Dune’s latest trailer introduces its all-star cast (and a sandworm)

After months of delays, director Denis Villeneuve’s Dune is actually coming out on October 22nd. That means that it’s time for the marketing to start spinning up for the film again, starting with a new trailer — the first in nearly a year — for the upcoming sci-fi epic.

The new trailer gives a much better look at the actual story of_Dune_,which is set in a far-future interstellar empire that relies on a mysterious “spice” to enable trade and travel among the stars. That spice is only found on one planet, the desert world of Arrakis (hence the title), which leads to no small amount of conflict over who controls the world — and thus, the spice.

Also, there are sandworms.

SANDWORM

Dune is based on the iconic science...

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Digital PS4 and PS5 games are discounted during Sony’s Summer Sale

Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Through August 18th, a vast selection of digital PS4 and PS5 games are discounted through Sony’s online store. You can get these discounts through the consoles themselves, through the mobile app, or by signing in and purchasing them through its website here. There are 1,264 games and other kinds of content on sale, and it’s a great time to load up on PS5-exclusive games that rarely see a discount, as well as newer PS4 releases that are compatible on the newer console. Some of the standouts include Returnalfor $49.69 (30 percent off its original price), Demon’s Souls for $49.69 (30 percent off), Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales for $35 (usually $50), and Hitman 3 for $30 (usually $60).

The new Mass Effect Legendary Edition that...

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How to shrink greenhouse gas emissions from your next flight

Arrival board in Hong Kong International Airport, China, on September 4, 2020.  | Photo by Marc Fernandes/NurPhoto via Getty Images

One way jet-setters can cut down on climate pollution from aviation is to choose more fuel-efficient itineraries — if they can figure out which flights pollute least. A passenger on a more fuel-efficient itinerary might generate 63 percent less carbon dioxide pollution on average than a passenger traveling to and from the same locations on a less efficient itinerary, a new report found.

Cheaper flights tend to be more fuel-efficient

There’s even more good news for consumers concerned about climate change: cheaper flights tend to be more fuel-efficient and thus less polluting. Itineraries among the cheapest 25 percentile of plane fares actually cut passengers’ emissions by about 55 percent compared to the most polluting itineraries, the...

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It sure looks like Google’s second-gen Pixel Buds are being discontinued in the US

The buy button for the Pixel Buds has disappeared from the US store. | Screenshot: store.google.com

We’re not saying they’ve been discontinued, but if you head over to Google’s online store in the US and Canada, you’ll find that there doesn’t seem to be any option to buy its second-generation true wireless Pixel Buds. Its more recent Pixel Buds A-Series are still available, but the dedicated listing for the Pixel Buds themselves has disappeared.

Google won’t officially say whether the second-generation Pixel Buds are reaching the end of their life. What it will confirm is that they’re “out of stock in the Google Store in the US and Canada at this time” and that it doesn’t have additional stock. “Some third-party retailers may still have inventory available and they remain on sale in other markets as inventory allows,” a spokesperson...

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Twitter’s new beta TweetDeck is so bad I’m ready to ragequit

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

I counted: 31 tweets. That’s how many I could see in my traditional TweetDeck window the other day. But at that same moment, TweetDeck’s new preview only showed me 21 tweets — 38 percent less, and that’s with the narrowest columns and the smallest font available, just to be clear.

For over a decade, people have sworn by TweetDeck as the power user alternative to the original Twitter app, but what most people really mean is one specific thing:it lets you see more tweets. TweetDeck lets you see more tweets without needing to scroll. It gives you an entire dashboard of tweets you can throw up on a monitor, unattended. The power of TweetDeck is that it’s glanceable, a way to passively tap into a firehose of personal interests. That’s why...

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Intel’s new NUC comes with 11th gen CPUs and space for a full-size graphics card

The Intel NUC 11 Extreme. | Image: Intel

After teasing a new version of its miniature PC back at Computex 2021, Intel’s new NUC 11 Extreme is now available to preorder from SimplyNUC, with prices starting at $1,299. The machine, which is codenamed “Beast Canyon,” is listed with a three 11th gen Intel CPU options, and enough space for a 12-inch graphics card.

These three CPU options are a six-core Core i5-11400H, an eight-core Core i7-11700B, and an eight-core Core i9-11900KB. Intel has confirmed to _The Verge_that the new CPU options will also be available as an upgrade for owners of last year’s NUC 9 Extreme. However, it cautioned that “necessary design decisions” mean that front panel audio won’t be supported if you’re using a new CPU in the old chassis, and that PCIe Gen 4.0...

