Foxconn is dangling a shiny new EV plant in front of Wisconsin

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge

iPhone builder Foxconn is dangling a massive electric vehicle project in front of Wisconsin after burning the state with promises of a multibillion-dollar LCD factory that never happened. The Taiwanese conglomerate has also already fallen behind its own arbitrary deadline for choosing where it will build the factory.

The Taiwanese conglomerate said Friday that it has started talks to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) about making EVs with California startup Fisker Inc. at the mostly empty site it owns in the state. This is despite chairman Young Liu saying in March that he would decide between building EVs in Mexico or Wisconsin by July 1st, and Foxconn and the WEDC agreeing to a far smaller tax subsidy package in...

Continue reading…

Vergecast: Google Play Store fees lawsuit, Nintendo’s OLED Switch, and an ‘EV Day’ event

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.

For this week’s episode of _The Vergecast,_here are the three biggest stories:

• Google faces new antitrust lawsuit over Google Play Store fees
• Nintendo Switch OLED model will go on sale October 8th for $350
• Stellantis, parent company of Dodge and Jeep, had an ‘EV Day’ and it was extremely weird

Nilay and Dieter bring back Verge senior reporter Adi Robertson to discuss these topics and answer questions like:

• Why is Samsung such a big presence in this lawsuit against Google?
• How much nicer does the new Nintendo Switch OLED model look...

Continue reading…

TikTok will start automating video removals for nudity and more in the US

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

TikTok is trying to speed up its moderation process by removing human reviewers where its automated systems can do the job about as well.

In the US and Canada, the company is going to start using automated reviewing systems to weed out videos with nudity, sex, violence, graphic content, illegal activities, and violations of its minor safety policy. If the system catches a video in those categories, it’ll be pulled right away, and the creator will be given the opportunity to appeal to a human moderator.

Until now, TikTok has run all videos by human moderators in the US before pulling them, a spokesperson tells The Verge. The change is meant in part to limit the “volume of distressing videos” moderators are required to watch and give them...

Continue reading…

Lenovo Yoga 9i (14-inch) review: sounds like a winner

Lenovo’s latest convertible has excellent speakers and good performance

Continue reading…

As Marvel’s epics get bigger, Black Widow’s stakes feel too small

Photo: Marvel Studios

Black Widow was released at the wrong time, in multiple ways. The new Marvel prequel was one of the most high-profile films to be displaced by the constantly shifting theatrical release schedule caused by the shuttering of theaters due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But Black Widow — a film set between Captain America: Civil War’s superhero dust-up and Avengers: Infinity War’s cosmos-spanning epic — feels like a movie that should have been released when it’s actually set, instead of as a belated prequel.

Warning: spoilers ahead forBlack Widow, Avengers: Endgame, Loki,and the general Marvel Cinematic Universe

Photo: Marvel Studios

It’s not that Black Widow is a bad movie, or an unworthy member of the Marvel saga. Its...

Continue reading…

Alto’s Odyssey is adding a vibrant new city for its Apple Arcade debut

When the team behind the serene adventure Alto’s Odyssey were working on the sequel, they had a lot of ideas that didn’t make it into the final release. One of those was a vibrant city that would be the game’s fourth biome, joining the existing desert, canyons, and ancient temples. For various reasons, the city was cut from the final release. But when the chance came to bring the game to Apple Arcade as part of the streaming service’s recent expansion, it made sense to go back to the concept.

The result is Alto’s Odyssey: The Lost City, which is coming to Arcade next week. “We’re thinking of The Lost City as a special edition of Alto’s Odyssey,” says lead artist and designer Harry Nesbitt. “We’ve been able to go back to the drawing board...

Continue reading…

Nintendo Switch OLED hands-on: a small upgrade that makes a big difference

The new Nintendo Switch OLED model. | Image: Nintendo

Sitting down in Nintendo’s offices in Redwood City, California, yesterday, I already knew all of the main details on the new Switch OLED model. It has a larger 7-inch OLED screen, an improved kickstand, increased internal storage, and very minor design tweaks. It’s not the “Switch Pro” that many have been hoping for. It’s just a Switch with a bigger, nicer screen.

