The Verge

Alienware m15 R4 | Photo: Dell Alienware is upgrading its m15 and m17 gaming laptops with some boosted specs at CES 2021, with the new R4 models offering Nvidia’s latest RTX 3000 series GPUs for laptops, faster memory options, more internal storage, and — for the m17 R4, specifically — an optional 360Hz display, a first for Alienware.Both the 15-inch and 17-inch models still offer Intel’s 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10870H and Core i9-10980HK CPU options, but they can now be configured with up to 32GB of 2,933MHz memory and up to 4TB of PCIe storage. There’s newly added HDMI 2.1 support for better output to your fancy new TV — especially for gaming. And the aforementioned 360Hz display option gives the 17-inch model a 1080p, 360Hz panel with G-Sync for folks who need the... Continue reading…

If you’re interested in learning about the Lenovo Legion 5i gaming laptop, I now have much more than a mere written review to share with you. Swedish metal band Iron Savages was paid by an ad agency that’s representing Lenovo to scream a few choice lines from my review, and producer Claudio Marino made the video above.To be clear, this is an ad. The agency asked for my permission to use some quotes from our review, and I said yes. That was in early November, and I quite honestly forgot about what I had agreed to. Then today, at the height of our collective CES 2021 grind at The Verge, it appeared in my inbox. It gave all of us some much-needed dumb delight, and maybe you’ll get a laugh out of it, too. There’s nothing like... Continue reading…

AT&T TV Now is no more. New customers can no longer sign up for telecom’s skinny bundle TV service, similar to YouTube TV or Hulu with Live TV.Instead, customers can only sign up for AT&T TV. Simply put: AT&T now has one virtual TV service instead of two. Existing customers will be able to continue accessing the service and shouldn’t experience any disruptions, a spokesperson told Variety.AT&T has rolled in parts of AT&T TV Now into AT&T TV, including getting rid of the annual contract and not requiring people to own the AT&T TV hardware. Instead, people can use their own compatible devices (Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, etc.) to stream, according to AT&T’s website. There are three different pricing tiers that customers can choose from... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The first Vergecast of 2021 focuses on the topic we’re thinking about the most at The Verge this month (and probably the foreseeable future): content moderation on the internet.The Verge’s Nilay Patel, Dieter Bohn, Adi Robertson, and Casey Newton chronicle the past week of social media platforms taking action since the Capitol riot: Trump getting banned from sites like Twitter and Facebook and social app Parler being removed from app stores.The crew also dives into what this means for the future of content moderation for Big Tech, regulation surrounding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, and the role of competition for social media platforms.You can listen here or in your preferred podcast player to hear the full... Continue reading…

Razer claims to have made the world’s smartest mask: its new reusable N95 respirator called Project Hazel. It’s a concept design with a glossy outside shell made of waterproof and scratch-resistant recycled plastic, which is transparent to allow for lip-reading and seeing facial cues when you chat with people.Currently, there isn’t a price or release date attached. Razer refers to Project Hazel as a surgical N95, but it hasn’t yet earned any of the necessary approvals and certifications from the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or Occupational Safety and Health Administration. In a statement to The Verge, Razer said it is working with a team of medical experts and scientists who are helping... Continue reading…

Image: Asus Asus announced a new mechanical keyboard at CES 2021 called the ROG Claymore II. It’s designed for gamers, with customizable macro keys and per-key RGB backlighting. It’s also the first device to feature Asus’ own ROG RX Blue or Red optical switches with a claimed 100 million keypress lifespan.This model gives a nod to people who just can’t totally quit the numpad: you can detach it to make the Claymore II an 80 percent keyboard if you need to save space or magnetically attach it when you need to crunch some numbers. The numpad also offers more intuitive media controls, like a volume dial.The ROG Claymore II connects either via a USB-C cable or wireless via 2.4GHz. If you use it wirelessly, its 4,000mAh battery is supposed to last for... Continue reading…

ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images Created “exclusively for the U.S. Hispanic audience,” PrendeTV is Univision’s entry into the streaming wars, offering a collection of free Spanish programming.PrendeTV, which gets its name for the Spanish phrase for “switch on,” will launch this quarter, according to Univision. The service will have “an unprecedented collection of high-quality, curated Spanish-language series [and] movies,” as well as some other entertainment. PrendeTV will also offer 30 live channels and more than 10,000 hours of on-demand content at launch, according to the company, with the goal to expand that offering once launched. It will be available on desktop and mobile, as well as a free app on connected TVs.Univision’s biggest competitor in the Spanish... Continue reading…

The ROG Swift PG32UQ will be a G-Sync-compatible gaming monitor | Asus Asus is gearing up to release its first gaming monitor to support HDMI 2.1, which boasts enough bandwidth to display up to 4K resolution at 120 frames per second when connected to a compatible Windows PC, Xbox Series X, or PS5. The ROG Swift PG32UQ is, according to Asus, the world’s first 32-inch HDMI 2.1 gaming monitor, and both of its HDMI ports support the latest standard.Connecting via DisplayPort 1.4 allows this monitor to display 4K at a 144Hz refresh rate on PC if you have components capable enough to soar that high. For this feature, Asus credits a technology called Display Stream Compression (DSC) that compresses UHD streams without a perceptible drop in visual quality.Like the Acer Nitro XV28 announced last week, the ROG... Continue reading…

That’s right — this is for gaming. | Image: Asus Asus Republic of Gamers (ROG) has unveiled its varied, eclectic, and very cool-looking lineup of new gaming laptops for 2021. The highlight, and the product I’m both very excited and very confused about, is the ROG Flow X13. It’s the company’s first 2-in-1 convertible gaming laptop.That’s right — a 2-in-1 gaming laptop. You don’t see that every day. What’s more, as you may have deduced from the name, the X13 is a 13-inch convertible gaming laptop.As you can probably see from the above picture, the X13 doesn’t look like your typical gaming rig. It’s the type of thing I wouldn’t be surprised to see someone whip out in a class or a meeting. Portability is a theme here: Asus says you’ll get up to 10 hours of video playback on a charge... Continue reading…

The Soundcore Liberty Air 2 earbuds are one of our best options in the budget category, and now the Anker brand has returned with a more advanced model. The Liberty Air 2 Pro buds are focused on sound quality and active noise cancellation (ANC), and like the larger Liberty 2 Pro feature 11mm drivers.The new model has improved ANC with modes designed to fit various situations — the transport mode blocks out lower frequencies, for example, while the indoor mode is better at reducing mid-range sounds like voices in an office. There’s also a transparency mode with two levels of ambient sound enhancement, and Anker is touting “premium call quality” thanks to six-mic noise reduction tech. Anker says the Liberty Air 2 Pro... Continue reading…

Photo by JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images A group of Uber and Lyft drivers in California filed a lawsuit Tuesday in state supreme court to overturn a ballot measure that allows the companies to continue treating its workers like independent contractors.The drivers claim that Prop 22, which was approved by California voters last November, violates the state’s constitution by “stripping” the state legislature’s ability to empower workers to organize, as well as by “illegally” excluding ride-hail drivers from the state workers’ compensation program.“Every day, rideshare drivers like me struggle to make ends meet because companies like Uber and Lyft prioritize corporate profits over our wellbeing,” plaintiff Saori Okawa said in a statement. “With Prop 22, they’re not just... Continue reading…

Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images The second season of the Call of Duty League will begin play next month. Today, Activision Blizzard announced that the CDL regular season for 2021 will kick off with an opening event from February 11th–14th, though the actual schedule and matchups have yet to be determined.The league debuted last year with an ambitious plan to blend city-based teams with esports, similar to the Overwatch League. However, due to the pandemic, the CDL — along with most other competitive gaming leagues — was forced to shift to an online format. The season culminated with a championship weekend in August where the Dallas Empire won a literal throne.The 2021 season will introduce a few changes, including 4 vs. 4 gameplay and a shift to PC. There will also... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AMD says customers eager for a new gaming laptop should be able to buy the first RDNA 2 GPU-powered notebooks some time before July, the company revealed today during its CES 2021 press conference. RDNA 2 is AMD’s new graphics chip architecture and the foundation of the custom chipsets in Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series S / X, and now it’s coming to laptops.The Radeon RX 6000 series of GPUs were the first to feature AMD’s new RDNA 2 architecture when they were unveiled in October of last year, but those were top-of-the-line desktop graphics cards designed to go head-to-head with Nvidia’s 3000 series line.

