The Verge

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge If you bought a new Windows laptop on Black Friday or received one as a gift, you may be struggling to figure out which apps to download. Never fear. I have scoured the internet, the Microsoft Store, and my own downloads folder to find all the best Windows apps for whatever purpose you may need.You might be surprised how many online services you already use that have their own dedicated Windows app. I find that the main benefit of many Windows apps is to help mentally separate my life. It can get hard to navigate all of my various streaming services, work apps, chats, and social media using Chrome tabs — and it also puts me at greater risk of getting distracted.There are also some services that are significantly better in app form... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge You can snag a refurbished set of the Beats Powerbeats Pro, the company’s latest truly wireless earphones, for $90 at Best Buy. This deal is exclusive to the green “moss” color variant shown in the picture above. Looking at new options, the price ranges from $130 to $180 depending on the color you want, so today’s deal is worth jumping on if you don’t care as much about what the headphones look like. And hey, if this shade of green happens to vibe with your look, then even better.Though these are refurbished, they’ve been cleaned and tested by Best Buy. They come with a 90-day warranty, as well as all original accessories including ear tips and the charging case.Also at Best Buy, Apple’s latest iPad with 128GB of storage is $50 off of... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge This year marked the introduction of the first Macs to be powered by Apple’s own silicon instead of Intel chips. As is evidenced by our reviews of the M1 MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, these machines are incredibly powerful and offer wicked fast performance. This is especially true for apps that are designed to run natively on them and take full advantage of Apple’s latest technologies.So in that vein, this year’s Mac apps list is going to focus on some of the software that has already been optimized for this new era of Apple hardware. Last year’s picks remain just as relevant and useful today if you’re on an Intel machine. But if you’ve been gifted (or are gifting yourself) one of these new speed-demon Macs, these are... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Demo New images and video purporting to show an Apple Watch prototype, concealed by a security case that resembles a tiny iPod, offer a rare look behind the product-development curtain of the notoriously secretive company built by Steve Jobs. First teased a few months ago by Twitter user Apple Demo, this is our first look at the device turned on and running Apple’s own internal development apps on a pre-watchOS 1.0 software build.The video starts by showing what appears to be the original cardboard packaging used to deliver the prototype hardware to testers. “This product is classified as Apple Confidential and is designated an ‘Ultra’ security program,” reads the label. “This prototype MUST be returned when recalled or when your,” says the... Continue reading…

LG’s new QNED TV uses Mini LEDs as the light source. | Image: LG LG might be the company that’s most synonymous with OLED TVs, but tonight it’s announcing what to expect from its LCD-based sets in 2021. Like other manufacturers including TCL have already done (and Samsung is expected to soon join in on), LG is adopting Mini LED technology for its premium LCD 8K and 4K TVs coming next year.LG says Mini LED allows for “a giant leap forward in LCD TV picture quality.” The best LCD TVs today have what’s called “full-array local dimming,” where LEDs — in some cases hundreds of them — serve as the backlighting behind the screen. These can be controlled in zones, and each zone can be dimmed as appropriate for dark scenes, which helps improve black levels and contrast.Mini LED changes up the strategy a... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Yu Chun Christopher Wong / S3studio / Getty Images Coinbase announced today that it is halting all trades of XRP on its cryptocurrency exchange, according to an official blog post (via Coindesk). Certain kind of trades became restricted today, and the full suspension will go into place January 19th, 2021 at 10AM PT. Coinbase is the largest cryptocurrency exchange, and suspending a currency like XRP naturally casts doubt on the currency’s future, even before the SEC lawsuit over it is settled.Coinbase says it made the decision to suspend XRP “in light” of the suit the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed against XRP’s original creator, Ripple. With the suspension in place, people will no longer be able to trade XRP on Coinbase, though they will still be able to deposit and... Continue reading…

When we think about privacy and who can access our location data, we’re often focusing on our phones, and not on the machine that actually takes us places: our car. A recent report from NBC News goes into just how much data is collected by our vehicles, and how it can be used by police and criminals alike.Your car, depending on how new it is and what capabilities it has, could be collecting all sorts of data without your knowledge — including location data, when its doors were opened, and even recordings of your voice. The NBC article uses the example of Joshua Wessel, a man who’s been charged with murder because the victim’s truck has a recording of his voice at the time of the killing. The report also looks at a company called Berla... Continue reading…

