The Verge

Microsoft Teams at NBA arenas. | Microsoft The National Basketball Association (NBA) is using Microsoft Teams’ new Together Mode to place basketball fans courtside in a virtual experience during live games. Microsoft only just revealed Together Mode for Teams earlier this month, and it uses AI to segment your face and shoulders and place you together with other people in a virtual space.The NBA is using this new Microsoft Teams mode combined with 17-foot tall LED screens that will wrap around basketball arenas to put fans back next to players. Fans will be able to react in real time, and players will be able to see and hear those reactions. These virtual stands will include more than 300 fans using Together Mode to sit side by side with each other virtually in Microsoft Teams.... Continue reading…

Liking Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is a bit like being someone who is super into vinyl. Tell people it’s your favorite movie take on Batman, and you run the risk of sounding like an incredible snob; a contrarian that somehow feels the need to like something other than a bunch of very good live-action movies that lots of other people adore. Regardless, it’s a movie worth celebrating — not because it is better than its live-action siblings, but because it’s maybe the most complete take on Batman and Bruce Wayne on film.Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, now on Netflix, was an attempt to leverage the Emmy-winning success of Batman: The Animated Series into a theatrical hit. It didn’t quite take, bombing at the box office despite critical... Continue reading…

Image: h0x0d (Twitter) We’ve seen plenty of pictures of Samsung’s new bean-shaped earbuds, but an early update to Samsung’s Galaxy Buds companion app has confirmed nearly all the details about the upcoming headphones, including the official Galaxy Buds Live name and support for active noise cancellation.The app also shows a brief guide on how to wear the uniquely shaped earbuds and shows that the earbuds will have touch controls (set to toggle active noise cancellation by default), which can also be disabled if you don’t like touch controls. The app shows off a Find My Earbuds setting and equalizer options — standard features for headphones like this. The app marks the most official reveal yet for the Galaxy Buds Live, which have already popped... Continue reading…

Photo by Brennan King / The Verge If you’re in the market for a new smartphone and prefer Android over Apple, look no further; you can purchase Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Plus for $950 again today on Amazon; $50 less than its smaller-screen sibling, the S20 5G.The Galaxy S20 Plus 5G usually retails for $1,200 and includes a 120Hz screen refresh rate plus 5G network support. My colleague Dieter Bohn pointed out in his dual review that despite 5G not justifying part of the phone’s retail price, he praised the phone’s large screen, while also pointing out his favorite feature was the screens on both devices. Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Surface Laptop 3 comes in two different sizes: 13.5 and 15 inches Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 has... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Verizon added 173,000 postpaid phone customers and 287,000 postpaid smartphone customers in the second quarter, even as it lost 81,000 consumer Fios TV subscribers, the company reported Friday. But it saw a net gain of 10,000 consumer Fios broadband subscribers, even though it had to suspend many in-home installations because of pandemic restrictions.The Keep Americans Connected Pledge — waiving late fees and promising not to cut off service for customers who couldn’t pay during the pandemic — ended on June 30th, but Verizon CFO Matt Ellis said a third of customers were current on their bills at the end of June, and 80 percent of its wireless customers have been making at least some payments.“We’re encouraged by what we’ve seen, and... Continue reading…

Yone is heading into battle Continue reading…

Photo by Aurora Samperio/NurPhoto via Getty Images Monday’s congressional hearing with the chief executives of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple will “likely” be postponed as the late Rep. John Lewis will lie in state at the US Capitol next week.The House Judiciary Committee had initially scheduled the blockbuster hearing for Monday at noon, setting the stage for a dramatic public airing of the various antitrust concerns facing the companies. But a source familiar told The Verge Thursday that “it is highly likely that the House Judiciary Committee will reschedule Monday’s hearing to allow Members of Congress to pay their respects.”“It is highly likely that the House Judiciary Committee will reschedule”It’s still unclear when the hearing will ultimately take place, although the CEOs... Continue reading…

Microsoft is gearing up for a different Xbox future Continue reading…

If the rigid design fits your ears, the OnePlus Buds are a good value Continue reading…