I knew all that going in, but after playing a half-hour’s worth of Mario Kart and Breath of the Wild, I believe the word “just” in the previous sentence is unfair. The Switch OLED model has a bigger, nicer screen, and that’s more than enough to justify its existence — and perhaps its $350 price.

The screen looks brighter and more vibrant to me than the original Switch. The...

Continue reading…

Biden executive order will target right to repair, ISPs, net neutrality, and more

Photo by Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images

The White House has issued a “fact sheet” listing the industries and policies it’s addressing via an executive order that President Biden will sign later today — and technology is directly in the crosshairs.

That includes internet service providers, as Biden will encourage the Federal Communications Commission to restore net neutrality rules undone during the prior administration, require providers to report prices and subscription rates, and prevent ISPs from making deals with landlords that limit tenants’ choices.

Right-to-repair efforts should get a shot in the arm as the Federal Trade Commission is now tasked with trying to “limit powerful equipment manufacturers from restricting people’s ability to use independent repair shops or...

Continue reading…

The Olympics are still stuck in 2020

Photo by Kazuhiro Nogi / AFP / Getty Images

In two weeks, it’ll be 2020 again: an Olympic year, and a pandemic year, too. This year’s Olympic Games will start in July 2021, but the official logo still reads “Tokyo 2020.” The games were canceled in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, but through the funhouse mirror of pandemic time, the competition is stuck back in 2020 — and COVID-19 is still threatening the games.

Tokyo declared a state of emergency this week following a surge in COVID-19 cases, and Olympic organizers announced Thursday that no fans would be allowed at competitions in the city. The decisions were made as experts warned (again) that the games could lead to a spike in COVID-19 cases in the country.

Japan has, so far, avoided some of the most severe...

Continue reading…

How to turn TikTok’s auto captions on (or off)

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Video captions are important. To begin with, they can be a vital accessibility tool for people who are hard of hearing or deaf. In addition, captioning can be helpful for people who are in environments where they can’t use the audio and / or don’t have headphones available. Or who (like myself) occasionally like to chat during videos and use captions to keep track of what’s being said.

Before TikTok added automatic captions to its app in April of this year, a lot of TikTok creators were manually adding captions to their TikTok videos, either via the app’s text feature or by using third-party apps. However, that’s no longer necessary — the auto caption feature is now a part of TikTok, thanks to organizations such as The Deaf Collective,...

Continue reading…

Apple’s AirPods Max are on sale for their lowest price yet

Apple’s premium on-ears are becoming more affordable with each passing week. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Not every day is chock-full of deals on the devices we love most, and while great discounts still seem relatively scarce post-Prime Day, there are still a handful of price reductions and sales to make note of. Right now, for instance, Amazon is offering the space gray variant of the Apple AirPods Max for $478, the lowest price to date on Apple’s over-ear headphones. Although heavy, Apple’s first pair of dedicated cans offer terrific noise cancellation, a dependable set of controls, and Apple’s apt-titled spatial audio feature, a neat piece of software that adds a greater sense of depth to select content (including thousands of tracks in the Apple Music catalog). Pair those hallmarks with balanced sound and a luxe, premium build and you...

Continue reading…

FCC listing suggests Google’s midrange Pixel 5A 5G could arrive soon

Renders of the Google Pixel 5A based on leaked designs. | Image: OnLeaks

The Pixel 5A 5G, Google’s midrange counterpart to last year’s Pixel 5, has been spotted in the FCC’sdatabase, suggesting a release might not be far away. Android Police, which first saw the two listings, reports that none specifically mention the name “Pixel 5A” but that at least one of the three model numbers (GR0M2) lines up with previous reports about the barely announced phone.

Android Police speculates that one of the models (G1F8F) is the version of the phone destined for release in the US based on its wireless frequency bands, but reports that this version doesn’t offer support for mmWave 5G networks. In contrast, the Pixel 4A 5G offered mmWave support when used with compatible carriers. The other two models could be the phone’s...

Continue reading…

WhatsApp will let you send images and videos in their ‘best quality’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A future version of WhatsApp will give more control over the amount of compression it applies to sent images and videos. WABetaInfo reports that the twofeatures are currently in development for the Android app, and should eventually present three quality options when sending images and video. The options are “Auto,” “Best quality,” or “Data saver.”