Photo: Sean O’Kane / The Verge If you intend to fly a drone in the US, you’re going to want to pay attention: the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) just issued the single biggest set of changes to US drone law since the agency first took an interest in the technology. With the proper license, you’ll soon be able to fly at night and over people. But the biggest change is this: in 2023, it may be illegal for you to fly some drones at all unless you retrofit them with their own broadcasting equipment.In 2022, the US government will require every new mass-produced drone weighing over 0.55 pounds (0.25kg) to broadcast your location — and I do mean your location, not just the location of your drone. You’ll also be broadcasting an identification number that law... Continue reading…

Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical has some big Broadway talent on board for its January 1st streaming performance. Adam Lambert, Wayne Brady, Kevin Chamberlin, Mary Testa, and Priscilla Lopez will play key roles, with Tituss Burgess starring as Remy, the sophisticated rat who loves fine food.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A computer repair shop owner cited in a controversial New York Post story is suing Twitter for defamation, claiming its content moderation choices falsely tarred him as a hacker.John Paul Mac Isaac was the owner of The Mac Shop, a Delaware computer repair business. In October, the New York Post reported that The Mac Shop had been paid to recover data from a laptop belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter, and it published emails and pictures allegedly from a copy of the hard drive. After the Post’s sourcing and conclusions were disputed, Facebook and Twitter both restricted the article’s reach, and Twitter pointed to its ban on posting “hacked materials” as an explanation.Mac Isaac claims Twitter specifically made this decision to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Trump administration has gained some experience losing in court recently, and has suffered setback after setback in its stance that TikTok should be banned in the US. Still, its pursuit of the video sharing app continues. On Monday, the Department of Justice filed an appeal of a judge’s order that blocked restrictions on TikTok in the US from taking effect.US District Judge Carl Nichols issued an order December 7th that blocked the Commerce Department’s restrictions on TikTok, which would have prevented new downloads of the app from US app stores. Nichols’ order followed an October order from US District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Pennsylvania, who issued an injunction against the ban. In that case, three content creators had... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The T-Mobile variant of the OnePlus 7T is on sale at B&H for $300, undercutting OnePlus’s own sale at $350. This matches the lowest price the phone has ever been, so if you’ve been looking for a flagship-specced phone at a budget price, this deal may be worth checking out.This being the T-Mobile variant, there are some caveats that B&H lists on its site:

There are about to be way, way, way more DC movies — and some will be released as HBO Max exclusives.Following the release of Wonder Woman 1984 last week, DC Films president Walter Hamada sat down with the New York Times to talk about the studio’s more aggressive release strategy. Starting in 2022, DC Films plans to release up to four films theatrically every year, with one or two extra as HBO Max exclusives.Currently, DC releases about one or two movies a year, and seen mixed success. Birds of Prey and Shazam! failed to perform well, while Aquaman and Wonder Woman saw impressive box office return. In 2019, Warner Bros. also saw tremendous success with Joker — a movie not tied into the greater DC universe that nonetheless became an... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge There are three moments this year that determined the scale of the COVID-19 catastrophe in the United States, argues New Yorker staff writer Lawrence Wright in a sweeping, searing look at the country’s year spent fighting (and failing) against COVID-19. The magazine is devoting an entire double-issue to cataloguing those missteps and the many other mistakes made by officials that set us on a path towards hundreds of thousands of deaths from the disease.The first happened January 3, when Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), spoke with his Chinese counterpart about a new respiratory virus. Redfield wanted to send a CDC team to China, but was turned down. Instead, the CDC was kept out of... Continue reading…

Image: Xaomi Xiaomi has announced their new flagship for 2021: the Mi 11. The Chinese variant of the phone sports a modified design and upgraded specs that give a good look at the kind of high-end features top Android phones will ship with in the coming year, according to AnandTech. There’s bound to be some changes to the European and global versions of the Mi 11, but for now this is an early peek into what’s likely to be 2021’s first major Android flagship.The changes to the design of the Mi 11 in comparison to the Mi 10 appear minor. From the front, the display is slightly larger at 6.81-inches in comparison to the Mi 10’s 6.67-inch screen. That extra space seems to have come from shrinking the bezels of the device (always welcome), while... Continue reading…

