The Verge

The Crash Bandicoot series has always occupied a strange place in the pantheon of platform games. It doesn’t offer the sheer joy of movement and discovery that has propelled the Super Mario games, nor the technical spectacle that drives each new Ratchet and Clank title. Even still, there’s something distinct about Crash: the over-the-shoulder perspective, the bouncy movement, the oh-so-’90s vibe. It has smaller ambitions, but is much more focused as a result. And it turns out none of that has changed in the latest entry.Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time is the first mainline Crash game since 1998, back when the series was a PlayStation exclusive developed by Naughty Dog, a studio now best known for Uncharted and The Last of Us.Not... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google’s Pixel 5 event is scheduled for this Wednesday, but some of the company’s other new gadgets are already appearing on store shelves. That includes its all-new Chromecast, which some savvy buyers have been able to purchase directly in-store from retailers like Walmart and The Home Depot over the course of the last week.The Verge has purchased one such device from The Home Depot and can confirm the retailer is not stopping customers from checking out and taking the pre-release product home.The device is selling for $49.99 under the codename Sabrina-AbbeyNot all stores appear to be selling the item; we tried two and only found the new Chromecast at a second location. And inputting the universal product code listed on the receipt... Continue reading…

A one-year subscription to PlayStation Plus normally costs $60, but it’s available for almost half that price at CDKeys.com. You’ll need this service to play PS4 games online right now, and it’s an especially good deal if you’re planning to upgrade to the PS5 this year. On the new console, this subscription will grant you access to the PlayStation Plus Collection, a suite of several acclaimed PS4 classics (including Persona 5, Bloodborne, God of War, and more) that will be available for you to download a la Xbox Game Pass.Any price drop is welcome for a service that’s essential for most PlayStation gamers, so hop on this, whether you intend to use it now or stow away the code for when you need it next. You can still get... Continue reading…

Doctors don’t trust smartwatches alone to detect sleep apnea and neither should you Continue reading…

Farmville | Zynga If you want to harvest those apples, you better get on it soon: Zynga is shutting down its original FarmVille web game on Facebook at the end of the year, the company announced. It’s not entirely unexpected news; Facebook said in July it would no longer support Flash games as of December 31st, the same date Adobe is killing the Flash player altogether.But it does feel like the end of a gaming era. As silly (and sometimes annoying) as FarmVille could be — especially when it seemed like all of your Facebook friends were tending their crops — it was a huge win for Zynga. The game launched in 2009 and had more than 10 million daily active users in less than two months. At its peak popularity, some 30 million people played FarmVille daily,... Continue reading…

The new Dell XPS 13, the best laptop of 2020 so far, is getting a refresh. | Dell Dell has announced new refreshes to its XPS 13 and XPS 13 2-in-1. Both are powered by Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake processors and will be available in the US and Canada on September 30th (and more countries in the coming weeks). The XPS 13 starts at $999; the 2-in-1 starts at $1,249. The new XPS was first teased onstage at Intel’s Tiger Lake launch earlier this month.The upgrades mostly look like spec bumps. In addition to the new processors, both models have received a memory update: they’re now running LPDDR4x at 4,267MHz, rather than 3,733MHz. Like many other Tiger Lake flagships, they’ll also support Thunderbolt 4 and Intel’s Xe integrated graphics.The 2-in-1 has also gotten a similar redesign to one that the early-2020 XPS... Continue reading…

Image: Roku Roku today announced that it plans to bring support for Apple’s AirPlay 2 and HomeKit features to many of its streaming players and Roku TVs by the end of the year. The move will allow people to send content — music, videos, photos, etc. — from their iPhone, iPad, or Mac to their Roku device. That’s the AirPlay 2 part, and HomeKit will let Roku’s products be controlled with your iPhone via the Home app or Siri, and they can also be included in smart home routines.AirPlay 2 and HomeKit will be available on most of Roku’s current 4K-ready devices by the end of this year; 1080p-only players won’t be getting the features. They’ve already rolled out to many newer TVs from Samsung, LG, Vizio, and others, but the move to Roku’s platform is a... Continue reading…