The Gigabyte G7 includes up to a 10th-Gen Intel Core i7. | Gigabyte Gigabyte makes some of the best gaming- and creator-focused laptops you can get. But some of its most exciting 2021 releases aren’t its flagship models.Say hello to the new Gigabyte Gaming line, a slew of midrange gaming laptops aimed at younger consumers. “Gigabyte Gaming series target Gen Z and Millennial users, by offering up machines built for ‘multitasking’ and meeting multiple needs at once, whether it’s learning, commerce, gaming or content creation,” Gigabyte announced in its press release.The big news is that two of the new Gigabyte Gaming models, the A5 and the A7, are among Gigabyte’s first laptops to include AMD’s Ryzen mobile processors. Specifically, they’re outfitted with the brand-new Ryzen 5000H mobile series. They... Continue reading…

A top-down view of the 2021 Razer Blade 15 Advanced | Razer Razer is bringing a heap of spec improvements to its 2021 lineup of Blade 15 and Pro 17 gaming laptops. The fit and finish of both models are largely the same as before — they are still ahead of the competition in terms of design — though I’m going to assume that they’re still total fingerprint magnets. However, the switch that I’m most excited about is that QHD screens are finally happening. You’ll be able to get a 1440p QHD display with a fast refresh rate and with Nvidia’s G-Sync variable refresh rate tech built in.Until recently, 1080p and 4K were the only options for displays on gaming laptops, despite 1440p being an increasingly popular choice among PC gamers looking for a new standalone monitor. This is the year that Razer and... Continue reading…

Acer ditched a few of the red highlights seen on previous models for a more subdued look. | Acer Acer’s Nitro 5 gaming laptop has never been much of a technical or design showcase, but that’s changing a bit for 2021. It now has a slightly toned-down look that moves all of the red details (aside from the red backlit keyboard) to the rear part of the hinge. What’s more impressive, though, is that it’s getting big upgrades in the graphics, processing, and display departments.For CES 2021, Acer announced that a 15.6-inch and 17-inch version of the Nitro 5 will release with support for the latest Intel 11th Gen Core H35-series processors or AMD’s Ryzen 5000-series CPUs (up to the Ryzen 9 5900 HX). They’ll all have the option to upgrade all the way up to Nvidia’s RTX 3080 graphics chip either route you take with the processor.In terms... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon store listings for the infamous white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries have been removed, replaced with a “page not found” message, indicating the item is no longer available for purchase. Amazon has seen pushback from critics in recent days for its decision to sell the novel, which The Los Angeles Times specifically called out for providing a roadmap to last week’s deadly attack on the US Capitol.The removal comes in the wake of Amazon’s widespread purge of products and texts related to the QAnon conspiracy movement on Monday, as well as its decision to no longer host the far-right social media platform Parler.Amazon has taken a harder stance against QAnon and racism in the wake of the Capitol attackThe Turner Diaries is... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Less than six months after introducing its RTX 3000 series GPUs for desktop PCs, Nvidia is bringing the RTX 3060, RTX 3070, and RTX 3080 to gaming laptops. Nvidia is promising big energy efficiency gains here, thanks to its new Ampere architecture, alongside the obvious performance improvements over the previous RTX 2000 series laptops.More than 70 gaming laptops will be available with these new mobile GPUs on January 26th, with prices starting at $999. RTX 3060 laptops, which Nvidia says are 1.3 times faster than the PS5, start at $999. RTX 3070 laptops will start at $1,299, and Nvidia says they’re up to 1.5 times faster than previous RTX 2070 systems, and they deliver 90fps at 1440p.RTX 3080 laptops begin at $1,999... Continue reading…