Image: Volkswagen Volkswagen says it’s made a prototype of the electric vehicle charging robot concept it first showed off in proof-of-concept form in late 2019, and that it plans to keep developing the idea. The giant German automaker apparently liked the concept so much that the prototype charging robot looks almost identical to the concept version, complete with blinking digital eyes and R2-D2 noises.The robot — which, shockingly for Volkswagen, doesn’t have a garish or cutesy name — works simply enough in theory. When you park your electric vehicle in a parking garage, you (or your car) can request to have the battery topped up. The robot unmoors from its docking station, hooks up to one of a dozen or so mobile batteries, which it then drags to your... Continue reading…

The Samsung S21 and S21 Plus will likely make a formal debut in a few short weeks | Photo: WinFuture We’ll likely see a formal Samsung Galaxy S21 announcement on January 14th, but thanks to a raft of detailed specs from WinFuture and an assortment of previous leaks, there won’t be much to speculate about until then. Heck, you can even go ahead and reserve a pre-order if you like what you see.This leak confirms some details that have surfaced previously, like the move from displays that curved slightly around the device edges to totally flat panels, and a redesigned camera bump that melds into the edges of the phone. WinFuture manages to identify a few new details though, including a slightly lower 2400 x 1080 screen resolution for both the S21 and S21 Plus, compared to the 3200 x 1440 resolution used by their predecessors. This equates... Continue reading…

Photo by Thaddaeus McAdams/Getty Images AT&T says its services have mostly recovered from a bombing that caused multi-state internet outages on Christmas. The explosion of an RV in Nashville injured three people and destroyed a section of the city’s downtown, including “significant damage” to a key AT&T transmission facility. This brought down wireless and wired networks across parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama — disrupting cell service, some 911 networks, and communications at the Nashville International Airport, which briefly grounded flights as a result.The AT&T building, located blocks away from the company’s better-known office tower, provides a regional network connection point in addition to local service. The blast reportedly damaged the building’s structure... Continue reading…

Photo: Vizio You can pick up Vizio’s 65-inch M-series (model M65Q7-H1) 4K TV for just $580 at Best Buy when you’re signed in with a free My Best Buy account. Otherwise, it’s $600. This model regularly costs $700, and today’s offer is a good one considering its size and specs. Not many TVs at this price point are going to be worth your money, but this one stands out with a QLED panel that offers more accurate contrast and colors than a standard LED.It also has four HDMI 2.0 ports with support for FreeSync variable refresh rate (up to 60Hz at 4K resolution). Vizio actually advertises HDMI 2.1 support here, but review site Rtings tested this model in-depth and claims that, even after a recent firmware update, all of its ports are limited to HDMI 2.0... Continue reading…

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge The quest to banish the notch from modern smartphone design has resulted in some pretty clever innovations, the latest of which happens to be the under-display selfie cam on the ZTE Axon 20 5G.The 32-megapixel camera hiding underneath the screen didn’t quite impress us in our review of the device earlier this month, but it is a worthy sidestep to the hole punch or the pop-up selfie cam we’ve seen in past devices. Now, a new teardown video from YouTuber JerryRigEverything gives us a closer look at how exactly the Axon 20’s under-display camera works.Beyond being just a generally insightful breakdown of the various components of a modern smartphone, the Axon 20 teardown shows us how ZTE is actually using two screens stacked on top of... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The first thing to do when you get a new phone is to log back into all your accounts — email, Facebook, Signal, and so on — to make sure you’re getting all the important notifications you need and messages from friends. But after that, you’ll want to install apps that replace the default tools (like the web browser or weather app) with something better, along with apps that’ll just make your day-to-day usage of the phone a lot more helpful.Here are our suggestions for where to start when setting up an Android phone.We’ve rounded up our favorite and most-used games, apps, and entertainment. Check out our app picks for iPhones, Android phones, Windows PCs, and M1-equipped Macs; our favorite mobile games from Apple Arcade and Google Play... Continue reading…