It’s fall, so that means it’s time for the annual refresh of Roku hardware. In addition to the Streambar announced today, the company’s streaming player lineup is led by a refreshed Roku Ultra. For the first time, the flagship device now supports Dolby Vision HDR. Many Roku TVs already offer the format, but so far Roku’s standalone devices have not. (They’ve had Dolby Atmos audio, however, which the Ultra retains.) The company is also adding support for the AV1 codec, which video platforms are increasingly starting to adopt.Roku says the new Ultra also features significantly improved wireless performance with 50 percent greater range than the prior model. There’s still an Ethernet port if you want a hardwired connection, though.The... Continue reading…

The Streambar includes one of Roku’s voice remotes. | Image: Roku A year after Roku announced its Smart Soundbar, the company is back with the Streambar, which combines a compact soundbar with a 4K / HDR streaming device. It’s compatible with all the apps and services you’d expect from Roku, and it combines this with four full-range speaker drivers to fill your living room with stereo audio. The soundbar was announced today alongside the updated Roku Ultra streaming box, which now supports Dolby Vision. The Streambar will retail for $129.99 (£129) and ships in mid-October.The big difference between the Streambar and Roku’s previous Smart Soundbar is size. While the original soundbar was over 32 inches long, the new Streambar is under half that at 14 inches. Its smaller size should make it easier to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok has requested an injunction against a looming ban on its app in the United States. The company — a US subsidiary of Chinese corporation ByteDance — claims a Trump administration executive order violates its right to due process and freedom of speech. It’s asking a District of Columbia judge to block a rule that would require Apple and Google to remove the app from their stores on September 27th.The request addresses an increasingly convoluted attempt to sever TikTok from ByteDance, ostensibly because the Chinese-owned app poses national security risks. President Donald Trump originally gave ByteDance a September 15th deadline to sell TikTok, then ordered app stores to ban it on September 20th. It was granted a last-minute... Continue reading…

As the Arizona Senate election heats up ahead of November, Democratic candidate Mark Kelly’s team launched its own Snapchat account on Wednesday, including the first custom Snapchat AR lens from a Senate campaign.Retired NASA astronaut Kelly is running in a hotly contended special election in Arizona to serve out the remainder of the late Sen. John McCain’s term through 2022. The seat is currently held by Sen. Martha McSally, who is running in opposition to Kelly on the Republican ticket. Kelly’s Snapchat account will be used to rally voters ahead of the election, seeing as the campaign has strayed away from in-person events and canvassing due to the coronavirus pandemic.A campaign spokesperson told The Verge on Wednesday that the team... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The US Department of Justice has submitted a proposal to weaken Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a rule that protects websites and apps from liability for third-party content. The proposal would make it riskier for sites to remove offensive content and would remove sites’ immunity for hosting material related to terrorism, child sex abuse, or cyber-stalking. It would also remove some protections for sites that don’t sufficiently explain their content moderation policies.The new rules are a concrete application of ideas the Justice Department floated months ago. They cover two orthogonal goals for Section 230 reform: pushing web platforms to more aggressively remove harmful (and sometimes illegal) content like harassment... Continue reading…

I had to see it, so you have to as well. | Image: Fall Guys I hate to bring you this news, but underneath a Fall Guy’s playful, gelatinous exterior, the very being that comprises it is deeply disturbing. It has hidden abs, nipples, a human skull, and long taffy-like optic nerves, among other horrific anatomical anomalies, according to a tweet from the game’s developer.It gets worse, though. Fall Guys are six feet tall, taller than many human beings. Looking at its general bone structure, it looks like a hybrid between human, dinosaur, and bird. That combination should render a fierce species of advanced intelligence and agility, but... well.