It’s faster than the IdeaPad Gaming 3, and as a result, it’s not as budget friendly Continue reading…

Photo by Ollie Millington/Redferns K-pop fandoms supported Black Lives Matter but don’t always support Black fans Continue reading…

A huge wall of OLED displays from LG’s booth at CES 2018. | Image: LG Electronics USA LG Display has started mass-production at its second OLED panel production plant, the company announced Thursday. The new plant, located in Guangzhou, China, has the capacity to initially produce 60,000 OLED sheets a month, which combined with LG’s existing plant in Paju, South Korea means that LG Display’s total OLED production capacity has almost doubled to 130,000 sheets monthly.According to LG, the panels produced at its new plant will be used to create displays ranging in size from 48 to 77-inches. They’re for TVs, in other words. LG Display is a major supplier of OLED panels for TVs across the industry. 19 brands, including LG, Vizio, Sony, Panasonic, Hisense, Bang & Olufsen, and Toshiba, use LG Display OLED panels in their TVs... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Microsoft has spent the past few weeks teasing the Surface Duo on Twitter, and it now looks like the dual-screen device is ready to launch. Microsoft’s new Android-powered device first appeared at the FCC earlier this week, and today it has shown up on the Bluetooth SIG certification page. Devices typically appear in FCC and Bluetooth listings just a few weeks away from launch.Recent rumors had suggested the Surface Duo might appear in July, but it’s clear the device isn’t ready to launch this month. Instead, it looks increasingly likely that Microsoft will launch the Surface Duo in the coming weeks.Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the company had originally planned to focus on the Surface Duo and... Continue reading…

This newsletter was sent out on Thursday afternoon before it was reported that the hearing would likely be delayed so lawmakers can attend Rep. John Lewis’s funeral. The hearing is now expected to take place the following week.On Monday at noon ET, one of the more notable Congressional hearings in Silicon Valley history is set to take place. The 15-member House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee will ask questions of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The event is what’s known as an evidentiary hearing: members of Congress are gathering evidence as part of a 13-month investigation into competition and digital marketplaces.The outcome could be legislation that seeks to... Continue reading…

Garmin Fenix smartwatch and Garmin Connect app. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Garmin fitness devices have been left disconnected for nearly a day after the company suffered a major outage, possibly caused by a ransomware attack. The outage first reported by Garmin over 20 hours ago, as of this writing, affects Garmin wearables and apps, as well as Garmin call centers.“We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin.com and Garmin Connect. This outage also affects our call centers, and we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats,” wrote the company on Twitter and its Garmin Connect website. The outage as seen from the Garmin Connect app. Garmin Connect is the service that allows owners of Garmin devices like Forerunner smartwatches to obsessively track... Continue reading…

Image: Paramount Pictures A Quiet Place Part 2 and Top Gun: Maverick are both delayed once more, as Paramount attempts to preserve their cinematic releases despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Variety reports. Both films are now planned for release in 2021, with A Quiet Place Part 2 releasing on April 23 and Top Gun: Maverick on July 2. They had been due to release on September 6 and December 23 of this year, respectively, following previous coronavirus-related delays.The two are just the latest in a slew of movies to have their release plans thrown into disarray due to the coronavirus pandemic. Just this week Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and Disney’s live-action Mulan remake were delayed indefinitely, and other films including the new James Bond and Peter Rabbit... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Remember when AT&T told customers their phones would stop working and encouraged them to buy new ones during a pandemic? T-Mobile is reportedly going to be sending out some messages like that too, but it seems like the company could be going about it a little differently (and hopefully less aggressively) than AT&T, according to an apparent internal document from T-Mobile shared by Android Police.T-Mobile will reportedly require phones on its network to support voice over LTE (VoLTE) starting in January 2021. That means if your phone doesn’t currently support VoLTE, you’ll need to upgrade if you want to be able to keep making calls with that phone on T-Mobile. And T-Mobile is apparently so intent on phasing out older technologies that... Continue reading…

