The Verge

After teasing for a while, ZTE has followed through on its promise to launch the world’s first commercial smartphone with a selfie camera embedded in the display. The Axon 20 5G turns out to be a fairly mid-range device, aside from its headline feature.ZTE says the under-display 32-megapixel camera has been made possible due to the use of “high transparency material that includes new organic and inorganic films” as well as optimized software algorithms to offset the impact on image quality.Of course, it’s hard to judge this without seeing the phone in person and testing the camera in practice. It’s also questionable how much value the feature offers over a hole-punch, a pop-up, or even a notch. But we’ll see. The phone... Continue reading…

LG has provided the first public acknowledgement of its rumored “Wing” handset, said to be a device with two screens in a swiveling form factor. A teaser video posted to YouTube hints at the sliding mechanism and serves as an invitation to an announcement event on September 14th.In a separate press release, LG says the new device will be part of an initiative and product category it calls the Explorer Project. The project is intended to “deliver much-needed curiosity and excitement to the mobile sector,” LG says, and “will focus solely on new usability that is discovered with innovative designs.” The recently released Velvet, meanwhile, will form part of LG’s “Universal Line.”Reporting on the Wing so far has indicated that it’ll have... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has deleted two job listings posted to its corporate employment website detailing “intelligence analyst” roles that involved, among other duties, monitoring “labor organizing threats” within the company. The listings, which were posted days ago, first began circulating on Twitter earlier today, before Amazon removed them in response to widespread outcry on social media.The company now claims the listings were not accurate representations of the roles, according to CNBC. “The job post was not an accurate description of the role — it was made in error and has since been corrected,” an Amazon representative said in a statement, although Amazon does not appear to be offering any information as to how the listings were inaccurate.

Image: Razer If you’re on the hunt for a gaming laptop to help you run your games at reasonably fast frame rates that will also serve as a great all-around machine for non-gaming tasks, the Razer Blade 15 is a solid option. You can get this machine at Amazon for $400 off its original price, which brings it down to $1,400. It comes with Intel’s competent six-core Core i7-10750H processor, Nvidia’s RTX 2060 graphics chip, 16GB of RAM, and a fast 512GB SSD.Its 15.6-inch 1080p display has a 144Hz refresh rate, raising the ceiling of how smoothly games can run on the laptop. This feature also allows for fluid scrolling outside of games. Razer’s Blade 15 costs more than many other 15.6-inch gaming laptops, but it’s worth considering if you want stellar... Continue reading…

Vlambeer, the indie studio behind beloved games such as Super Crate Box, Nuclear Throne, and Ridiculous Fishing, is shutting down. The developer, which celebrates its 10th anniversary today, announced the news on Twitter. “We had a beautiful run, made incredible games, and worked with amazing people, but it is time for new things,” the developer said. “So we’re announcing the end of Vlambeer.”The Dutch studio was founded in 2010 by Jan Willem Nijman and Rami Ismail and has been a stalwart of the indie community. Vlambeer has been especially vocal on issues of game clones; Ismail is a well-known advocate within the community for topics like diversity and independent development. “It’s not a sad day for us, but the happy conclusion to a... Continue reading…

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge OnlyFans confirmed new rule changes to The Verge today that could impact how much money creators make on the platform, as well as how quickly they get paid. The new rules include a $100 cap on paid private messages, compared to $200 before, and a $50 cap on pay-per-view posts for creators who don’t charge a subscription, compared to $200 previously.There’s also a new maximum tip price of $100 for the first four months a creator is active on the site. After that point, it increases to $200, which was the standard for all creators up until this point. OnlyFans is also lengthening the pending payout period from seven to 21 days for creators in 14 countries, including India, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Venezuela.OnlyFans... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple on Tuesday released iOS 13.7, adding support for a new exposure notification system for powering COVID-19 tracking. The system is an extension of the existing coronavirus contact tracing efforts, but it removes the burden on states of having to build a dedicated app. News of the new software framework was first announced earlier today in a joint statement from Apple and Google.This native support was expected, as it was announced when the exposure notification API — developed collaboratively between Apple and Google — was revealed in April. But at the time, we didn’t know exactly when it would arrive.Here’s how it will work, from The Verge’s report on the announcement:

Gogo, the in-flight internet provider, has found a buyer for its commercial airline business. Intelsat, the world’s second largest satellite operator by revenue, has agreed to purchase Gogo’s Wi-Fi business for $400 million in cash, the companies announced Tuesday. It’s an unlikely pairing, mostly because Intelsat filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May.The bankruptcy was seen as a means for Intelsat to begin paying down its nearly $15 billion debt load while positioning itself to participate in a Federal Communications Commission spectrum clearing program, the company has said. The FCC is clearing out the C-band (4-8 GHz) to make space for 5G customers, and Intelsat is participating in the program that could net the company nearly $5... Continue reading…

Photo by Bobby Quillard Dr Disrespect says he still doesn’t know why he was banned from Twitch, and he warned viewers that the mysterious ban has been causing him anxiety. “My anxiety levels are something that comes in these huge waves,” said Dr Disrespect, real name Guy Beahm, on a stream compilation posted to YouTube this afternoon. “And I’m having a hard time dealing with it. I’ll be honest.”Twitch signed Beahm to an exclusive contract at the beginning of the year. But in June, his account disappeared from the platform, and Twitch refused to say why or even confirm that he had been banned. It was a big surprise given that Beahm was one of the platform’s top streamers. The ban came amid criticisms about Twitch failing to deal with sexual harassment, though... Continue reading…

Nvidia might have just announced its RTX 3080 successor to the RTX 2080, but the company also had a surprise giant GPU ready: the RTX 3090. While the RTX 3080 will ship with 10GB of GDDR6X memory, the RTX 3090 ships with a huge 24GB of GDDR6X memory. Nvidia is promising that the RTX 3090 will be capable of 60fps gaming at 8K resolutions. This new flagship card is more akin to Nvidia’s Titan series and will ship on September 24th priced at $1,499.The RTX 3090 is based on Nvidia’s Ampere GPU architecture, which promises some impressive performance gains for PC gaming and ray tracing. Nvidia claims the RTX 3090 is the “world’s first 8K gaming GPU,” with 8K HDR ShadowPlay support, HDMI 2.1, and a whole lot more. Nvidia is using 10,496 CUDA... Continue reading…

Image: Nvidia Nvidia is unveiling its new GeForce RTX 3000 series graphics cards today. Nvidia has been teasing these new cards for weeks, and there have also been plenty of leaks before the RTX 3080 was made official today. Based on Nvidia’s new Ampere architecture, the RTX 3080 is designed to succeed the RTX 2080 and 2080 Ti cards with improved performance and ray-tracing support.Nvidia is promising big performance with the RTX 3080, up to two times that of the RTX 2080, and faster than even Nvidia’s RTX 2080 Ti card. The card will ship with 10GB of GDDR6X memory and will be priced at $699 when it ships on September 17th. Nvidia is using 8,704 CUDA cores on the RTX 3080, combined with a 1.71Ghz boost clock. Image: Nvidia At the... Continue reading…

Image: Epic Games Nvidia on Tuesday announced that Epic Games is bringing real-time ray tracing to the PC version of Fortnite. The announcement came as part of the company’s Ampere graphics card live stream, where we expect Nvidia to show off the RTX 3090 graphics card later today.Fortnite will support DLSS 2.0, Nvidia’s feature that uses AI to boost frame rates while keeping the ray tracing effects boosted to their maximum. The video clip above shows some high-fidelity surface reflections.When ray tracing launched with the RTX 20-series, Nvidia struggled to attract large-scale games to adopt it right away. But support is growing, and it doesn’t get much larger in scale than Fortnite — one of the most popular games in the world. Tune into Nvidia’s live... Continue reading…