Nvidia resizable BAR. Nvidia is officially launching its own resizable BAR support, which promises increased performance gains in some games. Resizable BAR has been part of the PCI Express specification for years, but AMD only recently made it an important feature to support with the introduction of Smart Access Memory.AMD’s Smart Access Memory effectively provides its Ryzen 5000 processors direct access to the GPU memory to bypass I/O bottlenecks. This allows CPUs to access the full graphics frame buffer, instead of being limited to reading 256MB blocks. AMD previously promised up to 10 percent extra performance in certain games — if you pair its new Ryzen 5000 CPUs with its latest Ryzen RX 6000 graphics cards.Intel and Nvidia have seemingly now worked... Continue reading…

ANAHEIM, CA - NOVEMBER 21: General views of the Disneyland Resort, partially reopened for outdoor dining and shopping with new COVID-19 guidelines in place on November 21, 2020 in Anaheim, California. | Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images Disneyland Resort will become the first mass vaccination site for COVID-19 vaccine distribution in Orange County, California. By late this week, thousands of people will be able to get vaccinated at the so-called “happiest place on Earth” each day. Disneyland will be the first of five similar sites in the region.“Coronavirus has brought both a public health crisis and economic devastation. With this super site, we will begin to overcome both,” Harry Sidhu, the mayor of Anaheim, where Disneyland is located, said in a statement. “Every vaccination done in Anaheim will help to save lives and speed the reopening and recovery of our city.”Southern California is reeling from a surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths over the past month... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images Ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20th, Airbnb has announced actions it’s taking to prevent members of the violent mob that attacked the US Capitol on January 6th from returning to Washington, DC.At the top of the list, Airbnb says it will ban people who were involved in the January 6th attack. “When we learn through media or law enforcement sources the names of individuals confirmed to have been responsible for the violent criminal activity at the United States Capitol on January 6, we investigate whether the named individuals have an account on Airbnb,” the company said. “This includes cross-referencing the January 6 arrest logs of D.C. Metro Police. If the individuals have an Airbnb account, we take... Continue reading…

Nvidia’s RTX 3060 GPU. Nvidia is announcing its new $329 GeForce RTX 3060 card today. While the company only just introduced an RTX 3060 Ti for $399 last month, this latest RTX 3060 addition is designed to replace the aging GTX 1060 Pascal cards that many PC gamers are still using today.Nvidia is promising 10 times more ray-tracing performance with the RTX 3060, making it very tempting for those looking to upgrade PC parts or full machines. Like the rest of Nvidia’s RTX 3000 cards, the RTX 3060 will also be capable of using Nvidia’s suite of RTX apps and DLSS support.Nvidia’s DLSS technology uses neural networks and AI supercomputers to analyze games and sharpen up images at lower resolutions. DLSS allows a game to render at a lower resolution and use... Continue reading…

The Legion 7. | Image: Lenovo Lenovo has a wave of new Legion gaming laptops at CES 2021, with overhauls across its entire lineup that all have three things in common: AMD’s latest next-gen Ryzen 5000 processors, Nvidia’s next-gen RTX GPUs, and intriguing starting price points.The flagship of the new 2021 lineup is the Lenovo Legion 7, which upgrades to a taller 16-inch display and a 16:10 aspect ratio for an overall 11 percent increase in screen space compared to the old model. The specs on that panel are no slouch, either: it’s a 2560 x 1600 IPS display with a 165Hz refresh rate, 3ms response time, 500 nits of brightness, HDR 400 certification with Dolby Vision support, and Nvidia G-Sync — enough to make it a contender for both gaming and creative work.But it’s... Continue reading…

