The Verge

A VanMoof bike that used to be faster. | Image: VanMoof VanMoof is the latest e-bike maker that will remove software that allows its e-bikes to offer pedal-assisted power beyond the EU limit of 25 km/h. The option that cheats European speed limits will be removed on November 17th with an update to the VanMoof app that will be applied globally.All of VanMoof’s new S3 and X3 e-bikes, regardless of country, are fitted with the same custom-built motor capable of 250W or 350W of continuous power and a 500W peak. A default region setting in the VanMoof app allows owners outside the US to select the faster and more powerful US limits even when located in Europe. In the US, e-bikes are generally capped at 32 km/h (20 mph).“Over the past months we’ve had a number of cases in Germany of our riders... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge Decoder with Nilay Patel, Episode One Continue reading…

Image; Garmin Garmin is adding pregnancy tracking to its smartwatches and Connect app. The feature will let users track pregnancy-related symptoms like fatigue and monitor their progress toward their due date. It will also let them pause updates on their training status, which typically uses metrics like the amount someone exercises to classify their fitness level and progress.The feature will also let users adjust heart rate alerts (heart rate can increase during pregnancy) and change hydration goals. An additional app will let users monitor contractions during labor.Pregnant users have criticized smartwatch and wearable companies in the past for not including pregnancy modes on the devices. Apple Watches would continue to nudge people to close... Continue reading…

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge Today, Apple is unveiling new Macs that will be based not on Intel processors, but Apple’s own Arm-based chips. It’s a big deal and something we’ve been waiting a long time for. Depending on how you count, that wait has lasted either six months (since they were officially announced) or several years (since Intel’s roadmap detoured into a quagmire).Jay Peters has the summary of what exactly we’re expecting from Apple’s ‘One More Thing’ event. If you’re looking to get a sense of what the stakes are today, Chaim Gartenberg has a nice overview about just how big a gamble this is and just how committed Apple is to it. And as I mentioned last week, I have already written a couple pieces on “why this transition could be tricky and how M... Continue reading…

Apple is hosting its last big hardware event of 2020 on November 10th at 10AM PT / 1PM ET. The prompt for this one is “One More Thing,” the line that former Apple CEO Steve Jobs famously used to cap the company’s events with a special surprise announcement. So what’s in store for this event? We expect Apple to go deep on its Arm-based Mac computers, with the unveiling of a new MacBook Air and two MacBook Pro models, according to a report from Bloomberg.For the unaware, after several years of using Intel CPUs exclusively in its laptops and desktops, Apple is shifting to using its own silicon instead — like the company does for the iPhone and iPad. There will still be some Intel-based Mac computers available, but Apple is switching things... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The EU is accusing Amazon of misusing the data it collects from third-party sellers on its platform, European commissioner Margrethe Vestager announced today. The European Commission says Amazon is “systematically” using non-public marketplace seller data to unfairly compete with sellers in France and Germany. The accusations are the result of an investigation that was announced last year which looked at how Amazon uses sales data to compete with the platform’s independent merchants.Here’s what the Commission is objecting to specifically:

Acast Patreon’s newest partnership might entice more podcasters to join its platform. The company is teaming up with Acast to host its users’ podcasts and make it easier for them to distribute private, subscribers-only episodes. Currently, Patreon members that charge for access to a bonus podcast feed have to give each listener a link to a private RSS feed. The listeners then have to input that feed into the podcast player of their choice. It’s a manual, unsophisticated process that ultimately could result in people canceling their subscriptions but still retaining the link to the show. Now, however, Acast is integrating its “Access” technology with Patreon to streamline that process.With it, Patreon podcasters will be able to better gate... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge With everything else going on, you may have momentarily forgotten Epic Games and Apple’s on-going legal battle over the Fortnite creator’s alternative payment system that got it booted off the App Store. The lawsuits are still playing out, but here’s a small positive: Epic announced last Friday that your V-Bucks stranded on the macOS and iOS versions of Fortnite will be honored and credited to your account so you can spend them on other platforms.Epic says that players who purchased V-Bucks on iOS and macOS should receive their credit by today, November 9th. Those V-Bucks can be spent on any platform that can play Fortnite other than iOS or macOS.