A girl sits outside her flooded home on the banks of the River Ganges. | Photo by Sanjay Kanojia/AFP via Getty Images Google says its flood prediction service, which uses machine learning to identify areas of land prone to flooding and alert users before the waters arrive, now covers all of India and has expanded to parts of Bangladesh as well.The search giant launched the tool in 2018 for India’s Patna region, but it says it’s been slowly increasing coverage in coordination with local government. In June, it hit the milestone of covering all the worst flood-hit areas of India. The company says this means some 200 million people in India and 40 million people in Bangladesh can now receive alerts from its flood forecasting system.In addition to expanding coverage, Google is testing more accurate forecasts and has updated how its alerts appear on users’... Continue reading…

Screenshots of the new Exposure Notification Express system Apple and Google are launching a new auto-generated software framework to help states deploy their own contact tracing apps. Developed as an extension of the earlier exposure notification framework, the new system allows public health authorities to avoid the broader development work of launching a standalone app, simply configuring the basic framework to their state’s needs. Existing applications won’t be affected by the new framework, and adopting the framework won’t prevent states from launching more involved apps in the future.“As the next step in our work with public health authorities on Exposure Notifications, we are making it easier and faster for them to use the Exposure Notifications System without the need for them to build... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Nintendo is changing how it handles digital game preorders for the Switch’s eShop, and it’s starting by giving customers the chance to cancel preordered games instead of getting billed upfront.Under the old system, Nintendo would charge customers the full price of the game when they preordered the title, no matter how far away the game’s release was, with no way to cancel the preorder should you have had second thoughts. As of September 1st, though, Nintendo will instead wait until seven days before the game’s release to bill customers, allowing them to cancel preorders until that point in time.The news was announced on Nintendo’s Japan website, and Engadget has confirmed that the changes are live now for both US and UK customers,... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon It’s easy to get the wrong idea about The Boys. Amazon’s satirical take on superheroes — based on Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s comic superheroes who get off on behaving badly and the operatives who, in turn, get their jollies from keeping them in line — had a whiff of Deadpool about it. You know: obnoxious, irreverent, very violent, and kind of shallow. But in its surprisingly effective first season, The Boys showed real heart. It’s crass and vulgar, sure, but it’s also interested in much more than the facile superheroes, but they’re bad premise it leads you to believe it will focus on. Namely, it’s out to crush any fond feelings you have for celebrities.In the world of The Boys, superheroes have gone corporate, almost entirely... Continue reading…

Image: Behaviour Interactive Dead by Daylight is coming to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X this year, and not just as a technicality: developer Behaviour Interactive says the next-gen console versions will not only run at 4K resolution and 60 frames per second, but that it’s aiming to create a “remastered edition of the game” as well.Players who purchased the game on current-gen will receive a free next-gen upgradeThe PS5 and Series X ports won’t be the only ones to receive a graphical update, Behavior promises. Every version of the game will get updated animations, lighting, visual effects, modeling, and textures with the intent to “improve the immersion tenfold, making the environments as realistic as a scary, disturbing nightmare,” the company says.Behaviour... Continue reading…

