The Verge

One of my favorite things to do whenever new consoles come out is see how sports games run on them. It’s not that I necessarily expect them to be all that different on more powerful hardware — quite the opposite, in fact. Since sports games tend to depict enclosed, fixed environments and need to have perfectly smooth performance every year, they’re normally stable and reliable whatever system you play them on.If you look at FIFA, NBA 2K, and Madden, for example, they already run at native 4K and 60 frames per second on the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X — a pretty rare achievement for most games on those machines. But that means when it comes to the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, 2K and EA have had to figure out new ways to make the next-gen... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge As the holidays get closer (and with some arriving now — Happy Hanukkah!), we’re searching for tech deals that make for easy, relatively affordable gifts. It’s always nice when the selection fits a particular theme, but sometimes you’ve got to take what you can get. Like today, wherein we have a great buy one, get one half off deal on some Nintendo Switch games at Target, a solid deal on lightly used Sony WH-1000XM4 wireless, noise-canceling headphones, and a few other odds and ends.Nintendo Switch game dealsSome of Nintendo’s own titles for the Switch are looped into a buy one, get one half off deal at Target, including must-have games like Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario Party, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Mario Tennis Aces, Splatoon 2, and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge For years, critics have argued that Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram was a missed opportunity to rein in the company. But now, they’ll have the chance to actually undo it. On Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission joined with 48 state attorneys general to call for a court-ordered divestiture of Instagram and WhatsApp — essentially, forcing Facebook to undo both acquisitions and spin them back into independent companies.Regulators are still a long way from making that happen, but for the first time, it’s a possibility that Facebook can’t ignore. And for Instagram users, it raises a question that’s both alarming and tantalizing: what would Instagram look like without Facebook?In the years since the 2012 acquisition,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro I.After writing about the potential breakup of Facebook for years, it’s somewhat surreal for me to see the prospect actually arrive. But it’s here: the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 to sue Facebook for illegally maintaining a monopoly in social networking, arguing it has used acquisitions and harsh restrictions on third-party developers to prevent competitors from ever gaining a foothold.If successful, the FTC’s case — which was joined by 46 states, the District of Columbia, and Guam — could force the company to divest itself of Instagram and WhatsApp, radically reshaping the digital economy. The move comes less than six weeks after the Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit accusing Google of also maintaining an illegal... Continue reading…

Cyberpunk 2077 isn’t just one of the biggest games of the year; it’s also one of the most technically demanding. CD Projekt Red’s ambitious roleplaying game takes place in a huge, dense open world, and — as anyone who has ever played a Bethesda game can attest to — technology is often a step behind the designers in these kinds of experiences. Glitches and bugs are not uncommon occurrences, and early demos are far cries from what the game may look like on the standard hardware most players have in their living room.Cyberpunk is also somewhat unique in that it’s releasing across a number of different platforms at launch — nine, to be exact. We initially reviewed Cyberpunk on PC, where we ran into a handful of glitches that were annoying... Continue reading…

In 1902, famed inventor and futurist Nikola Tesla set up shop on Long Island to begin work on his grandest experiment yet. He imagined the construction of a worldwide wireless power delivery system: a network of towers that could light up cities, send communications, and even power aircraft in the sky, all without wires. On the grounds of his lab, he built the first prototype transmission device, a massive structure that came to be known as the Wardenclyffe Tower.Today, of course, we live in a profoundly wired world. Over-the-air communication is ubiquitous. But with a handful of exceptions like cellphones and toothbrushes, we still send and receive electricity through wires.So what went happened to Tesla’s big ambition? We traveled to... Continue reading…

The Game Awards What better way to finish off 2020 than with a bunch of new game announcements? That’s what you can expect when you watch The Game Awards, hosted by Geoff Keighley. As the name implies, it’s also when individuals and companies receive accolades for their work in making the best games of the year. It’ll be hard to top last year’s unveiling of the Xbox Series X, but there should still be a few surprises we won’t see coming.Unlike in years past, this event is online only, so there won’t be any attendees. That should speed up the doling out of awards, making way for the game announcements. It’s what we’re all watching for, right? Here’s how you can tune in.When do the Game Awards start?It’s all happening on Thursday, December 10th. You... Continue reading…

