Snapchat is growing faster than it has in years

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Just a couple of years ago, there were concerns that Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, wouldn’t survive as a standalone company. Its stock price bottomed out around $5 after a disastrous redesign that slowed user growth and confused advertisers.

The situation is much different now. Snapchat is growing faster than it has since 2017, the year it went public. On Thursday, the camera-based messaging app said it added 13 million daily users during the second quarter, a 23 percent increase from the year-ago period. That means 293 million people use Snapchat every day around the world, up from 173 million this time four years ago. (Twitter reported 206 million daily users in the second quarter, by comparison.) Snap’s revenue also soared 116...

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How to stream the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony

Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images

The 2020 Summer Olympic Games are set to begin this week in Tokyo, with the opening ceremony kicking off Friday, July 23rd. While NBC and its streaming sibling Peacock will both carry coverage of the Games in the US, the Olympics will be streamable on other services as well.

Because it begins at 8PM in Japan, live coverage of the opening ceremony will start at 6:55AM ET / 3:55AM PT in the US. It will be broadcasted live on NBC as well as streamed live on the NBC Sports app and the NBC Olympics website. NBC’s website has a full schedule of additional broadcasts of the event. A spokesperson for Peacock told The Verge that the opening ceremony will not air on the streaming service, however it will carry the closing ceremony.

Taking place...

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Valve’s Steam Deck technically lets you swap the SSD, targets 30fps gameplay

Some important details have emerged about Valve’s Steam Deck handheld console-meets-PC — particularly about its target performance level and whether you can actually install your own NVMe SSD to upgrade storage.

In a video interview from IGN, Valve stated that the Steam Deck’s 800p display, capable of up to a 60Hz refresh rate, will be targeting 30Hz for gameplay. In other words, the Nintendo Switch comparisons might go a little deeper than the surface, as many games on that platform run well below 60 frames per second. Though, given that most PC games offer a trove of graphical settings to fine-tune, the Steam Deck should be able to achieve smoother gameplay at the cost of graphical quality if you’re willing to knock down a few...

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Verizon’s Smart Display is real and it’s just as pointless as we suspected

It doesn’t appear that Verizon’s Smart Assistant can do a whole lot. | Image: Amazon

We got our first look at Verizon’s Smart Display last month thanks to an FCC filing. Yesterday, Amazon confirmed the device’s existence as part of its Alexa Live presentation. It’s being introduced as part of the Alexa Custom Assistant program that allows third-party device manufacturers to add custom assistants built on top of Alexa technology to their products, and we regret to inform you that it looks just as useless as we first suspected.

Here’s what it offers: standard smart display stuff, like an eight-inch screen, 4GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi connectivity, and of course, Alexa. It also comes with LTE, a spec included in the FCC filing and confirmed to CNET following the announcement. But the purpose of 4G appears...

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How to change Alexa’s voice

The Amazon Echo Dot with clock (4th gen) | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Alexa’s pleasant, feminine voice has filled the homes of millions over the past few years, but now Amazon has finally released a masculine counterpart for it. Amazon is late to this — both Apple and Google have offered different voices, both feminine and masculine, in their virtual assistants for years. But late or not, it’s nice that Amazon is finally giving some choice for Alexa.

In addition to the two main Alexa voices, Amazon also has celebrity voices (right now you can choose between Samuel L. Jackson, Shaquille O’Neal, and Melissa McCarthy). These are programmed to work with certain phrases and answer select questions — mostly alarms and timers, jokes, or weather reports. They also cost $5 each. Any query to an Echo device that’s...

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Facebook content moderators call for company to put an end to overly restrictive NDAs

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook content moderators in Europe and the US are calling on the company to put an end to overly restrictive nondisclosure agreements that discourage people from speaking out about working conditions. In a letter addressed to Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and the CEOs of Covalen and Accenture, moderators say these NDAs aren’t limited to user data and help perpetuate a culture of “excessive secrecy.”

“Despite the company’s best efforts to keep us quiet, we write to demand the company’s culture of fear and excessive secrecy ends today,” the moderators write. “No NDA can lawfully prevent us from speaking out about our working conditions.”

The news comes amid escalating tension between the company and its contract content moderators...

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EA exec on how the pandemic changed development: ‘I don’t think we will ever go back’

Laura Miele. | Photo By Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile via Getty Images

Today, Electronic Arts announced a handful of new projects, including a remake of Dead Space and a story-driven racer complete with Hollywood talent. It’s part of what feels like a busy period for the publisher; last year, EA says it launched 13 new games and more than 400 updates for existing titles. That productivity is especially notable given that, like most companies around the world, EA’s studios were forced to work remotely due to the pandemic. Laura Miele, EA’s chief studios officer, says the publisher is still learning how to best make games remotely. And while it’s not clear what the future of EA’s studios will look like, there will be change moving forward. “I don’t think we will ever go back to how we were before the...

