Twitter admits it verified several fake accounts

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter says it has permanently suspended a “small number” of fake accounts it mistakenly verified just weeks after re-launching its public verification program, the Daily Dot reports. The blunder came to light after data scientist Conspirador Norteño discovered six verified accounts which had been created recently on June 16th. None of them had posted a single tweet, and two used what appeared to be stock photographs for profile pictures.

“We mistakenly approved the verification applications of a small number of inauthentic (fake) accounts,” Twitter told the Daily Dot in a statement. “We have now permanently suspended the accounts in question, and removed their verified badge, under our platform manipulation and spam policy.”

Meet @...

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The Super Mario and Tag Heuer collaboration is a $2,150 Wear OS watch

A few days ago, Tag Heuer posted a teaser for a Super Mario-themed watch. You might have assumed that a Swiss-made mechanical timepiece was in the works, but now the news is out: it’s actually a limited edition version of Tag’s Connected Wear OS smartwatch.

Tag Heuer seemingly hasn’t released details itself yet — its website is still counting down to a July 15th announcement — but Engadget, TechCrunch, and WorldTempus have all posted stories with the device’s key features. The hardware itself appears to be identical beyond some light cosmetic tweaks to the 45mm case, including an M-for-Mario logo on the crown, and it comes with two straps: one with perforated red rubber alongside one with red rubber and black leather.

The watch is said...

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Space Jam: A New Legacy launch includes a 91,000 item NFT tie-in

Lola Bunny, LeBron James and Daffy Duck in Space Jam: A New Legacy | Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures

On the same day we learned that _Fortnite_is adding a LeBron James skin to its metaverse, the PR machine for Space Jam: A New Legacy cranked out a different batch of digital collectibles. However, instead of directing viewers to a gloriously aging 90s-era website, they had to use NFTs.

Launching July 16th on HBO Max, Space Jam: A New Legacy follows Michael Jordan’s 1996 movie by transporting LeBron James into a digital world full of cartoons and other Warner Bros. properties, so the marketing fit makes more sense than it might appear. The difference here is that instead of merely slipping toys into fast food kids’ meals or tossing out limited edition physical cards, there’s a hope that interest in the family-friendly flick will spur the...

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ESPN Plus is getting its second price hike of 2021

ESPN Plus monthly and annual subscription costs will go up beginning August 13th, the second price increase for the service in 2021. The new price hike has made the service’s annual plan increase by about $20 this year alone.

A spokesperson for ESPN Plus confirmed to The Verge that the service will hike from $6 to $7, while the annual cost will jump from $60 to $70. Notably, there will be no price increase to the Disney bundle, which costs $13 and includes sister services Disney+ and Hulu. There will also be no change in the cost of UFC pay-per-view.

Disney Plus and ESPN Plus have both gotten price increases in 2021. The sports streaming service’s annual subscription cost increased to $60 per year from $50 in January. The company...

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Google shares transition plans for unified desktop file syncing Drive app

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Google announced its plans to transition users of its consumer file syncing desktop service, Backup and Sync, onto a new unified app that both consumers and business clients can use called Drive for desktop. Google plans to start onboarding users next week on July 19th, 2021, and encourages people who used Backup and Sync to make the switch by the end of September, before getting locked out on October 1st.

Backup and Sync users will have to transition to the new app (a renamed version of Google’s enterprise file syncing software), but business clients who are already using Drive File Stream (aka Drive for desktop) should be good to go, Google says. The goal with consolidating the apps, Google says, is to create “a powerful and unified...

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Verizon’s new filter blocks spoofed phone numbers that are too close to yours

Verizon rolls out new Neighborhood Filter tool to help curb spoofed calls. | Image: Verizon

Verizon wants to help curb those obnoxious “spoofing” calls from similar area codes to your own with a new tool called Neighborhood Filter.

Spoofing is the method used by spammers to make a number appear similar to your own so you’re more likely to answer the call. Verizon’s new Neighborhood Filter will allow Verizon customers to send these calls directly to voicemail, as well as any other prefix and area code combinations that the company thinks might be suspicious.

The tool is available to Call Filter Free and Call Filter Plus customers through the company’s separate Call Filter app. Call Filter Free costs nothing to enroll and offers basic filtering from those dreaded and persistent spam calls. Call Filter Plus, which costs an...

