most powerful gaming GPU we have ever built.”The new Radeon RX 6000 series of GPU will feature AMD’s new RDNA 2 architecture that includes real-time, hardware-accelerated ray tracing and variable rate shading. The new cards are expected to directly compete with Nvidia’s latest RTX 3000 series lineup.AMD’s already started to tease the new cards, but we’re expecting the event today to give much more information on what to expect. Gamers looking to upgrade their PC to a new AMD GPU or looking for an alternative to Nvidia’s RTX 3000 GPUs due to current... Continue reading…

It’s better than the original in every way but still costs too much Continue reading…

Image: Teenage Engineering The Swedish synth makers at Teenage Engineering are back with a new pocket operator series in partnership with Capcom. Pocket operators, first launched in 2015, are the company’s mini-synth and sequencer devices that are no-frills and low cost, and these new ones just happen to be Mega Man and Street Fighter themed. They’re gorgeous-looking gadgets that, unlike many of Teenage Engineering’s other synths and audio products, won’t break the bank. They each cost $89.Thanks to the partnership with Capcom, Teenage Engineering has loaded these pocket operators with original sounds from their respective games. That means you can make your own live Mega Man and Street Fighter soundtrack on the fly.These synths have some key hardware... Continue reading…

Image: Ampere Secret shower singers rejoice: a new water-powered Bluetooth speaker from Ampere could streamline your morning routine.Shower Power’s main difference from earlier water-powered speaker Hyquadio is that the device is actually two pieces; there’s an attachment for your shower head that intercepts your water flow to power a hydroelectric generator, and a detachable Bluetooth speaker. Ampere also offers more options for controlling its speaker, with physical playback controls on the device and a battery-powered remote if the speaker is out of reach.When the speaker is attached and water is flowing, its 2500mAh battery should offer over 80 hours of playback at max volume. Detached or with water off, that number shrinks to around 17 hours... Continue reading…

Remedy Entertainment’s critically acclaimed supernatural thriller, Control, is arriving on the Switch, Nintendo announced during a Mini Direct presentation. Control Ultimate Edition - Cloud Version is available today.In order to play the game, you’ll need a Nintendo Account to access cloud service and “a persistent high-speed internet connection to play the game.” (It includes similar technology to Stadia and Luna, but Control’s cloud game will be handled by Ubitus.) Any interruption in the connection will cause it to disconnect in minutes. In order to buy the game, players will be required to use a launcher application to test that their connection can handle its requirements for five minutes. It will also require buying an Access... Continue reading…

Chesnot/Getty Images Over the last year, if an entertainment conglomerate hasn’t announced a shift to focus on streaming, does it really count as an entertainment conglomerate?With the end of the year in sight and the entertainment industry crowded with streaming options, legacy companies are making big bets on their new services, using public executive shake-ups and declarations of digital-first importance to make their point heard. Streaming isn’t just a part of their businesses; it’s their future.Over the last several months, Disney, NBCUniversal, WarnerMedia, and ViacomCBS have restructured their teams to make streaming a primary focus. Longtime executives have been fired, others have stepped down (aka fired), and departments merged in an effort to... Continue reading…

Swiss startup Climeworks has been a pioneer in efforts to capture carbon dioxide from the air and store it in underground rock formations. | Image courtesy of Stripe Starting today, US businesses that process payments through the online payments platform Stripe will be able to give a portion of their revenue from each sale to projects that remove planet-heating carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Stripe won’t earn anything from the new service. The move is designed to boost carbon capture technologies and comes a little more than a year after the company made a commitment to spend $1 million a year to support the emerging industry.Initiatives are in relatively early stages of developmentFor now, Stripe’s customers will be able to contribute to the same four projects that Stripe decided to support earlier this year. That includes a project that traps carbon dioxide in concrete, another that pulls... Continue reading…

The Insta360 One X2 has a more rugged design and full-color touchscreen. Insta360 today announced the One X2, a new 360-degree camera that replaces the One X from 2018. The X2 adds a full-color touchscreen, longer battery life, IPX8 water resistance, and even more AI-powered editing tools to its flagship consumer 360 camera. The Insta360 One X2 is available starting today for $429.99, about $30 more than the prior model.Keeping the same basic rectangular shape, Insta360 refined the hardware with two new latched compartments for a battery, microSD card, and a USB-C port and textured rails that run around the outside of the camera. These rails provide a much better grip than the smooth unibody design of the One X, and overall they make the camera feel more rugged and more like an action camera. There are... Continue reading…

