Nokia’s XR20 is a rugged 5G phone with three years of OS updates

The XR20 includes a 6.67-inch screen and dual rear-facing cameras. | Image: HMD Global

HMD Global’s newest Nokia device is the XR20, a rugged phone with 5G connectivity that goes on sale in late August for $549. In addition to robust physical protection, the XR20 is well supported on the software side — a big focus for Nokia’s latest devices — as it ships with Android 11 and comes with three years of OS upgrades alongside four years of monthly security updates. Even considering that the first of those updates, Android 12, is due for release very soon, it’s a policy that’s far stronger than that of most midrange Android devices.

The XR20 has a long list of rugged specs. It’s IP68 rated and can withstand submersion in 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) of water for up to an hour. It also meets other criteria of the MIL-STD 810H standard,...

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Samsung confirms Z Fold 3 S Pen support as Note line is in limbo

Samsung Unpacked invitation | Samsunng

Samsung isn’t looking to have many surprises at its August 11th Unpacked event. Leaks have already revealed the Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3, a couple of new Galaxy smartwatches, and new Galaxy Buds 2. Now, Samsung mobile president TM Roh is continuing a recent tradition of publishing a pre-event blog post that confirms some news, sets expectations, and hints at some additional details. Roh promises improved durability for folding screens, stylus support, and that Samsung will not release a new Note phone this time around.

Although the Unpacked invitation pictured above didn’t leave much to the imagination, Roh simply comes out and says there will be new foldables this year: “Our third generation of foldable devices will open up...

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Tesla rewrote its own software to survive the chip shortage

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge

Tesla is weathering the global chip shortage by rewriting its vehicle software to support alternative chips, CEO Elon Musk said during an earnings call Monday. The shortage has upended the auto industry at a time of historic demand for new cars, leading to factory shutdowns, longer wait times, and higher prices.

“We were able to substitute alternative chips, and then write the firmware in a matter of weeks,” Musk said. “It’s not just a matter of swapping out a chip; you also have to rewrite the software.”

This approach has helped Tesla maintain high levels of production, delivering over 200,000 vehicles to customers over the course of the last three months, the company said. Tesla generated $11.9 billion in revenue in the quarter,...

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New Samsung Flip and Fold leaks show water resistance, renders, and an S Pen case

Image: Evan Blass on Twitter

New leaks suggest Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Z Flip 3 and Z Fold 3 will both have IPX8 water resistance, which would put them more on par with Samsung’s non-folding phones. The information was posted earlier by Max Weinbach and now corroborated by Evan Blass, who tweeted the rating along with what appears to be an image from Samsung showing the phones getting splashed. The water resistance tidbit adds to the pile of leaks and images that we’ve seen leading up to Samsung’s August 11th Unpacked event, where the phones are expected to be announced.

As _SlashGear_points out, the rumored IPX8 rating for the phones doesn’t cover dust resistance, something that’s been a bit of a concern since Samsung started making folding phones. (This explainer...

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DOJ reportedly considers filing criminal charges against Tether and Bitfinex execs

Photo Illustration by Guillaume Payen/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

More than three years after initial reports of a federal investigation into the cryptocurrency stablecoin Tether, Bloomberg is reporting that it remains a “potential” criminal case. In response to the report, the price of Bitcoin surged, briefly rising over $40,000 for the first time since mid-June.

Unlike Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, a stablecoin ties its value to another asset — which, in this case, is one US dollar — backed by actual money or other holdings. It’s useful for traders to instantly make moves without worrying about rapid swings in the market. However, as many have documented, going back to 2014 when Tether was introduced, there are parts of its history that don’t add up to the story it’s telling.

“It is business as...

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The best deals on true wireless earbuds right now

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

When it comes to true wireless earbuds, there are a ton of brands and products to choose from. Whether you enjoy the unconventional design of Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Live or prefer Jabra’s compact Elite 75t, there’s a pair of wireless earbuds for just about everyone. Fortunately, many of the best wireless earbuds go on sale on a regular occurrence.

Regardless of which brand you prefer, we have compiled some of the best deals on wireless earbuds available right now. Of course, if you want to do more research before making a buying decision, we also encourage you to read our guide to the best wireless earbuds, which can help you determine which pair of earbuds are best for you.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge ...

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Intel will make Qualcomm chips in new foundry deal

Intel has announced its first major customer for its new Intel Foundry Services business: Qualcomm. Best known for designing the Snapdragon chips that power most major Android phones, Qualcomm will start to have its chips manufactured by Intel in the coming years using Intel’s upcoming 20A process.