Image: Blizzard StarCraft II has been out for almost a decade now. To commemorate the game’s tenth anniversary, Blizzard is publicly testing an anniversary update, introducing new campaign achievements for every mission in StarCraft II’s base game and its three expansions, in addition to changes that empower players to create their own custom campaigns.One reason StarCraft II has stuck around so long is that fans have kept it alive by creating custom campaigns in the game. Blizzard has now absorbed several elements from Warcraft III’s game editor, making the interface in StarCraft II easier to use — there’s an entire gigantic blog post from the company detailing everything that’s new for the game’s map editor. The anniversary patch also introduced a... Continue reading…

Did Microsoft convince you that you wouldn’t need next-gen hardware to play Xbox Series X games? Think again: fully half of the next-gen games that Microsoft showcased at its Xbox Series X showcase today, including Forza, probably aren’t coming to Xbox One.Which suggests either some of those games aren’t actually coming out for a long time — or Microsoft has already broken a big promise it made just last week.For years now, Microsoft has been working toward a future where you don’t need to buy the latest console to play the newest games — many now run on a spectrum of hardware including Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, and Windows PCs — and the upcoming Xbox Series X was touted as the culmination of that vision. It will play almost... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Intel finally got its 10nm chips on the market after years of delays, but now the company has announced that it’s encountered issues with its upcoming 7nm process that will result in delays for the next generation of chips, too.As Intel’s Q2 2020 earnings release notes, “the company’s 7nm-based CPU product timing is shifting approximately six months relative to prior expectations,” pushing them back from an originally planned arrival at the end of 2021. The six-month delay would push that date into at least 2022, if not further, due to what Intel CEO Bob Swan referred to as a “defect mode” in the 7nm process, according to Tom’s Hardware.Intel actually says that the issues with its current 7nm production means that production is... Continue reading…

The New Mutants is apparently still on track to hit theaters on August 28th, even as Tenet and Mulan face indefinite delays.Details on the film’s theatrical plans come from The New Mutants’ panel at ComicCon@Home, the digital version of the annual San Diego festival, where the cast gathered to talk about the film. The panel opens with a cheeky reminder the movie would open in theaters on August 28th. They also brought the movie’s opening scene, which can be seen above. The opening scene kicks in at 24:10, with a panel discussion about the movie playing beforehand.Fans seemed to anticipate that Disney would move The New Mutants to a digital release in light of recent delays. Warner Bros. delayed Tenet indefinitely earlier this week... Continue reading…

The Department of Homeland Security says US authorities have banned drones from flying near federal buildings in Portland because they believe drones are surveilling federal officers at protests there, Reuters reports. The order comes a few weeks after federal agencies were discovered using surveillance drones themselves, over peaceful protests in Minneapolis and other US cities.The agency said unidentified drones have flown over crowds of people protesting near federal buildings in Portland on several occasions. For the past eight weeks, protesters have marched in downtown Portland to push for police reforms, and in recent days have been joined by federal troops guarding the federal buildings. The troops have used tear gas and pepper... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge In 2020, everything is cake — including Android 11. Android VP of engineering Dave Burke revealed the internal codename “Red Velvet Cake” in an interview with All About Android, via Droid Life.Google’s alphabetical dessert naming scheme was an Android tradition for years, dating back to Android 1.5 Cupcake in 2009. But last year, instead of naming Android Q after an obscure pastry tart or candy, Google made the choice to desert desserts entirely for its public releases in favor of numerical names instead, beginning with Android 10 and continued with the upcoming release of Android 11 this fall.Everything is cakeBut that’s not the whole story. As Google’s Sameer Samat, VP of product management for Android, told The Verge last year,... Continue reading…

Image: Disney In a widely anticipated move, Disney has once again delayed its live-action adaptation of Mulan, this time indefinitely.“Over the last few months, it’s become clear that nothing can be set in stone when it comes to how we release films during this global health crisis, and today that means pausing our release plans for Mulan as we assess how we can most effectively bring this film to audiences around the world,” a Disney spokesperson told Variety.This marks the latest round of delays for Mulan; it was originally supposed to be released on March 27th, but was pushed to July 24th. Then, Disney delayed it again to August 21st — one week before Disney is still set to debut The New Mutants. Disney has also moved around a number of other... Continue reading…