Photo: Dan Seifert / The Verge In our review of Google’s $99 Nest Audio speaker, we wrote that it’s “unfortunate that you can’t use two Nest Audio speakers paired with a Chromecast for home theater audio, like you can do with a couple of Amazon Echo speakers and a Fire TV.”But it appears that Google originally intended to offer just such a feature — and we’re wondering if the company might still introduce it in the next few months.As 9to5Google points out, Google seemingly forgot to remove a rather telling arrangement of words from the HTML source for its Nest Audio product page:

If you’re like us, you probably haven’t thought about the Slingbox in a good long while; the idea of beaming your own TV over the internet has largely been replaced by streaming TV services, even if watch-anywhere DVRs like the Fire TV Recast do still exist.But if you are still relying on a Slingbox of your very own, you’re officially on notice: Dish subsidiary Sling Media is discontinuing all Slingbox products and will permanently shut down the Slingbox servers on or around November 9th, 2022 — “at which point ALL Slingbox devices and services will become inoperable,” says Sling.Why now? Please enjoy this illuminating explanation: Screenshot of Sling’s FAQ Right then!The company’s also nixing a variety of its... Continue reading…

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge According to research done by IT company CBT Nuggets, your laptop’s keyboard could carry 20,000 times more bacteria than your toilet seat. And with so much of your work, school, socializing, and entertainment now taking place online, you’re probably using your laptop more than ever.Whether you’re struggling with crumbs, dust, fingerprints, pet hair, or sticky residue, you should be able to clean your keys with materials you already have lying around. And if you share a device with other members of your household, you can prevent the spread of germs as well. It’ll just take a few minutes out of your day, and your keyboard will look brand-new.Here’s what to do.Turn it offBefore you get started, turn off your computer. You don’t want... Continue reading…

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge Amazon is warning customers that Xbox Series X preorders might not arrive tomorrow. In an email to some Amazon customers, the retailer says it expects to ship some consoles “in the coming weeks as we receive more inventory in November and December.” Amazon estimates that the affected preorders will receive Xbox Series X units by December 31st or before.The emails are being sent to a wide range of people, and some who have preordered on Amazon have yet to receive a shipment notice with just a day to go until the Xbox Series X launch. It’s surprising to see these emails arrive less than 24 hours before the Xbox Series X was supposed to be delivered, but it’s not clear how many are affected by the delay.

Although there’s no shipping date for it yet, Apple has sent out review samples of its upcoming MagSafe Duo charger to reviewers. It’s a travel charger that combines Apple’s new MagSafe charging puck with an Apple Watch charger and a USB-C to Lightning cable.It costs $129, but that price doesn’t include a USB-C charging brick. You’ll need to buy that separately, and you’ll need to make sure it can supply at least 20 watts of USB PD power so that it can fast-charge your iPhone. Apple sells one for $19.$129 is $100 more than what I paid for a wireless charger that can charge my phone, AirPods, and Apple Watch at the same time. That charger doesn’t fold up into a neat little package and can’t fast-charge an iPhone at 15 watts, but it... Continue reading…

Image: The Boring Company The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s tunnel-digging venture, may be eyeing its next project in Austin, Texas. The company recently posted half a dozen new jobs in the city and tweeted favorably about Austin’s soil.It’s not surprising that the Boring Company would target Austin for its next project. Musk’s other company, Tesla, recently announced that the city would be the site for its next factory, with a focus on Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck production.

Image: Apple The event starts at 1PM ET / 10AM PT on November 10th Continue reading…

Image: Sony If you own a copy of Spider-Man on the PS4 and you planned to buy a PS5 in the near future, you will likely be glad to know that your PS4 save file will be transferrable after all. Insomniac Games announced today that a new update will arrive for the PS4 version later this month, allowing you to export your saves to the next-gen remaster. This is after the studio previously said the feature would be unavailable.Insomniac announced on Twitter that the PS4 version of Spider-Man would offer the feature in a patch scheduled to release “around Thanksgiving,” which means the feature will not be made immediately available when Sony’s next-gen console launches on November 12th. The update will also add three new suits.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Conservative angst over President Trump’s loss has resulted in a surge of downloads for Parler, a conservative social network founded as an ideological alternative to Facebook and Twitter. According to data from SensorTower, Parler’s app saw 980,000 downloads in total between November 3rd (Election Day) and November 8th, with more than half of those downloads (636,000) coming on Sunday alone. (The totals represent both Google Play Store and iOS App Store downloads.)That surge in downloads has also pushed Parler to the top of the app store rankings. It is currently the #1 free app in the iOS App Store, up from #1,023 on November 2nd. It’s also #1 in the Google Play rankings, up from #486 the previous week. The app has been downloaded... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission announced a settlement with videoconferencing platform Zoom over “misleading claims” about its security. The agency said in a statement that when Zoom incorrectly claimed its video calls were protected by end-to-end encryption, the company engaged in “deceptive and unfair practices that undermined the security of its users.”Zoom said in March that the phrase “end to end” was “in reference to the connection being encrypted from Zoom end point to Zoom end point,” that “content is not decrypted as it transfers across the Zoom cloud,” and that it only collected user data needed to improve its services.But according to the FTC, Zoom had the cryptographic keys that could allow the company to access customers’... Continue reading…

