Latest IDC numbers reiterate Apple’s dominance of tablet market

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Earlier this week during Apple’s earnings call, CEO Tim Cook said that the iPad had experienced its most successful June quarter in nearly a decade. And now IDC is out with its latest worldwide shipment figures that underline Apple’s commanding lead over the tablet competition. After refreshing the iPad Air in 2020 and launching an upgraded iPad Pro earlier this year, Apple is next expected to update the iPad Mini.

IDC estimates that Apple shipped 12.9 million iPads in the second quarter. Its nearest competition is Samsung, which hit 8 million shipments. Samsung’s Galaxy Tab S7 tablets offer fantastic hardware and punchy OLED screens, but they remain hamstrung by Android’s less-than-stellar selection of tablet apps. Lenovo, which...

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Google pairs Stadia Controller and Chromecast as $100 ‘play and watch’ bundle

Image: Google

Google has recently been selling a combo-package of the Stadia Controller and 2020 Chromecast as a limited-time promotion. But as spotted by 9to5Google, the company has now made the pair a permanent bundle that it’s calling the “play and watch” package.

For $99.99, you get both the controller and streaming dongle. That’s a savings of $19 compared to buying both products separately. Google is also promoting the Chromecast ethernet adapter as a recommended accessory; if you want the absolute best Stadia experience, it’s probably a smart buy — and it’s a mere $9.99 ($10 off) when purchased alongside the bundle.

In an effort to clear out inventory of the old, puck-shaped Chromecast Ultra, Google is discounting its Stadia Premiere Edition...

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Thanks to the Rickroll, ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ hits 1 billion YouTube plays

Photo by Bernd Muller/Redferns

The official video for Rick Astley’s 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” has surpassed 1 billion plays on YouTube. The song became a lasting part of internet culture thanks to the Rickroll meme and reached the impressive milestone a couple days ago. Astley took to the video’s comments to share his gratitude, saying “amazing, crazy, wonderful!” In a video posted to Instagram, he added “the world is a wonderful and beautiful place, and I am very lucky.”

With some songs having crossed as many as 7 billion views in recent years, the 1 billion club isn’t quite as prestigious as it once was. But the achievement goes to show the staying power of the Rickroll prank. The video hit daily views of 2.3 million on April Fools Day, according to B...

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A starter pack of Nanoleaf’s stunning canvas panels is $50 off at Costco today

Nanoleaf’s canvas light panels are easy to set up and can display more than 16 million colors. | Image: Nanoleaf

If you like your lighting to be on the adventurous side, rest assured that Nanoleaf’s canvas light panels aren’t made to be subtle. The touch-sensitive squares are flashy and versatile, with the ability to display more than 16 million colors and a modular design that lets you place them in a variety of patterns. The bright LED panels also work with all the major smart home platforms, and can cycle through a number of preset colors or respond to sound when in “Rhythm Mode,” a feature that’s just as suited for the ambient noise outside your bedroom as your favorite record. Right now, Costco members can purchase Nanoleaf’s Canvas Light Panel smarter pack with nine panels and everything needed to get started for $50, one of the better prices...

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Telegram’s group video calls can now have up to 1,000 viewers

Image: Telegram

Telegram has announced the latest new features and improvements making their way to the popular messaging app. Video is the focus this time around. After launching group video calls last month, those sessions are now able to tally up to 1,000 viewers. The maximum number of people able to participate and broadcast to the video call remains at 30, but you can have quite the audience now for “anything from online lectures to live rap battles,” according to the company.

Video messages will also now come through at a higher resolution, and you can tap them for a larger view of the clip. When recording your own video messages, Telegram says that audio from your device will now keep playing as you do so, “so you can now sing along to your...

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K-pop’s fandom platforms are changing what it means to be an idol

Illustration by Ari Liloan for The Verge

Digital fan clubs are turning into single-purpose social networks

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PSA: You might want to avoid the gobs of Halo Infinite spoilers Microsoft just leaked

If you’re invested in the story of Master Chief, Cortana, and the fate of the Halo universe, you might want to keep your head down and start muting some keywords on social media until _Halo Infinite_arrives later this year — because vast spoilers for the game’s entire story are now floating around on the internet.

Note: we’ll be keeping this post spoiler-free, though.