If it releases in this form, it could let you force media to be more compressed if you’re worried about internet speeds or data caps, or lower the amount of compression to ensure images or video are sent in their highest possible quality. Currently, avoiding WhatsApp’s compression involves changing a file’s extension to send it as a document rather than an image or video (_The Next Web_has a...

Continue reading…

Mini LED display reportedly coming to 11-inch iPad Pro next year

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple plans to add a Mini LED screen to the 11-inch iPad Pro in 2022, following the introduction of the technology on this year’s 12.9-inch model, according to a research note by analyst Ming-chi Kuo. The note was reported on by AppleInsider and MacRumors.

Apple released new versions of the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro this year, both featuring M1 processors but only the larger model including a Mini LED display. Mini LED is a new screen technology that involves using thousands of tiny LEDs to create focused local dimming zones, allowing for better contrast and HDR performance. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro has 2,500 local dimming zones.

Kuo also says that Apple is planning to bring Mini LED screens to the MacBook line. 14-inch and 16-inch...

Continue reading…

The Windows update to fix ‘PrintNightmare’ made some printers stop working

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

As if an actively exploited critical flaw in the Windows Print Spooler that can allow someone to take over your computer remotely isn’t bad enough, some people who installed Microsoft’s security patch found out that the connection to their printer stopped working. In a near-repeat of a problem that occurred this spring with a different Windows 10 security update, system admins discovered that many PCs suddenly couldn’t connect to printers — most notably several models of Zebra label printers — after installing the KB5004945 patch.

Microsoft has acknowledged the problem as a known issue that can be solved by rolling back the patch or reinstalling the printer as an administrator.

In a statement to The Verge, Zebra acknowledged the problem...

Continue reading…

Square is going to make a hardware wallet for bitcoin

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Square is going to make a hardware wallet for bitcoin, the company’s hardware lead, Jesse Dorogusker, announced on Thursday. CEO Jack Dorsey, who is also the CEO of Twitter, had said in June (in a tweetstorm, naturally) that the company was considering making one, and now Square has made the decision to move forward.

“We have decided to build a hardware wallet and service to make bitcoin custody more mainstream,” Dorogusker said. “We’ll continue to ask and answer questions in the open. This community’s response to our thread about this project has been awesome - encouraging, generous, collaborative, & inspiring.”

We’re doing it #Bitcoinhttps://t.co/IwbKuBoXGv

— jack (@jack) July 8, 2021

Dorsey has made no secret of his interest in...

Continue reading…

Here are the 7 biggest games from Sony’s State of Play event

An image from_Deathloop._ | Image: Sony

Sony showed off a lot of PlayStation games during its latest State of Play event, including more details about the remastered version of Death Stranding and an extended gameplay preview of PS5 exclusive Deathloop.

We’ve rounded up some information about seven of the biggest games from the event. And if you want to watch the State of Play in full, you can check it out right here.

Moss: Book II

Sony debuted a trailer for Moss: Book II, which is in development for PSVR. The game is a sequel to 2018’s Moss, also a VR title.

Arcadegeddon

_Arcadegeddon_is a new multiplayer shooter that hits early access Thursday on PS5. “This ever-evolving multiplayer shooter allows you to play solo or with up to three friends to explore multiple biomes,...

Continue reading…

Apple’s upcoming 9/11 documentary focuses on the 12 hours after the attacks

Image: Apple

Apple announced Thursday that it will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with the release of a new documentary in September. _9/11: The President’s War Room,released in partnership with the BBC,_will focus on the 12 hours that followed immediately after the first plane hit the World Trade Center.

The new film is directed by Adam Wishart, a British director known for the Channel 4 documentary about Somali warlords living in the suburbs, Warlords Next Door?While an immediately less intriguing premise than suburban warlords, _9/11: The President’s War Room_does sound like it might have gotten more access than previous retellings of 9/11. Apple claims the documentary features never-before-seen testimony from key parties...

Continue reading…

Death Stranding: Director’s Cut has new story missions and improved combat

Last month, Hideo Kojima revealed that a director’s cut of Death Stranding for the PS5 was on the way — and now we actually have some details on what it will include. Like the Ghost of Tsushima director’s cut, the new version of Death Stranding appears to be more of an enhanced remake than a traditional director’s cut.