Image: Lucasfilm In Star Wars, good and evil are usually pretty clear-cut. The heroic Rebel Alliance are the good guys, the Galactic Empire with its legion of Stormtroopers, are the bad guys. Likewise, for the Jedi and Sith. For most of the movies, none of this is really designed to be subtle. (Pro tip: anyone who builds a spaceship called “The Death Star” is probably not a good guy.)In The Mandalorian, things are a little grayer. Part of that is because our hero — a bounty hunter who already lives and works in some morally questionable areas — is a little less clean-cut than the almost painfully earnest Luke Skywalker or Rey of films past.But part of that is because the New Republic itself, as a governing body, is already a very different... Continue reading…

Image: CooperTom Post-election celebrations took many forms this past weekend after President-elect Joe Biden was projected to be the 46th president of the US. Those ranged from mass dance parties in the street to countless online expressions of some much-needed collective schadenfreude at the expense of Donald Trump and his surrogates who refuse to accept the reality of his loss.But none quite measure up to the group of furries, led by YouTuber and virtual reality enthusiast CooperTom, who re-created Trump’s bizarre and sad press conference outside a landscaping business that happens to share the same name as a luxury hotel chain.They did so using VRChat, the massively multiplayer online VR simulator that lets you create an avatar of your choosing —... Continue reading…

Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images Having field-tested digital tools was key for Democrats to mobilize people quickly Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge The PlayStation 5 will launch on Thursday, November 12th, and Sony has published a huge FAQ outlining a lot of details about the new console. Buried in the FAQ are a few new tidbits that mean you’ll be able to play even more games than you might have expected on the PS5.PS5 games will be region free, according to the FAQ, which means you’ll be able to play games from other countries without any issues. That could be a big deal if, for example, there’s a game released in Japan that you want to play but doesn’t get an official release in the US. That game will still work on your PS5.The PS5 will also support Sony’s PlayStation Now cloud gaming service, which means you’ll be able to play more older PlayStation games than we previously... Continue reading…

The PlayStation 5 can do practically everything the PS4 can, with only a small handful of games and features getting left behind. (Bye-bye, 3D Blu-ray.) But there may be one compelling reason to keep your PS4 around: you could pick up where you left off in a PS5 game from another room of your house.Sony confirmed today that the existing PS4 will soon let you access your other PlayStation consoles remotely, including the PS5:

Microsoft is adding a month of Disney Plus to its Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription this week. If you’ve never been a Disney Plus subscriber, you’ll be able to claim a month of the service for free from the Perks Gallery on an Xbox console or through the Xbox Game Pass mobile apps.Disney Plus stopped offering free trials earlier this year, and Microsoft’s move to bundle Disney Plus comes just as Epic Games is also running its own promotion. Fortnite players who make real money purchases of in-game items like V-Bucks (and are new Disney Plus subscribers) can get up to two months of the streaming service for free.This latest Xbox Game Pass perk will be available to all Ultimate subscribers today in countries where Disney Plus is... Continue reading…

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine says he plans to leave his position at the space agency under the new Joe Biden administration, even if he’s asked to stay, according to an interview he did with Aviation Week. Bridenstine said the decision would be to ensure NASA has the right leader who connects with the new president.“What you need is somebody who has a close relationship with the president of the United States,” Bridenstine told Aviation Week. “You need somebody who is trusted by the administration…. including the OMB [Office of Management and Budget], the National Space Council and the National Security Council, and I think that I would not be the right person for that in a new administration.”President Trump nominated... Continue reading…