Dontnod’s latest narrative-driven game, Tell Me Why, will launch on August 27th. Microsoft announced the news today during its July showcase, alongside several game premieres and updates.Dontnod announced Tell Me Why last November for the Xbox One and PC. The game, set in Alaska, follows a set of twins working through memories of their childhood. The two share a “supernatural bond” that grants them the power to interact with their past memories. As with Life is Strange, a player’s choices will affect the outcome of the story. Along with the release date, Dontnod also dropped a new trailer offering a look at the game’s story.The developer has previously said it will release all three episodes at once, rather than spacing them out as... Continue reading…

Two of the original creators of Sonic the Hedgehog — lead programmer Yuji Naka and character designer Naoto Ohshima — are reuniting to create a new “theatrical” action platformer called Balan Wonderworld, which is set to release on the Xbox Series X and Xbox One in spring 2021.Balan Wonderworld marks the first time that the duo has worked together on a project since they created Sonic over two years ago. Yuji Naka will be directing the upcoming title, while Naoto Ohshima — who originally designed characters like Sonic and Dr. Eggman — will be working on the title, too. The game is set in the “Wonderworld” and inspired by the theater, with protagonists Leo and Emma playing through 12 different tales, led by the... Continue reading…

The Forza series is coming to the Xbox Series X, with Microsoft officially announcing the next title in its mainline Forza Motorsport simulation series of racing titles developed by Turn 10 studios for the upcoming console at its Xbox game preview event.Microsoft says that the new Forza Motorsport title is still in “early development,” and the company has yet to announce a release window. It’s not even clear whether the new entry in the series will be called Forza Motorsport 8 at this point. But the upcoming title will offer some big technical jumps, with promises of 4K / 60fps gameplay and the addition of more realistic ray-tracing lighting, allowing the surfaces of cars to reflect off each other and more detailed... Continue reading…

Microsoft is finally giving us a better look at Halo Infinite today. After promising and teasing Halo Infinite gameplay for the past few weeks, the game certainly looks like an ambitious bet from 343 Industries. Halo Infinite is a “spiritual reboot” of Halo, designed so that players new to the franchise can jump into the story.We got our first look at the Halo Infinite campaign today, running at a locked 60fps on the Xbox Series X. The environment looks a lot like the original Halo: Combat Evolved, and the 8-minute gameplay even includes Halo’s Warthog vehicle. The gameplay also includes new mechanics like Master Chief’s new grappling hook and new visual effects.The new grappling hook can be used to grab objects in the Halo Infinite... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As TikTok continues to grow in popularity and its personalities become mainstream celebrities in their own right, the company is trying to keep talent with a new $200 million creators fund.The fund is meant to support ambitious creators who “are seeking opportunities to foster a livelihood” on the app, a TikTok spokesperson told The Verge. It marks the first major effort from TikTok to pay creators directly for their content. Prior to this, creators could monetize live streams, but the new program will pay people directly for making videos. Creators will receive regular payments over the coming year, and the fund will grow over time. The company did not confirm if there’s a limit to how many creators will receive funding. TikTok also... Continue reading…

Photo by Mehdi Taamallah/NurPhoto via Getty Images Paris has chosen its electric scooter operators. The city, which has quickly become a haven for biking, walking, and scootering thanks to the forward-thinking leadership of Mayor Anne Hidalgo, has selected Lime, Tier, and Dott as its scooter companies. Each company will be awarded a two-year contract which allows it to deploy 5,000 electric scooters throughout the city, for a total of 15,000 scooters.The results represent a huge win for Lime, the San Francisco-based company that counts Uber and Google among its major investors. It’s also a stinging loss for Lime’s main rival, Bird, the scooter sharing pioneer that had plans to make Paris its “second home” by hiring thousands of people to work at its new European hub to be located in... Continue reading…