Amazon Fulfillment Center with solar panels in Baltimore, Maryland. | Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images Amazon now claims that it is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy in the world. The company’s investment in wind and solar projects grew to 6.5 GW, enough to power 1.7 million homes in the US for a year. That surpasses Google, which previously said it held the title as the biggest corporate buyer with 5.5 GW of renewable energy projects under contract.Amazon surpasses GoogleThe move is part of Amazon’s commitment to limit the damage it does to the planet. Last year, it pledged to reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by 2040, meaning it will take measures to reduce its planet-heating pollution as much as possible and then cancel out the rest with carbon offsets. It also said its physical infrastructure would run... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge You might have run into trouble messaging someone on Facebook or Instagram this morning. A service outage took down Facebook Messenger and Instagram DMs for many users, with new messages failing to send and old messages failing to load.The outage appears to have started around 4:30AM ET and gotten worse (or, at least, more widely noticed) in the following hours. The website Downdetector, which monitors website outages, showed a spike in users reporting issues with these services that peaked around 8:30AM.Facebook says the disruptions have since been resolved. “Earlier today, some people have experienced trouble sending or receiving messages on Messenger, Instagram or Workplace Chat. The issue has since been resolved and we apologize... Continue reading…

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge At $549, they need to deliver more than just good sound Continue reading…

Leica SL2-S | Photo: Leica Leica is expanding its line of full-frame interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras with the new SL2-S. As its name implies, the SL2-S is a variation of the SL2 that came out last year and it shares many features and similarities with that camera. But that S tagged on to the end means it is something different, and it might as well stand for speed.The SL2-S has the same body, design, build quality, LCD touchscreen, viewfinder, battery, in-body image stabilization, and autofocus system as the SL2. What’s different is its sensor: instead of the high-resolution 47.3-megapixel chip found in the SL2, the SL2-S has a brand-new, backside-illuminated 24-megapixel sensor. That lower resolution allows it to capture up to 25 frames per second with... Continue reading…

Instagram Instagram is covering its app with shopping content. Today, the company announced that shopping is rolling out to Reels, its TikTok copycat product, around the world. It announced a test of this feature in October. Businesses and creators will be able to tag products when they create Reels, and viewers can tap through those tags to buy or save them. A branded content tag is also available for influencers who are paid for their posts. With this rollout, Instagram now has shopping available in every format on the app — the Feed, Stories, IGTV, and Live.Shopping is important to Instagram, and Facebook more broadly, as it looks to diversify its revenue. Ads are the primary way both platforms make money, but shopping presents an opportunity... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge France’s data protection regulator, the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés or CNIL, has fined Google and Amazon a total of €135 million (around $163 million) between them for violating the country’s data protection laws. Google was fined a total of €100 million (around $121 million), while Amazon was fined €35 million (around $42 million).In both cases, CNIL’s complaints were similar. It said that in the past, when users visited either company’s French website, cookies — including some used for advertising — were placed on their devices without prior consent. Although both have since updated their websites to require a user’s consent before placing cookies, the regulator criticized their cookie information banners... Continue reading…

Photo: MOFT MOFT is a company that’s made iPhone accessories in the past, and it’s now releasing a competitor to Apple’s $50 MagSafe wallet. MOFT’s version, which goes on sale today, costs only $30 and holds three cards like Apple’s, but it also has a built-in kickstand. The stand lets users keep their phone upright in portrait, landscape, or what the company is calling “float mode”, which you can see in the image below. It’s made of vegan leather, as opposed to Apple’s “European leather”, which makes it an option for people who don’t want to use animal-based products. Photo: MOFT Using magnets instead of adhesive makes the float mode possible. This new accessory seems to be a tweaked version of MOFT’s existing X Phone... Continue reading…

Teaser videos of the upcoming phones recently leaked online. | Image: Android Police Samsung’s next flagship smartphone lineup, the Galaxy S21 series, will launch globally on January 14th, Android Authority is reporting. The date was revealed by Samsung’s largest mobile experience store in India, and SamMobile subsequently confirmed the date with a company official at Samsung’s local offices. Although Android Authority reports this as the global launch date, Samsung HQ has yet to confirm it.Although a January launch is earlier than the February Unpacked events we’ve become accustomed to in recent years, this isn’t the first time this date has been rumored. Earlier this week, Android Police reported a January 14th launch based on its own sources.The phones will reportedly go on sale on January 29th in India, according... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is launching new vaccine information panels in its search results to counter misinformation and educate people about what’s available in their location, the company announced today. The panels are rolling out starting in the United Kingdom, where the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine is approved and is being administered, and will be introduced in more countries as local health authorities begin authorizing vaccines.The panels include information on each individual vaccine, and aim to address vaccine misinformation, and give guidance about how, when, and where people can receive the shots. Google has used similar information panels to share information about COVID-19 generally, as well as the locations of testing centers. ... Continue reading…

