Facebook will let researchers study how advertisers targeted users with political ads prior to Election Day

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge

Facebook is aiming to improve transparency around political advertising on its platform by opening up more data to independent researchers, including targeting information on more than 1.3 million ads that ran in the three months prior to the US election on November 3rd of last year. Researchers interested in studying the ads can apply for access to the Facebook Open Research and Transparency (FORT) platform here.

The move is significant because Facebook has long resisted willfully allowing access to data around political advertising, often citing user privacy. The company has gone so far as to even disable third-party web plugins, like ProPublica’s Facebook Political Ad Collector tool, that collect such data without Facebook’s express...

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Go read this story about how r/WallStreetBets triggered a huge rise in GameStop’s stock price

Photo by Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The market, like Soylent Green, is made of people. That’s never more clear than when there’s something bonkers happening — like what’s happened with video game retailer GameStop’s stock since last September. Back then, it was trading at around $6.68; by this morning, however, it was trading at $146.97. (Since that astounding high, it fell to $61.13 as of 12:26PM EST.) What happened?

For that, check out this wild story from Bloomberg, which reported exactly how the subreddit r/WallStreetBets grabbed hold of a huge opportunity — found, naturally, in the mass shorting of GameStop stock. As writer Brandon Kochkodin explains, the stage for the rise was set in 2019, when two important things happened. “One was Michael Burry — of Big Short...

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Cyberpunk 2077’s new 1.1 update introduces a game-breaking bug

Cyberpunk 2077 ’s big new 1.1 patch has introduced a game-breaking bug. Eurogamer reports that the “Down on the Street” quest appears to be broken for some players. The quest includes a holocall that’s supposed to trigger progress through the main part of Cyberpunk 2077 ’s storyline. Unfortunately, some players are reporting that the call remains silent, and it blocks progress of the game.

Developer CD Projekt Red has published a workaround for the issue, but it requires players to have an earlier save of the game to try to get the holocall to work correctly. Here are the steps:

1. Load a gamesave before Takemura and V leave Wakako’s office
2. Finish the conversation with Takemura outside the office right away
3. Right after the finished...

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This 7-Eleven store got a gaming makeover, and I want to spend the night

Image: 7-Eleven

If you reside in Dallas County, Texas, you have a chance to spend the night in what I think is the ultimate gamer’s paradise: a 7-Eleven complete with snacks, a Slurpee machine, and the hard-to-find PS5 available to use during your stay.

Starting February 1st, residents who are 18 years or older will have the chance to spend $11 for one night in the utopia for gamers before it opens to the public. However, the rules are a bit strict as two gamers from the same household who book the experience through Airbnb’s website will have the chance to spend the night. Only two dates are available: February 26th and February 28th.

During their stay, two lucky guests will have access to the store, which has a futuristic gaming aesthetic, and it is...

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Apple faces yet another lawsuit over throttling iPhones

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A consumer advocacy group in Europe has filed the latest lawsuit against Apple saying the company intentionally throttled older iPhones in Italy. First reported by TechCrunch, the potential class-action lawsuit seeks €60 million (roughly $73 million) in compensation — or about €60 per device — for owners of iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6S, and 6S Plus models sold in Italy between 2014 and 2020. Euroconsumers, an umbrella advocacy organization in the EU that includes Italy’s Altroconsumo, says the €60 compensation is the average amount consumers paid to replace their devices’ batteries.

“When consumers buy Apple iPhones, they expect sustainable quality products. Unfortunately, that is not what happened with the iPhone 6 series” Els Bruggeman, head...

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Spotify now hosts audiobook recordings from YouTuber David Dobrik and actress Hilary Swank

Spotify

Spotify isn’t limiting its audio ambitions to podcasts and music. Today the company announced it’s furthering its audiobook experiments with the release of nine new audiobooks available exclusively in the app. As first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, among the works, which are all part of the public domain, are David Dobrik narrating Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein ; Forest Whitaker reading Frederick Douglass’ memoir Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave ; and Hilary Swank narrating Kate Chopin’s The Awakening. It’s also releasing an accompanying audio series called Sitting with the Classics on Spotify, a show in which Harvard professor Glenda Carpio explains the stories’ histories and narratives for a modern...

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To all the streaming services you’ve never heard of before

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The competition for streaming services is playing out in the same way the tech industry has over the past decade: a small handful of big names, backed by a lot of money.