Ever since its debut in 2018, Dragon Quest XI has slowly been spreading to other platforms. It’s playable on the PC, PS4, and Switch — and now it’s finally coming to the Xbox One. During its Xbox Series X showcase today, Microsoft revealed that the “definitive edition” of the roleplaying game is launching on its console on December 4th. It’ll also be available through Xbox Game Pass, and the definitive version will launch the same day on PS4 and Steam as well.The news is particularly interesting because it marks the series’s debut on Xbox platforms. Despite being one of Japan’s most popular franchises, Dragon Quest has generally struggled in the West. That, coupled with the Xbox’s small presence in Japan, has made the two seem like an... Continue reading…

Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is reportedly fighting cellphone carriers over the right to send Americans unsolicited texts. According to Business Insider, the campaign’s lawyers are in active talks with phone companies after a third-party screening tool blocked Trump texts in early July. The campaign alleges that screening the texts amounts to suppressing political speech, while carriers fear allowing them will result in fines for violating anti-spam rules.The 2020 election has brought a wave of text messages from across the political spectrum, particularly with the pandemic limiting in-person outreach. Many users didn’t opt in to these missives, and it’s unclear whether they violate federal laws meant to curb unwanted... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge AT&T said on Thursday that its 5G network is now available nationwide. The company says its 5G is now available to more than 205 million consumers in 395 coverage markets across the US.Customers on its Unlimited Starter, Extra, and Elite wireless plans and business customers on its Unlimited Web-Only, Starter, Performance, and Elite plans will have access to 5G beginning on August 7th at no additional cost. Prepaid plan customers can buy a 5G-enabled device on its Unlimited Plus plan.“Our strategy of deploying 5G in both sub-6 (5G) and mmWave (5G+) spectrum bands will provide the best mix of speeds, latency and coverage that are needed to enable revolutionary new capabilities to fuel 5G experiences for consumers and businesses,” AT&T... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Amazon’s deal of the day is on the 256GB version of the Samsung Galaxy S10E in black. It’s currently down to $499 — its most affordable price yet. At this time last year, $750 was the typical price you’d pay to get one; more recently, it’s sold for $699. What’s great about this deal is that it’s for the upgraded version of the phone, which not only has double the storage capacity of the base model but its RAM count is 8GB compared to 6GB, so it should remain a speedy companion for a few years.This phone released alongside the Galaxy S10 in early 2019, and despite being a more affordable alternative at launch, it has most of the same specs. It features the Snapdragon 855, the aforementioned 8GB of RAM, 256GB storage with microSD support,... Continue reading…

Bill and Ted Face the Music has a new trailer, a new release date, and a new release strategy: the long-awaited third film in the franchise will now be released both in theaters and on-demand through digital retailers on September 1st.The new Face the Music trailer showcases more of what to expect from the film, which will see Alex Winters and Keanu Reeves reprising their respective roles as Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan. They are now down-on-their-luck singers who have failed to write a song so good it literally saves the world.As the trailer teases, the duo embarks on a time-traveling adventure to steal the song from their future selves. At the same time, Wilhelmina Billie “Little Bill” Logan (Brigette Lundy-Paine)... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Slack is about to face even greater competition Continue reading…

Photo by Corning Your next Samsung Galaxy or iPhone may soon include the toughest gadget glass Corning has ever created. Today, the company’s announcing Gorilla Glass Victus — a glass that can not only resist a six-foot drop, but also the first in six years to meaningfully improve your phone’s ability to shrug off nasty scratches.It’s a little-known fact that Corning’s Gorilla Glass hasn’t gotten much better at resisting keys and coins since 2014’s Gorilla Glass 3, and it has arguably gotten slightly worse since: our reporting showed that Gorilla Glass 4 actually performed worse in some tests, Gorilla Glass 5 was in the middle, and Gorilla Glass 6 didn’t improve any further since Corning was more focused on making your phone survive a nasty tumble... Continue reading…