ThinkBook Plus Gen 2 | Image: Lenovo Lenovo is continuing to try to make the “laptop with a Kindle glued to the lid” aesthetic work at CES 2021, announcing the ThinkBook Plus Gen 2. It ups the ante from the original ThinkBook Plus with a bigger and better 12-inch E Ink panel on the lid, with a faster refresh rate, higher resolution, and improved software that makes it easier to launch applications without opening the laptop.The ThinkBook Plus debuted at last year’s CES, standing out as a laptop with an E Ink display built into the lid that allowed users to take notes, read ebooks, and display things like calendar information.The new model improves on that, though, with a 12-inch, 2560 x 1600 E Ink panel that supports multitouch and works with the pop-out stylus, creating... Continue reading…

Bethesda’s next project is a big surprise: today, the publisher teased a new Indiana Jones game.While we don’t know anything about the title just yet — the announcement was simply a brief teaser video — it’s being developed by MachineGames, the same studio behind the Wolfenstein franchise. Bethesda boss Todd Howard will serve as executive producer. The title is being made under the new Lucasfilm Games label, which was announced yesterday as part of a renewed focus on games from Disney and Lucasfilm.While details are slim, Disney says that “the game will tell a wholly original, standalone tale set at the height of the career of the famed adventurer.” The teaser video hints that the game will take place in Rome.There’s no word yet on... Continue reading…

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge WhatsApp has published a new FAQ page to its website outlining its stances on user privacy in response to widespread backlash over an upcoming privacy policy update. The core issue relates to WhatsApp’s data-sharing procedures with Facebook, with many users concerned an updated privacy policy going into effect on February 8th will mandate sharing of sensitive profile information with WhatsApp’s parent company.That isn’t true — the update has nothing to do with consumer chats or profile data, and instead the change is designed to outline how businesses who use WhatsApp for customer service may store logs of its chats on Facebook servers. That’s something the company feels it is required to disclose in its privacy policy, which it’s now... Continue reading…

Samsung has announced the Exynos 2100, the mobile processor that’s expected to power its upcoming Galaxy S21 flagship across much of the world outside the US. Like the Exynos 1080 announced last year, it’s built using a 5nm fabrication process, and it’s got an integrated 5G modem that can handle both Sub-6GHz and mmWave.At the heart of the Exynos 2100 processor is an octa-core CPU which includes one Arm Cortex-X1 core clocked at 2.9GHz, three Cortex-A78 cores, and four power-efficient Cortex-A55 cores. This CPU is paired with an Arm Mali-G78 GPU, and a tri-core NPU (neural processing unit) for handling AI tasks. Altogether, Samsung says the Exynos offers 10 percent more performance than its 7nm predecessor, or 20 percent lower power... Continue reading…

Snow covered mountains at Billefjorden at sunset and clouds reflected in the Arctic sea, central fjord of Isfjorden, Svalbard / Spitsbergen, Norway. | Photo by: Sven-Erik Arndt/Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images Polyester fibers are making their way from laundry machines in North America and Europe all the way up to the Arctic, according to a new study. Synthetic fibers made up a whopping 92 percent of microplastic pollution found in Arctic seawater, of which polyester was the most common.“What you and I wear, how we wash our clothes, and what we buy at the clothing store is really having profound consequences”That means that textiles, laundry, and wastewater are likely big culprits when it comes microplastics polluting the world’s oceans, according to study authors. The polyester fibers they found in the Arctic are the same size as fibers found in water from laundry machines and wastewater treatment plants. Much of it is drifting into the... Continue reading…

Super Mario 3D World, an enhanced version of the original game that bundles in a new expansion called Bowser’s Fury, will launch on February 12th for the Switch. Nintendo announced the news today along with a new Mario Red & Blue Edition console.The upgraded version of Super Mario 3D World features both online and local co-op for up to four players. The special edition Switch, modeled after Mario’s plumber outfit, will be available at select retailers for $299.99. In addition to a carrying case and red Joy-Con controllers with blue trim, the Switch itself is red — a first for the typically all-black console. Nintendo is also selling new amiibo figures of Cat Mario and Cat Peach.Nintendo revealed the game’s arrival on the Switch last... Continue reading…

