The Verge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook has released its latest annual diversity report, which suggests the company is slowly increasing representation across its workforce. According to Facebook, the representation of women and Black and Hispanic people among its employees increased across all of its tracked categories. But the social network has yet to hit its long-term goals, such as 50 percent of its workforce being from an underrepresented background by 2024. That figure now stands at 45.3 percent, up from 43 percent last year.Facebook’s diversity report, which is now in its seventh year, is especially important in 2020. Last month, the company’s employees staged a virtual walkout over its decision not to take action against posts from President Donald Trump.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Intel is promising “something big” at an event on September 2nd, where it’s likely to launch its 11th Gen CPUs. Intel mailed out hold the date messages to members of the press today, teasing a virtual event to show “how Intel is pushing the boundaries of how we work and keep connected.”The event will likely see the introduction of Intel’s 11th Gen Tiger Lake processors. The chipmaker first previewed these new 10nm Tiger Lake CPUs earlier this year at CES. Tiger Lake is expected to launch under the Intel 11th Gen branding, be limited to laptops, and include a new Xe architecture graphics architecture. Intel’s event teaser. These chips will be the next iteration of Intel’s 10nm+ architecture that shipped on Ice Lake... Continue reading…

Image: Audeze Audeze has a new gaming headset called the Penrose, which will cost $299.99 when it is released in September, but the company is knocking $50 off if you preorder it before then.Audeze is making two different versions. The first has blue outlining the ear cups and is compatible with the PS5, PS4, Windows 10, and macOS. The other model has green detailing and works with Microsoft’s consoles, the Xbox Series X and the current Xbox One lineup, as well as Windows PC.Despite that there’s a separate model for Xbox, an Audeze spokesperson told me that the headphones are exactly the same; it’s the included dongle that’s different. One supports Microsoft’s wireless protocol, whereas the other does not. Either dongle will work when plugged into... Continue reading…

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Librarians are using the activities to keep communities entertained and informed Continue reading…

New images found within the code of SpaceX’s Starlink website show the official look of the company’s future user satellite terminals — the antennas that customers will use to tap into the massive internet-from-space satellite constellation that SpaceX is building. The white disc-shaped device does indeed look like a “UFO on a stick” as SpaceX CEO Elon Musk once described.Musk seemingly confirmed that the images of the user terminals were real on Twitter after replying to a user who had posted the pictures. “Starlink terminal has motors to self-orient for optimal view angle,” he said. “No expert installer required.” He also noted that the design of the terminal had changed slightly. The “latch on post near base” is no longer there, he... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Amazon has begun sending emails out to owners of its Echo Buds true wireless earbuds, cautioning those customers to update the device firmware as soon as possible to avoid a “potential safety risk.”“We recently determined that in rare cases it’s possible for Echo Buds to overheat while in the charging case,” the email says. According to Amazon, the latest software update eliminates this issue and “improves the long-term performance of Echo Buds’ batteries.” Android Central first reported on the email.Amazon’s email doesn’t mention whether there have been real-world overheating incidents involving the Echo Buds. I’ve asked the company whether it’s aware of any, or if this problem was discovered internally. Amazon is urging anyone who... Continue reading…

Graphic by Alex Castro / The Verge Why’d You Push That Button? is back for a special episode all about virtual dating in 2020. The pandemic has forced many people to stay at home, which means dating has had to move online. For this episode, Kaitlyn Tiffany and I talk to online daters and Bumble’s VP of strategy about how they’re adapting to virtual-only dating. They try to figure out what, if any, features and behaviors will stick around after social distancing and the pandemic end.Dating apps have leaned into virtual dates over the past few months. Tinder is launching video calls and added a feature called Global Mode, which lets you match with people around the world. Hinge launched a virtual dating badge that users can put on their profiles to indicate they’re down... Continue reading…