Getty Images for WarnerMedia HBO Max has signed up more just over four million customers since it launched in May, AT&T announced today.The company did not immediately disclose the figures in its initial earnings report, but AT&T CEO John Stankey told analysts on the company’s earnings call that HBO and HBO Max accumulated a combined 36.3 million subscribers by the end of June. Stankey said there were roughly three million retail customers, and an additional million activations that came through AT&T platforms (ie, bundled plans).Through cable customers and HBO Now subscribers, the company already had more than 30 million subscribers it could move over to HBO Max. Stankey noted that getting people subscribed to HBO through traditional linear cable packages to... Continue reading…

Pandora Pandora wants you to talk to its ads. The company is expanding on its voice control features today with a beta launch of voice-activated ads, after initially testing the feature last year. Only listeners who already hear ads will be offered the voice-activated ones, which ask the listener to agree to hear additional brand content. They have to say “yes” to initiate.The idea is that people can actually engage with such ads when they’re driving or otherwise unable to use their hands. This is particularly important to brands that want to know whether their audio ads are actually getting the message across. Pandora’s initially partnering with 13 companies to launch the feature, including Acura, Doritos, Volvo, Xfinity, and T-Mobile.Speak... Continue reading…

Zach Gage was never really interested in sudoku. But that changed when he started watching the Cracking the Cryptic channel on YouTube, where seasoned pros tackle seemingly impossible puzzles, like the “Miracle Sudoku” video that recently went viral. Played at such a high level, he found the ubiquitous puzzle game “beautiful.” Problem was, when he set out to learn how to play, he couldn’t find any mobile apps that allowed for those high-level techniques. So Gage teamed up with designer Jack Schlesinger to make Good Sudoku, which is out today on iOS.“This inspiration for this was really I just wanted to learn sudoku,” Gage says, “and it seemed very hard to do with what was out there.”Over the last few years, Gage has made a habit of... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Twitter’s advertising revenue was hit hard by the pandemic, and the company says that the “US civil unrest” in May and June also made matters worse. Advertising revenue declined 15 percent year-over-year in the final three weeks of June, Twitter said, as brands slowed or paused spending entirely. “Demand gradually improved once brands returned after the protests subsided,” Twitter said this morning in its Q2 2020 earnings report.Brands have been known to block ads from appearing near terms like “Black Lives Matter,” “George Floyd,” and “protest.” At the same time, several huge advertisers including Starbucks, Unilever, and Coca-Cola paused advertising across most social media platforms in June. The advertising pause was initially... Continue reading…

The US Army, Navy, and Air Force all field their own esports teams. | Image: U.S. Army Esports / Facebook The US Army has paused streaming video games on Twitch as an outreach and recruitment tool after facing criticism for banning viewers who asked its streamers about US war crimes.The pause was first reported by esports consultant Rod “Slasher” Breslau who said the Army team was stopping streaming, social activity, and participation in the upcoming Twitch Rivals competition. Breslau said there was “no official time frame for a return” and that Twitch had not cancelled its official partnerships with US Army and Navy esports teams.“The team has paused streaming to review internal policies and procedures”A spokesperson for the US Army confirmed the news to GameSpot: “The team has paused streaming to review internal policies and procedures,... Continue reading…

Microsoft is hosting its second virtual event focused on games coming to the Xbox Series X console this week. Unlike the last one that focused on third-party titles that will be available during the Series X’s launch window, Microsoft has made it very clear that we should expect to see an extended look at Halo Infinite, and we’ll likely see other first-party games made by Xbox Game Studios. Perhaps that means we’ll see real-time gameplay of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, Rare’s Everwild, Psychonauts 2, and maybe even a new Fable game.Additionally, Microsoft has released more than 70 playable demos to let you go hands-on with games coming to Xbox One later this year.How do I watch the Xbox Series X game showcase?