Image: Warner Media HBO Max is getting a new TV series called Peacemaker, a spinoff of the upcoming Suicide Squad sequel directed by James Gunn. The show will focus on the origins of its titular character, Peacemaker, played by John Cena.The streaming service has ordered eight episodes with production slated to begin in early 2021. Not much is known about the plot, but Warner Bros. says the show is set in the same world as The Suicide Squad, which is set to debut in theaters on August 6th, 2021. Gunn will also serve as a writer and director for multiple episodes of the show, including the pilot.Peacemaker is the latest DC Comics property to receive a TV show on HBO Max. In July, Warner Media announced a spinoff show focusing on the Gotham City Police... Continue reading…

Photo by Jeff Swensen / Getty Images Facebook will reject ads from Donald Trump and Joe Biden claiming victory before the winner of the US election is declared.The change is an update to a policy CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on September 3rd, which banned political ads the week before the election, as reported by Fast Company. That policy would not have stopped Trump or Biden from running ads directly after the election. Either presidential candidate could have started claiming victory at 12:01AM PT on November 4th.While the results of the presidential race are typically announced the night of the election, this year, the process is expected to take longer due to mail-in voting. Experts say that because more Democrats are expected to vote by mail than Republicans, Trump... Continue reading…

2018’s Spider-Man is headed to the PlayStation 5, but buying it won’t be straightforward. Sony has confirmed to Kotaku that Spider-Man Remastered — the updated PS5 version — won’t be sold as a standalone title or offered as a free upgrade for existing Spider-Man owners. Instead, the only way to buy it will be as part of the $69.99 Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition bundle, which couples the PS5 version of the upcoming spinoff with Spider-Man Remastered. (Miles Morales typically costs $49.99 on its own.)The issue is, as with several other cross-generational games, there are actually two versions of Spider-Man: the regular PS4 version that’s been around since 2018 and a new edition of the game called Spider-Man Remastered, which... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Sega Akihabara 2nd, the multifloor haven filled with arcade cabinets and gacha games, closed in late August after being open for 17 years. The building served as perhaps the most recognizable landmark in Tokyo’s vibrant, gadget-filled Akihabara hub that attracts plenty of tourists. If you’ve played one of the great Yakuza games, you’ve probably spent time playing Sega arcade games in a virtual version of Sega’s Akihabara 2nd, or something reminiscent of it.Now, this building’s closing isn’t a sign that Sega arcade cabinets and the like will disappear from Japan — just from this building. As so many on Twitter have noted since it closed, it’s just another log in the already-too-long “2020 sucks” book. Hideki Naganuma, the Japanese... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge Amazon is launching a new environmental program called Climate Pledge Friendly that will label certain products that meet one of 19 certifications for sustainability. The goal is to help climate-conscious consumers make a better decision about whether to buy one product over another by letting them know when a brand has made an effort to reduce its carbon footprint. Amazon says more than 25,000 products should now display the program’s label.“Climate Pledge Friendly selection includes grocery, household, fashion, beauty, and personal electronics products, as well as items from a range of other categories,” reads Amazon’s press release. “Climate Pledge Friendly products are clearly labeled in shopping results, have additional... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge After rolling out audio tweets for iOS in June, Twitter is now experimenting with the idea of letting people record and send voice messages through direct messages. Alex Ackerman-Greenberg, product manager for direct messages at Twitter, let me know that the company will be testing voice DMs soon. Brazil will be the first country included in that test. He shared the news... through a 20-second voice message. “We know people want more options for how they express themselves in conversations on Twitter — both publicly and privately,” he said.Similar to voice tweets, voice messages have a bare-bones, simple interface: there’s just a play / pause button, and the sender’s avatar pulsates as the message plays. The product team designed an... Continue reading…

Tesla cars are located next to a new Tesla charging station of the latest generation on the Euref Campus Berlin. | Photo by Jens Kalaene/picture alliance via Getty Images Tesla plans for its future electric vehicles to be able to both suck up power and spit it back out into the grid. Tesla didn’t specify when this capability would be available when CEO Elon Musk made the announcement during Tesla’s much-anticipated Battery Day event in Palo Alto, California.“A Powerwall and a car”But instead of hyping up this development, Musk downplayed how useful it would be for the company’s vehicles to be able to connect to the grid. “Vehicle-to-grid sounds good, but I think actually has a much lower utility than people think,” Musk said. He ostensibly wants consumers to continue buying Tesla’s Powerwall batteries for their homes, rather than using its EVs as batteries on wheels. “I think it’s actually going to be... Continue reading…