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The biggest announcements from EA Play Live 2021

Battlefield Portal.

At EA Play Live, the game publisher spent around an hour detailing the future of some of its biggest franchises. And while much of the news was to be expected, a few surprises snuck in — including an all-too-brief tease of a return to a horror favorite. If you missed the show, here are the most notable things EA revealed.

Dead Space is getting a next-gen remake

The best was saved for last, with a quick tease of a full-on remake of the original Dead Space, which promises to update the survival horror classic for modern hardware. There isn’t much to go on just yet — it doesn’t even have a release date — but the new version of Dead Space will launch on the PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X.

Battlefield 2042 is getting a creative mode of sorts

O...

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Senators target Section 230 to fight COVID-19 vaccine misinformation

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

As coronavirus cases rise in unvaccinated populations, Democratic senators are introducing a new bill Thursday that would strip away Facebook and other social media platforms’ Section 230 liability shield if they amplify harmful public health misinformation.

The Health Misinformation Act, introduced by Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) Thursday, would create a carveout in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act opening social media platforms like Facebook up to lawsuits for hosting some dangerous health misinformation. The bill directs the Health and Human Services secretary to issue guidelines on what should be classified as “health misinformation.”

The carveout would only apply in situations where online...

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Dead Space is getting a remake on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X

One of survivor horror’s most iconic games is getting a next-gen facelift. At its EA Play Live event, Electronic Arts revealed that a remake of the original Dead Space is in development and will be launching on the PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X. The publisher says the game is “rebuilt from the ground up” with EA’s Frostbite engine, and studio Motive — best-known for the space shooter Star Wars: Squadrons — will be handling development. There’s currently no release date.

This will mark the first entry in the franchise since Dead Space 3 in 2013. The franchise was originally created and developed by Visceral Games, which was shuttered in 2017 while working on a single-player Star Wars game that was eventually canceled. However, the...

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Battlefield 2042 players can build and share custom modes with Battlefield Portal

EA has announced a new feature coming to _Battlefield 2042._Called Battlefield Portal, it’s a customizable creative mode that will let players create and share their own unique battles and multiplayer scenarios that combine weapons, maps, and vehicles from across the franchise.

Portal goes beyond the custom multiplayer mode settings that are typical for an online shooter, though, by allowing players to mix and match elements not just from Battlefield 2042, but from earlier titles in the series like Battlefield 1942, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 3.

Players will also be able to incorporate weapons, gadgets, and vehicles from across the various historical eras, alongside classic factions pulled from the...

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Yep, Jordan Peele’s next movie is called Nope

Critically acclaimed and Oscar-winning director Jordan Peele’s next “terror” is officially called _Nope,_according to a poster the director shared on Thursday. The details of the project remain (delightfully) shrouded in mystery, and you’ll still have a bit longer to wait before you can see it yourself — _Nope_is scheduled to be released in theaters on July 22nd, 2022.

There’s not a ton to go off of in the poster Peele tweeted, but it does feature an ominous dark cloud with what looks like a kite string trailing out the back of it. Peele’s tease of his last film Us was equally evocative and obtuse, so while there’s probably meaning to be gleaned from a mysterious cloud rolling over a mountain town, it’s also just nice to let the mystery be....

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Lucid Motors’ $4.5 billion merger is being held up by spam filters

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

Lucid Motors is on the precipice of completing a merger that will give the Saudi-owned electric vehicle startup $4.5 billion in fresh capital. But the deal is being held up, in part, by spam filters.

The California-based startup is merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, called Churchill Capital IV that is already listed on the New York Stock Exchange. For the merger to go through, Churchill shareholders have to approve a number of proposals that outline the terms. That vote was supposed to close today, but Churchill extended the deadline to Friday because not enough shareholders have approved a key proposal.

There are a few possible reasons why. The first is the spam filter issue. To participate in that vote,...

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Google’s ‘about this result’ feature will now show why you got your specific search results

Google is updating its “about this result” feature for search results with an interesting new addition: context about how and why the company’s algorithm landed on the specific results for the links that it surfaces when you search for things.

The company added the “about this result” information box earlier this year as a way to help users properly vet sources that they weren’t familiar with using data sourced from Wikipedia. The menu — accessed by clicking the triple dots at the corner of a search result— pops up and tries to provide additional background information about a website.