But for every Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, and Hulu, there are a dozen smaller, more obscure streaming services — many of which you’ve likely never heard of. In fact, let’s see if you can tell the difference between the names of real streaming platforms and ones we’ve made up.

Take the quiz on The Verge

For every household streamer — Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus — there are a dozen that few users would likely recognize. How many people can explain what Xumo, Tubi, Vudu, and Pluto TV are? How about Acorn TV, Ovid, and Popcornflix?

But all of these obscure services...

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Sony’s flagship noise-canceling headphones are back down to their lowest price yet

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you’ve found yourself wanting some peace and quiet, whether it’s from the upstairs neighbor’s kid stomping around above you or just to silence other distractions, today’s marquee deal has your name written all over it. The Sony WH-1000XM4 are $72 off at Amazon, Best Buy, and other retailers — matching the lowest price yet that we’ve seen happen a few times now. We first saw this price drop occur during Prime Day last October, and it went on to become one of the most popular deals of 2020.

This model is almost identical to the previous generation (WH-1000XM3), with its similarly sublime audio quality and noise cancellation effect. What’s new in this set, though, is a sensor that automatically pauses music when you remove them, then...

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AMC Theatres staves off bankruptcy just in time for studios to delay their films all over again

Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images

AMC Theatres has raised nearly $1 billion in funding since December 14th, staving off bankruptcy for several more months, the company announced today. The announcement comes just days after several major studios, including Paramount, Sony, and Disney’s Fox, all delayed many of their films to the latter half of the year.

In total, AMC raised $917 million, according to public documents. More than half of that capital arrives in the form of equity that comes with selling 164.7 million new common shares. AMC raised another $411 million in incremental debt that is scheduled to be paid off by mid-2023, according to the filing. As such, AMC Theatres executives now believe they have a new “financial runway” that extends “deep into 2021.”

“This...

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ESPN Plus apologizes for “technical issue” during UFC pay-per-view event

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images

ESPN Plus says it will issue partial refunds to customers who paid for a UFC pay-per-view event Saturday only to run into technical problems.

Conor McGregor vs Dustin Poirier was the headline match of the UFC 257 main card, which was set to get underway at about 10PM ET Saturday. To watch, ESPN Plus subscribers, who pay $59.99 per year for the streaming service, also paid $69.99 for Saturday’s event. But users in the US began reporting a blackout on the ESPN Plus app Saturday evening that lasted through some of the earlier fights on the main card.

A spokesperson for Disney, which owns ESPN, said in an email to The Verge on Sunday that the company was “aware that a technical issue prevented a portion of users from accessing the early...

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New trailers: Godzilla vs. Kong, The World to Come, Son of the South and more

Godzilla vs. Kong | Warner Bros.

I finally finished Ted Lasso last night and I get why everyone loved it so much. I was totally prepared to not like the earnest, goofy Ted but Jason Sudeikis won me over. I won’t spoil in case you haven’t seen it, but Ted Lasso has plenty of plot developments you expect will turn out a certain way —because we’ve been conditioned to have plots drawn out as long as possible and with as much unnecessary drama as possible— but then the characters behave like actual people! They’re smart and funny and nuanced and I can’t wait to see them again in Season 2.

But look what just dropped this morning: The Godzilla vs. Kong trailer! Let’s gooooo

Godzilla vs. Kong

The trailer for the long-awaited flick about the showdown between Kong and...

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Tesla sues former employee for allegedly stealing software

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla is suing a former employee for allegedly stealing company information, CNBC reported. The company says software engineer Alex Khatilov stole files from Tesla’s internal network related to its Warp Drive software, used to automated many of the company’s business processes. Tesla alleges in the lawsuit that Khatilov moved files to his personal Dropbox account, and that he was one of only a few Tesla employees who had access to the files.

According to the lawsuit, Khatilov told Tesla investigators he “forgot” about moving the files to his personal Dropbox when they confronted him. He told the New York Post __ in an interview that he had unintentionally moved the files to Dropbox, and, had been unaware that Tesla had filed a lawsuit...

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Uber reportedly lays off 185 former Postmates workers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Uber has laid off about 185 Postmates workers, and plans to further integrate Postmates’ infrastructure within its Uber Eats segment, The New York Times reported. Uber acquired Postmates in July for $2.65 billion, following a failed attempt to buy rival food delivery service Grubhub.