Rocket League goes free to play today, and Epic will give you $10 to spend in the Epic Games Store if you redeem the free game there. You can nab the deal between now and October 23rd at 11AM ET. The coupon expires on November 1st at 3PM ET.The company has not said why it is doing this promotion, but it’s likely trying to pull PC gamers away from Steam, convincing them to switch to the Epic Games Store instead. Rocket League has now been delisted from Steam, but you can still play your copy there, and that version will still receive “full support for future updates and features,” such as cross-platform play.This is not the first time Epic Games has tried to incentivize people to use its platformOf course, this is not the first time... Continue reading…

Image: Google Just yesterday, WinFuture shared leaked specs for the Pixel 5, which reportedly has a a Snapdragon 765G CPU, a six-inch 2340 x 1080 OLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate, 8GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, a 4,080mAh battery, and more. Today, WinFuture is back with another set of leaks, this time revealing potential specs for the upcoming Pixel 4A 5G, and there will apparently be a lot of similarities between the two devices.For one thing, the Pixel 4A 5G’s resolution is supposed to be the same as the Pixel 5’s, at 2340 x 1080 pixels, but on a larger 6.2-inch screen (which is also larger than the Pixel 4A’s 5.8-inch screen). And both phones are rumored to have the Snapdragon 765G, a dual-camera system with a 12.2MP main lens and a 16MP... Continue reading…

-The most exciting part of iOS 14 isn’t picture-in-picture video display or the app library — it’s widgets.Instead of once-boring app icons for your calendar or clock that might get placed in a utilities folder, the new wave of widgets let you spice up your homepage with anything from custom notes to astronomy and weather reports. Those options have existed on Android devices for years, but their sudden arrival on the iPhone has created a kind of gold rush, with users combining them into custom layouts that can be tweaked, shared, and even sold.The new options have also turned a small utility called Widgetsmith into a surprise success, garnering more than 2 million downloads since it launched on September 16th, according to CNBC.... Continue reading…

Photo by Ray Chavez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an ambitious executive order Wednesday that would ban the sale of new combustion-engine vehicles in the state starting in 2035, the Desert Sun reports. The order is part of a package of policy changes aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions as California deals with a rash of deadly wildfires.The executive order would not prohibit Californians from owning gas-powered vehicles, nor from selling them on the used car market. It only applies to new vehicle sales in the state, Newsom said.“Cars shouldn’t give our kids asthma,” the governor tweeted. “Make wildfires worse. Melt glaciers. Or raise sea levels.”

Expandable storage on the Xbox Series X. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Microsoft has previously detailed the new Xbox Series X controller and optional 1TB expansion cards, and now we’ve been able to get a closer look at both. After taking a first look at the Xbox Series X earlier this month, The Verge now has a working Xbox Series X unit with a 1TB expansion card and Microsoft’s updated controller. We’ll have a full preview of the Xbox Series X soon, but for now let’s take a closer look at the controller and expandable storage.At first glance, the Xbox Series X controller doesn’t look very different to the one that shipped on the Xbox One, but there are some key differences. The size and shape of the controller has been altered ever so slightly to make it smaller overall. The D-pad has also been... Continue reading…

Image: Sling TV Sling TV is joining the quarantine-era watch party bandwagon with a unique edge over the streaming services that got there first: live TV. The new feature, called Sling Watch Party, makes Sling the first pay-TV provider to add a co-watching feature to its platform, doing so to infuse some much-needed social interaction to the now-solemn act of watching TV alone in your house or apartment during COVID-19.Sling’s take on this is still in beta for now, and it’s only available via a Chrome browser on laptops and desktops. But it supports up to four people and works for live programming, a huge plus for people yearning for the experience of watching sports or an awards show in person their friends or family.The feature is available now... Continue reading…