Image: Streamview There’s a new Nokia-branded Android TV box on its way to Europe, according to Golem.de. The Streaming Box 8000 is the work of Streamview, and its website notes it has licensed the Nokia brand to sell Smart TVs, set-top boxes, and DAB+ radios across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The streaming box reportedly supports 4K playback, costs €100, and will be available later this year — though an exact release date and countries have yet to be confirmed.The Streaming Box 8000 technically isn’t the first Android TV box to bear the Nokia brand name. Earlier this year, Flipkart launched the Nokia Media Streamer in India, which it sells alongside a selection of Nokia-branded TVs. However, this could be the first such device to release in... Continue reading…

Image: Apple Apple is on the verge of making one of the biggest platform changes in the company’s history. On Tuesday, it’s expected to announce the first Macs that will run off Apple-designed processors and graphics cards instead of the Intel chips it’s used since 2005.It’s a strategy that Apple has employed to great success with its iPhone and iPad devices over the past decade, but the coming transition for its laptops and desktops will represent a whole new challenge.When Apple — displeased with the roadmap for the PowerPC chips it had been using across its product portfolio — switched to Intel in the mid-aughts, Apple offered promises of better performance and power efficiency, promises that it would deliver with products like the MacBook Air... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony has updated its release windows for two of the PlayStation 5’s biggest upcoming games in a new video posted to the company’s PlayStation YouTube channel.Now, the upcoming sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn, called Horizon Forbidden West, has a more conclusive release window of the second half of 2021. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is now confirmed for some time in the first half of next year following a vague earlier commitment the game would arrive during the next-gen console’s “launch window.”The new ‘Ratchet & Clank’ and ‘Horizon Zero Dawn’ sequel both confirmed for 2021The reveal wasn’t part of a formal announcement but rather a small text blurb at the bottom of a new PS5 ad titled “New Worlds to Explore.” The ad confirms both the... Continue reading…

Make a hard year easier with these great gifts Continue reading…

Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Netflix iHeartMedia and Pushkin Industries, the podcasting company co-founded by author Malcolm Gladwell, are teaming up to make more podcasts. The companies announced a new, two-year partnership today, which involves iHeart selling all the ads for Pushkin’s ad-supported shows while also co-producing a new slate of shows. Pushkin, up until now, worked with Cadence13 to sell its ads.In its release about the deal, Pushkin says iHeart will help it expand its reach, which makes sense given that iHeart says it’ll play Puskin podcasts over its more than 800 radio stations. That’s an audience Pushkin wouldn’t have been able to reach if not for a deal with the company.Although this deal isn’t ground-breaking in the sense that Pushkin isn’t making its... Continue reading…

If you’re always on the hunt for OLED TV discounts, Best Buy has a very good one today on Vizio’s 55-inch model. So good, in fact, that three Verge staffers shouted expletives when they first saw it. Normally $1,300, it’s $900 when you’re signed in with your My Best Buy account. TVs of this caliber rarely, if ever, fall below the $1K mark, so it’s worth thinking about whether you want to make the upgrade today. Best Buy hasn’t shared how long this deal will last.In case you’re wondering, this 4K OLED is primed for use with the PS5 or the Xbox Series X / S consoles. It has support for HDMI 2.1, which allows for fast frame rates at 4K resolution — that’s something both consoles can use. Vizio claims that the TV’s ProGaming Engine can... Continue reading…

Pokéshopper is releasing a life-sized Metapod in April 2021 that can house a human body, hopefully still living. Is it a costume? A sleeping bag? Vore? Truly, who cares, for it calls to me from its soft and gaping maw.The site’s Twitter account helpfully shared a picture of its specifications in what I think also doubles as a sort of “how to insert body” diagram. Rather than explain it with words, let’s just look at it together:

Nearly a year after launch, the PC version of Halo: The Master Chief Collection will finally be completed when Halo 4 launches on November 17th, Microsoft announced today.Halo 4 will be optimized for PC, with the game including a “fully premastered campaign,” according to Microsoft. Halo 4 originally came out on November 6th, 2012 as an Xbox 360 exclusive. It is the fourth entry in the mainline Halo games and the seventh overall in the franchise, it was also the first original Halo game developed by 343 Industries, following Bungie’s split from Microsoft in 2007.The PC port of ‘The Master Chief Collection’ originally released in December 2019The PC port of The Master Chief Collection originally released in December 2019, but the... Continue reading…