Halo Infinite creative director Joseph Staten confirmed on Twitter that Microsoft accidentally leaked “a small number of Halo Infinite campaign files” when it launched the game’s first multiplayer beta yesterday on July 29th, saying it “can ruin the campaign experience for everyone.”

Leaks like this are painful for the dev team and can ruin the campaign experience for...

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Here are the latest accusations Activision Blizzard employees have leveled at the company

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

More disturbing allegations of Activision Blizzard’s reported culture of sexual harassment and gender-based discrimination have been reported in recent days, following a huge lawsuit filed against the company by California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) last week.

Details in these stories may be challenging to read, so we are prefacing them with a content warning for descriptions of sexual harassment.

On Thursday, The New York Times posted a story of extremely distressing accounts of Activision Blizzard’s culture. Here is one from Shay Stein, a former customer service employee:

Ms. Stein, 28, who worked at Activision from 2014 to 2017 in a customer service role, helping gamers with problems and glitches, said she...

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After accusations, Twitter will pay hackers to find biases in its automatic image crops

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is holding a competition in hopes that hackers and researchers will be able to identify biases in its image cropping algorithm — and it’s going to be handing out cash prizes to winning teams (via Engadget). Twitter is hoping that giving teams access to its code and image cropping model will let them find ways that the algorithm could be harmful (such as it cropping in a way that stereotypes or erases the image’s subject).

Those competing will have to submit a description of their findings, and a dataset that can be run through the algorithm to demonstrate the issue. Twitter will then assign points based on what kind of harms are found, how much it could potentially affect people, and more.

The winning team will be awarded...

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Mastodon now has an official iPhone app

Decentralized social network Mastodon now has an official iPhone app. The nonprofit behind Mastodon launched the app on iOS today, supplementing an existing web version and several third-party apps for iOS, Android, and other platforms. The app is free and offers a similar feature set to Mastodon’s core service, although it doesn’t include Mastodon’s broad local and federated timelines.

Mastodon describes the app as particularly geared toward getting new users on board the nontraditional social platform. As we’ve outlined before, Mastodon looks similar to Twitter but is built around independently run communities (and the ActivityPub protocol) rather than a single central network. You can create your account on a community of your choice...

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A Tesla Megapack burst into flames at ‘Victorian Big Battery’

A rendering of what the “Victorian Big Battery” will look like when completed. | Image: Neoen

A Tesla Megapack caught fire today during initial testing of a highly anticipated new utility-scale battery in Victoria, Australia. Luckily, there were no injuries or disruptions to the local electricity supply, CNBC reports. The blaze posed no risk of spreading to the nearby community, according to Bloomberg, but it did trigger a toxic smoke warning for residents who were told to stay indoors, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. The cause of the fire is still unclear.

JUST IN: Fire crews are currently on the scene of a battery fire at Moorabool, near Geelong. Firefighters are working to contain the fire and stop it spreading to the nearby batteries. https://t.co/5zYfOfohG3#7NEWSpic.twitter.com/HAkFY27JgQ

— 7NEWS Melbourne...

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Vergecast: this quarter’s earnings for Apple, Samsung, Google, and Microsoft

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.

This week on _The Vergecast,_Nilay and Dieter bring back _Verge_managing editor Alex Cranz and Verge news editor Chaim Gartenberg to chat about the headlines.

It’s earnings week once again. Unsurprisingly, all of the big tech companies made a lot of money this past quarter. Our podcast crew dives into the numbers behind the profits of Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Amazon, and Apple and what it means for each business’s future goals.

The show also dedicates some time to discuss Intel’s business. Chaim leads the discussion after writing a...

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June heatwave was the ‘most extreme’ on record for North America

Smoke rises over the mountains in Lytton, as firefighters battle the fires in British Columbia, July 6, 2021. | Photo by Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The devastating heatwave that struck the Northwest US and southwest Canada in June was “the most extreme summer heatwave” ever recorded in North America, according to a new analysis from nonprofit research group Berkeley Earth. That’s based on the magnitude of the heatwave, or how much warmer it was than normal. Record temperatures in the region reached roughly 20 degrees Celsius (or 36 °F) hotter than average in June.

Canada recorded its hottest temperature ever on June 29th when the village of Lytton in British Columbia reached an astonishing 49.6 degrees Celsius (121 degrees Fahrenheit). Typical temperatures there in June are closer to 20 to 30 degrees Celsius (68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit).

The consequences of that heat are...