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Google recently ran a promotion that offered two of its Nest Mini speakers for $78. That’s technically a deal since one usually costs around $50, though Daily Steals is doing it better for Verge readers today with a two-pack of Nest Minis for just $40. Just make sure to enter the code VERGENEST2 once you go to checkout. It currently has the chalk, charcoal, and coral colorways available, and these are all brand-new devices with their original one-year warranty from Google. Another good deal from Daily Steals is on the Beats Solo 3 on-ear wireless headphones that released a few years ago. It’s offering them in a few colors for just $117, which is close to half off the original $200 price. Just enter the offer code VERGECLUB... Continue reading…

Image: Mozilla Mozilla’s VPN service has officially launched and is now available for Windows and Android in six countries worldwide, including the US, Canada, and the UK, the company announced today. The service is available for $4.99 a month, and, like other VPNs, it’s designed to make your web-browsing more private and secure. As part of the move, the service is being rebranded from Firefox Private Network to Mozilla VPN, a change that was announced last month.Mozilla argues that its VPN service has a couple of advantages over its many competitors. It says it should offer a faster browsing experience in many cases because it’s based on a protocol with less than a third of the lines of code of an average VPN service provider. The company is also... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Peacock is here. The last of the major 2020 streaming services to launch, Peacock looks to unite NBC’s shows, Universal’s films, and original content into a single service that will put a much bigger emphasis on live, curated content than nearly any other competing service.But Peacock is arriving late to a very crowded party, one that’s already filled with Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus, CBS All Access, HBO Max, Apple TV Plus, and Amazon Prime Video — which means it’s going to have a big challenge to break through to customers.Peacock does have a trick up its sleeve, though: a completely free, ad-supported tier that will offer thousands of hours of content to customers.Interested in trying it out? Here’s everything you need to know about... Continue reading…

Super Mario’s roleplaying adventures have always been playful twists on the genre. RPGs can be uptight, all melodrama and end-of-the-world theatrics. But games like Super Mario RPG and the Mario & Luigi series took what made RPGs great — the strategic battles, lengthy adventures, and vast stories — and infused them with humor and charm. Paper Mario: The Origami King continues this tradition but updates it in lots of clever ways. It’s the rare game where being funny is its biggest strength.As with most Mario adventures, The Origami King involves trouble with Princess Peach, but not in the typical damsel in distress way. At the outset, Mario and his brother arrive at Toad Town for an origami festival, only to discover the city is mostly... Continue reading…

US truck maker Navistar is joining forces with TuSimple, a leading autonomous vehicle startup, to build a self-driving semi truck that can operate without a human driver on highways and local roads. As part of the deal, Navistar is taking a minority stake in TuSimple — though neither company would disclose the size of Navistar’s investment.TuSimple recently unveiled its plans to build out a coast-to-coast freight-hauling business using a fleet of camera-and-LIDAR equipped autonomous class 8 tractor trailers. Now the company has a manufacturing partner to help it realize its dream of robot semi trucks criss-crossing across the nation.“This is a major key component, of course, of being able to bring autonomy to the market,” TuSimple... Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google is investing $4.5 billion for a 7.73 percent stake in Jio Platforms, an Indian internet giant that offers broadband, mobile services, and online commerce platforms, the company announced today. The investment, which is pending regulatory review, is part of Google’s commitment to invest around $10 billion in India over the next five to seven years. It follows a similar move from Facebook to invest $5.7 billion for a 9.9 percent stake in the company earlier this year. Jio Platforms is the tech subsidiary of Reliance Industries.As part of today’s announcement, Google says that it is working with Jio on an “entry-level affordable smartphone.” Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani said this work will involve creating a customized... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Let’s spend a few minutes today catching up on the antitrust inquiries into Google. There are investigations related to competition underway against most of the biggest tech giants – Apple, Facebook, and Amazon face similar inquiries, and their CEOS are scheduled to join Sundar Pichai for a virtual hearing with the House of Representatives later this month. But there’s reason to believe the case against Google will land the soonest of any of them — in May, the New York Times reported that charges could come “as early as this summer.”Scrutiny into the company’s business practices has since accelerated. Politico reported last week that California, which sat out an investigation led by 48 attorneys general, is preparing to mount its own... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The EU’s second-highest court has overturned a ruling that ordered Apple to pay a record €13 billion ($14.9 billion) in back taxes to the Irish government.The ruling was originally made by the European Commission in 2016 and was seen as a significant win for Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust chief. Vestager concluded that a “sweetheart deal” from the Irish government meant the iPhone-maker paid an effective tax rate of less than 1 percent, a uniquely preferential deal that counted as “illegal state aid.”Tim Cook said the 2016 ruling was ‘political crap’“Member States cannot give tax benefits to selected companies — this is illegal under EU state aid rules,” said Vestager in 2016. “The Commission’s investigation concluded that... Continue reading…