Sony Today’s bounty of deals includes a mix of returning price drops and new ones. Starting with Sony’s 65-inch LED 4K TV (model X750H), which is is just $600 at Amazon. This model was originally priced at $1,000, and today’s deal drops it $100 below its previous lowest price. What sets this Sony 4K TV above other options in the price range is that it comes built with Android TV software, which allows you to install popular streaming apps without the need for extra hardware. It seems like a very solid television, especially for the price today.Small, fast, portable hard drives that don’t cost a fortune can be tough to find. That’s not the case at Amazon today, where Sabrent’s Rocket Nano NVMe SSDs built into a tiny aluminum enclosure are... Continue reading…

Image: Hello Games Hello Games announced today that No Man’s Sky is coming to Xbox Series X / S and PS5 on November 10th and November 12th, the same days both consoles will launch. Players who own a current-gen version of the game will be eligible to receive the next-gen version at no additional cost. The game is also available on Xbox Game Pass for early Series X / S adopters who have an active subscription to Microsoft’s game service.The next-gen versions of No Man’s Sky will take advantage of the new hardware; the game will run at 4K resolution at 60 frames per second, faster loading times, and cross-play support. The PS5 version of the game will take advantage of the DualSense’s haptic feedback and the Pulse 3D wireless headset’s technologies to... Continue reading…

The US has the power to stop pandemics before they start Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge As far as pack-in games go, Astro’s Playroom may not seem all that exciting at first. It’s not an instant classic like a bundled Super Mario., nor something with the obvious appeal of Wii Sports. But Sony made a smart decision in giving Astro away to every PS5 owner: it might just be the ideal showcase for the console’s new DualSense controller.The game itself is a fairly simple 3D platformer, but one that exudes charm. Everything is bright and colorful, and there are lots of fun little animations. If you leave Astro alone for too long, he’ll pull out a PSVR and start playing games on his own. (If the adorable robotic character looks familiar, it’s because it also starred in the PSVR title Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, another game... Continue reading…

LG’s latest dual-screen phone flies too close to the sun Continue reading…

Images in the filings show an unnamed accessory attached to the back of the phone. | Image: Apple / FCC Apple’s iPhone 12 lineup has the ability to wirelessly charge an external accessory, according to a series of newly unveiled FCC filings that just went public yesterday. The documents first spotted by VentureBeat’s Jeremy Horwitz say the phone “supports a built-in inductive charging transmitter and receiver.” Apple has not officially announced any such functionality that could be used to charge future AirPods or Apple’s long rumored Tile-competitor dubbed “AirTags.”“In addition to being able to be charged by a desktop WPT [wireless power transfer] charger (puck), 2020 iPhone models … also support WPT charging function at 360 kHz to charge accessories,” one of the documents reads. It lists a series of FCC IDs of iPhones with the new... Continue reading…

HyperX HyperX has announced the $50 Pulsefire Haste wired gaming mouse. Its highlight feature is its 59-gram weight, which the company accomplished by drilling many hexagonal-shaped holes all around it — arguably, another feature worth mentioning. It’s the latest mouse to adopt the honeycomb design popularized by brands like Finalmouse, Glorious PC Gaming Race, and now many others. Eurogamer wrote in mid-2019 that this style would be the next big thing in PC gaming gear, and HyperX’s new mouse proves them right.HyperX’s new mouse is most similar to the Glorious PC Gaming Race Model O-, both in terms of pricing (also $50), weight (the 58-gram Model O- is one gram lighter), and overall design. Both are false ambidextrous, with thumb buttons... Continue reading…

Donald Trump’s campaign website was hacked to show a fake FBI notice. | Screenshot: DonaldJTrump.com (via: Gabriel Lorenzo Greschler) President Trump’s campaign website was hacked Tuesday afternoon in an apparent cryptocurrency scam, the New York Times reports. “This site was seized,” the fake FBI notice read, before claiming without proof to have gained access to Trump’s private communications containing evidence of wrongdoing. Two cryptocurrency wallet addresses were then listed, asking visitors to send funds and effectively vote on whether these documents should be released.In a statement posted on Twitter, the Trump campaign’s communications director Tim Murtaugh confirmed the defacement. He said “there was no exposure to sensitive data because none of it is actually stored on the site” and that the organization was “working with law enforcement authorities to... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Sony’s gaming division is continuing to drive major profits for the company even as the PlayStation 4 era winds down. The company announced PlayStation-related revenue of 507 billion yen (~$4.9 billion) and an operating profit of 105 billion yen (~$1 billion) for its July-September quarter, respective improvements of 52 and 40 percent on the same period a year ago.With the PlayStation 5 set to launch in a couple of weeks, normally you’d expect a significant negative impact on Sony’s books for the previous quarter as the company ramps up manufacturing before it starts to bring in more revenue. Sony does say that its profits were hit by an increase in costs, while revenue was reduced by a predictable decrease in PS4 sales. Higher game... Continue reading…