Auctify’s Specs (above) are being marketed as a “productivity-boosting” tool. | Image: Auctify The difficulty of staying focused in an age of distractions is one of those annoyingly accurate cliches. (I checked my phone three times just writing this paragraph.) But a startup named Auctify has what it claims is the solution: smart glasses that use AI to monitor what you’re looking at and nudge you to pay attention. Depending on your worldview, it’s the product of your dreams or a productivity-hacking nightmare.The glasses are called Specs, and they launch today on Indiegogo. The premise is simple: a camera built into the frame of Specs uses machine learning to identify what you’re looking at, whether that’s a laptop, book, or a fellow human being. It records this data and sends it to a connected app where users can take action in... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Update September 1st, 10:43AM ET: The following article has been updated following Apple’s termination of Epic Games’ developer account. That action made it impossible to reinstall all Epic apps associated with that account, including Fortnite and the Inifinity Blade trilogy. The headline has been updated to reflect this fact.Fortnite disappeared from the App Store earlier this month as part of developer Epic Games’ big legal and regulatory showdown with Apple, but the battle royale hit was not gone entirely — at least not for a little while. Apple terminated Epic’s developer account last week, making it impossible to reinstall iOS versions of Epic’s apps, but there was a short period of time during which iPhone and iPad owners were... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix on Tuesday announced that David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the showrunners of HBO’s Game of Thrones, are working on an adaptation of Chinese science fiction author Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem trilogy as their first major project since signing exclusive contracts with the streaming service last year.“Liu Cixin’s trilogy is the most ambitious science-fiction series we’ve read, taking readers on a journey from the 1960s until the end of time, from life on our pale blue dot to the distant fringes of the universe. We look forward to spending the next years of our lives bringing this to life for audiences around the world,” reads the duo’s joint statement.“We look forward to spending the next years of our lives bringing this to... Continue reading…

Starting today, September 1st, Animal Crossing: New Horizons players will be able to deck out their island homes with official Joe Biden yard signs as part of the campaign’s broader initiative to organize voters online this fall.Since the start of the coronavirus outbreak in the US earlier this year, campaigns like Biden’s have been forced to entirely rethink how they organize voters. Instead of in-person rallies, Biden’s team has opted for live-streamed events and fundraisers along with socially distanced productions and interviews. The entire Democratic National Convention was held virtually earlier this month, with most guests streaming in over video software like Zoom to deliver speeches.The Biden-Harris campaign released four sign... Continue reading…

Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images As its ride-sharing business continues to struggle during the COVID-19 pandemic, Uber announced that it will begin to require some riders to take selfies to prove they are wearing masks.The company already requires drivers and delivery workers to take mask selfies as a prerequisite to signing on to the app. To date, Uber says that more than 3.5 million drivers and couriers have completed more than 100 million mask verifications.Uber isn’t requiring mask selfies for all riders, but if a driver reports that a customer is not wearing a mask, the company says that rider will be required to take a selfie before using Uber again. And riders and drivers are free to cancel a trip, without penalty, if the other person isn’t wearing a mask.... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon Musicians can now link their Twitch profiles to Amazon Music to let fans watch their live streams without leaving the music streaming app. The integration offers musicians a way to potentially reach even more people with their live streams, which — on Twitch, in particular — have become a go-to way to connect with audiences and earn money as the coronavirus pandemic limits their ability to tour.After linking their accounts, a musician’s Twitch stream will appear on their artist page inside the Amazon Music app while they’re live, and a notification will be sent out to followers when they start streaming. Artists may also be included on a new “Live” page inside the app that highlights artists who are currently broadcasting.Twitch’s... Continue reading…

The US has been hit by one of its worst wildfire seasons in years. | Image: Dylan Bouscher via Getty Images Last year, the US Interior Department, which is responsible for maintaining federal land, grounded its fleet of more than 800 drones over fears they could be compromised by Chinese spies. Now, an internal memo from the department leaked to The Financial Times says the decision is hampering the federal government’s ability to fight wildfires.The grounding of the fleet led to a de facto ban on the purchase of Chinese drones and drones containing Chinese parts. This caused the Interior Department to cancel plans to buy 17 Ignis drones, says the FT. These are specialist UAVs used to start managed burns, a key tool in controlling wildfires.28 percent fewer controlled burns by the end of the yearWithout the drones, says the leaked memo,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Nvidia is promising “the biggest breakthough in PC gaming since 1999” today with its GeForce event. The graphics card maker looks set to launch a new range of GPUs for PC gaming, based on the company’s new Ampere architecture. Rumors suggest we’ll see the RTX 3000 Series, with an RTX 3080 card and possibly even a Titan-style RTX 3090 flagship GPU.Nvidia focused heavily on raytracing with its previous RTX 2000 Series cards, so it’s likely we’ll hear more about the advancements today especially as both the PS5 and Xbox Series X will support raytracing.When is Nvidia’s GeForce event?Today, Tuesday, September 1st, 2020, at 12PM ET (9AM PT).Where can I see the event?Nvidia will be live streaming its event over on Twitch, and the company... Continue reading…