Image: Android Police Samsung’s Galaxy S21 lineup of phones will reportedly debut on January 14th. If there’s even a slight chance you might pick one up, you can now place a reservation to guarantee a preorder slot when those become available, which they usually do right after an Unpacked event ends.Samsung’s page will take down some basic information like your name, email address, and zip code in exchange for dibs on buying one of these new phones. You won’t pay anything to reserve your preorder — Samsung will collect that once you actually order the phone yourself. But what you can also do now is get a quote for a phone you might like to trade in.You can get up to $700 of instant trade-in credit toward the purchase of a Galaxy S21 if you trade an iPhone... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge If you’re lucky enough to have unwrapped a new iPhone as a holiday gift this year, you’ll probably want to install some new apps on it. Fortunately, we’re here to help with some suggestions. We’ve included great apps that are just generally fun or useful to have on your phone, and apps that you should download to replace the default ones that Apple ships.We’ve rounded up our favorite and most-used games, apps, and entertainment. Check out our app picks for iPhones, Android phones, Windows PCs, and M1-equipped Macs; our favorite mobile games from Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass; and our top choices for gaming PCs, the PS5, Xbox One and Series X / S, Nintendo Switch, and VR. We’ve also listed our favorite streaming shows on Disney Plus,... Continue reading…

James Doohan played Montgomery Scott in the original Star Trek TV show. | Photo: Getty Images The ashes of the late James Doohan, who played chief engineer Montgomery Scott on the original Star Trek television series, have been aboard the International Space Station for 12 years — and the Times of London has the fascinating backstory of how it happened. Doohan died in 2005 at the age of 85, and his family wanted to fulfill his wish of getting on the ISS.Official requests to bring Doohan’s ashes on the ISS were denied, but Richard Garriott — one of the first private citizens to travel on the space station — managed to smuggle some of Doohan’s ashes into the space station’s Columbus module. Garriott says he took a laminated picture of Doohan and some of his ashes and put it under the floor of the Columbus. He didn’t tell anyone... Continue reading…

Image: WarnerMedia Just two days after Wonder Woman 1984 hit theaters and HBO Max, Warner Bros. says it has put the third installment in the franchise on the fast track. Gal Gadot will reprise her role as Diana Prince/Wonder Woman and Patty Jenkins will once again write and direct, Warner Bros. chair Toby Emmerich said in a statement Sunday.“As fans around the world continue to embrace Diana Prince, driving the strong opening weekend performance of Wonder Woman 1984, we are excited to be able continue her story with our real life Wonder Women — Gal and Patty — who will return to conclude the long-planned theatrical trilogy,” Emmerich said.According to Warner Bros., Wonder Woman 1984’s opening weekend went better than expected, selling $16.7 million in... Continue reading…

Denzel Washington and Rami Malek star in The Little Things. | Image: Warner Bros. So I watched Wonder Woman 1984, and I may need to watch it a second time before I decide what I think, because right now I think it’s sort of a parody of 1980s movies that doesn’t quite hit the mark despite a fine performance by Pedro Pascal (The Mandalorian!) as the villain. Also about to wrap season 7 in my binge-watch of Homeland... I’ve stuck with it this long, so need to find out how it all ends. Note to self though: pick something a little less dystopian for the next binge-watching project.It’s our final trailer wrap-up for 2020 and we have a little bit of everything: a drama, a documentary, a “psychological thriller,” and a comedy.TigerA two-part documentary about the life and career of Tiger Woods — yes, it’s being called... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge To all of you who got a new Apple device for Christmas, congrats! But you might have had some difficulty setting up and signing in to iCloud along with other Apple users. First reported by Apple Insider, as of Saturday morning, Apple’s system status page was showing “some users affected” by an issue that began at around 4:45AM ET on December 25th.Nearly 36 hours later, the issue appears to be over. A status update at 4:35PM ET Saturday shows the issue as “resolved.”The issue appeared to be affecting multiple devices. The system status page didn’t show issues with any other parts of iCloud or other Apple services.Apple Support tweeted Friday afternoon that it was aware of the issue, and said it was “experiencing a high capacity at... Continue reading…

Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge Lei Jun, the CEO of Chinese phone maker Xiaomi, has confirmed that its upcoming Mi 11 phone will not come with a charger, citing environmental concerns. While that’s a legitimate argument against providing yet another hunk of plastic that resembles all the other chargers people already have, Xiaomi joined other phone makers who poked fun at Apple a few short months ago for not including chargers with the iPhone 12.Jun made the remarks on Chinese social media site Weibo, saying people have many chargers which creates an environmental burden, and therefore the company was canceling the charger for the Mi 11. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun said on Weibo the Mi 11 would come without a charger Apple’s decision not to include... Continue reading…