Meal delivery has been one bright spot for Uber amid the pandemic, as bookings in its Uber Eats division rose 135 percent year-over-year in the third quarter while its ride-hailing segment dropped 50 percent over the same time period. It’s consolidated other parts of the company in a bid to become profitable by the end of 2021, selling its autonomous vehicles segment to Aurora Innovation in December, the same month it sold its Uber Elevate flying taxi...

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SpaceX launches record batch of satellites in first in-house rideshare mission

143 spacecraft inside Falcon 9’s payload fairing | SpaceX

SpaceX launched a batch of 143 spacecraft to space from Florida on Sunday morning under the company’s new cost-cutting SmallSat Rideshare Program, breaking the record for the most satellites lofted into space on a single launch.

The Transporter-1 mission kicks off a potentially lucrative business line for SpaceX, which unveiled in 2019 its SmallSat Rideshare Program, essentially a carpool for dozens of satellites of different shapes and sizes. The program offers relatively cheap access to space for small satellite companies starting at $1 million for the first 485 pounds.

Much like a rideshare Uber, a company’s small satellite can hitch a ride to space with other spacecraft instead of buying an entire rocket at a much higher price.

After...

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The Xbox Series X is available at Target

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Microsoft’s flagship Xbox Series X is one of the most powerful gaming consoles available right now. If you are having difficulty finding it, Target has restocked the Xbox Series X today, so you may want to check it out while supplies last. Given the challenge it has been to secure a unit, inventory will likely not last long.

Although no walk-in purchases are available, you will have the option to either have it shipped to your home or request an in-store pickup.

Like every major hardware launch, the demand for the Xbox Series X and its competitor, the PlayStation 5, is through the roof, and the usual problems of supply and demand are exacerbated by the fact that both next-gen consoles launched during a pandemic. Many retailers have...

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The Verge updated their profile.

Italian watchdog tells TikTok to block users whose ages can’t be verified

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Italy’s data privacy authority has ordered video sharing app TikTok to temporarily block the accounts of any users whose ages can’t be confirmed, Reuters reported. The order comes after the death of a 10-year-old girl in Palermo, whose parents told authorities their daughter was participating in a “blackout challenge” she saw on the app. The child died of asphyxiation, and authorities are investigating whether anyone invited her to try the challenge.

The Italian Data Protection Authority ordered TikTok to block unverified users in Italy until at least February 15th. The company told The Guardian it had not found content on its platform which would have encouraged the child to participate in the challenge, but said it was cooperating...

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Tiger and the need to complicate the world we grew up in

Image: HBO

The year is kicking off with what’s becoming a loose tradition: a documentary about a renowned ‘90s athlete that aims to shade in a more complete picture. This time around, it’s Tiger , a two-part HBO Sports documentary about golf superstar Tiger Woods. Like The Last Dance , which chronicled Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls while reflecting on his entire career, Tiger attempts to complicate the prevailing narrative of a legend defined by his meteoric rise and equally steep fall.

Even if you didn’t know golf, you probably knew about Tiger Woods. If you came of age in the ‘90s or early aughts, it was impossible to not know about the man who brought raucous, Michael Jordan-levels of celebrity to golf — a sport so...

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Facebook says ‘configuration change’ caused some users to be logged out unexpectedly

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook says some users were logged out of their accounts unexpectedly Friday due to a “configuration change,” and the issue has been fixed as of Saturday morning.

“On January 22, a configuration change caused some people to be logged out of their Facebook accounts. We investigated the issue and fixed it for everyone earlier today. We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” a Facebook company spokesperson said in an email to The Verge.

So Facebook, heard it was a "configuration change".

to the engineers who fixed the issue and patiently tried to explain the cause to us to no avail. https://t.co/AUARhCZ7W2

— Facebook App (@facebookapp) January 23, 2021

The problems began late Friday ET, with users on the r/Facebook Reddit board r...

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A year into coronavirus, we’re still counting the dead

Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

A year ago this week, The Verge published our first story about the virus. It was January 21. The first case had arrived in the US. We’d only heard of about 300 cases reported in China and six deaths.

We still knew there was a chance it could get bad. “It’s bringing back SARS flashbacks for me,” coronavirus expert Timothy Sheahan told Verge reporter Nicole Wetsman at the time. The 2002 SARS outbreak taught researchers speed, but was only a deadly teaser to the still-unnamed pandemic that was about to begin.