Oppo has long been a leader in engineering fast-charging solutions — it developed the tech behind the Dash Charge system used in OnePlus phones, for example, and has achieved even faster results in many of its own devices. Today, the company is taking a further step forward with the announcement of a 125W system that it claims is the most advanced in the industry.The headline figures of the system are that it can charge a 4,000mAh phone battery in 20 minutes and up to 41 percent in 5 minutes. If accurate, this would beat Oppo’s own record for fast-charging a battery of that size by around 10 minutes. This isn’t simply a matter of building a big power adapter and plugging it into a regular phone — the charger, cable, and... Continue reading…

Graphcore’s new 7nm GC200 IPU is the world’s most complex, with 59.4 billion transistors. | Nick Rochowski Photography Graphcore, a well-funded and ambitious British chip designer that focuses solely on AI applications, has unveiled what it says is the world’s most complex chip: the Colossus MK2 or GC200 IPU.The processor has 59.4 billion transistors and offers an eight times performance increase from the company’s Colossus MK1, says Graphcore. It boasts more than the 54 billion transistors found in Nvidia’s A100, which previously held the title as the world’s largest processor, and which the American firm announced earlier this year.The 7nm GC200 boasts 59.4 billion transistorsEach GC200 chip has 1,472 independent processor cores and 8,832 separate parallel threads, all supported by 900MB of in-processor RAM. Graphcore will be making the GC200... Continue reading…

Sony is ordering at least 50 percent more PlayStation 5 consoles than it had originally planned to ship this year, according to reports in the Japanese press. While the company was expecting to produce around six million consoles in 2020, Nikkei says that the figure is now at about nine million, while Bloomberg says it could reach 10 million.Both publications put the raised expectations down to increased demand for at-home entertainment in the age of the coronavirus. If Sony could sell anywhere near that total number of PS5 consoles through the end of the year, it would mark a major increase on its predecessor; the PS4 launched in November 2013 and had sold through 4.2 million units by the end of the following month.New Oculus headset... Continue reading…

The Japanese automaker is turning over a new leaf with a new addition to its EV lineup Continue reading…

Image: Kobo Kobo is introducing a new entry-level e-reader to its lineup, the $99.99 Nia, which slots in beneath the $119.99 Clara HD model (which is sticking around). While both models have a 6-inch display, the Nia’s $20 savings come with slightly worse specs in a few areas compared to its slightly pricier sibling.Specifically, the Nia has a slightly lower-resolution display (212 ppi, versus 300 ppi on the Clara HD), a standard backlight (versus the Clara HD’s color temperature-changing options), and weighs 8 grams (about a quarter of an ounce) heavier. The Clara HD also has a painted finish, while the Nia does not. Image: Kobo But the comparison to Kobo’s own products is less important than how the Nia matches up against... Continue reading…

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge Officials in Austin have approved a total of at least $60 million in property tax rebates in an effort to bring Tesla’s next electric car factory to the Texas city. Austin is one of the two leading candidates for the factory, which is where Tesla will build the Cybertruck, along with Tulsa, Oklahoma.Travis County Commissioner’s Court, the policy-making and administrative arm of the local government, approved an agreement on Tuesday that will save Tesla around $14 million in property taxes over the next 10 years. Late last week, the Del Valle school district, which is near where the factory would be located, approved an agreement that would grant Tesla close to $50 million in tax rebates over the same time frame.The vote was preceded... Continue reading…