Google Google Maps will soon include information on COVID-19 spread in states, counties, and some cities. Toggling on the “COVID” layer in the app will show the seven-day average number of confirmed cases in each area per 100,000 people. Areas of the map will be color-coded based on case rate, and a label shows if cases are going up or down. The feature will roll out on Android and iOS this week. Image: Google The layer is designed to help people “make more informed decisions about where to go and what to do,” wrote Sujoy Banerjee, a Google Maps project manager, in a blog post. Public health experts and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that people keep track of the amount of COVID-19 spread in... Continue reading…

In a predictable fashion, Disney is delaying Black Widow to 2021 as the company continues to navigate the current theatrical landscape during the COVID-19 pandemic. This marks the first time since 2009 that a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie hasn’t been released in a calendar year.Black Widow will now open on May 7th, 2021 — more than one year after it was originally scheduled to be released. Like with other Marvel delays, Black Widow’s new date pushes Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings back from its May 7th, 2021 release date to July 9th, 2021. The Eternals, which was supposed to follow Black Widow is moving from February 12th, 2021 to November 5th, 2021. A number of other Disney films, including West Side Story and The King’s... Continue reading…

It’s really great, but the limitations are becoming grating Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok is putting new restrictions on weight loss ads as the app increasingly comes under criticism for promoting dangerous diets. The new policy bans ads for fasting apps and weight loss supplements. It also puts increased restrictions on other weight loss-related ads, like limiting ads for “weight management products” to users over 18 years old and not allowing those ads to “promote a negative body image or negative relationship with food.”Some of the new restrictions are vague, but they’re broadly designed to limit TikTok users’ — especially teenagers’ — exposure to potentially harmful imagery and language. “These types of ads do not support the positive, inclusive, and safe experience we strive for on TikTok,” Tara Wadhwa, TikTok’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge You’ve played Fall Guys, right? The sleeper hit of The Summer That Wasn’t from developer Mediatonic? If you haven’t, well, I suggest you give it a shot, if only because it was the second biggest game this month on Twitch — and the second largest debut there this year. (Valorant’s launch in April was bigger, but Fall Guys did manage to beat out Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the second spot.) It sold 7 million copies on Steam and was the most downloaded game ever on PlayStation Plus. Huge!Among Us has burned up the Twitch charts for last month, too. It’s up a full 650 percent in hours watched from last month, which is good enough to put it at 11th place on the most popular categories on Twitch, just below Minecraft. Expect that number... Continue reading…

Zoom’s latest update will let you pin or spotlight multiple videos during a call. | Image: Zoom via Mashable Zoom has added new accessibility features that should make the videoconference app easier to use for individuals who are deaf, hard of hearing, or who have visual impairments.As reported by Mashable and USA Today, the first change to the app is the ability to pin or spotlight multiple videos at once, instead of just one as is currently allowed. This will let people who require sign language interpretations to pin the interpreter’s video during meetings, keeping it visible at all times even when the call is in speaker mode. Only nine people on each call can pin multiple videos, which may constrain larger meetings.Alternatively, the host can choose to spotlight multiple videos for all users, making up to nine different videos visible at... Continue reading…

Google Google is introducing a new Workday routine that makes Google Assistant audibly remind you of calendar events and, notably, to take moments for self-care throughout the day.Since most of us are still stuck working from home, it can be easy to forget about caring for your physical and mental needs. So in addition to ensuring you make every meeting in that busy calendar, the routine comes configured to remind you to do a few small but important things in between, like getting water and standing up to stretch at different points throughout the day. It’ll also alert you to start wrapping things up with work at the end of the day. You can adjust the content of each alert to your needs, as well as the timing of when they go off.The routine... Continue reading…