A couple of possible headphone designs are shown off in the patent. | Image: USPTO / Sonos A newly awarded patent suggests that Sonos is still hard at work on its debut pair of wireless headphones, and gives us a look at their possible design and functionality, Protocol reports. The patent shows a couple of designs that look similar to other over-ear headphones from the likes of Sony and Sennheiser. It also mentions support for multiple voice assistants via wake words, as well as Sonos-specific features like integrating with an existing multi-room speaker setup.There have been reports that Sonos is working on a pair of headphones for over a year now. In early 2019 Bloomberg was first to report on their existence, and said that the audio company was working on a pair of headphones that would cost over $300 and would include... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Today let’s talk about the controversy around a militia organizing on Facebook, the violence that followed, and where that leaves the company heading into this week’s planned visit by the president to Kenosha, WI, threatening to stoke more unrest.Kenosha police shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back last week, leading to protests in the city. Two people were killed and a third was injured in a shooting during one of the protests, and a 17-year-old has been charged in connection with the shootings.The afternoon before the murders, a 3,000-member Facebook group calling themselves the Kenosha Guard had advertised an event on Facebook encouraging an armed response to the unrest. It was taken down after the shooting. My colleague Russell... Continue reading…

Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images Walmart is trying yet again to take on Amazon Prime with its own delivery subscription service. The new service, which launches September 15th, is named Walmart+ and costs $12.95 a month or $98 a year, compared to $119 for Amazon Prime.For that price, subscribers will get unlimited free deliveries from stores on orders over $35. More than 160,000 items are covered by this, including fresh groceries and household essentials. Walmart says these deliveries can be “as fast as same-day,” but it seems delivery speed will depend on what exactly is in each order.Subscribers will also get fuel discounts at affiliated gas stations worth up to five cents on the gallon and the option to shop in store using Walmart’s Scan & Go mobile app. This... Continue reading…

Image: Twitter Twitter is officially rolling out its new quote tweets counter, which lets you easily see every time a given tweet has been retweeted alongside a comment. “Tweets about a Tweet add more to the conversation, so we’ve made them even easier to find,” the company said, also noting that the new counter will be shown between the existing “Retweets” and “Likes” labels.The social network has been testing the feature for a few months now, with different names and user interface designs. It’s experimented with labeling the counter as “Retweets with Comments” rather than “Quote Tweets” for example, and it’s also tested hiding it in a sub-menu rather than showing it directly on the tweet.

Astro Astro’s latest wireless gaming headset, the A20 Gen 2, is an upgraded version of the 2017 model. It will ship in October for $119, which is considerably down from the $149 that the previous-generation A20 was priced at. Despite the price cut, Astro says it has increased the wireless range from the 30 feet offered by the first-gen model to 50 feet, and it charges via a convenient USB-C port.The A20 Gen 2 headset will ship in two different color mixes: blue, white, and black for a PlayStation-like vibe or green, white, and black for an Xbox look. Each includes a USB Type-A wireless adapter that lets it easily connect to the console their color mix corresponds to as well as a PC. Each headset can work with the other console out of the box... Continue reading…

