Apple just launched an official $99 MagSafe battery pack for the iPhone 12 lineup

Apple’s new MagSafe Battery Pack. | Image: Apple

Apple has launched the MagSafe Battery Pack for its iPhone 12 lineup. One of the magnetic batteries costs $99, and you can order one right now from Apple’s website. For me, the website is showing delivery between July 22nd and July 26th.

Apple has released battery cases for iPhones in the past, but the new pack attaches to the iPhone 12 phones thanks to embedded magnets. And it will work with all four of the phones in the iPhone 12 family — the iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max.

Image: Apple

One side of the MagSafe Battery Pack.

While the iPhone 11 battery cases had a physical camera shortcut button, since this accessory is just an attachable pack, that means they don’t come with...

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Republicans call for Amazon to testify on Pentagon relationship

Photo by Greg Nash-Pool/Getty Images

Republicans are questioning Amazon’s relationship with the Pentagon after newly released emails show that defense officials praised tech executives vying for a $10 billion contract during the Trump administration.

On Tuesday, _The New York Times_reported on previously unreleased emails that show Pentagon officials applauding Amazon executives while the company sought out a lucrative defense contract between 2017 and 2018. The Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure project, or JEDI, set out to find a tech company that would move the Defense Department’s computer networks over to the cloud.

In one instance, the_Times_reports that former Trump Defense Secretary Jim Mattis traveled to Silicon Valley to meet with executives from companies...

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Windows 11 is full of delightful detail

Image: Microsoft Design

Microsoft’s Windows 11 preview has been available for a couple of weeks now, but I’m still discovering new animations and details in this new OS that put a smile on my face. While the new Start menu and centered taskbar are the obvious changes in Windows 11 that you’ll notice straight away, it’s the small animations throughout the OS that really make it feel a lot more fresh and alive than ever before.

Microsoft has started detailing some of the design approaches it has used for Windows 11 and its attention to detail for daily micro-interactions. That includes things like a checkbox that has an animated tick to subtly let you know when you interact with it, or a settings cog that spins when you hover over it. Plenty of buttons in Windows...

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Why small design decisions can matter

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

While we usually look for major features in a device — speed or sound quality or picture sharpness — sometimes it’s the little things that can make or break your experience with that device.

I realized this recently when I bought myself a pair of Jabra Elite 75t earbuds for day-to-day use. I really liked my new earbuds. But while my previous headset came with a detachable loop that you could use to attach it to a bag or a keyring or whatever, the Jabra case has no way of attaching to anything.

Now, I wasn’t about to return the earbuds because of this, but it did cause me to growl a little. In order to get that same convenient functionality I had enjoyed with my previous earbuds, I had to buy a cheap silicone cover for the case — one...

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Instagram tests a ‘reshare’ sticker, which actually makes it harder to share posts

Instagram

Instagram doesn’t want you to spam your friends with all of the posts you come across and like. So today, it’s starting a test to make sharing to Stories slightly trickier. The company is testing a “reshare” sticker that can be placed in Stories. When selected, a “recently viewed” tab will surface and let users choose from posts they’ve seen in the last hour, saved, or posted, which they can then share in their story. They can insert IGTV, reels, and feed video content.

You can get an idea of what the test looks like in the image above. Previously, if you wanted to share a feed post to your story, you had to so manually from the post itself. This test will replace that functionality, effectively requiring you to navigate away from the...

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Apple’s weather app won’t say it’s 69 degrees

A weather forecast on iOS 15 compared to the rounded forecast on iOS 14.6 | Photo: Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

If you’re an iPhone user, the weather is always a particularly nice 70 degrees. Or 68 degrees. Any temperature but 69 degrees, actually, because it turns out that the built-in weather app on some versions of iOS — including the current version, iOS 14.6 — will refuse to display the internet’s favorite number, even if the actual temperature in a given location is, in fact, 69 degrees.

It’s not clear if this is a bug or an intentional attempt from Apple to cut down on 69-related humor. The rounding is only visible in the weather app itself: clicking through to Apple’s source data from Weather.com will show the proper temperature, as does Apple’s home screen widgets.

That said, the iOS weather app will refuse to show 69 degrees anywhere...

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Razer’s Barracuda X wireless headset plays nicely with PS5, Switch, and more

The Barracuda X borrows the sleek design of Razer’s Opus headphones. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

Razer has introduced the Barracuda X, a multiplatform wireless gaming headset that takes design cues from the company’s Opus noise-canceling headphones. They’re launching today for $99.99, which is more aggressive than I expected, given that the company usually comes in at a premium price point.

The Barracuda X is a big step for Razer in that it’s finally jumping into USB-C connectivity — both in terms of how the headset charges and how it transmits audio wirelessly. Included in the box is a small USB-C wireless transmitter that’s almost identical to the one that SteelSeries has included with some of its headsets since 2019. It allows compatibility with the Nintendo Switch in portable mode, the PS5’s front-facing USB-C port, and some...