No timeframe has been announced for when the first Intel-made Qualcomm chips will arrive or which of Qualcomm’s products Intel will produce.

Additionally, Amazon’s AWS will be working with Intel Foundry Services, relying on Intel’s packaging solutions (although Intel won’t be directly making chips for Amazon).

Qualcomm will rely on Intel’s newly announced Intel 20A technology node, scheduled for release in 2024. Intel 20A will...

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Nearly a thousand Activision Blizzard employees slam its response to harassment suit

Photo Illustration by Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Hundreds of Activision Blizzard employees have signed a letter (published by Bloomberg, Polygon, and Kotaku_)_that rebukes the company’s response to California’s allegations that Activision Blizzard has a discriminatory work culture and issues with sexual harassment. The company’s response to the lawsuit, which paints an extremely upsetting picture of its culture and how women are treated there, has largely been to deny the allegations.

In their letter, which can be read below, the employees say that response “creates a company atmosphere that disbelieves victims,” and they call for “immediate corrections” from the company’s top leaders.

The letter was written in response to both public and internal statements made by Activision Blizzard...

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Intel has a new architecture roadmap and a plan to retake its chipmaking crown in 2025

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Intel is rethinking how it releases — and brands — its semiconductor innovations, CEO Pat Gelsinger announced today at the company’s Intel Accelerated webcast. The announcement includes the broad strokes of the next half-decade of Intel’s processor roadmap, new chip and packaging technologies, and a promise of an “annual cadence of innovation,” with the ultimate goal of seeing Intel retake its leadership in the processor space by 2025.

Future Intel products (starting as early as its upcoming 12th Gen Alder Lake chips later this year) will no longer use the nanometer-based node nomenclature that both it and the rest of the chipmaking industry has used for years. Instead, Intel is debuting a new naming scheme that it says will provide “a...

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Tesla finally made a profit without the help of emission credits

Image: Tesla

Tesla sold enough cars and energy products to turn a profit even without counting the sale of emissions credits to other automakers — a milestone for the company. This was the eighth profitable quarter in a row for Tesla, but the first where it can truly say it’s a profitable automaker.

Tesla shared Monday that it logged a $1.1 billion profit in the second quarter of 2021, with $354 million of that coming from credit sales. The rest came from automotive sales, as well as a boost in energy storage sales.

Tesla pulled this off despite taking a loss of $23 million on its big Bitcoin bet (something that had helped it to a profit last quarter), a delayed rollout of the revamped Model S sedan and Model X SUV, and the global semiconductor...

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The best deals on 4K TVs

The 55-inch Samsung Crystal TU-7000 is on sale at Best Buy for $450. | Image: Samsung

There are a lot of 4K TVs available to choose from, complete with a wide variety of prices and performance. And, with many summer sales in full swing, now might be the best time of the year (or, at least until the fall) to get an amazing TV deal. Even if your budget is less than $500, you can get a good 4K TV in a bigger size than you might expect. Whether you want a secondary TV for the bedroom or a high-end OLED that’s built for a cinema-like experience, we’ve picked out the best TV deals across four common categories:

• Best 4K TV deals for most people
• Best budget 4K TVs
• Best OLED TVs
• Best 4K TVs for the PS5 and Xbox Series X

We will provide regular updates to this post so be sure to check back periodically for the most up-to-date...

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How to responsibly get rid of the stuff you’ve decluttered

If you’ve been at home for over a year, you may have taken the opportunity to go through all those tech devices, books, old clothes, and other detritus that has piled up over the years. Or perhaps you’ve upgraded a bunch of your possessions recently and have suddenly realized you don’t have room for the stuff you’ve replaced.

Whatever the reason, if you’ve got bags of tech, clothing, books, and other stuff that you need to get rid of, you want to get rid of them responsibly. Where do you go from here?

As you must know by now, just dumping it isn’t an option. Reusing and recycling old and unneeded stuff has become an important aspect of the push to preserve the world’s environment. Many states and urban areas are mandating the recycling...