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Secretly throttling is never okay

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Last Tuesday, AnandTech caught OnePlus doing the previously unthinkable — throttling the performance of its new flagship smartphone, the OnePlus 9 Pro. Seeing “inexplicable” slowdown, the publication discovered the phone was diverting a laundry list of popular apps away from its Snapdragon 888’s high-performance cores. The company’s excuse? It was all an attempt to save battery life.

Today, OnePlus is doubling down on that earlier statement with a longer forum post, where the company’s argument sounds downright reasonable. “In recent years, the performance of smartphone SoCs has reached a point where their power is often overkill in certain scenarios,” writes OnePlus, blaming Qualcomm for essentially being too good at its job.

“With...

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The Galaxy Z Fold 3 will support the S Pen Pro, according to FCC filings

Samsung’s S Pen and S Pen Pro. | Image: Samsung

After many teases, it seems as if a Samsung foldable is finally going to get support for an S Pen stylus. FCC filings for the S Pen Pro, a bigger version of the S Pen with Bluetooth connectivity that Samsung announced in January, have been made public, and one document (PDF) reveals that the upcoming stylus will work with the unannounced Galaxy Z Fold 3 (which is presumably the next device in the Z Fold lineup).

And it’s not just the Z Fold 3 — the stylus, which doesn’t have a release date but is set to hit this year, will apparently support the S21 Ultra, the Note 20 lineup, and more. You can see the full list of devices that the S Pen Pro will support in this image from the filing:

Image: FCC

The list of...

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Black players on England football team bombarded with racist abuse on social media

Bukayo Saka of England in a penalty shoot out during the UEFA Euro 2020 Championship Final between Italy and England on Sunday. | Photo by Shaun Botterill / UEFA via Getty Images

Social media platforms have been inundated with racist messages and posts directed at three Black players on England’s football team, following a tough loss to Italy on Sunday in the UEFA Euro 2020 championship match. The two teams played to a 1-1 tie, and Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho, and Bukayo Saka were among England’s players to participate in a penalty shootout to decide the winner of the match and the tournament. All three missed their shots.

After the game ended, the players’ social media accounts, including Facebook-owned Instagram and Twitter, were filled with racist comments and messages.

In an email to The Verge on Monday, a Twitter spokesperson said the “abhorrent, racist abuse directed at England players” had no place on...

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AT&T removes high-speed data throttling from its most expensive unlimited plan

AT&T’s Unlimited Elite plan will remain $85 per month for a single line, but it gets a few more perks. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

AT&T is adding a few more benefits to its $85-per-month top-tier unlimited plan at no added cost. Unlimited Elite subscribers will now truly have access to unlimited high-speed data and will no longer be subject to deprioritization after hitting 100GB of data per month. Customers will also get a bump from 30GB of monthly hotspot data up to 40GB as well as up to 4K video streaming — boosted from a maximum of 1080p. The new plan features will be added automatically for all current subscribers starting this week.

If this all sounds familiar, that’s because T-Mobile did more or less the same thing earlier this year. In fact, AT&T’s Unlimited Elite now matches T-Mobile’s Magenta Max nearly feature-by-feature. Both start at $85 per line...

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Thiel associate launches Arizona Senate campaign

Blake Masters, a close ally to billionaire Peter Thiel and current Thiel Capital executive, launched a bid for the Arizona Senate Monday. As a Republican, he’ll be seeking to take on Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ). Masters joins a growing pool of Republican candidates, including Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and solar power executive Jim Lamon.

On his campaign website, Masters champions a total ban on illegal immigration, calling for the government to use “physical walls, surveillance technology, thousands more border patrol agents, and mandatory E-Verify for employers” along the US-Mexico border. Thiel’s Founder’s Fund invested in the border and military surveillance company Anduril, valuing the company at $1 billion.

Masters’ website...

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Elon Musk has a ticket to ride on Richard Branson’s spaceplane

Richard Branson and a barefoot Elon Musk hang out on the morning of Branson’s launch to space. | Richard Branson’s Twitter

Space billionaire Elon Musk bought a ticket to space from fellow space billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, The Wall Street Journalcites a company spokesperson as saying.