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge iOS 14’s third beta contains more evidence that Apple has an iPhone with a 5.4-inch display on the way, 9to5Mac reports.The reasoning is a little complicated, so bear with us. 9to5Mac is basing its hunch on iOS’s Display Zoom feature, which you can use to make your phone’s text, buttons, and icons bigger. Display Zoom works by pretending your phone has a smaller physical display, so if you’re using an iPhone 11 Pro Max with a 6.5-inch screen, Display Zoom shows the interface designed for the 5.8-inch display of the iPhone 11 Pro, essentially magnifying the elements.Corroborating previous reports from Ming-Chi Kuo9to5Mac discovered a new smaller resolution in iOS 14 beta 3 that enables Display Zoom for the iPhone X, XS, or 11 Pro for... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Every tech platform has two policies about what they will allow: the policy that’s written, and the policy that’s enforced. Ideally there would be no gap between these, but in practice it almost can’t be helped.To take one dumb example, the embryonic audio social network Clubhouse posted its first set of community guidelines the other week. One of these rules says “we prohibit the spread of or attempts to spread false information or news.” In theory, this means that only the truth is allowed on Clubhouse. Not a bad policy, really, but when you’re building a network that someday anyone will be able to use to essentially broadcast their phone calls, I imagine that Clubhouse will find it extremely hard to enforce. Of course people will... Continue reading…

The personal data of hundreds of thousands of Instacart users is being sold on the dark web for around $2 per person, according to a report from BuzzFeed.The publication says information including “names, the last four digits of credit card numbers, and order histories” appearing to belong to 278,531 Instacart accounts is available to buy. (Though it’s impossible to verify that this number doesn’t include duplicates or incorrect data.) BuzzFeed did confirm with two Instacart users that the order date, transaction amount, and credit card numbers included in the cache matched their recent purchases. The data also includes users’ emails addresses.It’s not clear what the source of the data isInstacart denies that there’s been a data... Continue reading…

Tianwen-1 launching on a Long March 5 rocket from China | Photo by NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty Images China has successfully launched its first major interplanetary mission to Mars. The launch begins a long seven-month journey through deep space, and once the mission reaches the Red Planet, China could become just the second nation ever to land and operate a rover on the Martian surface.Called Tianwen-1, China’s mission consists of a Martian orbiter, lander, and rover. The trio launched on top of the Long March 5 from China’s Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site in the early morning hours of July 23rd. The Long March 5 is one of China’s most powerful rockets, and this mission marked just the fourth launch ever for this type of vehicle.

Image: Crytek Thirteen years after the game’s original release, the question “But can it run Crysis ” continues to be an in-joke among gamers, referring to whether any new piece of hardware is powerful enough to run Crytek’s graphically demanding game. Now, we have proof that Nintendo’s handheld Switch is capable of the task; Eurogamer’s Digital Foundry, an outlet renowned for their technical breakdowns, created a video that shows the differences between every version of Crysis released thus far and how the Nintendo Switch runs the game.I myself was kind of shocked that Crytek managed to create a competent port of Crysis Remastered on Switch. It’s not all good, though. Here are a few takeaways from Digital Foundry’s video:

Illustration by Alex Castro Twitter believes the perpetrators of last week’s unprecedented attack on the company accessed the direct message (DM) inbox of an elected official in the Netherlands, the company said Wednesday evening. The revelation comes as part of the company’s ongoing investigation into last Thursday’s attack that allowed attackers to hijack the accounts of some of the service’s most high-profile users, including politicians Barack Obama and Joe Biden, to tweet a bitcoin scam.Although Twitter didn’t name the Dutch official, local media reported last week that far-right, anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders, had his account hacked, retweeting a number of conspiracy theories and replacing Wilders’ profile photo with a caricature of a Black man and... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The New York Times has acquired the audio production company behind the popular podcast series Serial, which is widely credited with helping popularize the modern narrative podcast movement. The company, called Serial Productions, was formed in 2017 by Sarah Koenig, Julie Snyder, and Ira Glass after the success of the podcast’s initial season three years prior, and the team has gone on to produce two follow-up seasons of Serial and a standalone podcast called S-Town. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.As part of the deal, The Times is entering into what’s being described as an “ongoing creative and strategic alliance” with This American Life, the syndicated radio program from which Serial was originally spun off and for which Glass... Continue reading…