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The best wired or wireless gaming headsets to buy

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A few options for each platform

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More ‘record-shattering’ heatwaves are on the way

A thermometer reading 116 degrees Fahrenheit during a heatwave in Portland, Oregon, U.S., on Monday, June 28, 2021. | Maranie Staab/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Even more week-long, “record-shattering” heatwaves are coming for us. From now until 2050, if greenhouse gas emissions stay high, the odds of such heatwaves happening are two to seven times greater than they were over the past few decades, according to a new study. From 2051 to 2080, those prolonged, record-breaking events are expected to become three to 21 times more probable than they were in the past.

The authors of the new study, published today in the journal Nature Climate Change, used climate models to come to their conclusions. But there’s already plenty of evidence in the world around us that backs up this study and others that link climate change to more frequent and severe heatwaves. Yet another heat dome is stifling much of...

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Rayssa Leal’s skateboarding went viral on Vine — she just won an Olympic medal

Image: Rayssa Leal on Instagram

People may know Rayssa Leal from a Vine that showed her landing an incredible heelflip while dressed in a pixie outfit, but today she’s wearing something different: the silver medal she won for her performance in the 2021 Olympic women’s street skating event. She also appeared on the Olympics official Twitter account, which posted a “how it started, how it’s going” meme featuring the 13-year-old skater.

Leal’s profile on the Olympics’ website says that she was just eight years old when that viral video started spreading across Vine in 2015, after a version that included failed attempts and falls was posted to her Instagram. Since then, she’s been making a name for herself in her native country Brazil, and in US and global competitions,...

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Netflix is reportedly developing a live-action Pokémon series

Photo: Warner Bros. Entertainment

Detective Pikachu might not be the last time you see real people interacting with fictional (but real in my heart) pokémon. Netflix is reportedly in early development on a live-action Pokémon TV series, according to Variety, with _Lucifer_co-showrunner and executive producer Joe Henderson attached to shepherd the project to a screen near you.

It felt almost like a fluke that _Detective Pikachu_happened at all, given the relative obscurity of the niche Pokémon spinoff game it was based on and Nintendo’s seeming reluctance to take big swings on live-action adaptations after the mythically lackluster quality of the _Super Mario Bros._movie.As of late, though, Nintendo’s been expanding into other mediums — like theme parks — and taking on new...

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Jeff Bezos offers NASA $2 billion to pick Blue Origin’s lunar lander in last-minute plea

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Jeff Bezos is offering NASA a discount of at least $2 billion for the agency to give his space company a lucrative human lunar landing system contract that his rival, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, won earlier this year. Bezos’ new offer is the latest in an escalating string of efforts to win the contract for Blue Origin.

In a Monday morning letter to NASA administrator Bill Nelson, Bezos said he’d permanentlywaive up to $2 billion in contract payments for the first two years if NASA adds Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander to a key phase of the agency’s Human Landing System program, which calls for landing the first humans on the lunar surface in decades. On top of that, Blue Origin would self-fund a Blue Moon test launch to low-Earth orbit, a...

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A closer look at Forza Horizon 5’s beautiful take on Mexico

Playground Games is sharing more about the places you’ll visit in the game

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Lucid Motors goes public, collects $4.5 billion

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

Electric vehicle startup Lucid Motors is now a publicly traded company, following the completion of a merger where it fetched an eye-watering $4.5 billion in fresh capital. Shares of the Saudi-owned, California-based startup began trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange Monday morning.

Lucid Motors will now turn its full attention back to an even taller task: getting its first electric car on the road, where it will face stiff competition in the luxury market from Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, and others. The startup has said that it plans to start delivering its extremely powerful but serenely luxurious Air sedan later this year, and it has already built more than 100 near-final quality versions at its new factory in Arizona. It has an electric...

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Health record company pays hospitals that use its algorithms

Photo by Victoria Jones/PA Images via Getty Images

The electronic health record company Epic offers financial incentives to healthcare systems that use its proprietary algorithms — and those algorithms can deliver inaccurate predictions, a Stat News investigation found.

Epic is the largest electronic health record company in the United States, and it holds the health records for around 250 million people. The company has around 20 algorithms designed to predict things like how long a patient might stay in the hospital, which patients might become seriously ill, and which might develop a deadly condition called sepsis.

Like many other groups that build health algorithms, Epic doesn’t publicly share details of how the algorithms are built. Researchers at hospitals that use Epic are able...

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Toyota is quietly pushing Congress to slow the shift to electric vehicles

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The US is slowing moving toward adopting policies that would put more electric vehicles on the road, but for Toyota, it’s not slow enough. The Japanese automaker, which is the largest car company in the world, has been quietly lobbying policymakers in Washington, DC to resist the urge to transition to an all-electric future — partly because Toyota is lagging behind the rest of industry in making that transition itself.