Photo by Joshua Roberts/Getty Images The Trump administration is now ordering hospitals to send coronavirus patient data to a database in Washington, DC as part of a new initiative that may bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), according to a report from The New York Times published on Tuesday. As outlined in a document posted to the website of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), hospitals are being ordered to send data directly to the administration, effective tomorrow, a move that has alarmed some within the CDC, according to The Times.The database that will collect and store the information is referred to in the document as HHS Protect, which was built in part by data mining and predictive analytics firm Palantir. The Silicon... Continue reading…

Every new streaming service is looking for standout features to differentiate themselves from the competition, and Peacock’s features try to combine three different types of experiences in one app: a traditional streaming interface, a curation of small, short-form newsy moments, and “live TV.” But after a few days with the Peacock app, what became very apparent to me is the app isn’t as robust as Comcast’s ambitions for it.Depending on how people watch Peacock, they’ll be presented with two different viewing options. For people using Peacock on a TV, the app will automatically open up in “Browse,” the main streaming portal. A version of Browse being used on an iPhone XR can be seen in the left image below. For people using a mobile... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge WhatsApp went down for its 2 billion users earlier today, but service has now been restored. The issues started at around 4PM ET and prevented WhatsApp users from sending or receiving messages on the service for nearly an hour. The WhatsApp application would still open, but a connecting loop was displayed while the service experienced issues.“Earlier today, an internal update made to our WhatsApp servers caused some people to have trouble sending messages,” WhatsApp tells The Verge in a statement. “We quickly resolved this issue for everyone and we apologize for any inconvenience.”Facebook-owned WhatsApp rarely experiences service outages, and this is the first major outage for more than a year. WhatsApp went down alongside Instagram... Continue reading…

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at the Chase Center on July 14th, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden delivered remarks on his campaign’s ‘Build Back Better’ clean energy economic plan. | Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images On Wednesday, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden revealed a revamped climate and energy plan that raises spending, expands efforts to address racial disparities, and sets an earlier deadline for cutting greenhouse gases.Biden’s plan aims to eliminate carbon pollution from the power sector by 2035. Biden had previously committed to reaching a 100 percent “clean energy economy” by 2050. The plan comes with a $2 trillion price tag over four years, higher than his previous ten-year $1.7 trillion plan. Forty percent of clean energy investments will be earmarked for “disadvantaged communities.”“Today, he’s responded to many of those criticisms.”Biden’s more ambitious climate plans reflect recommendations made by a joint... Continue reading…

Image: Proterra Fifteen states and Washington, DC have announced that they will follow California’s lead in switching all heavy-duty trucks, vans, and buses over to running on electricity, in what could be one of the most significant efforts to reduce harmful diesel engine pollution in the United States. It could also be a big development in the fight for environmental justice because emissions from diesel-powered commercial vehicles disproportionately harm Black, Asian, and Latinx communities.The states that signed the agreement along with Washington, DC are: California, Connecticut, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.California’s Air... Continue reading…

Photo by Anik Rahman/NurPhoto via Getty Images The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have agreed to rescind a policy that would require international students to take in-person classes in order to remain in the US.The agencies have reached an agreement with Harvard and MIT, who filed a lawsuit on July 8th over the policy. The resolution came less than five minutes into a hearing for the case, federal Judge Allison D. Burroughs announced.ICE will reinstate the guidelines it applied to the Spring 2020 semester, which allowed international students with F-1 visas to take fully online course loads while retaining their visa status. That policy, announced in March, allowed hundreds of thousands of international students to remain in... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge This week on the Vergecast interview series, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel talks to Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, about the Facebook ad boycott and Facebook’s civil rights audit that was released to the public.Color of Change, an online racial justice organization, is one of the groups leading the ad boycott against Facebook and other social media companies in response to hate speech on those platforms.In the interview, Robinson talks about how the boycott campaign came together; his history pushing Facebook on issues of hate speech and civil rights; and meeting with Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and fellow leaders of the boycott to discuss the Facebook civil rights audit and how the company can improve the... Continue reading…

With move theaters shuttered and folks still stuck at home due to the pandemic, remote viewing party services have shot up in popularity, letting friends and family members sync up movies and TV shows from their own homes. But nearly all of those services only work on computers — not exactly the most satisfying way to watch a movie. But a new app called Watch With Friends developed by Caavo (the company behind the high-end Caavo Control Center universal remote) promises to bring that same experience to Roku and Apple TV devices.The Watch With Friends app is available on iOS, Android, and as a Chrome extension and is what you’ll use to create the watch party group by pasting in a direct link to the Netflix show or movie you’d like to... Continue reading…