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Machine learning model from the largest US COVID-19 dataset predicts disease severity

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A centralized repository of COVID-19 health records built last year is beginning to show results, starting with a new paper published today. The repository is the largest set of COVID-19 records to date, and was built by a team of researchers and data experts last year to help make sense of COVID-19.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Network Open, looked at risk factors for severe cases of COVID-19 and traced the progression of the disease over time. The authorsbuilt machine learning models to predict which hospitalized patients would develop severe disease based on information collected on their first day in a hospital.

Using the centralized database, called the National COVID Cohort Collaborative Data Enclave, or N3C, meant...

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Microsoft’s PS5 exclusive Ghostwire: Tokyo is delayed until 2022

Tango Gameworks

_Ghostwire: Tokyo,_the paranormal action game from Japanese studio Tango Gameworks, is being delayed to early 2022. Tango Gameworks posted the news in a tweet, saying it will show more of the game in the coming months.

“We want to get the game in your hands as soon as possible so you can experience the unforgettable version of a haunted Tokyo that we’ve been hard at work building. At the same time, we’re also focused on protecting the health of everyone at Tango,” the announcement reads. “Our new release window will give us time to bring the world of Ghostwire to life as we’ve always envisioned it.” The game was previously slated for release in fall of 2021.

An update on Ghostwire: Tokyo from @TangoGameworks: pic.twitter.com/hK3TF23A8o

—...

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How to teach TikTok what you like to watch

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

TikTok is a brand-new type of social media platform. Unlike more traditional platforms like Instagram or Twitter where you manually curate your feeds by choosing to follow others — most likely, people you know — TikTok uses an algorithm to curate a highly personalized feed of videos. This algorithm can get shockingly specific as it gathers the videos it thinks you’ll like.

TikTok’s main page is named the For You page — and that really means for you. For instance, after I’d been on TikTok for a while, the algorithm figured out that I’m a grown-up emo kid (it was never a phase, Mom) who is trying to learn French, spends too much time playing The Sims 4, and is also queer. But TikTok’s algorithm didn’t get that shockingly specific by...

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How Loki built a different reality with retro hardware

Photo: Marvel Studios

Production designer Kasra Farahani explains the show’s distinct look

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Ikea and Sonos picture frame speaker review: wall of sound

The latest Symfonisk collaboration is another attempt to camouflage tech in the home

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Jeff Bezos’ launch to space clears final regulatory hurdle

The Federal Aviation Administration approved Blue Origin’s license to launch its billionaire founder Jeff Bezos and three other passengers to the edge of space next Tuesday, clearing the last regulatory hurdle for this month’s second billionaire space entrepreneur flying into space.

“New Shepard is go for launch”

Blue Origin is gearing up to launch its first crew of humans on July 20th aboard its suborbital New Shepard rocket, which launches from a remote desert site in Van Horn, Texas. The license from the FAA to fly humans, approved Monday night, is valid until August and came after a meticulous review of New Shepard’s hardware and software.

“New Shepard is go for launch,” Blue Origin said in a statement on Monday just before the...

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Ring’s end-to-end encryption is rolling out globally

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Ring’s end-to-end encryption for video streams is leaving technical preview, is now available to US users, and is currently rolling out globally, the Amazon-owned company announced on Tuesday. The opt-in feature makes it so that your video streams can only be viewed by you on an enrolled iOS or Android device, meaning that Ring can’t access that footage even if it wanted to.

The feature works with 12 Ring cameras, and you can see the full list of compatible models and follow the steps on how to set up end-to-end encryption on Ring’s website. Ring’s battery-powered video doorbells and cameras don’t support end-to-end encryption, according to that page.

Image: Ring

Ring’s end-to-end encryption settings menu.

E...

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Can Polestar design a new kind of car company?

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Polestar CEO Thomas Ingenlath wants the freedom of an auto startup with the benefits of an established player

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Firefox says its revamped SmartBlock won’t break Facebook login buttons anymore

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Firefox 90 introduces the next version of SmartBlock, the browser’s tracker blocking mechanism built into its private browsing and strict modes, which now has improvements designed to prevent buttons that let you log into websites using your Facebook account from breaking, Mozilla announced on Tuesday.

SmartBlock was first introduced with Firefox 87 in March, and if you aren’t familiar, here’s Mozilla’s description of how it works, from the company’s blog:

SmartBlock intelligently fixes up web pages that are broken by our tracking protections, without compromising user privacy.

SmartBlock does this by providing local stand-ins for blocked third-party tracking scripts. These stand-in scripts behave just enough like the original ones to...

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Pixar’s Turning Red asks ‘What if the Hulk turned into an adorable, giant red panda instead?’