Ubisoft provided a first look at ray tracing on next-gen Xbox consoles a couple of weeks ago, and we’ve now had the chance to play the optimized version of Watch Dogs: Legion on both the Xbox Series X and Series S. The most visible change over a regular Xbox One or PS4 version of the game is the introduction of ray tracing for the Series X and S.On both consoles, there are plenty of reflective windows, puddles, and bright neon signs inside the London-based world of Watch Dogs: Legion. These are all ideal for ray tracing. These ray-traced reflections more accurately demonstrate the often wet and dark parts of London, and it often feels like there are numerous puddles on the floor in Watch Dogs: Legion just ready to reflect nearby light... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon is rolling out a new rewards program that gives its Flex delivery drivers easier access to shifts based on the amount of work they’ve done for the company. A spokesperson from Amazon confirmed to CNBC that the Flex Rewards program is in its early stages, but is being rolled out to all drivers in the US. As well as access to shifts, the program also includes access to a cash back debit card, as well as discounts and financial services.Launched in 2015 and now available in over 50 cities across the US, Amazon Flex is a service that allows freelance drivers to sign up for shifts to deliver Amazon or Whole Foods orders. According to CBNC, the new rewards program could incentivize drivers to complete more orders for Amazon, rather... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple has cut off major supplier Pegatron from new contracts following the reveal of student labor violations at some of the Taiwanese manufacturer’s China-based facilities. Bloomberg reports that Apple found Pegatron to be falsifying paperwork in order to cover up violations of Apple’s code of conduct for suppliers.Pegatron is one of Apple’s biggest supply chain partners, manufacturing various products including some of the newest iPhone 12 models. The company is now reportedly on probation, however, and won’t be able to win any new business from Apple until the matter has been resolved.Pegatron falsified paperwork“We have a rigorous review and approval process for any student worker program, which ensures the intern’s work is... Continue reading…

For the first time, two people rode a hyperloop pod through a nearly airless tube at 100 mph Continue reading…

Alex Trebek, the longtime host of the answer-and-question game show Jeopardy! has died at age 80, according to a statement from the show. “Jeopardy! is saddened to share that Alex Trebek passed away peacefully at home early this morning, surrounded by family and friends,” the statement posted on Twitter read.

Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images As Election Day came and went and we still didn’t know who was going to win the presidency, many of us ended up glued to our devices last week— moreso than usual— seeking the latest news. Whether it was the obsession with MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki and his map wizardry or the constant updates about how many votes were left to count in Pennsylvania or Georgia, Americans likely spent more time doomscrolling through their Twitter feeds and other apps than they normally do.Depending on who your preferred candidate was, by Saturday morning —when the networks called the election for Joe Biden— your doomscrolling may have turned into gleefreshing— the newly-coined term for manually updating your feed to read good news.On Sunday, we started... Continue reading…

Functional simplicity Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In yet another attempt to slow the spread of misinformation on its platform, Facebook plans to put groups on its platform with too many posts that violate its content rules on a kind of probation, the company said. First reported by The Washington Post, Facebook will restrict any groups— both public and private ones— with multiple posts violating its community standards. Moderators for the groups will have to approve any posts manually for 60 days, and there’s no appeal available for groups on probationary status.“We are temporarily requiring admins and moderators of some political and social groups in the US to approve all posts, if their group has a number of Community Standards violations from members,” Facebook spokesperson Leonard... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge President Donald Trump will lose Twitter privileges he enjoys as a world leader when President-Elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20th, 2021. Twitter confirmed that Trump’s @realDonaldTrump account will be subject to the same rules as any other user — including bans on inciting violence and posting false information about voting or the coronavirus pandemic.Twitter applies special policies to world leaders and some other officials, leaving rule-breaking content online if there’s “a clear public interest value to keeping the tweet on the service.” The public interest policy was formalized in 2019, codifying a rule that had been informally enforced for some time.“Twitter’s approach to world leaders, candidates, and public officials... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is testing a programmed linear content channel in France, Variety reported. The channel, called Netflix Direct, will be available to Netflix streaming subscribers and will provide content from its existing streaming library in a linear format, much like cable and broadcast TV stations do.“Maybe you’re not in the mood to decide, or you’re new and finding your way around, or you just want to be surprised by something new and different,” Netflix said in a statement announcing the new service. It chose France for the launch of Netflix Direct because traditional TV is “hugely popular” there, and people “just want a ‘lean back’ experience where they don’t have to choose shows,” the company said.Netflix Direct rolled out in some... Continue reading…