Apple Factory Apple has been complicit in its suppliers’ violations of Chinese labor laws, according to a report from The Information. Suppliers have periodically filled their factories with temporary workers or “dispatch labor,” violating a Chinese labor law requiring no more than 10 percent of a factory’s workers be temporary employees.Much like in the US, temporary employees in China receive lower pay and fewer benefits, and they’ve become increasingly common as interest in factory jobs has shrunk according to The Information’s sources. The law limiting the use of dispatch labor came into effect in 2014, and that year Apple conducted a survey of its suppliers in China to determine how many already complied. The company found that among 362... Continue reading…

Image: Samsung Over the last couple years, Samsung has showed off (and sold to a very rich few) its futuristic, modular TV dubbed The Wall that uses MicroLED technology. MicroLED shares many of OLED’s best traits — without most of the associated drawbacks — and is widely viewed as the next big upgrade leap for the displays in our lives. Now, Samsung is taking MicroLED and putting it into a more traditional TV form factor. Today the company announced the 110-inch MicroLED TV, which goes up for presale today in Korea and will launch globally in the first quarter of 2021.As for the first question that probably comes to mind, no, Samsung isn't yet revealing a price for this enormous TV using the latest picture technology. But you can expect it’ll cost... Continue reading…

Sony will be buying anime streaming service Crunchyroll from AT&T for $1.175 billion, Sony and AT&T announced Wednesday. Specifically, Crunchyroll will become part of Sony’s Funimation, which already licenses many popular shows such as Attack on Titan, Fullmetal Alchemist, and One Piece.Now that Sony owns both Crunchyroll and Funimation, the company has tremendous power over anime in the US at a time when many other media companies are trying to figure out their anime content. Netflix has also invested heavily in both licensing and producing its own anime content.“We are excited to embark on this new journey”“We are excited to embark on this new journey,” said Joanne Waage, general manager of Crunchyroll, in a statement. “Crunchyroll... Continue reading…

On Tuesday, Florida state police entered the home of Rebekah Jones with guns drawn, seizing her computer and phone, in an attempt to prove that she’d sent an unauthorized “group text” through “a Department of Health messaging system” that is “to be used for emergencies only,” according to authorities.There are now two reasons why that’s significant. First, as we reported at the time, Jones isn’t just any former Florida Department of Health employee: she’s the whistleblower who built Florida’s once-celebrated COVID-19 tracking dashboard, then accused her bosses of ordering her to manipulate Florida’s data to justify reopening the state.Second, it’s now come to our attention that the supposedly private messaging system that Jones might... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Wednesday afternoon, the Federal Trade Commission and a coalition of 48 state attorneys general filed broad antitrust charges against Facebook, seeking a reversal of its acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram. Now, Facebook has responded to those charges in an extensive post titled “Lawsuits Filed by the FTC and the State Attorneys General Are Revisionist History,” written by general counsel Jennifer Newstead.Newstead’s primary defense is that both acquisitions resulted in better products for consumers — an implicit reference to the “consumer harm” standard that has also been central to the Department of Justice’s case against Google.“Regulators correctly allowed these deals to move forward”“These transactions were intended to... Continue reading…

During a test flight on Wednesday, SpaceX flew a prototype of its next generation Starship rocket to its highest height yet in the skies above Texas — but failed to stick the landing, with the vehicle exploding when it hit the ground. Propelled by three main engines, the vehicle launched to an altitude of nearly 8 miles, or 12.5 kilometers, before crash landing into the Earth.The nearly seven-minute test flight took off at around 5:45PM ET from SpaceX’s facility at Boca Chica, Texas. The prototype climbed to its target altitude, but during the flight, two of its three main engines seemingly shut down while it ascended. Eventually all three engines cut off, and SpaceX attempted to perform a “bell flop” maneuver, with the vehicle falling... Continue reading…