According to The New York Times, a top Toyota executive has met with congressional leaders behind closed doors in recent weeks to advocate against the Biden administration’s plans to spend billions of dollars to incentivize the shift to EVs. The executive, Chris Reynolds, has argued that hybrids, like the Toyota Prius, as...

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Tech company anti-terrorism initiative will increase its focus on far-right groups

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A cross-platform counterterrorism program will start targeting white supremacist and far-right militia material, flagging content for moderation on Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, and several other services. Reuters reported the news this morning in an interview with Nicholas Rasmussen, executive director of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT).

GIFCT — launched in 2017 by Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, and YouTube — maintains a database of terrorist content that helps member companies find it for review or removal. That database initially included material from a United Nations-designated list of sanctioned groups, which meant it focused heavily on Islamist extremist organizations like the Taliban and Islamic State, with...

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Next Gen

Illustration by Ari Liloan for The Verge

The Verge is always interested in the future — so this week, we’re taking a look at the people who will live there. All week, we’re going to publish stories focused on young people, whether they’re pushing for immigration reform or making bank in the online vintage trade. The way we see it, they’re building the future, and they’re using technology to do it.

We’re calling the series Next Gen, like a next-gen camera or phone. The hope is that human beings will get a little better each time around, with fewer of the hang-ups that plagued earlier models.

To kick it off, we’re going to hear from some of those young people firsthand. In a series of four personal essays, we asked young writers to talk about the tech that’s made the biggest...

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Apple’s AirPods Pro are $179 in-store at Staples through the rest of July

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Staples is hosting some stellar back-to-school deals this week, especially if tech is on your checklist. The AirPods Pro are $179 (visible on the third page of the ad) and are available at this price in-store only. Originally $249, these have been falling in price, but it’s not often that they sell for less than $189. It’s worth mentioning that Staples is also offering Apple’s HomePod Mini for $89, which ties for the lowest price yet. Unlike the AirPods Pro, Staples is offering this miniature smart speaker in-store or online.

As noted by Slickdeals, the second-generation Apple Pencil that’s compatible with iPads that have a USB-C port is $99 at Best Buy and Amazon (delivery at Amazon currently delayed to August 12th)....

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Next Gen Favorites: Parsec

Illustration by Ari Liloan for The Verge

A new tool for an older kind of gaming

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Next Gen Favorites: Wattpad

Illustration by Ari Liloan for The Verge

Looking beyond my local library, I found a new way to think about writing

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Next Gen Favorites: the half-finished Duolingo course

Illustration by Ari Liloan for The Verge

I am tormented by the specter of Duo the Owl

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Next Gen Favorites: the Alicia Keys Tiny Desk concert

Illustration by Ari Liloan for The Verge

Looking for the thrill of live music during lockdown, I turned to NPR

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Leaked Surface Duo 2 photos reveal new triple camera system

Surface Duo 2. | Tech Rat (YouTube)

Microsoft is readying a Surface Duo 2 for release later this year. Leaked images have revealed the dual-screen device will include a new triple camera system. The leaked images first appeared in a YouTube video last month, and _Windows Central_claims they’re legitimate. Microsoft is expected to launch its Surface Duo 2 device in September or October.

The camera system on the Surface Duo 2 appears to be the main significant hardware change on this device. It’s rumored to include a telephoto, ultrawide angle, and standard lens. The leaked photos show a bump at the rear of the device, just like many existing flagship Android phones. It also appears that Microsoft has moved its fingerprint reader into the power button on the Duo 2 and...

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LG’s new true wireless earbuds have a privacy-conscious ‘Whispering Mode’

LG’s Tone Free FP8 wireless earbuds. | Image: LG

LG’s new Tone Free FP true wireless earbuds feature a “Whispering Mode” where you can hold the right earbud next to your mouth during calls to use it as a dedicated microphone. It’s a neat privacy-conscious feature for those moments when you don’t want to have to speak loudly enough for the sound to be picked up by the earbuds in your ears.

There are three new earbuds in the lineup — the FP5, FP8, and FP9 — and they share a lot of the same specs. All are noise cancelling, have three microphones per earbud, and have an IPX4 water resistance rating to withstand light splashes. Their earbud stems are 4.4mm shorter than LG’s previous models, and they have improved drivers and diaphragms which LG claims offers more bass without impacting...

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