A big bulky phone with a 90Hz display Continue reading…

Image: Sennheiser Sennheiser is today introducing a lower-cost set of true wireless earbuds that slot in below the company’s flagship Momentum True Wireless 2. At $199.95, the new “CX 400BT True Wireless” — so much for simple names, eh Sennheiser? — aim to retain the strong sound quality of the pricier set, though you’re losing out on active noise cancellation.The CX 400BT True Wireless are not what you’d call subtle. They come in either black or white, but there’s no getting around how big they look in the ear no matter which finish you choose. There’s been a trend recently of companies progressing towards more discreet true wireless earbud designs, but Sennheiser obviously isn’t going in that direction. Image: Sennheiser I don’t... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Apple is planning to ship between 75 and 80 million 5G iPhones this year, according to a new Bloomberg report. The figure is in line with or slightly higher than iPhone launch shipments for the last couple of years, suggesting that Apple doesn’t expect the coronavirus pandemic to dampen demand — even though the company has already said the phones will be delayed into October.Bloomberg’s report also contains a broad roundup of what Apple is said to be planning for its fall hardware announcements. Here’s what Mark Gurman and Debby Wu expect:

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge Facebook plans to block the sharing of local and international news stories on its platforms if legislation requiring tech platforms to pay publishers for content becomes law, the company said in a blog post Monday.“Australia is drafting a new regulation that misunderstands the dynamics of the internet and will do damage to the very news organisations the government is trying to protect,” Will Easton, managing director of Facebook Australia and New Zealand wrote in the blog post, arguing that the commission overseeing the process “ignored important facts,” including the relationship between social media and news media.“Assuming this draft code becomes law, we will reluctantly stop allowing publishers and people in Australia from... Continue reading…

Image via XDA-developers Google’s Chromecast is a fantastic way to fling streaming video from phone to TV — but these days, you can often get a Roku Streaming Stick or Amazon Fire Stick with a dedicated remote control for the same money. But what if Google launched an Android TV dongle with its own remote control for the same $50 you’d pay for a high-end Roku or Fire stick?That’s exactly what 9to5Google seems to have discovered, thanks to a new Home Depot leak. The home improvement story briefly listed a Google “Sabrina” for $49.99, and 9to5Google’s sources were able to provide pictures of that price tag in the Home Depot’s internal systems as well.Sabrina, of course, would be that Android TV dongle that leaked in June, only to seemingly appear again at the... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple accidentally approved common malware disguised as an update for Adobe Flash Player to run on macOS, according to a new report.According to security researcher Patrick Wardle, Apple approved an app that contained code used by a well-known malware called Shlayer. Shlayer is a trojan downloader that spreads through fake applications, bombarding users with an influx of adware. Shlayer is the “most common threat” to Macs, cybersecurity and anti-virus firm Kaspersky said in 2019.Apple announced the macOS notarizing process in 2019Wardle says this is the first time he knows of that Apple mistakenly notarized malware following the debut of its new notarization process. Apple announced the macOS notarizing process in 2019, requiring... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge If you still play Pokémon Go on a smartphone or tablet running Android 5.0 “Lollipop” or iOS 10 or 11, you’ll no longer be able to access the game when Niantic pushes an update in mid-October. The Pokémon Go Twitter account confirmed that two popular older phones also won’t make the cut: the iPhone 5S and iPhone 6 are being left behind, despite the fact both phones can be upgraded to run iOS 12.“iPhone 5S and 6 have just 1 GB of RAM, and we don’t want to hold back development and implementation of features for the vast majority of players who have more robust phones,” Niantic tells The Verge.All things considered, the performance on those devices probably wasn’t great. Pokémon Go might not be as demanding as some other titles, but it... Continue reading…

The Google Photos app for iOS is getting an updated video editor that adds several useful new features, including the ability to trim video clips, add filters, crop, and make adjustments like exposure, contrast, and saturation.The new video editor options work similarly to the existing image editing tools. Simply tap the “edit” button when previewing a video, and you’ll be taken to the new editor, which adds several new tabs, in addition to the existing “export frame” option.There’s a variety of filters, including an “Auto” filter that intelligently adjusts your video. There are manual adjustment controls, divided into a Light menu (for exposure, contrast, whites, highlights, shadows, blacks, and vignette sliders) and Color (to... Continue reading…