It’s time to blow up your iPhone’s home screen Continue reading…

Image: Instagram Instagram Reels is doubling the length of videos in a new update, allowing users to make 30-second videos instead of 15 seconds.Reels’ biggest competitor, TikTok, lets people record videos up to a minute in length. Instagram is also extending the timer from three to 10 seconds, and people will also be able to trim and delete any clip in an attempt to make the editing process smoother.Although Instagram hasn’t said much about how many people are using Reels, it’s an area where the company seems pretty invested. Instagram is going “big with entertainment,” the company’s product director, Robby Stein, told The Verge when Reels launched. Stein added, “It’s our hope that with this format we have a new chapter of entertainment on... Continue reading…

The history of smartphones is riddled with absolutely awful phone names. The Acer Liquid Zest Plus, the HTC ChaCha, the LG G8X ThinQ, the iPhone 11 Pro Max, the Sony Xperia 1 II. And of course, the legendary Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch, a breathtaking display of buzzwords, numbers, and letters that somehow form the full name of one of 2011’s better Android phones.But almost nine years to the day, there is a new champion for all-time worst Android phone name: the newly announced Verizon Samsung Galaxy S20 Fan Edition 5G Ultra Wideband (or the S20 FE 5G UW, for short).

An unknown piece of space debris was detected near the International Space Station, NASA said yesterday. The station executed an “avoidance maneuver” on Tuesday night to get out of the way of the debris, boosting its orbit around Earth. “At no time was the crew in any danger,” NASA wrote in a blog post.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Five years after Dieselgate, the automaker brings its first battery-electric vehicle to the US Continue reading…

The Game Awards, an annual award show hosted by Geoff Keighley, is returning December 10th. This year’s festivities are taking a “multi-city approach,” offering streams from studios in Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo, albeit without in-person audiences.The event will also introduce a new award, Innovation in Accessibility, to honor developers “pushing the medium forward by adding features, technology, and content to help games be played and enjoyed by an even wider audience.” More details on the show will be released closer to its air-date, though organizers promise it will again feature news about games available that night, demos, and more. It will be available as a free live stream over 45 platforms.Keighley’s spoken about his... Continue reading…

At Amazon, you can save $15 on the total cost of an Apple Watch Series 6 or Apple Watch SE. It’s not a huge discount, but per a deal post at AppleInsider, Amazon is the only place where you can actually save money on Apple’s latest smartwatches. This price drop for the new watches brings the Series 6 (GPS, 40mm) down to $384.99 and the cheaper SE in the bigger size (GPS, 44mm) down to $299.99.If you want the Series 6 or SE with cellular added to the Watch, you can also save up to $15 on those models. The Series 6 (GPS + Cellular, 40mm) is $485 instead of $500, and the SE (GPS + Cellular, 40mm) is $320 instead of $330. Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Both of these new Watches make the Apple Watch Series 3, in both... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel | Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images To experience the enhanced version of this feature, including playable audio from Facebook Q&As, read it on The Verge Continue reading…

Samsung already makes three different kinds of Galaxy S20 phones: a regular, a Plus, and an Ultra. Now you can add a fourth to that mix, the Galaxy S20 FE — the FE stands for “Fan Edition.” It’s an S20 with some of the more expensive parts removed but keeping some of the key features that matter. It will also come in six different colors. Available October 2nd, it will sell for $699 for the sub-6 variant on T-Mobile, AT&T, and unlocked and $749 for the mmWave version developed for Verizon.The S20 FE has a 6.5-inch display. That slots it right in between the smaller Galaxy S20 and the larger S20 Plus. Like those phones, the FE has a 120Hz refresh rate for smoother animations and graphics, but unlike those phones, its screen is... Continue reading…

FaZe Clan Nick “NickMercs” Kolcheff is renewing his contract with Faze Clan, in a three-year extension. It’s a big deal, not least because Kolcheff is the most subscribed-to person on Twitch — clocking in at an astonishing 56,000 subscribers — and also one of the biggest channels on the entire site. (A note: you have to pay to subscribe to streamers on Twitch, although following and watching is free. A subscription starts at $5.)“They’re never in the way,” Kolcheff says about Faze. For him, the partnership means more on-the-ground resources for his content creation, as well as continued support from the biggest gaming brand in the world.And Kolcheff’s fans — the MFAM — are ecstatic about his deal, too, the streamer says. “I lead, they follow,”... Continue reading…