Image: GM CES wouldn’t be CES without some bonkers, far-out vehicle concepts. And thankfully, General Motors brought two.The automaker showed off a luxury egg-shaped autonomous vehicle and a single-seater electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft during its keynote address on Tuesday. Both vehicles are part of Cadillac’s Halo Portfolio and probably won’t be going into production anytime soon — or at all.Still, the concepts are meant to show off Cadillac’s (and, by extension, GM’s) design intentions for future products, as well as serving as an extravagant symbol of the brand’s manufacturing skills.An extravagant symbol of the brand’s manufacturing skillsThe AV concept looks like a leather-and-fur-draped version of many of the... Continue reading…

One of TCL’s many display concept prototypes. | Photo: TCL TCL has never been shy about showcasing its display concepts at trade shows, and this year is no different; the company is (virtually) showing off a couple of these prototypes at CES 2021. Bearing in mind that there’s absolutely no guarantee these concepts will ever reach market, they’re still a fun glimpse at a possible future of display tech. First up is a mobile device with an AMOLED “rollable” screen which can extend a 6.7-inch display up to 7.8 inches. TCL says the device is less than 10mm thick with a 3mm bend radius. TCL calls this a rollable display, though there’s no outwardly obvious rolling action. A similar concept appears in one of the more unintentionally funny promotional videos we’ve seen at CES so... Continue reading…

General Motors announced Tuesday it will be spinning out a new delivery and logistics business called BrightDrop, the first products of which will be an electrified pallet and delivery van. Both vehicles, which will be powered by GM’s Ultium battery platform, are slated for release this year.The announcement of the new logistics business comes as GM is undergoing a massive, $27 billion pivot to the business of designing and manufacturing electric vehicles. For example, the company, which is the largest automaker in North America, just unveiled a new logo as part of an overall brand redesign. GM has been nipping at the heels of Tesla and other EV makers as it attempts to convince its investors that it has a firm grasp on the future of... Continue reading…

Regulation expert Daphne Keller on where moderation goes after banning Trump Continue reading…

Condé Nast Entertainment Condé Nast had big plans for podcasts in 2020. It launched its new, eponymous podcast network and three initial shows — The Pitchfork Review, Get Wired, and In Vogue — this summer with an initial presentation at the NewFronts conference for media buyers. But by the end of December, most of the people who created and worked on those new shows were no longer employed by the company. In a statement today, 11 former Condé Nast Entertainment (CNE) contract producers and editors allege the company mishandled their employment, outsourced their work to additional contractors, and, generally, bungled the network through mismanagement.“We believe that Condé Nast could have a bright future in audio,” they write. “However, we don’t foresee success... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber Green, the feature that allows customers to request rides in electric vehicles, is coming to more cities. After initially launching in 15 cities last September, the ride-hail company is bringing the feature to 1,400 additional cities and towns in North America. The new markets include Austin, Calgary, Houston, Miami, New York City, Tucson, Winnipeg, Washington, DC, and hundreds more.Uber claims that “100 percent” of rides on its platform will take place in electric vehicles by 2030 in the US, Canada, and Europe, and by 2040 for the rest of the world. But rather than pay drivers directly to trade their gas-burning vehicles for electric ones, the company will impose an extra fee on trips completed in an electric vehicle to... Continue reading…

DOMINIC MILLER/NETFLIX © 2021 If you’re a Netflix subscriber, the company wants you to know there’s a lot of new movies coming. Netflix has 70 movies on its roster, more than Disney and Warner Bros. combined, according to the 2021 film slate the company released today. They include directorial debuts by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Halle Berry and the final installment in the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy.This may not end up being a complete list — Netflix is likely to acquire films throughout the year. The theatrical landscape remains shaky, and Netflix is in a prime position to purchase films that studios like Universal or Paramount may sell.And Netflix was one of the few companies that surged as people stayed at home during a global pandemic. But with... Continue reading…