The anticipated CyberPunk 2077 launch wasn’t just a disaster for gamers, but for the game’s investors, too. A lawsuit filed yesterday against CD Projekt, the company behind Cyberpunk, claims investors were misled about the game’s performance ahead of its release, causing a significant stock price drop and losses. CD Projekt allegedly failed to convey that the game was “virtually unplayable,” the lawsuit states, and instead marketed it as a success with a few issues that would go unnoticed by players. The plaintiff, Andrew Trampe, is looking to include other investors in the suit to turn it into a class action.CD Projekt said in a court filing it would “vigorously” defend itself against the investor’s claims, Bloomberg reported.Since... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge We’re now at a point where you can comfortably describe the Nintendo Switch as “mature.” It’s no longer a new device, but one several years into its life, with a robust and varied line-up of games available. There’s a good chance you picked up a Switch to play one of Nintendo’s tentpole franchises — whether that’s Super Mario, Animal Crossing, or Pokémon — but there are a lot of different kinds of experiences available on the tablet. That includes big social titles, classic games, and inventive indie releases. Heck, one of my favorite experiences this year has been relearning chess on the Switch.If you’re new to the Switch ecosystem, here are 10 great games to get you started.We’ve rounded up our favorite and most-used games, apps, and... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Whether you’ve just gotten a new Windows-based gaming laptop or desktop, or you just want some new game ideas, we have ten suggestions to make your gaming experience fun. Not all of them are new or the most graphically demanding, but they should provide you with hours of enjoyment.Unlike gaming on a console, there are several ways for PC gamers to get their fix, from Steam and the Epic Game Store to GOG and Xbox Game Pass. It’s important to know that not all platforms offer the same games due to exclusivity rights. But in most cases, you can (and should) shop around — you might find a better price at one storefront versus the other.We’ve rounded up our favorite and most-used games, apps, and entertainment. Check out our app picks for i... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla’s new holiday update will finally give people the ability to use a new Boombox mode, which can broadcast custom audio on the outside of the car (hence the name). As is common with new Tesla features, Boombox combines real utility with lowbrow humor: owners can use fart and goat sounds in lieu of normal, boring honking sounds car horns usually make.The mode rolled out with a number of other updates as part of Tesla’s firmware 2020.48.26 update, and is something Tesla fans have eagerly anticipated. In the new mode, which can be seen at the timestamped section in the video below, several sounds are available for Tesla owners through the Toybox section they can use in place of a regular horn: goat baaing, applause, a little “tada”... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Whether you recently bought or soon plan to buy an Xbox Series X or an Xbox Series S, or are sticking with your Xbox One console, it’s sure nice to have a stack of good games to play. And what better way to do that than to barely spend any money at all? Individual games, while sometimes worth the cost, can be pricey. Instead, you can get a ton of value out of a Game Pass Ultimate subscription.For $14.99 per month ($1 for each of your first three months if you’re a new subscriber), the all-in-one Game Pass Ultimate subscription gets you access to a growing number of games to download and exclusive discounts on popular games. You also get the ability to download games on consoles and Android devices.If you only want to run games on a PC,... Continue reading…

Photo by Joseph Okpako/Getty Images Anyone flying into the United States from the United Kingdom will have to test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours before their flight, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday. The agency cited concerns over a new variant of the coronavirus as the reason for the rule, which goes into effect Monday.The coronavirus, like all viruses, has regularly mutated as it has spread through the population. Most mutations don’t make a virus behave any differently, but this new variant, which emerged in the UK, does appear to spread more easily than other forms of the virus. It does not appear to make people sicker and does not seem to be more deadly, although researchers are still studying that question. Experts say the... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you’re one of the lucky few who has snagged a PlayStation 5 since it launched in early November — congratulations. Securing a next-gen console, especially Sony’s, has been no easy feat, and there’s no telling when buying one won’t involve a mad online rush that’s basically no different than a chaotic lottery.If you did secure a PS5, you’re probably wondering what exactly you can play on it. After all, next-gen consoles rarely launch with rich libraries of new games. Instead, game console makers tend to reserve a handful of launch titles to hold over the early adopters until at least a year or so into the device’s life cycle, when the development of new titles really starts to pick up.The good news is that the new consoles from... Continue reading…