Image: BioWare Following the announcement of a remaster of the original trilogy coming next year, BioWare announced that a brand new Mass Effect game is currently in development, in a surprise announcement for N7 day.Not much is known about the next installment in BioWare’s epic space opera, but the studio says a team of veterans at the company is working on it. Do not expect the game to come out anytime soon as BioWare general manager Casey Hudson noted in a blog post that the game is in “early stages” of development and the studio cannot share any additional details at this time.With the announcement of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and a new game confirmed to be in development, this is a nice win for fans of the series. Many wondered what would... Continue reading…

Photo by Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images After years of chaos, extremism, and death, Americans have chosen to remove President Donald Trump from office. Despite the president’s attempt to sow discord in the late hours of the election, Joe Biden will replace him.Four years ago, Trump’s win rearranged reality and hijacked our timeline, setting us on a darker path. He was extreme even as a candidate: denying science, praising dictators, promising to torture his enemies, and making politics more vulgar with every tweet. Millions of people around the world were shocked and alarmed on Election Day in 2016, but even the alarmists could not have predicted that the president-elect would someday be meaningfully responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of American lives and the... Continue reading…

Image: BioWare The original Mass Effect trilogy is getting a 4K remaster and its coming to PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2021. The game will also have enhancements for the PS5 and Xbox Series X.During N7 day celebration, BioWare announced Mass Effect Legendary Edition a compilation of the first three installments in the studio’s action RPG series, which released between 2007 and 2012. Mass Effect Legendary Edition will also include all the single-player DLC plus additional in-game content such as weapons and armor. BioWare also confirmed that the compilation will be optimized for 4K Ultra HD visuals.It is important to note, however, that this is not a full remake but enhanced versions of the first three Mass Effect games with BioWare’s focus on improving... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter flagged four tweets from President Trump on Saturday morning for making “potentially misleading claims about an election,” a company spokesperson said, continuing its attempts to try to rein in misinformation on its platform.The president tweeted, without evidence, that “tens of thousands of votes were illegally received after 8 P.M. on Tuesday, Election Day, totally and easily changing the results in Pennsylvania and certain other razor thin states.” He claimed thousands of votes were “illegally not allowed to be OBSERVED,” and said “bad things took place,” during a time when “LEGAL TRANSPARENCY was viciously & crudely not allowed.”The platform labeled a fifth tweet where the president claimed he had won the election “by a... Continue reading…

NBC About midway through Superstore’s season 6 premiere, a customer at Cloud 9, the big-box retailer that the NBC sitcom is set in, is absolutely livid at the idea that she has to wear a mask in the store. Furious at being asked to mask up or leave, she accuses the floor manager, Glenn (Mark McKinney), of working for Satan. Glenn, a devout Christian, is absolutely horrified: “That is the one person I would never work for!” he responds. It’s funny because it’s true: You have to sell your soul to someone to make rent in America, and there are plenty of buyers who aren’t the literal devil. That said, the non-devils don’t care about you either. As we see in Superstore, the staff of Cloud 9 has been left to fend for themselves in the middle of a... Continue reading…

Shoppers pass by a sign promoting the NHS COVID-19 app | Photo by PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images What happens when an app designed to help people navigate the real world doesn’t match up with reality? That’s what happened recently with a National Health Service contact tracing app in England and Wales, which failed to notify many users that they had been exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19.Like many contact tracing programs, the NHS app keeps track of when a user is close to other people who also downloaded the app. If someone tests positive, the app can send an alert to all their contacts, particularly the ones that they’ve been around the most. The app calculates a person’s risk based on a few factors, including how long they’ve been close to the person who tested positive. If the calculation passes a certain threshold, an... Continue reading…

Fortnite developer Epic Games announced a new promotion that allows players who make a real-money purchase in-game and are new Disney Plus subscribers to get up to two months of the streaming service for free. The offer is valid November 10th starting at 7PM ET through December 31st for players 18 years old or older in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand where Disney Plus is available.Any real-money purchases made in Fortnite beginning November 6th, including the purchase of its-in game V-Bucks currency, will qualify users for the offer. Purchases made with V-Bucks are not eligible, however. Once the two-month Disney Plus trial ends, users will be charged the monthly rate for a subscription unless they cancel.Epic is... Continue reading…