One year and almost 1,000 coronavirus-related articles later, we’ve passed more grim milestones than we ever should have. More than 97 million people have contracted the virus and 2.1 million people have died. In just one year, more...

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Super Bowl 2021 won’t stream in 4K, but these TV deals are still worth it

Image: Vizio

In news that’s likely to be devastating to people who are looking for any and all reasons to upgrade their TV, CBS announced that Super Bowl LV won’t be broadcast in 4K HDR. The decision was made because of complications caused by the pandemic. This likely isn’t going over too well with all of the TV manufacturers that use the Super Bowl as the moment to clear out 2020 models at a big discount. But there are other reasons to seize these deals while they’re around.

There’s more 4K content than ever, with HBO Max’s Wonder Woman 1984 being one of the big new releases to support 4K HDR. One of the TVs mentioned below has HDMI 2.1 ports, giving it the ability to display certain PS5 and Xbox Series X games at 4K resolution with up to 120...

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Radio and TV host Larry King dies at 87

Photo by: Peter Kramer/NBC/NBC Newswire/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

Longtime TV and radio host Larry King died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 87. Ora Media, which King co-founded in 2012, confirmed the news in a tweet to the @KingsThings Twitter account. A cause of death was not immediately available Saturday, but he had reportedly been hospitalized recently with COVID-19.

“Larry always viewed his interview subjects as the true stars of his programs,” the statement from Ora reads. “Whether he was interviewing a U.S. president, foreign leader, celebrity, scandal-ridden personage, or an everyman, Larry liked to ask short, direct, and uncomplicated questions.”

pic.twitter.com/x0Hl0X6vqU

— Larry King (@kingsthings) January 23, 2021

King started his career in local radio in...

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Parkinson’s meds are hard to grab, so TikTok users crowdsourced a solution

Brian Alldridge’s pill bottle design. | Image: Brian Alldridge

Stitching together a pill bottle prototype

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Microsoft backtracks on Xbox Live Gold price hike

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft has reversed its controversial Xbox Live price increase. The company announced a price hike on Friday that would have doubled the cost of a yearly subscription to the service, which is required to play games online on Xbox consoles, to $120 for many users. Now, though, Microsoft says the price will stay the same.

Beyond that, Microsoft has decided to bring Xbox Live in line with Sony and Nintendo’s online services by dropping the subscription requirement for free- to-play games. Popular free-to-play titles like Fortnite are playable on PlayStation consoles and the Nintendo Switch without an online subscription, but you still need one for Xbox consoles; Microsoft says it’s “working hard to deliver this change as soon as possible...

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SpaceX is sparring with a Texas oil company to drill for natural gas

SpaceX is locked in a legal fight with a Texas oil company for a plot of land it wants to use to drill for natural gas, according to public records. The 806-acre site in southern Texas sits near SpaceX’s Starship facilities, a sprawling testing ground for its methane-fueled Raptor rocket engine.

Tim George, an attorney for the SpaceX subsidiary fighting for the land, was quoted by Bloomberg News, which first reported the legal despute, as saying methane reserves from the land will be used “in connection with their rocket facility operations.”

In filings with a Texas energy regulator, the SpaceX subsidiary Lone Star Mineral Development LLC demanded that Dallas Petroleum Group (DPG) LLC, which claims ownership to wells on the land, vacate...

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Cyberpunk 2077’s first big patch is out now, and it’s packed with bug fixes

Image: CD Projekt Red

Cyberpunk 2077 ’s first big update is available now, and it’s packed with bug fixes for the notoriously buggy game. In a tweet, developer CD Projekt Red also said that the update “lays the groundwork” for future patches.

Patch 1.1 is out on PC, consoles and Stadia!

In this update, which lays the groundwork for the upcoming patches, we focused on various stability improvements and bugfixes.

List of changes: https://t.co/NlSEKjsax7 pic.twitter.com/WjLcD0SaZk

— Cyberpunk 2077 (@CyberpunkGame) January 22, 2021

The 1.1 patch arrives more than a month after Cyberpunk 2077’s rocky launch. The game has been plagued with bugs and issues, particularly on older consoles, though CD Projekt Red has released three hotfixes to try to shore up some...

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