Image: OxygenUpdater OnePlus may have accidentally revealed a first look at the OnePlus 8T, thanks to an image found in the latest Android 11 developer preview for OnePlus 8-series devices by OxygenUpdater.The leaked image doesn’t offer much to go on, just a front-facing view of the device, which appears to be pretty similar to the existing OnePlus 8. It’s possible that this image — which is labeled OnePlus_8T.webp and is a distinct file from the images for the OnePlus 8 and OnePlus 8 Pro — is simply a placeholder for a different, final design for the OnePlus 8T.But given the timing of the leak (OnePlus usually releases its fall T-series refreshes in the October to November range) and the fact that it was found in OnePlus’ own firmware update, it seems... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Videoconferencing platform Zoom had a huge second quarter, with $663.5 million in revenue compared to $145.8 million a year ago, the company announced on Monday. It now has around 370,000 customers with more than 10 employees, an increase of 458 percent year over year.“Our ability to keep people around the world connected, coupled with our strong execution, led to revenue growth of 355% year-over-year in Q2,” Zoom founder and CEO Eric S. Yuan said in a statement announcing the earnings.On a call with analysts— over Zoom, of course— Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg said subscriptions from new customers accounted for 81 percent of the second quarter revenue growth. The company did not see the customer churn it had expected, she added. Yuan... Continue reading…

American Airlines and Delta Air Lines both said they would permanently eliminate fees associated with changing or canceling a flight. The news comes less than a day after United Airlines first announced a permanent end to its change fee policy.All three carriers have been waiving change fees since March 2020, when the novel coronavirus pandemic first disrupted global air travel. With demand dried up, the airlines are seeking to make flying look safe, stress-free, and, most of all, cheap. And that means eliminating many of the fees and surcharges associated with air travel.“We’ve said before that we need to approach flexibility differently than this industry has in the past, and today’s announcement builds on that promise to ensure... Continue reading…

Left: Matt Birchler’s recreation. Right: Apple’s original wallpaper. | Matt Birchler, Apple Many of us are finding cool things to work on while stuck at home, and I think Matt Birchler takes the cake this week. He, like much of the internet, has been taking off in Microsoft Flight Simulator, and he used the absolutely unreal detail in the game to re-create some of the more iconic wallpapers from recent releases of macOS.To re-create these images, Matt flew to each location, then used Flight Simulator to position the camera, set the focal length, and adjust the time of day with in-game controls. Then, with a little post-processing magic in Adobe Lightroom, he created the images below.“Flight Simulator is a ‘make your own fun’ game and I was looking for interesting things to do while flying around,” Birchler told The Verge. He... Continue reading…

Image: Bang & Olufsen Bang & Olufsen has announced its new Beoplay H95 noise-canceling headphones for the steep price of $800. You can get a stellar pair of headphones for much, much less than that, but the audio specialist is hoping to leapfrog Sony, Bose, and other headphone makers in craftsmanship and sound quality. With their lambskin ear pads (with memory foam inside), aluminum frame, and leather headband, these certainly look the part of top-end, premium headphones.With the H95 headphones, Bang & Olufsen also copied one of the best things about Microsoft’s Surface Headphones: the dial controls. You can twist the dial on the right ear cup to adjust volume and the one on the left to control the adaptive noise cancellation. That’s exactly how the Surface... Continue reading…

Intel has teamed up with Square Enix’s Crystal Dynamics game studio to optimize the graphics for the upcoming Avengers game, specifically for PC players. It’s the sort of partnership that usually crops up for graphics card companies like AMD or Nvidia. While Intel wouldn’t provide details on numbers, it did confirm that the deal (which includes a two-year commitment to continue to support Avengers) is its biggest gaming deal yet.Intel — as a company that largely focuses on the CPU, rather than the GPU — may seem like an odd choice as a game company partner for graphics-facing improvements. But the improvements Crystal Dynamics made to Avengers are expressly designed to take advantage of Intel’s prowess by optimizing tasks more suited to... Continue reading…