The update that’s rolling out today, though, doesn’t add more context about websites that might appear in search results, but rather helps shine a light...

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Here’s when and how you can preorder the Playdate handheld

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge

Playdate, the quirky new handheld with a black-and-white screen and a crank on its side created by Panic and co-designed with Teenage Engineering, will be available for preorder starting Thursday, July 29th at 1PM ET / 10AM PT. You’ll be able to secure a unit through the site play.date for $179. It’ll start shipping later this year in select countries, though the company still doesn’t have a concrete release date for the portable device. You can also preorder the Playdate Cover accessory that can protect the device for $29. If you preorder, you’ll be charged immediately, but Panic says you can cancel at any time for a full refund.

Panic co-founder Cabel Sasser shared last month in a video update that “the sooner you order, the sooner...

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Playdate hands-on: a Game Boy from a different dimension

Photo: Panic

A few days with Panic’s crank-powered handheld

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The common cold was rare during 2020 — but it’s having a resurgence

Photo by Patrick Pleul / picture alliance via Getty Images

Levels of influenza and other non-COVID-19 respiratory viruses were at historic lows during most of 2020, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There’s still very little flu circulating, but other viruses — including parainfluenza viruses and common human coronaviruses, which cause colds — are having an out-of-season resurgence in 2021.

Between October 2020 and May 2021, levels of the flu in the United States were at their lowest since 1997, the first year there’s flu season data available, the analysis found. There was very little flu reported all over the world, and experts think the protective measures people took against COVID-19 — masking, distancing — suppressed the virus.

The nearly...

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You can now use Edge’s password manager to log in to mobile apps

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is updating Edge on Thursday to allow the browser’s password manager to log you in to your mobile apps. The new release, technically Edge 92, also includes new password safety features through a password health dashboard.

The Edge mobile app should be able to use the browser’s password manager in a way that sounds similar to other services like BitWarden or 1Password. Using your login credentials you’ve accumulated in Edge, you can easily log in to apps like Pinterest or Instagram, presumably with the autofill-type experience you’re used to.

Edge has a lot more password features now

Microsoft already offered a universal password management feature in Microsoft Authenticator, which allowed you to set it as a default autofill...

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Banks, brokerages, PSN, the Steam Store, and more are down in massive internet outage

Photo by Matthias Balk/picture alliance via Getty Images

Many websites — including banking pages, brokerages, and gaming services — have been affected by what looks to be a major internet outage. As website owners and companies that run services that provide the backbone of the web scramble to solve the issue, consumers have been left unable to access services like Ally Bank, Fidelity, Sony’s PlayStation Network, Airbnb, and more. Several airline sites are also having issues: Delta, British Airways, and Southwest’s sites are all having major issues.

At the moment, it’s unclear what’s causing the outage, though DownDetector reports that both AWS and Akamai, a pair of content delivery networks that host much of the internet, are both experiencing issues. Akamai’s status page reports that the...

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Epic files new complaint in its antitrust suit against Google

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Epic has renewed its fight against mobile platforms’ app store restrictions, filing an update to its antitrust case against Google. The filing adds mostly redacted details about Google’s alleged monopolistic behavior on Android, including banning Epic’s game Fortnite from the Google Play Store last year. The amended complaint comes soon after a judge officially linked the case with a recent multi-state lawsuit, which took aim at Google’s Play Store policies.

Epic’s complaint builds on information gleaned from government antitrust probes and documents produced since the original suit. One addition, for instance, includes details revealed last year about “the close relationship that Google maintains with Apple,” including an agreement to...

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Google’s Wear OS 3 plans mean Android users should wait to buy a smartwatch

Google has finally given its new, unified smartwatch platform a name — and it’s an obvious one: Wear OS 3. That little detail was part of what may be a more contentious set of information about which current Wear OS smartwatches will be updated, when those updates will come, and what those updates will entail. On all three of those fronts, it’s not very good news.

Google says that Wear OS 3 updates will start rolling out to a limited set of smartwatches in the “second half of 2022.” That’s quite a long way away, especially since we’re expecting the first Wear OS 3 watches to be announced next month at Samsung’s Unpacked event.

Currently, the list of watches that could get the update “include Mobvoi’s TicWatch Pro 3 GPS, TicWatch Pro 3...

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Google opens up Android Auto’s beta testing program

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Google is launching a new beta tester program for Android Auto, giving users the chance to get early access to features if they’re prepared to put up with the potential instability of unfinished software. Android Auto has had a testing program, but attempting to sign up for it has shown a message warning that the program had reached its “maximum number of testers.”