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Predictably, T-Mobile’s merger promises weren’t enough to make a carrier out of Dish

The Sprint acquisition deal included too few requirements and put too much trust in a big corporation to do the right thing. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

When T-Mobile acquired Sprint in April of 2020, it brought our major wireless carrier choices from four down to three. Recognizing that this would indeed be a bad thing for US wireless customers (aka all of us), T-Mobile agreed to a set of conditions with the FCC’s blessing that would theoretically position Dish Network to fill the Sprint-shaped hole in our wireless landscape.

In other words, one wireless competitor was allowed to reduce competition only if it agreed to help set up another competitor in its place. Sounds a little suspect, right? Surely a deal like that would include a lot of conditions, requirements, and oversight to make sure it would actually work.

But looking back, these were the major requirements imposed on...

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LG adds mic and speakers to its air-purifying mask, launching next month

LG claims the battery-powered, air-filtering mask is comfortable to wear for up to eight hours at a time. | Image: LG

LG has announced an updated version of its high-tech, air-purifying face mask, the terribly-named LG PuriCare Wearable Air Purifier. The company hasn’t announced pricing or widespread availability, but says the PuriCare will launch in Thailand next month “with other markets to follow once approved by local regulators.” Between the ongoing pandemic and widespread air pollution, there’s reason to think there’ll be demand for products like this.

LG first announced the mask last year, which uses replaceable air filters and built-in fans to filter the air. LG says the new version has a smaller and lighter motor, as well as built-in microphones and speakers that amplify the wearer’s voice. (Video of the original mask shows that it muffled...

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California sues Activision Blizzard over a culture of ‘constant sexual harassment’

Photo: Blizzard

California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) says that renowned game publishing studio Blizzard Entertainment, and its owner Activision Blizzard, have created a culture of “constant sexual harassment” and gender-based discrimination, in a new lawsuit filed Tuesday that claims top executives were aware and/or involved — and in the hours since the suit was revealed, numerous women have already stepped forward to corroborate the allegations.

The details are so disturbing that we’re going to start with a trigger warning right now. The idea that male employees held “cube crawls” is one of the tamer allegations in the lawsuit:

Female employees almost universally confirmed that working for Defendants was akin to working in a...

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Ghost of Tsushima’s dark new expansion has fuzzy cats to pet

GOTY. | Image: Sucker Punch

Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut will let you pet even more animals than you could in the original version of the game, developer Sucker Punch revealed Wednesday. When Ghost of Tsushima first launched, you could only pet foxes, and a few months after release, Sucker Punch added the ability to pet dogs, but in the new Iki Island expansion that’s part of Director’s Cut, we now know that you’ll be able to pet cats, deer, and monkeys.

All the animals look absolutely adorable and very deserving of pets. Here’s one of the cats:

Jin can find animal sanctuaries across Iki Island where he can play soothing melodies with his flute to tame various animals. Once they’ve been calmed, Jin can return to pet them as often as you’d like. Cats are just...

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Now Salesforce officially owns Slack

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Cloud computing giant Salesforce has completed its acquisition of Slack, a $27.7 billion dollar deal that adds the messaging app to its suite of enterprise software without immediately changing Slack’s functionality, branding, or leadership.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement that “Together we’ll define the future of enterprise software, creating the digital HQ that enables every organization to deliver customer and employee success from anywhere.”

While Slack hasn’t quite killed email, it has attracted notice from giants like Microsoft, the company that Slack co-founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield called “unhealthily preoccupied with killing us” in a conversation with The Verge last year.

“In a different universe where...

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Amazon’s new MMO may be bricking Nvidia 3090s

A screenshot from_New World._ | Image: Amazon

The closed beta for Amazon Games’ new MMO New World has been marred by reports that the game has bricked some players’ Nvidia RTX 3090 graphics cards. In a statement shared Wednesday, Amazon says that it has seen “no indication of widespread issues with 3090s,” but will be releasing a patch anyway.

Here’s Amazon’s full statement shared with The Verge on Wednesday:

Hundreds of thousands of people played in the New World Closed Beta yesterday, with millions of total hours played. We’ve received a few reports of players using high-performance graphics cards experiencing hardware failure when playing New World.