A photo of the chest hidden by Forrest Fenn. | Photo: Forrest Fenn Finding a long-hidden treasure in the woods of Wyoming seems like a tall tale that would be told around a campfire, but it happens to be reality for Jack Stuef. As with many treasure hunting stories, though, the intrigue isn’t over just because the prize has been found. Stuef had been trying to stay anonymous and had done so until this week, but now he says he’s been forced to reveal his identity after a lawsuit was filed alleging that he obtained the treasure through hacking and stalking.The chest in question, filled with 22 pounds of treasure-y things like gold coins and jewelry, was hidden by Forrest Fenn, a Santa Fe art dealer, and has been the object of a widely publicized hunt that’s been going on since 2010. Stuef’s desire for... Continue reading…

TikTok’s fan-made crowdsourced Ratatouille musical is making the jump from social media to the stage. Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical is going to debut as an actual show for a one-night-only concert on January 1st, which will benefit The Actors Fund.The streamed show will be produced by Seaview Productions (best known for producing Slave Play, the most Tony Award-nominated show in Broadway history) and is being presented “in association with TikTok.”The so-called Ratatouille musical — based on the 2007 Disney / Pixar film — has been percolating over the past several months on TikTok. What started as a one-off bit has slowly snowballed into a massive undertaking, with bored Broadway fans, composers, set designers, costume makers,... Continue reading…

Humpback whales, mother and calf, near Socorro, Revillagigedo Islands, Mexico. | Photo by Reinhard Dirscherl / ullstein bild via Getty Images The economic fallout from COVID-19 has temporarily muted some of the noise coming from maritime traffic. That’s given scientists a rare opportunity to study what happens to marine life when humans quiet down.Humans today pollute oceans with whirring ship propellers and booming air guns searching for oil and gas deposits. Seeing whales and other creatures’ behavior now that the pandemic has quieted things down is like a peek into what marine life was like before humans drastically turned up the volume over the past 200 years.“Once in a lifetime opportunity to study whale communication in natural quiet”“It’s like this horrible pandemic confined us humans into really small spaces but gave the whales back a lot of room to grow, both... Continue reading…

On Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence hosted his last meeting of the National Space Council in Florida, using the opportunity to announce a list of NASA astronauts who will be considered for future missions to the Moon as part of NASA’s Artemis program.This cadre of astronauts — dubbed the Artemis Team — includes 18 astronauts, some with past flight experience and some who have yet to fly to space. The list includes some notable names, such as Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, the two women who made history by performing the first all-women spacewalk. Two of the astronauts, Victor Glover and Kate Rubins, are currently living on board the International Space Station. Five of the 18 made an appearance at the National Space Council... Continue reading…

Photo by Silvio Avila / AFP via Getty Images Boeing’s troubled 737 Max made its first commercial flight since March 2019 today, marking the end of a 20-month grounding following two deadly crashes that killed 346 people. Brazil’s Gol Airlines was the first in the world to put paying customers on the plane again since the Federal Aviation Administration approved its return to flight in November. A 737 Max 8 ferried passengers from Sao Paulo to Porto Alegre, according to The Associated Press.Gol Airlines told the publication it plans to use the 737 Max in regular service starting later this month, and passengers who don’t want to fly on the plane will be able to exchange their tickets.Other airlines are getting ready to bring the plane back into their fleets, too. American... Continue reading…

Kamen, 9, attends an online class at his home in Sofia, Bulgaria. | Photo by NIKOLAY DOYCHINOV/AFP via Getty Images The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has filed a complaint with the DC Attorney General’s office against five online test-proctoring services: Respondus, ProctorU, Proctorio, Examity, and Honorlock. EPIC claims that the firms violate the privacy rights of students.The five companies sell software designed to prevent cheating in online tests and exams. Some are designed to track applications that are running on test-takers’ computers or restrict access to certain programs during the testing period. Others track students’ activity during the test via their webcams and microphones and flag potentially suspicious behavior to their instructor, using either algorithms or live monitoring. In some cases, test-takers need to show a... Continue reading…

Redbox has added on-demand movies to its free ad-supported streaming service in a section called Free On Demand (via Engadget). Last February, the company launched Free Live TV, with ad-supported live TV channels from specific publishers like Tastemade and curated channels based on genres. Free movies now make that offering a bit more enticing.Redbox is still best known for its red kiosks for renting DVDs and Blu-rays, but free streaming and its digital rental service now allow the company to reach customers who might not have a kiosk in their area or don’t own a DVD or Blu-ray player.The selection in Free On Demand lacks some of the big blockbusters and classics that you might expect from a streaming service, but there are a few... Continue reading…