A render of the unannounced Anker charging pad. | Image: GizmoChina Just yesterday, we found FCC filings for a new Anker PowerWave wireless charging pad that mentioned an unannounced second generation of Echo Buds with wireless charging right in the name. That charger has since leaked in full in a Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) listing spotted by GizmoChina.The now-pulled WPC listing included the render of the product at the top of this post that gives us a few hints about what the Echo Buds’ case might look like and some of the features of the pad. The charger appears to have an oblong indentation for the Echo Buds’ wireless charging case to rest in, indicating the case will have a much different shape than more rectangular one used with the original Echo Buds. (We observed a similar oblong shape in a... Continue reading…

Microsoft has been slowly weaning users off its legacy Internet Explorer browser for a very long time, recently going so far as to use a forced Windows update to install its new Chromium Edge browser on your Windows PC. But next month, Microsoft’s planning to force your computer to automatically launch some 1,156 websites in Edge, too — if you try to launch an “incompatible” site in IE.That’s the report from ZDNet, which also recorded a video showing how it works:There’s a lot of big-name sites on the automatically-launch-in-Edge list, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, a number of Google products, Microsoft Teams, and quite a few banks and other big brands.According to a Microsoft FAQ, the change will roll out in... Continue reading…

The red needles on the pine trees are dead lodgepole pines that have been killed by the pine beetle infestation. These trees were found near Rollinsville near the Peak to Peak highway. Federal and state forestry officials say that at current rates, mountain pine beetles will kill the majority of Colorado’s large-diameter lodgepole pine forests within three to five years. | Photo By Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post via Getty Images Record-setting wildfires in Colorado are wreaking havoc on forests that have already been devastated by outbreaks of another kind: infestations of beetles that burrow beneath tree bark and eventually kill their hosts.State officials last week mentioned that the East Troublesome Fire was burning through an abundance of “beetle-killed” pine trees, boosted by dangerous weather conditions. That fire grew to become the second largest fire in Colorado’s history and was only 20 percent contained as of Tuesday. Three of the largest wildfires on record in the state have burned this year, and they’ve preyed on forests hard-hit by beetle infestations.

Microsoft saw some big growth in Microsoft Teams at the beginning of the pandemic, and it has kept accelerating over the past six months. During an earnings call with investors today, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reveled Microsoft Teams now has 115 million daily active users. That’s a more than 50 percent rise from the 75 million that Microsoft reported almost six months ago.It’s difficult to compare Microsoft’s numbers to its rivals, though. Both Zoom and Google report daily active participants, which means a single user could be counted multiple times through different meetings during a day. Google revealed it has 100 million daily active participants earlier this year, and Zoom said it had 300 million daily active participants. Slack... Continue reading…

Photo By BSIP/UIG Via Getty Images When scientists and pharmaceutical companies clear the hurdle of developing a safe, effective, COVID-19 vaccine, they won’t be able to rest on their laurels. Instead, they’ll face another enormous challenge — making millions of doses and keeping those doses extremely cold. They’ll get an assist, though, from temperature-monitoring tech that’s advanced dramatically in the past few years.Vaccines, like most pharmaceuticals, have to be stored within a certain temperature range in order to stay potent. During a future COVID-19 vaccine’s journey from factory to pharmacy, small temperature sensors will monitor the conditions that the vaccines will encounter en route and at their final destination. They’ll be embedded in packaging, freezers,... Continue reading…

Mophie is one of the oldest names in the business when it comes to smartphone battery packs, but its latest release puts a new spin on the approach. Instead of a battery case that can only be used with a single phone, the new Juice Pack Connect uses a modular system to clip a battery pack onto the back of your phone, where it can wirelessly charge it.It’s a creative solution that solves a lot of problems of both bespoke battery cases and more modern Qi battery packs. The Juice Pack Connect works with basically any phone that supports wireless charging, not just a single device. And the clip mechanism allows for Qi charging to be used even when out on the go, without resorting to solutions like a weird suction cup array to keep the... Continue reading…

Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images Apple is bringing Jon Stewart back to TV. Stewart will host a new series for Apple TV Plus that will feature focused looks at his advocacy work and “topics that are currently part of the national conversation,” Apple said in a press release announcing the series.The show sounds a bit like John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight: each episode will run for an hour and focus on a single topic. Apple refers to it as a “current affairs series.” There’ll also be a companion podcast, though Apple declined to say who would be hosting the audio show.Apple also signed a first-look deal with Stewart’s production companyStewart’s new series doesn’t currently have a name or a release date. The Hollywood Reporter says the show is expected to start next... Continue reading…

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft posted the first quarter of its 2021 financial results today, reporting revenue of $37.2 billion and a net income of $13.9 billion. Revenue is up 12 percent, and net income has increased by 30 percent. While the ongoing pandemic continues to force many to work remotely during an economic downturn, Microsoft is benefiting from the shift in the way people are now working, playing games more, and connecting to others through videoconferencing.Cloud services are the biggest boost to Microsoft’s revenues from the pandemic shift in behavior. Both Office commercial and consumer are up, with Office 365 Commercial revenue growth up by 21 percent. Server products and cloud services revenue has also increased 22 percent as more... Continue reading…

Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge Audible is turning into more of a podcast app. The company announced today that its catalog now contains 100,000 free podcasts that are already available on other streaming platforms, including Pod Save America, This American Life, and Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend. The shows are now available through the app and will soon show up on Audible’s podcast landing page. Listeners won’t need a subscription to access these shows. This move sets Audible up to compete more earnestly against Spotify and Apple Podcasts, the two biggest names in the space, as well as other, smaller competitors.Audible, which is owned by Amazon, launched a new subscription plan called Audible Plus in August, which gives listeners access to Audible’s original audio... Continue reading…

Photo: Wyze Smart home gadget maker Wyze has a new version of its flagship product: the Wyze Cam v3, the company is calling it. The redesigned security camera will still cost just $20, in line with Wyze’s aggressively low-cost smart home strategy, and preorders start today with a ship date of mid-November.Beyond the new design, the Wyze Cam v3 has a few key differences from its predecessor. The new camera can be used as both an indoor and outdoor model, thanks to its IP65 weather resistance. It also has double the infrared LEDs for improved night vision and to support its use in the home and outside.The new model comes with a new color night vision option, thanks to a new lower-aperture sensor that allows it to take in 40 percent more light.... Continue reading…

It’s been almost a year since we’ve last heard from Harley-Davidson’s nascent electric bike project, but based on what the company is announcing today, it may have been well worth the wait. Harley-Davidson unveiled a stunning new electric bike that it says will go on sale in March 2021. And the motorcycle manufacturer is also spinning out its e-bike division as a separate company called Serial 1 Cycle.First and foremost, this is a nostalgia play. The name Serial 1 is a reference to “Serial Number One,” the nickname for Harley-Davidson’s oldest known motorcycle built in 1903. The bike’s design, with its white tires, leather saddle and handgrips, and sleek black frame, are meant to harken back to that first prototype.First and... Continue reading…

Image: Vizio Vizio’s Elevate soundbar has finally hit shelves. You can buy it today for $999.99. The 48-inch soundbar supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X. The soundbar houses 18 speakers and comes with a wireless eight-inch subwoofer. The cool thing is that some of the speakers rotate — they face upward while you’re playing Dolby Atmos content and point forward for standard audio.18 speakers and an eight-inch subwooferI spoke to Vizio CEO William Wang about the Elevate earlier this year. He said the soundbar is intended to hook non-enthusiast customers on Dolby Atmos by showing them, visually, the difference between the two tiers of audio. He also noted that while the Elevate is asking a steep price, he expects the rotating speakers to appear in... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Every Tuesday this month, Vergecast co-host Dieter Bohn will host a series of discussions diving deep into tech review season, each focusing on a specific product.This week, Dieter brings back Vergecast co-host Nilay Patel and Joanna Stern, a senior personal technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, to discuss their reviews of Apple’s iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro.The reviews for the latest iteration of Apple’s flagship phone have been out for about a week now. Dieter reviewed the iPhone 12, Nilay reviewed the iPhone 12 Pro, and Joanna reviewed them both side by side.Dieter walks through what features Joanna and Nilay focused on in their reviews — Joanna’s 5G at a football stadium, Nilay’s Dolby Vision videos — and how... Continue reading…