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge Sony’s WH-1000XM3 are a great investment if you’re looking for a comfortable set of wireless, over-ear headphones that feature noise cancellation. The thing is, they’re usually $350. Well, today Woot is offering a new set for $220, which is a 37 percent discount on that original price. This deal will last through today, though it will end earlier if it sells out of stock.This headphone model originally released in late 2018, and rumors have been swirling for months that Sony may soon debut a new model. Whether that day comes tomorrow or a few months down the road, the WH-1000XM3 are well worth picking up — especially for this price. They feature among the best sound quality you can get in a set of wireless over-ear headphones, and their... Continue reading…

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is warning of a 17-year-old critical Windows DNS Server vulnerability that the company has classified as “wormable.” Such a flaw could allow attackers to create special malware that remotely executes code on Windows servers and creates malicious DNS queries that could even eventually lead to a company’s infrastructure being breached.“Wormable vulnerabilities have the potential to spread via malware between vulnerable computers without user interaction,” explains Mechele Gruhn,  a principal security program manager at Microsoft. “Windows DNS Server is a core networking component. While this vulnerability is not currently known to be used in active attacks, it is essential that customers apply Windows updates to address this... Continue reading…

Images: BMW BMW has finally revealed the iX3 SUV, the company’s first all-electric vehicle to top 200 miles of range, and the brand’s first since the i3 launched back in 2014. The iX3 will be built in China and sold both there and in Europe, but it won’t be coming to the United States. Deliveries will start at the end of this year, and it will sell for around €68,000 (about $77,500).The iX3 is, in many ways, a BMW X3 SUV with an electric powertrain, making it the first normal-looking electric car the German automaker has released. While that may help normalize the technology, it also means BMW had to squeeze the battery-powered drivetrain into a vehicle design that was originally developed to be powered by an internal combustion engine. This leaves... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The pay gap reckoning is coming Continue reading…

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Google Play Pass, Google’s subscription service that gives you access to hundreds of Android games and apps with no ads or in-app purchases, is rolling out to nine new countries this week, the company announced today. The service has only been available in the US since it launched in September, but it will soon be available to Android users in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, and the UK.Google is also rolling out a new annual subscription option for Play Pass that gives you a nice discount if you opt to pay for 12 months up front. Play Pass typically costs $4.99 per month, but the new annual subscription will cost $29.99 in the US. That price also undercuts Apple Arcade, an app subscription service... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google has signed on five new developers to make exclusive titles for its Stadia cloud gaming service. Two of those five already have fully realized projects, with one ready for release.Developer Splash Damage, which developed the recent Microsoft exclusive Gears Tactics, is now making an online multiplayer game called Outcasters, while popular strategy and tower defense studio Robot Entertainment has its third installment in its Orcs Must Die! series arriving on Stadia today as part of the Stadia Pro subscription or for $29.99. (Orcs Must Die! 3 was previously announced as a Stadia exclusive in August 2019.)But the bigger news, part of Google’s broader Stadia Connect event on Tuesday, is that Google has teamed up with Rock Band... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google Stadia is adding more than a dozen new games to its cloud service over the next few months, in addition to five exclusives detailed this morning as part of its Stadia Connect announcement.Among the new additions are IO Interactive’s Hitman reboot series — including both the first game, its sequel, and the planned Hitman 3 in 2021 — and FromSoftware’s excellent samurai action game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. The Hitman reboot series will be available September 1st, while Sekiro is coming later this fall.‘Hitman’ and ‘Sekiro’ are solid additions to StadiaStadia is adding a handful of other prominent 2K sports games, too. The upcoming PGA Tour 2K21 is coming to Stadia upon release on August 21st, while WWE 2K Battlegrounds is... Continue reading…