Brands and influencers have locked in a Twitter bidding war for the chance to get a branded costume added to Fall Guys since August 17th, and that bidding war came to an end today. G2 Esports, Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Aim Lab, and Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, have emerged victorious as a team effort, pledging to donate $1 million to charity.Mediatonic confirmed the news today, calling it “probably the spiciest team up since The Avengers,” with a tweet from Aim Lab. “Crowns should be held in the palms of those who continue to do good,” Aim Lab said on Twitter. It’s unclear what the costume will actually look like or when it will be added to the game.The first official bid was €212 from PC hardware manufacturer Cooler Master, and the... Continue reading…

The latest update to Overcast, a popular iOS podcast app, is bringing new transparency to podcast ads. Listeners who are in the beta can now view the services their favorite podcasts use to serve ads and track listeners. This means listeners will be able to tell when a podcast is using dynamic advertising, which allows networks to swap and target ads based on the specific person listening. For most people, this likely won’t change the shows they enjoy, but for the audience that cares or wants more information about how a podcast serves them ads, it’s a notable transparency feature that isn’t yet available in any of the other major podcasting apps.This distinguishes Overcast particularly from Spotify, which gathers more information than... Continue reading…

Ring Federal Bureau of Investigation documents warned that owners of Amazon’s Ring and similar video doorbells can use the systems — which collect video footage sometimes used to investigate crimes — in order to watch police instead.The Intercept spotted the files in the BlueLeaks data trove aggregated from law enforcement agencies. One 2019 analysis describes numerous ways police and the FBI could use Ring surveillance footage, but it also cites “new challenges” involving sensor- and camera-equipped smart home devices. Specifically, they can offer an early warning when officers are approaching a house to search it; give away officer locations in a standoff; or let the owner capture pictures of law enforcement, “presenting a risk to their... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Amazon’s Echo Buds wireless earbuds are $40 off at Amazon, which brings them down to their lowest-yet price of $90. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this deal, but it doesn’t happen regularly. (It happened once before in January 2020.) If you’re in the market for wireless earbuds, these are a particularly good value if you’re seeking a solid set of noise-canceling buds. They utilize Bose noise-reduction technology to help block out sound, and they’re also worth the price, thanks to their excellent sound quality and comfortable fit. Image: Remedy Entertainment Several sites are offering discounts on the Steam version of Control Ultimate Edition, but the best one I’ve seen yet (thanks to Slickdeals) is happening at... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Revel’s shared electric mopeds are now available in San Francisco, with over 430 mopeds scattered across in the city, the company says. Revel has been expanding into new cities across the US this year even as it faces questions about its safety protocols.Revel isn’t new to the Bay Area; the company also operates in Berkeley and Oakland. But the scooters that are available in San Francisco are not the same as the ones offered in other markets like New York City. The company says the mopeds are custom-designed with new hardware, including a 2960-watt motor “designed to help riders navigate San Francisco’s famous hills.”“designed to help riders navigate San Francisco’s famous hills”The mopeds are serviced and rebalanced by a staff of... Continue reading…

Image: Activision Cheating in the PC versions of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone has been a huge problem, but now, Activision appears to be cracking down on the people creating these exploits. CxCheat.net, a company known for making exploits in PC multiplayer games, says it will stop creating Call of Duty cheats because Activision threatened legal action.The announcement that it was ending the development and sale of its Call of Duty cheating products was first spotted on Reddit. CxCheat.net notified users on Discord that it would stop developing and selling exploits that allowed players to gain advantages in several Call of Duty games, including the free-to-play battle royale title Warzone. The hacking company also sold cheats for Apex Legends... Continue reading…