New World makes standard DirectX calls as provided by the Windows API. We have seen no indication of widespread issues with 3090s,...

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Here’s how to check your phone for Pegasus spyware using Amnesty’s tool

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amnesty International — part of the group that helped break the news of journalists and heads of state being targeted by NSO’s government-grade spyware, Pegasus — has released a tool to check if your phone has been affected. Alongside the tool is a great set of instructions, which should help you through the somewhat technical checking process. Using the tool involves backing up your phone to a separate computer and running a check on that backup. Read on if you’ve been side-eyeing your phone since the news broke and are looking for guidance on using Amnesty’s tool.

The first thing to note is the tool is command line or terminal based, so it will take either some amount of technical skill or a bit of patience to run. We try to cover a...

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A new athlete wellness trend just dropped

Distance runner Galen Rupp is using blood flow restriction during the Tokyo Olympics. | Photo by Cliff Hawkins / Getty Images

Athletes love a good wellness trend. Anything that promises to boost performance or give the slightest edge to anyone competing at the highest level of their sport is going to find the ears of elite athletes and Olympians — even (or especially) if it looks like a torture device.

In 2016, the fad was cupping: a technique that used suction cups as pain relief, leaving athletes like Michael Phelps looking like they’d just fought off a giant octopus. This year, its blood flow restriction, The New York Times reported. Some swimmers and runners are applying tourniquet-like bands to their arms and legs in the hopes that it’ll boost their training.

The strategy was first developed in 1966 by Japanese powerlifter Yoshiaki Sato, but it’s only...

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Khalid’s latest music video is a big, sloppy kiss to Silicon Valley

Grammy-nominated singer Khalid has a new album coming out, and the first single, “New Normal,” is as smooth and breezy as a summer afternoon, which is weird because the video that accompanies the track is pretty much a venture capitalist’s dream come true.

The video depicts a futuristic utopia full of skyscraper gardens, autonomous vehicles, drone deliveries, and smart homes. Khalid’s video is brimming with real products from real companies, not generic versions — a sign that the singer maybe had some input from Silicon Valley in crafting his love letter to our surveillance capitalist nightmare of a future.

The video depicts a futuristic utopia full of skyscraper gardens, autonomous vehicles, drone deliveries, and smart homes

You know...

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Twitter is testing upvote and downvote buttons on tweets

Image: Twitter

Twitter is working on new upvote and downvote reactions for tweets to accompany the usual options to retweet and reply. Twitter confirmed it was testing the feature for a small group of users on iOS, and it’s already been spotted according to multipletweets from users that are part of the test group.

Twitter writes that iOS users may see upvote and downvotes in several different styles (up and down arrows, a heart icon and a down arrow, and thumbs up and thumbs down icons) and that it’s testing the feature to “understand the types of replies you find relevant in a convo, so we can work on ways to show more of them.” Currently votes are not public.

Some of you on iOS may see different options to up or down vote on replies. We're...

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Elon Musk says SpaceX holds Bitcoin, ribs Jack Dorsey at conference

“SpaceX, Tesla, and I own Bitcoin,” Elon Musk said at a Bitcoin conference today. Though Tesla no longer allows people to pay for cars using Bitcoin, the automaker hasn’t sold its Bitcoin, he said. “We’re not selling any Bitcoin, nor am I selling anything personally or nor is SpaceX selling any Bitcoin.”

In addition, Musk disclosed that he owned Ethereum and — unsurprisingly — Dogecoin. The price of Ethereum, which was already rising today, rose further on the disclosure. Dogecoin rose early in the panel to almost 21 cents, before dipping to about 19 cents by the end of the panel, according to Coindesk data. Musk spoke at a panel with Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and payment company Square, and Cathie Wood, the founder and CEO of ARK...

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The latest Oculus Quest update lets you easily invite others to play

Oculus

Oculus is rolling out its v31 software update to Quest and Quest 2 headsets starting today, and it’s filled with some nice quality-of-life improvements. The big one is it’ll be easier to invite friends and recent teammates who aren’t friends to play a game or experience an app together. When you’re in game or in app, pressing the Oculus button will pull up the universal menu as usual, but soon, more apps will show a new “Invite to App” button next to the “Resume” and “Quit” buttons. If friends accept your invite, you’ll be able to see them in the menu. This feature will roll out soon in games like Beat Saber, Blaston, Demeo, Echo VR, ForeVR Bowl, Hyper Dash, PokerStars VR, and Topgolf with Pro Putt.