After years of anticipation, T-Mobile is finally getting into the live TV business with the launch of a new internet-based streaming service called TVision, launching on November 1st.To be clear: TVision isn’t using the fiber-optic-based IPTV technology that it acquired alongside Layer3 back in 2017. It’s a traditional over-the-top streaming service that simply streams live television over the internet, just like YouTube TV, Hulu’s live TV service, Fubo TV, Sling TV, or (in perhaps the closest analogy) AT&T TV. But what sets TVision apart is its pricing, which aims to offer lower costs and more flexibility than its competitors.Think of it as a T-Mobile’s take on YouTube TV or Sling To that end, TVision is broken up... Continue reading…

Photo by Priyanka Parashar / Mint via Getty Images India’s ET Now is reporting that Ankhi Das, the Facebook policy chief for India, has resigned her position after months of escalating pressure from activists. Das told ET she was leaving the company to pursue public service.Facebook India has struggled to respond to the growing threat of hate speech against Muslims, often preceding horrific acts of mob violence. Facebook had been slow to take action against many of the Hindu nationalist groups responsible for the violence, leading to concerns that the company was repeating the mistakes that preceded similar violence in Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Image: Amazon Amazon is adding a new menu to select Fire tablets to control Alexa-compatible smart home gadgets, the company has announced. The Device Dashboard, which is rolling out starting today, can be accessed via a new Smart Home button on the left of the navigation bar.Although Alexa-compatible smart home devices can already be controlled with spoken commands (including via Fire tablets), Amazon says the new interface is meant for when “touch might be more convenient than voice.” It opens up some fun possibilities, like mounting a cheap Amazon Fire tablet on a wall to use as a smart home controller. Image: Amazon The dashboard can be accessed from the smart home button on the navigation bar. As you can see in the... Continue reading…

A live-action adaptation of Ubisoft’s long-running series Assassin’s Creed is coming to Netflix. The show will be the first of several new series, Netflix announced, as the agreement between the streaming platform and Ubisoft will “tap into the iconic video game’s trove of dynamic stories with global mass appeal for adaptations of live action, animated, and anime series.”The live-action show is still in early stages and in need of a showrunner. It’s also unclear when it will take place or what it will be about; the franchise is known for combining historical settings with modern narratives and has tackled everything from the Crusades to Vikings.“From its breathtaking historical worlds and massive global appeal as one of the best... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge You can grab the AirPods Pro for just $200 at Amazon and B&H Photo today. Normally, these wireless earbuds cost $249. While this is not the lowest price we have seen Apple’s flagship earbuds sell for, it’s still a good deal. Unlike the standard AirPods, the Pro model features silicone tips, allowing for a more customizable fit for your ears in addition to better sound quality and active noise cancellation. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge iPad Air 2020 model. Speaking of B&H, the retailer has the 64GB 2020 iPad Air in silver or green for $559, $40 off its usual price. Unfortunately, you can only preorder the device because it is currently not in stock at B&H Photo. If you are okay with waiting for it to... Continue reading…

Last night, SpaceX invited some early users to join public beta testing of its Starlink program, which aims to provide global internet coverage from space. To join the beta test, called Better Than Nothing Beta, users must purchase all of the Starlink ground equipment for $499 and then pay a $99 monthly fee for active service.The company sent out emails to people who had signed up on SpaceX’s Starlink website to hear updates about the program. One user posted an email to Reddit last night, and CNBC later confirmed the email after seeing screenshots. The Verge also confirmed the veracity of the email with sources familiar with the matter. They requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the program.... Continue reading…

Instagram Instagram continues to focus on improving its live video experience, and today, it announced multiple small changes that’ll make streaming on the platform and then saving those live videos easier. The biggest update is that streamers are no longer limited to 60-minute broadcasts — they can go live for up to four hours. This extended timeframe will be available to all Instagram users globally, so long as they have no history of IP or policy violations.People will also be able to view their own live streams in their private archive, similar to Stories and Posts, for up to 30 days after they air. They can choose to download the content and post it elsewhere. Finally, Instagram is adding a “Live Now” section to IGTV where people will find... Continue reading…