Mei Lee is an ordinary 13-year-old in the first trailer for Turning Red, the next film from Pixar — unless she gets stressed out or overexcited. Then she turns into a gigantic talking red panda in a massive explosion of pink smoke, not unlike an adorable version of The Incredible Hulk.

Adding to the problem is Mei’s (Rosalie Chiang) overprotective mother, Ming (voiced by Sandra Oh), who’s seen in the trailer sneaking to watch over her at school, causing an altercation with a security guard that leads to one of Mei’s panda-sized incidents.

While the initial teaser doesn’t offer too many details on what sort of misadventures Mei will have (as both a teenager and a giant panda), it does bear the distinction of being the...

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FDA adds warning about a nerve condition to the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine

Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine awaits use in a freezer. | Photo by Matthias Bein / picture alliance via Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration added a warning to the fact sheet for the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine saying that the shot may lead to an increased risk of a nerve condition called Guillain–Barré syndrome. The agency says that the benefits of the vaccine still outweigh the risk.

There have been around 100 cases of the syndrome reported among the roughly 12.6 million people who have received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement to The Washington Post. It’s a very rare complication, but people who have received the shot appear to be around 3 to 5 times more likely to develop Guillain–Barré syndrome than the general population.

There’s no sign that the Moderna or Pfizer...

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BuyDig’s Google Nest Hub bundles are steeply discounted on eBay

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

For many, the best smart display is the one that features whichever virtual assistant they prefer, whether it be Amazon’s Alexa or Google Assistant. However, despite its sluggish performance, it’s hard to argue against the Google Nest Hub if you’re already invested in Google’s ecosystem or own one of the many products under the Nest umbrella. The latest model touts a 7-inch display, reliable sleep tracking, and better sound, thanks to a 1.7-inch driver, rendering it more than just a premium photo frame that rolls through images you have stored in the cloud. And like all smart displays, it allows you to control every facet of your home, from your lighting and the TV to the temperature in your living room.

For a limited time, you can pick...

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Robinhood has figured out how to monetize financial nihilism

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

And the financial system only has itself to thank

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Sony’s latest glass speaker is a more affordable dose of bizarre design

The speaker features a “candlelight mode.” | Image: Sony

Sony is releasing another one of its glass lantern speaker hybrids, and it comes in at $100 less than its predecessor. The LSPX-S3 is a $349 wireless Bluetooth speaker that vibrates a glass tube to act as a tweeter, which Sony says allows it to send sound in all directions around it. There’s also a light inside the glass with 32 different brightness levels, allowing the speaker to act as a bedside lamp or candle-replacement on the dinner table.

As its name suggests, the LSPX-S3 is Sony’s third with this unusual form-factor, and it’s also the cheapest yet. The original LSPX-S1 sold for $799 after its launch in 2016, while the LSPX-S2 cost $449. The third-generation speaker is still expensive (at $349), but the thought of buying two of...

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We want to see your internet bill

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge

You don’t always get what you pay for in internet access. Most places only have one option, so you’re stuck picking the good plan or the bad plan from a single carrier, and if the expensive “broadband” plan turns out to be closer to dial-up speeds, there isn’t much you can do. And that’s without getting into the big swaths of the country that don’t even have a broadband option on the table.

So we’re joining with Consumer Reports to take a close look at the problem, collecting as many internet bills as we can to get a sense of which telecoms are holding up their end of the bargain — and which ones are falling short. The idea is to get a bird’s-eye view of the speeds people are actually getting, and what they’re paying for those speeds.

To...

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YouTube’s TikTok competitor YouTube Shorts is rolling out globally

Image: YouTube

YouTube’s TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, is now rolling out globally. The service launched first in India last year, before expanding to around 26 countries including the US and the UK. Now YouTube Shorts, which is still in beta, will be available “across more than 100 countries around the world where YouTube is available.”

YouTube Shorts is playing catchup to TikTok as the short-form video platform of choice, but Google’s service is pushing Shorts’ integration with the wider YouTube ecosystem as a key selling point. It recently added the ability for Shorts creators to sample audio from YouTube videos, and says it’s exploring ways to offer quick links from Shorts to YouTube videos they’ve taken samples from.

Ironically, while YouTube...

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PC market growth slows amid global chip shortages

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The PC market is showing early signs of its growth slowing down, after an impressive run of shipments throughout 2020. Both IDC and Gartner conclude that growth in the second quarter of PC shipments has slowed this year. Demand for new PCs is still above what we saw before the pandemic hit, but a mixture of softer demand and the effects of the global chip shortage mean it’s not growing as quickly.

“The market faces mixed signals as far as demand is concerned,” says Neha Mahajan, a senior research analyst at IDC. “With businesses opening back up, demand potential in the commercial segment appears promising. However, there are also early indicators of consumer demand slowing down as people shift spending priorities after nearly a year of...

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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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