What’s the cruelest prank you can make on employees who are struggling during a global pandemic when millions of people have lost their jobs or lives? GoDaddy — a web domain registrar once best known for its sexist advertisements — tried to find out when it sent employees a fake email informing them they’d receive a $650 holiday bonus. As The Copper Courier originally reported, GoDaddy sent an email phishing “test” to its employees promising much-needed money; “2020 has been a record year for GoDaddy, thanks to you!”, it said. “Though we cannot celebrate together during our annual Holiday Party, we want to show our appreciation and share a $650 one—time Holiday bonus!”The employees who clicked the link then reportedly received an email... Continue reading…

Warner Bros. ruffled some feathers when it announced it would release all of its new 2021 movies simultaneously on HBO Max, but the company seems to be betting that theaters won’t become an apocalyptic wasteland. Variety reports that the company plans to release Furiosa, the prequel to Max Max: Fury Road, and The Color Purple first in theaters in 2023.Warner’s plan to launch next year’s films online is a great thing for consumers who would rather stay at home than risk contracting a deadly virus to see, say, Godzilla vs. Kong. But the plan immediately made enemies of some Hollywood veterans. Director Christopher Nolan called HBO Max “the worst streaming service” and accused Warner Bros. of not telling anyone about its plan until just 90... Continue reading…

Great in concept, but there’s a limit to what Alexa can do on a phone Continue reading…

Image: Warner Bros. December 25th is going to be a big deal for streaming, with blockbusters like Wonder Woman 1984 and Soul debuting on HBO Max and Disney Plus, respectively, alongside hyped streaming shows like Netflix’s Bridgerton and We Can Be Heroes. If you’re planning a big Christmas Day marathon, here’s when each of those pieces of content will debut, so you can plan ahead.Wonder Woman 1984 will be the last to debut, arriving at 12PM ET on Christmas Day. That means you should have some time to unwrap and set up any new streaming or A/V gear before it debuts on HBO Max. Given the usual 3AM or midnight release times for streaming shows, it’s worth taking note of the noon ET drop here when making your movie marathon plans.Soul will arrive on Disney... Continue reading…

Alex Castro Happy holidays! Here is our gift to you: over an hour of audio content exclusively dedicated to HDMI.If you’re lucky this holiday season, you may be opening up a new PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, or Xbox Series S. And with that, a brand-new HDMI 2.1 cable — ready to game in 4K at 120Hz.HDMI 2.1 is an updated HDMI standard that expands the bandwidth of HDMI up to 48Gbps, allowing the ability for multiple features like variable refresh rate (VRR), auto low latency mode (ALLM), and enhanced audio return channel (eARC). It also supports high resolution and refresh rates like 8K60 and 4K120, and all of these features can upgrade your console gaming significantly.Both your TV and HDMI cable need to support HDMI 2.1 to unlock these... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel, Photography by Jim Spellman/WireImage & Astrid Stawiar via Getty Images Behind Tony Robbins’ dangerous approach to the pandemic Continue reading…

The upcoming Galaxy Buds Pro collection. | Evan Blass More details of Samsung’s unannounced Galaxy Buds Pro wireless earbuds with active noise cancelation have leaked, including the price.According to slides shared on Twitter by WalkingCat, the Galaxy Buds Pro will cost $199 at launch making them $80 cheaper than the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds, our noise-canceling champions. Samsung’s pro buds will feature strong IPX7 durability against dust and water, and up to 8 hours of listening time which can be extended to 28 hours with the charging case. WalkingCat provides this handy chart to compare specs across all of Samsung’s wireless buds. Image: WalkingCat Samsung Buds comparison chart. WalkingCat also shared a slide showing an exploded view of the new active noise... Continue reading…

Photo by Pauline Acalin for The Verge Elon Musk thinks it’s a “good idea” to create a holding company above Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company — at least, that’s what the billionaire CEO said in response to the idea on Twitter. Such a holding company could be simply known as “X,” longtime Tesla shareholder Dave Lee suggested, in a nod to Musk’s ownership of “X.com” from his PayPal days.Musk notoriously entertains changes, big and small, to his companies in Twitter’s public square. In 2018 he even suggested one so large (and largely baseless) — taking Tesla private using “funding secured” from Saudi Arabia — that he wound up in court.It was only five years ago that Google surprise-announced a similar shakeupBut the idea here isn’t so far outside the realm of... Continue reading…