Image: Sonos Sonos will help customers get more longevity out of its $399 Sonos Move wireless speaker by offering a new battery replacement kit. The Move is Sonos’ first battery-powered speaker, whereas the company’s other products all plug into the wall. The kit costs $69 and includes the battery, a couple tools that help remove the old one, and a pair of replacement screws.“The new replacement battery kit was designed so customers can continue to enjoy extended battery life for their speaker even after years of use, without needing to replace the speaker altogether,” Sonos says. The company has previously mentioned that the Move’s battery can be swapped out, but it hasn’t offered the standalone battery until now. You can order it from the Sonos... Continue reading…

Image: TCL One of the things that usually happens at CES in Las Vegas is you get a sense that one company or another is really going hard. A few years ago Google started throwing unseemly amounts of money at an outdoor CES installation in a bid to show that the Google Assistant was ready to dominate the smart home. It was an acceleration of a trend in the smart home: a battle with Alexa to form an ecosystem. Standing outside the convention center in 2018, that trend loomed large both metaphorically and physically.Now that CES is online-only, it’s a little harder for companies to puff their chests out and declare that they (or their products) have hit the big time. One company seemed to be doing its very best to try, though: TCL. And another... Continue reading…

A green tick will be shown if users report a business is following the measures. | Image: Yelp Yelp is adding a new option that lets customers provide feedback on whether a business is enforcing COVID-19 safety guidelines, the company announced today. Initially, users will be able to report whether staff at a business are wearing masks, and whether they’re enforcing proper social distancing guidelines. The aim is to “instill confidence in consumers to continue supporting local businesses,” Yelp says.You’ll be able to provide feedback on a business’ safety measures via its page on Yelp, either through survey questions or by tapping the “Edit” icon in the top-right of a page’s COVID-19 updates section. The listing will display either a green check mark or an orange question mark next to the listed safety measures, depending on what... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge GM says that two new versions of the Chevy Bolt are set to be unveiled in February 2021. The company has released a new teaser that highlights a new feature coming to the electric vehicles: GM’s well-regarded advanced driver assist system, Super Cruise.GM is planning to release a refreshed Chevy Bolt, which was first released in 2017, as well as a Bolt Electric Utility Vehicle, or EUV. The teaser was timed to coincide with GM CEO Mary Barra’s keynote speech at the 2021 Consumer Electronics Show — which is being held virtually this year because of the coronavirus pandemic.The refreshed Bolt will feature a sportier look, new seats, adaptive cruise control, and a few other minor changes. GM bumped up the range in this past year’s... Continue reading…

LG teased its Rollable phone yesterday at the Consumer Electronics Show, and now the company is confirming it’s a real product that will be available in 2021. The LG Rollable has what the company calls a “unique resizable screen” that extends from a phone into a small tablet display. The screen slides in and out of place to provide a bigger screen area.“Our management wanted to show that it is a real product, as there were many rumors around the rollable phone,” says an LG spokesperson in a statement to Nikkei. “As it is released at CES 2021, I can tell that it will be launched this year.”Nikkei also reports that LG is working with China’s BOE Technology Group on the rollable screen technology. LG has not yet confirmed what display... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter has permanently suspended over 70,000 accounts since Friday in an attempt to clamp down on QAnon-fueled conspiracies on its service, the company has announced. It says the accounts were “engaged in sharing harmful QAnon-associated content at scale and were primarily dedicated to the propagation of this conspiracy theory across the service.” At the same time, prominent conservative voices on Twitter complained about lost followers.Twitter began suspending accounts on Friday afternoon, two days after President Trump incited a mob that broke into the US Capitol building. Twitter categorized the suspensions as part of an attempt to “protect the conversation on [its] service from attempts to incite violence, organize attacks, and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Ubiquiti, the company I bought networking gear from because I wanted Wi-Fi that’s totally under my control, now tells me something may not have been under my control after all: my basic account information. According to an email it’s sending out to users today, a “third party cloud provider” was accessed by an unauthorized user, and that provider might possibly have some of our data.While the company says it isn’t hasn’t found any evidence that our user data has been accessed, it also “cannot be certain that user data has not been exposed”. The potential data at risk will be familiar if you’ve received these kinds of emails before: names, emails, phone numbers, addresses, and (encrypted, hopefully unreadable) passwords. You’ll want to... Continue reading…