Sometime today, SpaceX hopes to conduct a pivotal test flight of its next-generation Starship rocket, flying a prototype of the vehicle to its highest altitude yet. The company plans to launch the massive rocket to a height of nearly 8 miles, or 12.5 kilometers, up above SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas, before landing the vehicle back down on the ground again.The test is meant to prove out Starship’s capability of launching and landing upright, something the spacecraft will be expected to do both on Earth and on other worlds. SpaceX aims to use Starship to send cargo and people to deep-space destinations like the Moon and Mars. A test like this will help demonstrate Starship’s ability to perform a controlled flight and see if... Continue reading…

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Google CEO Sundar Pichai addressed the controversial departure of AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru in an email to staff on Wednesday. “We need to accept responsibility for the fact that a prominent Black, female leader with immense talent left Google unhappily,” he wrote. News of the email was first published by Axios.While Pichai did not say Gebru was fired as she and many others have claimed, he promised to review the steps that led to her leaving the company. “We need to assess the circumstances that led up to Dr. Gebru’s departure, examining where we could have improved and led a more respectful process,” he wrote.He also apologized for how Gebru’s departure had “led some in our community to question their place at Google” and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple has clarified that its mandatory app privacy “nutrition labels” program will apply to all apps, whether they’re from third-party developers or Apple’s own. It’s an apparent response to criticism from WhatsApp earlier today that the program unfairly favored Apple’s services.That means Apple’s apps on the App Store will receive similar privacy labels when the program rolls out later this year as third-party apps. And for the few iOS apps that aren’t available in the App Store — like Messages, a particular point of contention for WhatsApp — they will have the same privacy information available on Apple’s website.The statement follows a complaint from WhatsApp from earlier today in which the messaging service claimed that Apple’s... Continue reading…

The upcoming Moto G Stylus 2021. | Image via Phone Arena Detailed specs and images of the 2021 Moto G Stylus have leaked by way of an early Amazon listing, as spotted by Phone Arena. This iteration on the stylus-having, budget-friendly device looks to borrow features from this year’s Moto G9 Plus, including a 6.8-inch FHD+ display that’s slightly larger than its predecessor’s 6.4-inch screen. Amazon’s (now removed) page lists a price of $341, which is unlikely to be the final MSRP, but it’s a bit higher than the original G Stylus’ $299 introductory price.One of the things we liked best about the prior G Stylus was the image quality from its camera, and Motorola appears to have tweaked the hardware setup in the 2021 version. Aside from a 48-megapixel main rear camera, it adopts the quad-camera... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a massive antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, claiming the social media giant has harmed competition by buying up smaller companies like Instagram and WhatsApp to squash the threat they posed to its business. Forty-seven other state and regional attorneys general are joining the suit.The lawsuit centers on Facebook’s acquisitions, particularly its $1 billion purchase of Instagram in 2011. In addition to its acquisition strategy, the attorneys general allege that Facebook used the power and reach of its platform to stifle user growth for competing services.“Facebook has broken the law. It must be broken up.”“For nearly a decade, Facebook has used its dominance and monopoly... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Wednesday, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a massive antitrust lawsuit against Facebook, claiming the social media giant has harmed competition by buying up smaller companies like Instagram and WhatsApp to squash the threat they posed to its business. Forty-seven other state and regional attorneys general are joining the suit.The lawsuit centers on Facebook’s history of acquisitions starting, particularly its $1 billion purchase of Instagram in 2011. In emails revealed by the House of Representatives’ antitrust subcommittee hearing this past summer, Zuckerberg characterized his intent to buy Instagram in emails to his David Ebersman, then Facebook’s chief financial officer, as both a way to neutralize a competitor... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrej Sokolow / picture alliance via Getty Images Cruise, the self-driving car company affiliated with General Motors and Honda, is testing fully driverless cars, without a human safety driver behind the steering wheel, in San Francisco. The company is among the first to test its driverless vehicles in a dense, complex urban environment.“Getting to driverless in SF took more than five years of rigorous testing, over 2 million miles of driving in one of the craziest driving environments, together with hard work from a huge team of dedicated engineers and others across Cruise, as well as at GM,” Cruise CEO Dan Ammann said in a call with reporters. “And not to mention several billion dollars of investment along the way.” To be sure, the vehicles are not completely alone... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon The software that runs on Amazon’s Fire TV streaming devices is set to undergo a significant overhaul in the coming weeks, and the rollout of the “new Fire TV experience” begins today on some devices. After the update is installed, you’ll have access to new features like multiuser support (with personalized recommendations and watch lists for each profile) and a streamlined interface that makes it faster to reach your favorite entertainment apps.When you’re in the mood to watch something but you’re not sure what, there’s also a new “Find” tab that brings together movies, TV shows, free ad-supported content, and sports from various services. Image: Amazon You can now have individual user profiles on the Fire TV... Continue reading…