Spotify Spotify’s newest interactive podcast test brings a popular Instagram feature to the platform: polls. Similarly to Instagram, respondents and hosts can see the poll results in real time, although unlike Instagram, answers are anonymous. You’ll only be able to view the results if you vote.The company’s testing the feature with certain Spotify-exclusive and original shows, including The Rewatchables and Crime Countdown, starting today. About 90 percent of listeners will see the polls on their iOS or Android app at first, but everyone will gain access eventually. It’s unclear if Spotify will open the feature up to podcasts outside its direct control. You can find polls at the bottom of a show’s episode page or on the episode’s Now Playing... Continue reading…

For the past week, I’ve been using a preproduction unit of MSI’s Summit E15, slated for release later this year. It’s part of the Summit series, MSI’s first attempt to break into the premium business laptop space.That’s not the easiest market to conquer. Workers and companies have a number of portable, durable, and highly regarded options to choose from, from Dell Latitudes and Lenovo’s giant heap of ThinkPads to beautiful high-end devices like the MacBook Pro and HP’s Elite Dragonfly.We don’t know exact pricing for the Summit E15 yet, but it’ll be between $1,699 and $1,899. That puts the product somewhere in the middle. It’s more expensive than many popular consumer laptops, but it’s still targeting the lower end of the premium... Continue reading…

Photo by Neville Elder/Corbis via Getty Images Two years after stepping down as CEO at Blizzard, the game company he co-founded in 1991, Mike Morhaime is back with his next venture. It’s called Dreamhaven, and it’s a combination of a publisher and developer, with “a common goal to empower creators, help bring their ideas to life, and create original gaming experiences that foster meaningful connections between players.”As part of the announcement, Dreamhaven also revealed its first two internal studios: Moonshot Games and Secret Door. Moonshot is headed by a trio of Blizzard veterans, including former Hearthstone lead Jason Chayes, StarCraft II director Dustin Browder, and Hearthstone creative director Ben Thompson. “Though it’s very early days, when we think about Moonshot, we... Continue reading…

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole There’s joy at the end of this Rain-Bow Continue reading…

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole Six days a week, Irene Castillo is in charge of bringing the flavors of the Mexican central state of Puebla to Brooklyn’s local hot spot, Jalapeño King. Respecting the culinary traditions of the women in her family, Castillo seasons the salsas, rice dishes, and stews, while her husband Rafael Eustaquio grills the meats for the tacos. Their 30-year-old son, Jonathan, attends the clientele and runs the social media accounts.For two months, however, the family-run business had to close down due to the pandemic. Unlike many other businesses, Jalapeño King reopened in South Slope on May 15, and since then the Eustaquio Castillo family has joined a community-wide effort to tackle COVID-19 — and the systemic social inequities that have put... Continue reading…

There have already been some cool things added to No Man’s Sky in 2020, including a horror-themed update, the addition of mech suits, and cross-platform multiplayer. But today the sci-fi sandbox is getting its biggest expansion of the year with Origins, which aims to double the variety in the game with new features like more plant and animal life, and gigantic mountains and oceans to explore. The update is out today for free across all platforms, and it’s the latest in a growing list of big annual updates for No Man’s Sky.“Previous years we’ve done things like VR or multiplayer or adding story,” says Hello Games’ Sean Murray. “This year we thought it was time to revisit some of the foundations of the game.”According to Murray, the... Continue reading…

It’s been a long road for No Man’s Sky. The game quickly went from heavily hyped to heavily criticized, after launching without many promised features. After several years of updates, however, the sci-fi game is in a good place, and it’s set to change once again with today’s huge Origins expansion, which doubles the amount of variety in the game and adds new features like volcanoes and a greater breadth of plant and animal life.Hello says No Man’s Sky is more popular than ever, but its slow-burn success does raise an interesting question: what’s next for the studio? The team has previously released smaller-scale titles like the arcade game Joe Danger and, more recently, the beautiful adventure The Last Campfire. However, according to... Continue reading…