Musk, CEO and founder of SpaceX, had the Virgin Galactic ticket before Branson’s flight to space on Sunday, a person familiar with the purchase tells The Verge. It’s unclear where Musk stands in Virgin Galactic’s line of about 600 other prospective SpaceShipTwo passengers, but the ticket itself is an extension of his apparent friendship with Branson that contrasts with all of the sass and pettiness this month from Blue Origin, the other top space company founded by the space industry’s other super-rich billionaire, Jeff Bezos. It’s also seen as a friendly...

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Formula E nearly turned a profit during the pandemic

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge

All-electric racing series Formula E very nearly turned its first profit during the 2019–2020 season, its sixth, despite canceling nine of the 14 races originally scheduled in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Six of those races were eventually made up at a single track in Berlin, Germany, which — along with other internal changes — ultimately helped bring the series’s total costs down.

All told, Formula E lost just €38,514 before taxes during its sixth season, down from a €10.6 million loss in season five (about $45,700 and $11.6 million, respectively), according to a new filing with the UK’s Companies House Registry. That’s despite the series bringing in less money — revenue dropped to €143 million down from €161.5 million in...

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How to use a TikTok video template

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

You can create a great TikTok video by doing nothing more than simply talking to the camera. However, if you want to do something a little fancier or you’re still unsure of your own ability to spruce up your video, you can start with some of the pre-designed templates that come with the app.

Templates make it easy to create a lively, complex video — you just have to drop your own photos and / or videos into the template, and you’re done. (You can, of course, add your own text, sounds, effects, etc. as well.)

Here’s how to start using a template:

• Tap the plus sign at the bottom of the screen to start a new video
• Select “Templates.” (You’ll find it next to the “Camera” label at the bottom of the screen.)

Tap the plus...

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Amazon’s radar sensors could help Alexa monitor your sleep patterns

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Amazon is interested in using radar sensors to enable sleep tracking and gestures on its smart devices, according to new permissions granted by the Federal Communications Commission (via Bloomberg). The implementation might be similar to how Google uses its Soli sensor in the second-generation Nest Hub.

Amazon’s initial request to the FCC filed on June 22nd (and dug up by SlashGear) claims that its planned use of radar would enable “touchless control of device features and functions without causing harmful interference to co-frequency users,” which could be helpful to users with limited mobility or speech impairments. The company also says that the new sensors can be used for “sleep tracking and could help improve consumers’ awareness...

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SecretLab’s Titan Evo chair claims to offer more comfort, features, and magnets

SecretLab says it has improved both its polyurethane and SoftWeave materials. | Photo: SecretLab

SecretLab’s new line of 2022 gaming chairs have a renewed focus on packing in more features without significantly boosting the price. It’s also making it easier to decide which one to buy. Instead of offering both the Titan and Omega chairs, it’s cramming the best aspects of each into a single model called the Titan Evo. SecretLab told The Verge that it’ll launch the Titan Evo in mid-July starting at about $20 or $30 more than the small-sized Omega chair, which is currently selling for $359.

The company is offering the Titan Evo in small, regular, and extra-large sizes. And no matter the size you choose, it’ll come with the same new comfort and cosmetic features. It revamped the seat base to offer thigh support, and there’s a new knob...

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Cryptocurrency traders struggle to sue Binance

Photo by STR/NurPhoto via Getty Images

One fun (?) thing about cryptocurrency is that it’s newer than regular money — or as the cryptocurrency enthusiasts call it, fiat — and for this reason it is less regulated. I am going to leave the case against regulation to the libertarians who are interested in making it; instead, let’s direct our attention to this Wall Street Journal story about Binance.

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, had a Robinhood-style oopsie woopsie during a plunge in Bitcoin value on May 19. Users were locked out of the system, and couldn’t make trades to stop the bleeding.

It seems like people are having a bad time!

Now, Robinhood users are suing Robinhood for the March 2020 outages, but Binance doesn’t have a headquarters — so it...

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Microsoft did door-to-door router replacements to stop Trickbot malware

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft says it’s gone door-to-door replacing routers compromised with the Trickbot malware in Brazil and Latin America, hoping to squash an international hacking group. The Daily Beast reported the detail in an article about the group, which is an ongoing target for US Cyber Command as well as information security companies like Microsoft.