If you don’t want to corral the group...

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Netflix thinks games matter more than buying movie studios

As Netflix’s streaming rivals like Prime Video and HBO Max’s WarnerMedia focus on consolidation and studio acquisitions, Netflix is instead prioritizing its own service and investment in games over snapping up any available studio IP. It’s a refreshing shift away from buying distressed movie studios or long-forgotten catalogs. But will it work?

Netflix spelled out its streaming strategy in its second quarter letter to its shareholders. Citing recent mergers between WarnerMedia and Discovery and the last decade of acquisitions and mergers between major media properties — for example, with Disney and Fox or Viacom and CBS — the company said it doesn’t “believe this consolidation has affected our growth much, if at all.” (If I’m a streaming...

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FTC pledges to fight unlawful right to repair restrictions

The Federal Trade Commission formally pledged to take on unlawful “right to repair” restrictions in a new policy statement issued Wednesday. The new policy could spell trouble for smartphone manufacturers like Apple that strictly inhibit users’ abilities to repair their own devices.

Wednesday’s new right to repair policy statement commits the FTC to encouraging competition in product repair markets with “vigor,” according to Chair Lina Khan. The statement, which was approved unanimously, makes it official FTC policy for the agency to use its existing authorities to support independent repair shops and lower repair costs for consumers.

“While efforts by dominant firms to restrict repair markets are not new, changes in technology and more...

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Go watch this WSJ investigation of TikTok’s algorithm

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

TikTok users often express awe or dismay at the seemingly uncanny accuracy of the app’s recommendation algorithm. The Wall Street Journalpublished a video today that dives into how TikTok customizes your feed.

WSJ investigators ran an experiment where they created bot accounts with assigned interests. The bots “watched” videos in TikTok, pausing or replaying any that had images or hashtags relevant to those interests. The WSJ team reviewed the results with Guillaume Chaslot, an algorithm expert who previously worked at YouTube.

The findings line up with TikTok’s explanations of how its recommendations work. TikTok has previously said the For You feed is personalized based on the kinds of videos you interact with, how you interact with...

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Jeff Bezos’ brief trip to space was also a commercial for Rivian

Photos by Joey Roulette / The Verge

After years of preparation and billions of dollars spent on the project, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos got to be one of the first people to ride a rocket built by his _other_company, Blue Origin, to the edge of space. But the event itself was also a chance for Bezos to promote a third investment in the wider Amazon portfolio: EV startup Rivian.

Throughout the broadcast, Rivian’s electric pickup truck and SUV could be seen shuttling Bezos and his fellow astronauts around — an unsurprising decision considering Amazon now owns more than 10 percent of the EV startup after leading and participating in multiple funding rounds. The hosts of Blue Origin’s livestream made sure to let everyone watching know what they were seeing, too.

With commercial...

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Jeff Bezos eyes space as a new ‘sacrifice zone’

VAN HORN, TEXAS - JULY 20: Jeff Bezos walks near Blue Origin’s New Shepard after flying into space on July 20, 2021 in Van Horn, Texas. Mr. Bezos and the crew that flew with him were the first human spaceflight for the company. | Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

After Jeff Bezos’ brief escape from Earth yesterday, the founder of retail giant Amazon had an idea. “We need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry, and move it into space and keep Earth as this beautiful gem of a planet that it is,” he said in an interview with NBC News. “That’s going to take decades to achieve, but you have to start. And big things start with small steps.”

Long before rich, white men were catapulting themselves into space, they approached whatever was the “frontier” at the time with dollar signs in their eyes and destruction in their wake

Big things do start with small steps, but this particular idea is a big step backward. Jetting up to space to manufacture stuff in zero gravity is a logistical nightmare...

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Alexa finally gets a masculine-sounding voice option

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Amazon has quietly started rolling out a new masculine-sounding voice option to its Alexa virtual assistant along with a similarly masculine-sounding wake word to trigger the assistant: “Ziggy.” (The odd choice of name is presumably to fit into Amazon’s love of “A to Z”-style branding.)

The new voice option was actually added several days ago alongside an announcement for new celebrity voices like Shaq and Melissa McCarthy, but it went largely unnoticed until it was spotted by The Ambient. You can hear a sample of the new voice option here.

A new voice for Amazon’s digital assistant

The “Ziggy” wake word joins the existing “Alexa,” “Computer,” “Echo,” and “Amazon” wake words that have already been available to use with Alexa for years....