“As a beta tester, you can help us build a better version of Android Auto. You can test how well new features work with your specific phone and vehicle in your part of the world,” Google says. “When you share your feedback, we’ll use it to help plan improvements for future releases.”

“You can help us build a better version of Android Auto”

The announcement of the new beta...

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Faraday Future just became a publicly traded company

Image: Nasdaq

Electric vehicle startup Faraday future is a publicly traded company.

It’s okay, I’ll give you a moment. I’ve been reporting on Faraday Future for four years and it has even stunned me a few times in recent weeks. But it’s true: today, the startup’s shares began trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange, and a fresh $1 billion was dumped into its battered war chest.

Electric vehicle companies are going public left and right thanks to the rise in popularity of special purpose acquisition companies (which you can read a great explanation of here). So are companies that supply some of the new technologies that make EVs possible, like lithium-ion battery manufacturers, as well as others in related industries, like autonomous vehicle startups...

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Twitter may be adding voice effects to Spaces

Twitter may be introducing voice effects to Spaces | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter may be adding voice effects to its audio chat platform Spaces, a post from Twitter sleuth Jane Manchum Wong suggests. Wong tweeted that her research found Twitter is working on something called Voice Transformer, that will allow users to change their voice pitch or add echo effects.

Twitter is working on Voice Transformer for @TwitterSpaces which changes your voice pitch or adds echo to your audio pic.twitter.com/EgSvherbnL

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) July 22, 2021

Twitter began rolling out Spaces in its iOS app to a limited group of people in June 2020. It added an Android app in March and a desktop version in April (which Wong also predicted).

Sound effects may sound like a minor feature, but it could make the app...

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DeepMind creates ‘transformative’ map of human proteins drawn by artificial intelligence

Illustration by Ana Kova

AI research lab DeepMind has created the most comprehensive map of human proteins to date using artificial intelligence. The company, a subsidiary of Google-parent Alphabet, is releasing the data for free, with some scientists comparing the potential impact of the work to that of the Human Genome Project, an international effort to map every human gene.

Proteins are long, complex molecules that perform numerous tasks in the body, from building tissue to fighting disease. Their purpose is dictated by their structure, which folds like origami into complex and irregular shapes. Understanding how a protein folds helps explain its function, which in turn helps scientists with a range of tasks — from pursuing fundamental research on how the...

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Framework Laptop review: pick your ports

The value of this laptop hinges on future support

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The Pebble’s hardware buttons couldn’t save smartwatches from touchscreens

Touchscreens have taken over smartwatches. But it didn’t have to be this way. For a few short years, Pebble showed a different way forward with a purely hardware-based user interface that reigned supreme, until it — like the rest of the company — was left behind by the rest of the industry.

Virtually every smartwatch today relies on a mixture of touchscreens and hardware buttons — from the Apple Watch and its digital crown to Samsung’s rotating bezels. Even Fitbit’s most basic trackers like the Charge feature touchscreens to supplement physical buttons.

But Pebble held out. From the time it helped pioneer the concept of modern smartwatches in 2013 to its eventual purchase and shutdown in 2016, the Pebble could only ever be controlled...

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Mercedes-Benz says it will go all-electric in 2030, but with a major caveat

Mercedes-Benz says it will go all-electric by 2030, but with conditions. The German automaker says it will only sell electric vehicles “where market conditions allow,” implying that Mercedes may still sell gas-powered vehicles after 2030 in countries that lack consumer demand for EVs.

The company made the announcement during an EV strategy update Thursday morning, the latest in a series of automaker events to declare a major pivot to electric powertrains. But while other car companies have similarly promised to shift to all-EV production, Mercedes is notable by hedging its promise on external factors.

Other major automakers have included similar caveats

Other major automakers have included similar caveats. GM, for example, said it would...

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OnePlus Buds Pro announced, coming September 1st for $150

Image: OnePlus

OnePlus today announced its third set of true wireless earbuds, the OnePlus Buds Pro. Dubbed as the company’s “most advanced listening device” yet, the new earbuds are debuting alongside the Nord 2 smartphone. They go on sale in the US and Canada on September 1st for $149.99 and come in either white or matte black.

The shape of the earbuds is rather AirPods Pro-esque, though OnePlus has gone with a shiny chrome stem that looks quite eye-catching. After last year’s awkward situation at the US border, the company has good reason to go for a more visually distinct design.

Image: OnePlus

The OnePlus Buds Pro feature what the company describes as “smart adaptive noise cancellation,” which means they’ll automatically...

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OnePlus Nord 2 review: focused on the essentials

From its screen to its fast-charging, the Nord 2 has it where it counts

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