The Daily Beast reports that the hacking ring — also known as Trickbot and based in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Suriname — is a persistent presence online. The group uses compromised computers as a massive botnet and runs ransomware attacks and other illegal operations. Trickbot is known to hijack routers and internet of things devices that are often easy to infect without owners realizing it....

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TikTok parent company ByteDance still holding off on launching IPO

Photo Illustration by Omar Marques/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

TikTok parent company ByteDance is not planning an initial public offering anytime soon, and The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that such plans have been “indefinitely” shelved.

The _WSJ_reported that ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming made the call to postpone IPO plans in March after meeting with regulators who suggested the company should focus on data security concerns. Beijing-based ByteDance hired Shou Zi Chew as its chief financial officer in late March, which led to conjecture that an IPO may be imminent.

“We don’t comment on rumors or speculation,” a ByteDance spokesperson told The Verge Monday in response to a request for comment.

The company has not publicly announced any potential IPO plans, and in response to what it...

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How to use Apple’s Private Relay feature with iCloud Plus

One of the more interesting new features available with iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and macOS Monterey is iCloud Plus, Apple’s upgraded iCloud subscription service that adds a few key privacy features. Chief among those features is Private Relay, a VPN-like service that’s designed to mask your internet traffic on your devices from anyone trying to snoop in.

Here’s how to use it:

To start, you’ll have to be using iOS 15, iPadOS 15, or macOS Monterey and be a subscriber to one of Apple’s iCloud plans. All paid iCloud plans — including the $0.99-per-month 50GB plan — are eligible, as are shared family iCloud plans or ones purchased through a shared Apple One subscription.

Turning on Private Relay is extremely simple.

• On an iPhone or iPad, head...

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LeBron James is coming to Fortnite this week

LeBron James is the latest celebrity to enter the Fortnite metaverse. Starting on July 14th, players will be able to purchase two different versions of the NBA star: a regular LeBron with a handful of outfits, and another modeled after his role in the upcoming movie Space Jam: A New Legacy.

The two skins, and their associated accessories, will also be available as part of a bundle. And both will sport the player’s upcoming shoe, the Nike LeBron 19. Even better: one of the optional outfits pays homage to a classic LeBron game day look from 2018.

Rumors of a LeBron skin have existed since May, when some of developer Epic’s plans came out as part of the Epic v. Apple trial. Real-world celebrities have increasingly become an important part...

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Authenticated brand logos in Gmail will roll out over the coming weeks

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Authenticated brand logos in Gmail, a security feature that was first announced last July, will be rolling out over the coming weeks, Google announced on Monday. The feature is enabled by the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) standard, which Google joined the working group for in 2019.

The idea is that an organization’s logo will show up in your inbox when they send you an email that’s authenticated using the DMARC standard to help reduce the likelihood that you’ll open and act on an email posing as one from a legitimate source. Ideally, the authenticated brand logos will function like a verified badge you might see on social networks that tell you that an account is actually owned and operated by the entity it claims to...

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Android 12 will let you play games as you’re downloading them

Google is announcing a big new feature for its upcoming Android 12 update on Monday: you’ll be able to play games as you’re downloading them. For particularly large games, this could be very useful, as it means you won’t have to wait as long to jump into a game and start playing.

You can get an idea of just how much faster you might be able to hop into a game in the below GIF shared by Google. The difference, at least in this case, is quite noticeable, and Google says it is already “seeing games being ready to open at least 2 times faster.”

The feature works with games that use the Play Asset Delivery system. If they do, developers won’t need to do anything to turn the feature on, according to Google.

The news comes as...

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Microsoft acquires cybersecurity firm RiskIQ as the threat of ransomware intensifies

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is officially acquiring RiskIQ, a security software vendor. RiskIQ provides management tools and threat intelligence gathering against a wide range of cyberattacks across Microsoft’s own cloud services, AWS, on-premises servers, and supply chain attacks. While Microsoft hasn’t valued the deal, Bloomberg reported that the company is said to be paying more than $500 million for RiskIQ.

The cloud-based RiskIQ software detects security issues across networks and devices, and the company lists Box, the US Postal Service, BMW, Facebook, and American Express as customers. RiskIQ was originally founded in 2009 and has gradually become an important player in analyzing security threats.