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‘PlugWalkJoe’ arrested in connection with 2020 hack of famous Twitter accounts

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Joseph O’Connor, a 22-year-old UK citizen who goes by the handle “PlugWalkJoe,” was arrested in Spain on Wednesday for his connection to the 2020 Twitter hack that compromised the accounts of former President Barack Obama and Elon Musk, and ran off with over $100,000 in Bitcoin. In a press release announcing the arrest, the US Justice Department writes that O’Connor is also being charged with “computer intrusions related to takeovers of TikTok and Snapchat user accounts.”

O’Connor was arrested on multiple counts of conspiring to and illegally accessing computers without authorization, and “with the intent to extort from a person a thing of value, transmitting a communication containing a threat,” among several other charges, the Justice...

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Clubhouse is no longer invite-only

Clubhouse

Clubhouse is going wide. Co-founders Paul Davison and Rohan Seth announced today that the app is no longer invite-only. Around 10 million people are currently on the waitlist, a spokesperson confirms, and they’ll slowly be added to the app over time. (Essentially, millions of users won’t be added today, but seemingly, if you attempt to sign up anew, you’ll be able to do so.) Along with the news, Clubhouse showed off a new logo, as well as a new app icon: Justin “Meezy” Williams, rapper 21 Savage’s manager.

“The invite system has been an important part of our early history,” a blog post about the changes says. “By adding people in waves, welcoming new faces each week in our Wednesday Orientations, and talking with the community each...

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WHO head cheers Olympic ‘hope’ as COVID-19 cases in athletes’ village rise

Photo by Michael Kappeler/picture alliance via Getty Images

Olympic athletes in Tokyo continue to test positive for COVID-19 by the dozens, the United States gymnastics team left the Olympic Village for a hotel in an attempt to avoid the virus, and the chief of the games’ organizing committee said there could still be a last-minute cancellation. Still, the head of the World Health Organization said Wednesday that the Tokyo Olympics could “inspire” and “bring the world together.”

“It is my sincere hope the Tokyo Games succeed,” said WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday. He said it was impossible to expect zero cases of COVID-19, and that the most important thing would be to isolate people, contact trace, and stop the virus from spreading.

"Beyond competition, medals &...

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Amazon will let devs compete for your Echo Show’s screen and everything else Alexa just added

Amazon’s Alexa devices are ambient computers, not the kind you use all day. When you_do_ ask your Echo a question or glance at your Echo Show’s diminutive screen, the voice assistant only has a brief chance to impress. Today, Amazon is announcing it’s going to give more of those opportunities to third-party developers — including brand-new widgets and featured skill cards that might take up a chunk of your smart speaker’s precious real estate.

Here’s what to expect from those and everything else the company’s announcing at its Alexa Live event today.

As you can see in Amazon’s mockup above, widgets look pretty much as you might expect. In a blog post, Amazon describes them as “rich, customizable, glanceable, self-updating views of skill...

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Amazon promises most Echo speakers will get upgraded to Matter

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Amazon, Apple, Google, Samsung, and dozens of other firms have agreed to try to make setting up smart homes easier with Matter, a cross-platform open-source standard coming later this year. Now, Amazon has revealed the scope of its initial commitment: it will be upgrading almost every plug-in Echo smart speaker to support Matter, including most Echo and Echo Dot speakers and every Echo Studio, Echo Show, Echo Plus, and Echo Flex.
In fact, the only Echo smart speakers that won’t get upgraded to Matter are the first-gen Echo, first-gen Echo Dot and Echo Tap, a rep tells The Verge.

While the company doesn’t provide a timeline for those upgrades, the general idea is that Matter will launch by late 2021, so it shouldn’t be long until Amazon’s...

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Instagram can now automatically translate text in stories

When a foreign language is detected, an option to ‘See Translation’ now appears. | Image: Instagram

Instagram is adding a new option to automatically translate text in story posts, the company announced today. Now, when the service detects a foreign language in a post, it will display a “See Translation” option on the top left of the screen, which users can tap to see a translation at the bottom. Instagram says the new translation feature will be available globally, and currently supports over 90 languages to make sharing content with an international audience easier.

The feature, whose development was previously reported by app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, means there’s now parity between Instagram stories and traditional posts. In 2016, Instagram added automatic translations to comments, captions, and user bios but failed to...

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