Waymo and Daimler, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, announced that they are forming a “broad, global, strategic partnership” to deploy fully driverless trucks. Daimler will integrate Waymo’s autonomous driving technology, widely considered to be among the best in the world, into its fleet of heavy-duty Freightliner Cascadia semi-trailer trucks.Both Waymo and Daimler were independently working on self-driving trucks until coming together to form this partnership. Waymo had purchased a small fleet of Peterbilt trucks, which it has retrofitted with autonomous driving sensors and software. It currently is testing those trucks in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.Meanwhile, Daimler announced it was working on its own self-driving big rig... Continue reading…

Ubisoft is overhauling its UPlay Plus subscription service with a new name — Ubisoft Plus — and launching integrations with both Google Stadia and Amazon’s new Luna service, all included in the same $14.99-per-month cost starting on November 10th.The PC side of UPlay Plus will stay largely the same as it’s been since Ubisoft launched the service last year. Subscribers will still get access to over 100 Ubisoft titles, including soon-to-be-released games like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, Watch Dogs: Legion, and Immortals Fenyx Rising.But it’s the addition of Google Stadia (before the end of the year) and Amazon Luna (in November) that makes Ubisoft Plus interesting. Not only will you be able to access those games through your regular... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge From battle royale to kayak stealth Continue reading…

The most affordable 5G phone lags behind the Pixel 4A 5G’s camera, display, and software Continue reading…

It’s a strange time to launch a new podcast about the future of business and tech in America. The pandemic has frozen so many things in place but also accelerated so many things about the future. And politics in the US — where the biggest tech companies are facing renewed antitrust scrutiny — have gone completely haywire ahead of the most consequential election in a generation. The future is coming, but it seems more uncertain than ever.So we’re launching Decoder with Nilay Patel, a new podcast where I’m going to interview executives from the worlds of tech and business, policymakers from across government, and a few other assorted troublemakers about the problems they’re solving, the trade-offs they have to make, and the opportunities... Continue reading…

Gadget crowdfunding is great for fulfilling niche demands. Most people, for instance, would never buy a $599 Wi-Fi-enabled typewriter. But in 2016, a Detroit-based startup called Astrohaus proved that not only could such a thing exist, but it could be a delightful and strangely satisfying device. Now, Astrohaus is trying to capture the same experience in a smaller and more convenient package — but unfortunately, its hardware can’t back that promise up.Astrohaus is the creator of the Freewrite, a chunky word processor with a modern mechanical keyboard, wireless syncing options, and an E Ink screen. Today, the company starts shipping the Freewrite Traveler, a lighter laptop-like alternative. The Traveler is temporarily discounted to $429,... Continue reading…

$499 for some solid 1440p PC gaming Continue reading…

Getting a new phone is exciting, but it can also lead to spending an annoying amount of time adjusting settings, permissions and notifications for all your apps. Cloud backups are supposed to make this process easier, but they don’t always catch everything – for instance, you’ll want to double-check that COVID-19 exposure notifications are still enabled on your new iPhone 12 if you restored from a backup. They might not be, according to BBC News.If you’re concerned you might be affected, you can re-enable exposure notifications in iOS by opening the Settings app, selecting Exposure Notifications, and clicking “Turn On Exposure Notifications.”Users first noticed issues with the official National Health Service (NHS) contact tracing app... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge One of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2’s coolest new features was the ability to use the phone’s front display as a viewfinder for the back cameras, which could be really useful for things lining up higher-quality selfies. If you’ve wanted that handy way to take better selfies but have been holding on to the original Galaxy Fold, you’re in luck: Samsung is bringing that selfie functionality and a number of other features from the Z Fold 2 to the first Fold through a software update that’s available starting today. Image: Samsung Samsung will let you use the front screen as a viewfinder for the Fold’s back cameras. The Fold isn’t just getting a new way to take selfies. The update also brings Capture View Mode,... Continue reading…

Image: Unity Lego has paired with game engine maker Unity for a Lego Microgame, where you can snap together virtual bricks to build the environment of your own custom game world. The Microgame is free and requires no prior knowledge of video game programming. All you have to do to get started is follow a Unity tutorial. Once you’ve designed your game to your liking, you can unleash a Lego minifigure to run, jump around, and maybe even perish to an obstacle in your new virtual world.Creative Mods in Unity will help you do things like build an enemy, customize menus, and change the minifig to an adventurer, pirate, or pizza boy. They’ve worked with BrickLink, so you can further customize by importing sets that have already been built in Studio. There... Continue reading…