Nuro is now the first company in California that’s allowed to operate autonomous cars commercially (via TechCrunch). The company received a permit that allowed it to test its robots earlier this year, but this permit will allow the firm to actually charge people for the service.According to a Medium post by Nuro’s chief legal and policy officer, the company is planning to “announce [its] first deployment in California with an established partner.” Who that partner is remains to be seen, but it’s likely to be a delivery service that can make use of Nuro’s completely driverless Prius vehicles, though the company plans on (literally) rolling out its own custom R2 bots later on.The permit, issued by the California DMV, only allows the... Continue reading…

Image: Funko Inc. In what will hopefully be the last surprise of 2020, Netflix’s The Queen’s Gambit is getting its own set of Pop! Vinyl figurines from Funko. The three figurines will feature Anya Taylor-Joy’s main character, Beth Harmon, in a variety of outfits from the show, none of which are chess-related, but all of which are stylish. Fans can purchase the Pops to own a piece of the show’s unique aesthetic, filtered through Funko’s dead-eyed one, but the real question is, why is The Queen’s Gambit getting Funko Pops?If you’ll allow me to speculate wildly, maybe The Queen’s Gambit is getting a Funko Pop, not because it’s a Netflix show that’s both critically well-received and popular according to Netflix’s own metrics, but rather because “getting... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge If you own a PS4 or PS5 and need to renew your PlayStation Plus membership soon, Eneba has an incredible deal on its website right now: Verge readers can get two one-year PlayStation Plus subscriptions for only $58 by entering offer code VERGEPLUS at checkout. This is a real bargain — normally, one year of PlayStation Plus retails for $60. So if you are looking to stock up on this subscription for a couple of years or want to keep one and gift the other, take advantage of this deal — it will likely sell out quickly.PlayStation Plus is a paid online subscription service that comes with a ton of perks for members, including occasional discounts during PlayStation Store sales and free games that switch up usually on a monthly cadence,... Continue reading…

Cyberpunk 2077 is still fighting its way through some terrible (and hilarious) glitches, but developer CD Projekt Red is killing the nastiest bugs fairly quickly: today’s just-released 1.06 hotfix should keep your PC save files from getting irrevocably corrupted if they grow larger than 8MB in size. Yes, that was actually an issue before today.On console, the game should also have “fewer crashes” due to “improved memory management and stability,” and a character named Dum Dum (who I have not yet personally met in my first run at the game, please do not judge me, I have kids) will no longer vanish in the middle of a quest. Image: GOG.com support document The prompt shown for corrupted saves in Cyberpunk 2077. ... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has added a layer of scrutiny for research papers on sensitive topics including gender, race, and political ideology. A senior manager also instructed researchers to “strike a positive tone” in a paper this summer. The news was first reported by Reuters.“Advances in technology and the growing complexity of our external environment are increasingly leading to situations where seemingly inoffensive projects raise ethical, reputational, regulatory or legal issues,” the policy read. Three employees told Reuters the rule started in June.The company has also asked employees to “refrain from casting its technology in a negative light” on multiple occasions, Reuters says.Employees working on a paper on recommendation AI, which is... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang has filed paperwork to run for mayor of New York. NBC 4 New York first reported the news, citing confirmation from the city’s Campaign Finance Board. Yang will be running to replace current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is term-limited.A longtime New York resident, Yang first drew attention as a candidate in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, focusing his campaign on the promise of a universal basic income. Yang was also outspoken about the threats posed by automation, and how its economic consequences were driving forward the opioid epidemic and a broader social dislocation.While Yang’s campaign was successful in cultivating a dedicated following, he failed to attract broader... Continue reading…

Fans of Daft Punk’s incredible Tron: Legacy score will receive a pretty good holiday gift this year: an extended version that’s now available on Spotify and Apple Music.Tron: Legacy The Complete Edition adds nine tracks that weren’t available on the original score, according to Polygon. Here’s the catch: these aren’t new songs. Some are iTunes exclusives; others are tracks that were only available on vinyl. There’s also an Amazon MP3 bonus track and — get this — a Nokia Music Store bonus track. The Complete Edition simply marks the first time it’s all been collected in one place.Even though the tracks aren’t new, I’m excited about having an extended, complete version of the score available on Spotify. I love Tron: Legacy and adore... Continue reading…