Photo by Lane Turner/The Boston Globe via Getty Images Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against Uber and Lyft on Tuesday claiming the app-based companies are misclassifying drivers as independent contractors rather than employees. The state is the latest to challenge the way the multibillion-dollar ride-hailing industry treats its workers.“For years Uber and Lyft have built their billion-dollar businesses on a model that exploits drivers,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said in a video message announcing the lawsuit. “Uber and Lyft set the rates. They alone set the rules. Drivers are employees.”Massachusetts is the second state to sue Uber and Lyft over the misclassification of drivers. In May, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with city attorneys of Los Angeles,... Continue reading…

Image: Hulu We’re all tired. Every day runs together, an endless tangle of hours and screens and occasional bursts of daylight to recharge. Old routines take on new wrinkles: meetings via webcam, masks to maintain and wear before outings, communal activities retrofitted to be done in isolation. Maybe we’re not in a literal time loop, but it sure feels like one; a long, endless stretch of days where little changes and we’re burned out all the time. Enter Palm Springs, a movie for 2020’s burnout state of mind.At first blush, Palm Springs is another take on Groundhog Day: Nyles (Andy Samberg) is a dude with the terrible misfortune of having to relive an acquaintance’s wedding day over and over again. But what makes Palm Springs stand out is how little... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft has been testing deeper Gmail and Google Calendar integrations in Outlook on the web for months, and part of that is arriving for Outlook business users today. Outlook on the web users will be able to add their personal Outlook.com or Google Calendar accounts to an Outlook work account so that you see a better view of your availability when scheduling work appointments.This new feature is rolling out now to all Microsoft 365 users with a work account, but there’s no news on when Outlook.com users will be able to add Gmail and Google Calendar accounts. Microsoft has been testing this functionality for months now, with it briefly appearing in some Outlook.com accounts. Outlook’s Google Calendar integration. A... Continue reading…

Peacock is NBCUniversal’s new streaming service and the last major entrant in the colloquial streaming wars. But Gidon Katz, the company’s president of direct to consumer, believes Peacock can win by leaning into something most of its biggest competitors won’t: offering premium entertainment, mostly for free.When Peacock launches tomorrow across the United States, people can choose between three different tiers: a completely free ad-supported version that gives people access to more than 13,000 hours of content, daily news and sports programming, and samplings of Peacock original series, but not full access. Then there’s Peacock Premium, a $4.99-a-month version that gives people more than 20,000 hours of content, including all Peacock... Continue reading…

OnePlus has revealed a first look at the OnePlus Nord, giving a quick preview to Marques Brownlee during an interview about the phone’s design process. The Nord, which is supposed to be OnePlus’ return to midrange phones, is set to be formally announced next week — though, per usual, OnePlus has been teasing out details ahead of the launch.In the latest MKBHD video, Brownlee displays a brief look at what the Nord will look like. It bears a strong resemblance to the OnePlus 8, released earlier this year, with a glossy back, curved edges, a central logo, and a camera strip. The big difference is that the camera strip is now located at the upper-left corner of the phone, whereas recent OnePlus phones have positioned it in the center. ... Continue reading…

Razer Razer has announced its first 60 percent keyboard, the Huntsman Mini. It’s made for people who need just the bare minimum of dedicated keys. Gone are the number pad, arrow keys, and function keys — what’s left is a more simple, travel-ready option that’s great for those who want to maximize their desk space for a big mouse pad or just to have something that can more easily be tucked away.Razer already makes different sizes of its Huntsman keyboard, including a full-sized option and the 80 percent tenkeyless Huntsman TE, but this 60 percent model is its smallest keyboard yet. And despite the small size, all of the functions that appear missing at first glance are still present. They’re just tucked in as alternate functions on each key... Continue reading…

Razer hopes you’re reading to buy a bunch of gaming gear, as it has discounted several products on Amazon. Starting with one of the best deals: the Razer Blade Stealth 13 laptop usually costs $1,700, but you can get it today for $1,450. Inside, it’s full of capable components, including Intel’s Core i7-1065G7 quad-core processor, the Nvidia GTX GeForce 1650 Ti Max-Q graphics chip, 16GB of RAM, and a 512GB PCIe-based SSD.Unlike most other game-ready machines, this one features a Thunderbolt 3 port for faster data transfer as well as support for Razer’s Core X Chroma external GPU enclosure. What’s more, this model has the arrow keys in the right place. In previous models, the up arrow was between the forward-slash and shift keys, making... Continue reading…