At launch, Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PlayStation 5 was able to run at 60fps in Performance mode or at 30fps but with ray tracing in Fidelity mode, meaning that you’d have to pick between buttery-smooth frame rates or higher graphical fidelity while playing through the game. Thanks to a new mode added in an update, though, you can now run the game at 60fps and with ray tracing turned on.The new mode is called “Performance RT,” and you can turn it on in settings. “This is an alternate version of the 60 frames per second ‘Performance’ mode, adding ray-tracing by adjusting the scene resolution, reflection quality, and pedestrian density,” according to the description of the new mode.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Today, Twitch is announcing changes to its policies around harassment and hateful conduct. The reason, the company says, is because marginalized people — “women, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, Black, Indigenous, and people of color,” the company wrote in a blog post — are disproportionately harassed on the site. The new policy is far more specific about what constitutes harassment and abuse. The larger changes include stricter protections around sexual harassment, the policy extending off platform to an extent, and that enforcement in cases that are harder to judge will rely on external signals that the behavior was unwanted (like channel timeouts).A bigger overhaul has come to Twitch’s policy regarding sexual harassment; it’s now... Continue reading…

Google announced Wednesday that it is launching a new research app for Android phones, which would allow anyone with a device to participate in medical studies. The first study run through the app, called Google Health Studies, will look at respiratory illnesses like the flu and COVID-19.Participants in the study will use the app to report any respiratory symptoms, the precautions they’re taking to prevent disease, and whether they’ve been tested for COVID-19 or the flu. The app will collect demographic data, like age, gender, and race as well. “Researchers in this study can examine trends to understand the link between mobility (such as the number of daily trips a person makes outside the home) and the spread of COVID-19,” Google wrote... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge If you’re struggling to think of a gift for someone in your life, it’s hard to fail with a good set of headphones. Thankfully, many of the best models currently available have seen sharp discounts in the lead-up to the holidays. Today’s standout deals are on the Apple AirPods Pro at Woot for $190 (around $220 everywhere else). Now that the $550 AirPods Max are a thing, the Pro is no longer the most expensive model. Also worth sharing today is a deal on Microsoft’s Surface Headphones, a noise-canceling over-ear model for $150 instead of its usual $200 asking price.We’ve also found some noteworthy deals on PS4 games that might be on a wish list you’re in charge of tackling.Headphones and earbudsWoot is offering the AirPods Pro for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge On Wednesday, YouTube announced that it will begin removing any content alleging widespread voter fraud influenced the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election.In the immediate aftermath of the November 3rd election, YouTube came under fire for allowing channels to publish videos making false claims about election results. In one instance, One America News Network, a verified YouTube channel, published a video declaring that “Trump won” the election. At the time, YouTube defended its decision to let the video stand, saying in a statement, “Like other companies, we’re allowing these videos because discussion of election results & the process of counting votes is allowed on YouTube.”The company went on to say that content from... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has confirmed its timeline for bringing its xCloud cloud gaming service to Apple’s iOS platform and to Windows PCs, with the company saying it will support iPhone, iPad, and PC starting in spring 2021. The Verge reported in October that Microsoft was looking to bring xCloud to iOS via a mobile web app some time in “early 2021,” but Microsoft has clarified the timing in a blog post published on Wednesday. The PC version of xCloud will be delivered through the Xbox app for Windows 10, the company says.“In Spring 2021, we will take the next step in our journey to reach more players around the world by making cloud gaming as part of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate available on Windows PCs through the Xbox app and browser, and iOS devices... Continue reading…