Salesforce has “taken action” to stop the Republication National Committee (RNC) from sending emails that could incite violence, though the company won’t say what that action is. The RNC is using ExactTarget, a Salesforce tool, for campaign emails.The move, first reported by Motherboard, comes after the Trump campaign sent an email urging supporters to “step up RIGHT NOW” and “defend the integrity of this Election” shortly before the breach of the US Capitol on January 6th.The enterprise software company declined to elaborate on what action it has takenSalesforce confirmed to The Verge that it hasn’t dropped the RNC as a client. “The Republican National Committee has been a long-standing customer, predating the current... Continue reading…

Image: Citrus County Chronicle Last week was a cacophony of horrible Trump-related news, but this is the one that hit home hardest for me: a manatee with his name scraped into its back was found in the headwaters of Florida’s Homosassa river (via Citrus County Chronicle). At the moment it’s unclear whether the animal was actually injured, or if the name was just scraped into the algae on its back, but it’s a crime either way.While US Fish and Wildlife officials told the Chronicle that they “[could not] comment on a current, ongoing investigation”, they’re asking anyone who may have information about who did this to reach out to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The Center for Biological Diversity is also offering a $5,000 reward for information... Continue reading…

Rare pro-Trump protester Rebecca Brooks came to show her discontent toward Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey who is “silencing conservative voices.” 30 police officers were there to monitor the scene Continue reading…

Sony’s new line of Bravia XR television sets will allow customers to watch and stream movies at some of the highest quality available in the consumer market through its new Bravia Core platform, according to the company.Bravia XR owners will be able to choose from a number of Sony Pictures titles and watch them using Sony’s “Pure Stream” technology, which achieves “near lossless” ultra high-definition, Blu-ray disc quality, according to Sony. Pure Stream also allows for streaming of up to 80 megabits per second. To compare, most streaming services recommend maintaining an internet speed between 15 and 25 megabits per second to achieve proper 4K Ultra HD streaming quality. If Sony’s numbers are accurate, that’s better than a lot of the... Continue reading…

Image: PopSockets PopSockets is announcing that it’s making its iconic phone holders compatible with MagSafe. When Apple announced that accessories would be able to attach to the iPhone 12 with MagSafe, many people immediately thought of PopSockets — including the company itself, which announced it was working on adding compatibility. Now, it’s finally at the point where it’s putting out an announcement and a release window.PopSockets is planning on bringing MagSafe to quite a few of its products, but first, of course, is the famous PopGrip. Now, if you want to charge your phone wirelessly, you won’t have to buy PopSockets’ specialized wireless charger. The MagSafe version will have a larger base than many PopSockets users may be used to, which is... Continue reading…

Mode says its smart cannabis device lets you control your dosage | Mode For people who use cannabis for medicinal purposes, such as pain management, anxiety, and sleep, vaping the drug can be a bit of a trial-and-error process since you can’t be totally sure of the exact dose you’re getting like you can with a standard edible or pill. The makers of the Mode smart cannabis device say it solves the dosing problem, using a high-res pressure sensor to determine how much a user is inhaling and a prediction algorithm that determines how many micromilligrams a user is getting per puff based on the cartridge.The company says it’s run hundreds of cannabis cartridges through its testing machines to identify each one’s unique characteristics, and the device has an accuracy rate of over 75 percent even without letting... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony is getting into the drone business, with the company showing off a brief first look at its new Airpeak drone at CES 2021. The new drone is said to be the smallest drone capable of carrying an Alpha camera and is designed for video content creation and professional photography. There are very few concrete details about the new drone system right now, although Sony mentioned that it’s been exploring using the drones to film landscape and city shots. It showcased the Airpeak working as a chase camera for footage of its Vision-S concept car from last CES. The model shown off at CES 2021 is a quadcopter design and features two landing gear extensions that retract upward during flight (so as not to spoil your footage).W... Continue reading…