Image: Netflix It’s been a strange summer for movies. Late April to July was supposed to be dominated by Marvel and DC superheroes, the over-the-top action of the Fast and the Furious franchise, and the inscrutable drama of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, but theater shutdowns due to the pandemic brought all of that to a screeching halt. But in the midst of this cinematic gridlock burst a breath of fresh air for anyone seeking a classic Hollywood summer blockbuster: The Old Guard. It’s the proper popcorn flick we’ve been missing.The Old Guard, released on Netflix, checks every box for a summer hit. The story of a group of immortal warriors doing good across the ages is pulled from the pages of a popular comic series. The cast, led by Mad Max: Fury Road and... Continue reading…

The last big PS4 exclusive is a conflicted one Continue reading…

Microsoft and Citrix have been working together closely for decades, but that partnership is going a step further today. Microsoft is partnering with Citrix to use the company’s Citrix Workspace portal as its “preferred digital workspace solution,” and Citrix is using Microsoft Azure as its preferred cloud platform. It’s a deal designed to speed up Citrix customers to move to the cloud and virtual desktops.Microsoft has been investing heavily in Windows Virtual Desktops recently, ever since the pandemic forced many businesses to shift to working from home. Windows Virtual Desktop usage has grown more than three times in recent months, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has prioritized work on both Microsoft Teams and Windows Virtual... Continue reading…

The Stretch robot is designed to spur research into home automation. | Image: Hello Robot It looks like a telescoping grabber tool attached to a hat stand, but it could be the future of home robotics. Meet Stretch, the first device from Hello Robot, a startup founded by former Google director of robotics Aaron Edsinger and Georgia Tech robotics professor Charlie Kemp, that came out of stealth today after three years in development.The Stretch robot could be a blueprint for future home robotsStretch is not a consumer robot that’s ready to roll into your apartment and start doing the dishes, but rather a research platform that Edsinger and Kemp hope will lay the groundwork for home automation in the years to come. The bot’s lightweight and low-cost design could be a blueprint for future robots, especially those designed to... Continue reading…

Panasonic is updating its Lumix Tether application for Mac to make it easier to use some models of its mirrorless Lumix cameras as a webcam — but it’ll take a bit more effort than some other solutions, at least for now, via DPReview.Like the Windows version, the current solution for macOS is pretty hacked together. Panasonic is simply taking its existing Lumix Tether software (used for tethered shooting from a computer) and offering an update that removes the GUI elements from the live preview on the software by adding a new “Live View” with a clean video feed. That live view window can then be passed to a streaming app, like Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), and only then passed through to your videoconferencing or streaming service. If... Continue reading…

Spotify Spotify is revamping its podcast charts today to help listeners find new shows and keep up with what people are enjoying in their area. This brings a well-known, and controversial, feature in the podcasting industry to Spotify, making the app more on par with other popular players, like Apple Podcasts.The two initial podcast charts will be called Trending and Top. Trending, which is based partially on the speed of growth in listener numbers, includes 50 rising shows, while Top will be the 200 most popular shows overall and will be localized by region. Top, which already exists in a much smaller form currently, can also be separated into categories, like business, comedy, and technology, in certain regions. The charts will be available... Continue reading…

Kano is releasing a second-generation model of its buildable Windows 10 PC, which keeps the $299.99 price point and DIY touchscreen form factor, but offers a faster new processor and a slightly updated design (including the addition of USB-C).The overall form factor — a convertible 2-in-1 tablet with an attachable keyboard that also doubles as a protective case — is the same as last year’s model, but Kano has made big improvements to the internal hardware. The main difference is the jump from the old Intel Atom x5-Z8350 processor to a new Intel Celeron N4000 — jumping from a 2W chip to a dramatically more powerful 6W processor.The company also now promises a minimum of 10 hours of battery life on the new model, which charges via... Continue reading…