Microsoft hasn’t laid out a detailed plan for how...

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Death Stranding: Director’s Cut isn’t a director’s cut, says director Hideo Kojima

Death Stranding: Director’s Cut is coming to the PS5 on September 24th — but don’t call it a director’s cut, according to director Hideo Kojima (spotted by Eurogamer).

“A director’s cut in a movie is an additional edit to a shortened version that was either released reluctantly because the director did not have the right to edit it, or because the running time had to be shortened,” Kojima explained on Twitter this morning. “In the game, it is not what was cut, but what was additionally produced that was included. Delector’s [sic] Plus? So, in my opinion, I don’t like to call ‘director’s cut’.”

2/2
In the game, it is not what was cut, but what was additionally produced that was included. Delector's Plus? So, in my opinion, I don't like...

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TikTok gets a Fire TV app in the UK, France, and Germany

Image: TikTok

TikTok is now available on Fire TV devices in the UK, France, and Germany, the video platform announced today. The app, which will be available starting today, lets viewers watch content from the service’s “For You” and “Following” feeds. There’s also a “Discover” page to help users find trending content. The app is available to download from the Amazon Appstore.

The service’s Fire TV app follows its launch on Samsung TVs last year and Google TV and Android TV in February. Thus far, these apps have been exclusive to Europe, but the company recently told Protocol that it’s working on bringing them to more markets.Meanwhile, in the US, TikTok launched an app called “More on TikTok” on Fire TV devices last year. That app is limited to a...

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Five ‘Dead Startups’ from Juicero to Coolest Cooler parodied as toys

Five toys based on iconic startup failures. | Screenshot: Dead Startup Toys

For its latest drop, internet collective MSCHF is releasing five famous startup failures as miniature toys for $40 each, or $160 for a set. The Dead Startup Toys drop is comprised of the Juicero juicer, the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) rugged laptop, Theranos miniLab, Jibo social robot, and the Coolest Cooler, which MSCHF calls the “poster child for the pitfalls of crowdfunding.”

“This is not a memorialization,” MSCHF says, “but perhaps they are a form of necromancy: we celebrate their pale shadows, deprived of their original context.” Describing the toys as the equivalent to “a line of heads on stakes,” MSCHF invites us to “behold these beautiful mutants, hoisted on petards of their own solid-aluminum-unibody construction.”

The failures...

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Drought is stressing California’s power grid

In an aerial view, houseboats whose owners chose to leave them in the lake, float at a water level nearly 200 feet below normal at the Lime Saddle Marina for Lake Oroville near Paradise, California, on June 8th, 2021. Drought has caused the water level to drop in Lake Oroville several hundred feet, leaving houseboat owners to make a choice to leave their craft in the water or to remove them since boat ramps will not reach the low level of the water as it drops lower and lower. | Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

Drought is putting pressure on California’s already stressed-out grid. As water reservoirs run dry, there’s been a significant drop in hydroelectric generation. Without enough water pressure to quickly turn turbine blades, there could be electricity shortages right when residents need it the most.

Rolling blackouts have already become a new norm for the state as utilities shut down power lines in an attempt to avoid sparking fires during hot, dry weather. But summertime outages also occur when residents crank up their air conditioners to beat the heat and demand outpaces the available power supply.

“California relies on hydro for so much of its demand, so any drought can put the state in a tight position.”

“California relies on hydro...

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Amazon’s kids Fire tablets are on sale just in time for that summer trip

Amazon Fire HD 10 Kids and Kids Pro tablets | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Summer is here, and for many families, that means it’s finally time to take the vacation they’ve been postponing for the past 18 months. With vacations comes travel, and with travel comes bored kids, so it’s crucial to have something to entertain them when they’re in the car or on a plane for hours on end. Amazon’s got you covered today with discounts across its lineup of kids-specific Fire tablets, including the recently released Fire HD 10 Kids and HD 10 Kids Pro.

The kids versions of the Fire tablets are essentially the same hardware as the standard models and come in 7-, 8-, or 10-inch sizes. They include a kid-friendly case with a built-in kickstand, two years of protection against damage, and a year’s subscription to Amazon’s Kids...

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It’s too late for Black Widow

Disney

Marvel’s latest film thoroughly skewers the franchise’s portrayal of Black Widow... far too late

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