PixelJunk Eden was ahead of its time. The idea of a download-only indie game with arty, abstract 2D graphics and a pulsing techno soundtrack doesn’t sound remotely unusual in 2020, but there really wasn’t much like Eden when it dropped on the PS3 in 2008. Developed by Kyoto’s Q-Games, with music and visuals from local-artist-turned-creative-director Baiyon, Eden was a hypnotic triumph, if a little more challenging than its chill vibe might have led you to expect.Now we have a sequel, PixelJunk Eden 2, which is coming out today as a Nintendo Switch exclusive. Much of the content and music is repurposed from a 2018 mobile game, Eden Obscura. If it’s new to you, though, Eden 2 will feel like a true sequel — and one that can be friendlier... Continue reading…

Christopher Nolan may be seething, but CEOs for AT&T, NBCUniversal, and ViacomCBS each reiterated their commitment to streaming at a UBS conference on Monday amid chaos in Hollywood.Following WarnerMedia’s announcement that it would shift the Warner Bros. 2021 movie slate into a hybrid release, debuting movies on HBO Max at the same time they hit theaters, AT&T CEO John Stankey provided a small update on HBO Max as he defended WarnerMedia’s decision.The streamer is nearing 12.6 million active subscribers, according to Stankey, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. That’s about 4 million more since AT&T’s last update in late October. Active is the key word. Technically, HBO Max has 28.7 million eligible subscribers who can upgrade... Continue reading…

It’s been a year of experimentation for PUBG. Over the course of 2020, the genre-defining battle royale game received new, smaller maps and tightly focused gameplay modes. December 16th will see the debut of PUBG’s 10th season, which introduces new AI enemies in a dense, 32-player map called “Haven.” Looking ahead, though, PUBG’s new creative director Dave Curd says this process of testing ideas has helped the team find what makes the game distinct among the sea of battle royale games it inspired.“[In] 2020, we made a lot of small maps, mainly because we’re trying to find the range of what’s acceptable,” he tells The Verge. “Now that we’ve had this year of development, my feeling is those big, long stretches of downtime, punctuated... Continue reading…

We covered nearly a hundred products on our YouTube channel in 2020 and countless more here on the site. But while we return all our review units, there are some products we get sad about having to send back — so sad, in fact, that we end up buying them for ourselves (or at least have wishful thoughts about buying them) because we simply can’t live without them.What follows are some of the gadgets that our staff really liked.Samsung Galaxy Buds Live Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Samsung Galaxy Buds Live The Galaxy Buds Live (or the Galaxy Beans as they should have been called) aren’t the perfect pair of true wireless headphones, but they fit my specific needs perfectly. That’s because I wanted a pair of... Continue reading…

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge WhatsApp has hit back at Apple over its new privacy labels for apps in the App Store, Axios reports, arguing that it’s unfair that they don’t appear to cover the pre-installed first-party service iMessage, since it’s not available on the App Store. The Facebook-owned messaging service reportedly submitted its privacy label information to Apple on Monday, and it has published an FAQ outlining what each label means in terms of the service’s data collection, and why it needs this information.“We think labels should be consistent across first and third party apps as well as reflect the strong measures apps may take to protect people’s private information,” WhatsApp told Axios in a statement. Although it said giving users easy-to-read... Continue reading…

The feature lets Android users sign into their Google Account on the browser with a single tap. | Image: Google Google is making it easier for Chrome users to sync their passwords and payment information across devices, the company has announced in a blog post. The new features will roll out “over the coming weeks and months,” Google says.Chrome on Android will be able to access saved payment information after you log into the browser with a Google Account. Payments can be confirmed by entering a card’s CVC or via biometric security. Logging into a Google Account in the first place on an Android device will also be simplified. If you’re already logged into a Google service like Gmail, the option will be given to sign into the browser with a Google Account on the device “with a single tap.”Chrome’s desktop version is also being updated to give... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge One of the US’s leading cybersecurity firms, FireEye, says it’s been hacked by a state-sponsored attacker. Hackers targeted and accessed the firm’s so-called Red Team tools, which it uses to test customer security and find vulnerabilities. Now there’s concern that the hackers could release these tools publicly or use them to attack others, though there is no evidence that this has happened yet. FireEye says that it does not believe any customer information was taken.Although the blog post, authored by FireEye CEO Kevin Mandia, does not say who is responsible, it says that the attacking nation has “top-tier offensive capabilities.” The Wall Street Journal reports that Russia is a suspect, specifically its foreign-intelligence service... Continue reading…