Among the added features are new story missions, more battles with “advanced combat mechanics,” a Metal Gear Solid-style firing range, a cargo catapult for delivering... less fragile goods, a robot buddy who seemingly can carry you around, and, for some reason, a race track. You can get a good sense of all the changes in the trailer above.

This will mark the third platform Death Stranding is available on. The game debuted...

Continue reading…

Jett: The Far Shore shows off soaring sci-fi exploration in new gameplay trailer

Jett: The Far Shore is finally showing off what its gameplay looks like in a new trailer, which promises a serene sci-fi experience that will have players exploring its world in a soaring spacecraft.

The gameplay itself bears some resemblance to No Man’s Sky, but with a crucial difference: Jett: The Far Shore aims to “tread lightly,” eschewing combat and resource harvesting in favor of respecting the fauna of the mysterious ocean world. Players will inhabit the role of a “jett scout,” using their ship to explore the world and investigate the creatures that live there, in addition to investigating the source of the “hymnwave.”

Image: Superbrothers

Originally announced in 2020 before getting delayed to this year, Jett:...

Continue reading…

Black Widow’s post-credit scene is Marvel’s biggest Disney Plus push yet

Image: Marvel Studios

Marvel Studios is practically synonymous with post-credit scenes, so it’s no surprise that Black Widow — the MCU’s first movie in almost two years — continues that tradition. Going all the way back to 2008’s Iron Man(teasing Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury and “the Avengers Initiative,”)the post- and mid-credit tags have been used to set the table for the next movie in the Marvel machine.

But Black Widow does something different, using its post-credit tag to tease not a future film, but an upcoming Disney Plus show. It’s the highest profile push toward the streaming service yet.

Warning: gigantic spoilers ahead forBlack Widow— and forAvengers: Endgame.

Image: Marvel Studios

What happens in Black Widow’s...

Continue reading…

Qualcomm’s $1,500 smartphone is for its biggest fans with more money than sense

Qualcomm — the company behind the Snapdragon processors and modems that power almost every major Android smartphone — is making its own phone. Or rather, the company is partnering with Asus on a custom device officially called the “Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders,” a $1,500 phone that’s designed to showcase the chip company’s technology. And, as the name suggests, Qualcomm will be selling the phone directly to members of its Snapdragon Insider fan community, which Qualcomm launched earlier this year.

It’s an interesting idea, but unfortunately, the Smartphone for Snapdragon Insiders doesn’t look like it does anything different, when it comes to actually taking advantage of Qualcomm’s technology, than any other Android flagship —...

Continue reading…

Sony posts and deletes ad featuring an upside-down PS5

I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to look. | Image via u/madhouse5625 on Reddit

The PS5 is a strange-looking console, and its curved edges can make it difficult to know exactly which way the console should sit when it’s laid down flat. In the significant majority of Sony’s marketing, when the console is shown on its side, the disc drive is on the bottom. But rather hilariously, it seems that even Sony can get confused about which way it’s supposed to go, as it released a video on its main Twitter account showing the console lying down with the disc drive on top(via Kotaku).

The video has already been deleted, but thankfully, a Reddit user shared a screenshot of how the PS5 appeared in the ad, nestled into someone’s home entertainment system.

Image via u/madhouse5625 on Reddit

The upside-down...

Continue reading…

Facebook’s ‘big blue app’ leader, Fidji Simo, is leaving to take over Instacart

Photo illustration by Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto / Getty Images

The online grocery startup Instacart just announced its new CEO will take over on August 2nd. Fidji Simo has been in charge of Facebook’s “big blue app” since 2019, putting her in charge of “News Feed, Stories, Groups, Video, Marketplace, Gaming, News, Dating and Ads,” but now, like a number of former Facebook execs recently, she’s headed to Instacart ahead of its expected IPO.

Simo’s departure comes at an interesting time for Facebook, as regulators and politicians take aim at Big Tech, with its market dominance and opaque algorithms that control the online experience for billions of people. Facebook has faced criticism over its “pivot to video” and role as a pipeline for bad actors and misinformation, while a memo from Simo last year p...

Continue reading…

League of Legends’ summer event features a visual novel

Riot Games is announcing a big summer event, Sentinels of Light, that will take place across all five of its currently available games: League of Legends, League of Legends: Wild Rift, Legends of Runeterra, Teamfight Tactics, and Valorant. Each game will receive themed content during the event, but League of Legends players will get a special treat: they’ll be able to play through a visual novel-style story experience right in the game’s client.

The story experience, called “Rise of the Sentinels,” is intended to be “approachable for everyone,” Thomas Cunningham, a narrative lead at Riot Games, tells The Verge in an email. The idea is that you’ll be able to enjoy it if you’re a new player or if you’re already well-versed in League of...

Continue reading…

It’s over: ‘Vax That Thang Up’ is 2021’s song of the summer

BTS’s “Butter” is one smooth song, and “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” might be a monster hit with a sweet lo-fi remix to boot. But how is anything going to compete for song of the summer now Juvenile has resurrected his 22-year-old smash “Back That Thang Up” as a catchy and timely vaccine anthem?

Just in case you don’t remember the 1999 original, here you go:

The new version atop this post is practically a full-on parody: Juvenile makes it rain vaccine cards instead of cash money, eggplant emoji are out in full force, and it sure sounds like some random dude named Scott is about to luck out. But you know all that already, because you’re already watching the video. Right? Right. My wife couldn’t stop laughing.

Last year’s song of the...

Continue reading…

WeChat deleted accounts of student LGBTQ groups in China

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Massively popular Chinese social platform WeChat quietly deleted the accounts of several LGBTQ groups organized at major Chinese universities, _Reuters_reported on Tuesday_._The groups received warnings that they “violated community rules,” according to the_Associated Press_, but were not offered further explanation before their accounts were deleted.

The accounts aren’t viewable on WeChat, but users on Weibo (a Chinese analogue to Twitter) have collected a list of the several of the impacted groups, including ones run by students at Tsinghua University and Fudan University, _Insider_writes. We’ve reached out to WeChat’s owner and operator Tencent for comment on the deleted accounts and what rules the groups may have violated.

Homosexuality...

Continue reading…

Stellantis, parent company of Dodge and Jeep, had an ‘EV Day’ and it was extremely weird

Photo: Stellantis

Stellantis is not a musical version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof set in an underwater kingdom, but actually the name of the newly merged Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group, and the fourth largest automaker in the world. The company held an event Thursday to brief investors and media on its electrification strategy, and as befits a company that represents a mishmash of Italian, American, German, and French sensibilities, it was kind of a hot mess.

The first indication that things were about to get weird was when Dodge CEO Tim Kuniskis emerged from a thick cloud of smoke produced by the squealing tires of a Dodge Challenger to present his brand’s electrification strategy.

It was kind of a hot mess

It was a jarring transition from the previous...

Continue reading…

Startup Halo will bring driverless car service to Las Vegas later this year on T-Mobile 5G

Halo says it will use remote drivers to operate its vehicles over T-Mobile 5G. | Image: T-Mobile

Driverless car startup Halo has announced a new service coming to Las Vegas later this year: a fleet of remotely operated electric vehicles, using T-Mobile’s 5G network. It’s potentially a big step toward fulfilling the promise of 5G remote driver tech, with a significant catch: the cars don’t operate solely on T-Mobile 5G. While it’s the primary network they’ll use (mid- and low-band 5G, specifically, with LTE as a fallback), they will also rely on other networks.

The idea is simple enough: Halo employs remote drivers to operate the vehicles, delivering them to waiting customers who then get behind the wheel and take the car to their destination. When the trip has ended, the car moves on to its next pick-up under remote control. Halo...

Continue reading…

Minimum broadband speeds are likely too low, government watchdog says

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge

Since 2015, the Federal Communications Commission has maintained that minimum broadband speed should stay the same: 25 megabits per second for downloading files, and 3 megabits per second for uploading.

Now, a government watchdog is telling the FCC to re-evaluate these rules in a new report, saying small businesses in 2021 require more bandwidth to effectively run their operations. The report, produced by the Government Accountability Office, also shows examples of small businesses around the country which aren’t even getting the minimum speed required by the FCC.

One Vermont inn pays $78 per month for 10 Mbps speeds

This isn’t the first time the FCC has faced heat over its broadband minimums. Earlier this year a group of senators called...

Continue reading…