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‘May be an image’: what it’s like browsing Instagram while blind

The ridiculous sounds of social sites

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Elon Musk calls Apple’s App Store fees a ‘de facto global tax on the Internet’

Photo By: Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Elon Musk has had a busy Friday on Twitter. After flatly denying that he has ever spoken to Apple CEO Tim Cook in response to a wild story alleging he demanded to take over as the company’s CEO as part of an acquisition offer, Musk has now tweeted his support of Epic Games’ fight against Apple over App Store policies.

“Apple app store fees are a de facto global tax on the Internet,” he said. “Epic is right.”

Apple app store fees are a de facto global tax on the Internet. Epic is right.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 30, 2021

Epic is currently embroiled in a legal battle with Apple, arguing that its App Store rules, which allow Apple to take a 30 percent commission on many transactions on the App Store, are unfair and anti-competitive.

P...

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Elon Musk and Apple deny wild story that he tried to replace Tim Cook

Tesla CEO Elon Musk reportedly demanded to become Apple’s CEO in a 2016 phone call with current Apple CEO Tim Cook, according to an upcoming book about Tesla. The story, shared by the Los Angeles Times, comes from Power Play: Tesla, Elon Musk, and the Bet of the Century by The Wall Street Journal reporter Tim Higgins.

As the book tells it, Cook suggested to Musk that Apple acquire Tesla, and Musk said he wanted to be CEO. Cook reportedly agreed, but Musk clarified that he wanted to be the CEO of Apple. “According to a former aide who heard (Musk’s) retelling of the exchange,” Cook said “Fuck you” before hanging up the phone.

But Musk and Apple have both suggested that the conversation couldn’t have happened because Musk and Cook have...

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Microsoft is facing a subpoena for millions of documents in Google’s antitrust case

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The sweeping federal antitrust case against Google has given rise to a significant fight over data held by Microsoft, and the company is now facing a subpoena for millions of documents that could shed light on its attempts to compete with Google’s search engine. Having initially cooperated with prosecutors in building an antitrust case against Google, Microsoft could be obligated to produce millions more documents at the request of Google’s defense team.

At a status hearing on Friday morning, Judge Amit Mehta heard arguments from both Google and Microsoft on the issue, but ultimately found more information was required before the court could give guidance as to how much internal data Microsoft would be required to produce.

“No third...

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Watchdog denies Blue Origin’s challenge to NASA’s lunar lander program

Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Blue Origin’s protest against NASA’s decision to pick just one company to build its first human lunar lander in decades was denied by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the watchdog agency said Friday, also denying a similar protest from Dynetics. The decision keeps Blue Origin’s rival SpaceX the sole winner of NASA’s lucrative Moon lander program and hands a loss to Jeff Bezos, whose space company waged a months-long fight to win the same funding.

In a formal protest filed in April, Bezos’ Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics had accused NASA of running afoul of contracting law when the agency shelved their proposals and gave Elon Musk’s SpaceX a lone $3 billion contract to land a crew of humans on the Moon by 2024. NASA...

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The special effects behind Loki’s doomed planet of Lamentis

Photo: Marvel Studios

How the team at Digital Domain destroyed a world

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A three-pack of Google Nest Minis is only $64 at eBay right now

Normally $50 a pop, BuyDig is offering a trio of Google Nest Minis for nearly 60 percent off. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Like Amazon’s Echo Dot, the Google Nest Mini is a miniature take on the larger smart speakers that came before it. The compact device doesn’t boast the same sound quality as the Nest Audio, but it's impressive for its size, especially when mounted to a wall or placed in a smaller room. What’s more, it packs backlit volume buttons and many of the same features that have come to define the category, including the ability to answer voice queries, control your smart home, and play music, adding to its overall versatility.

If you’re already tapped into the Google ecosystem or are looking for an inexpensive way to strew audio throughout your home, BuyDig is currently offering a three-pack of Google Nest Minis on eBay for $64, significantly...

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Tesla agrees to pay $1.5 million to settle battery throttling lawsuit

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge

Tesla agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the company used a software update to reduce the maximum battery voltage for some of its Model S sedans, Reuters reports.

The software update, which was released in 2019, resulted in slower charging speed and diminished range for around 1,743 vehicles, the plaintiffs alleged. As a result of the settlement, Tesla agreed to pay $625 to each of the affected vehicle owners.

Tesla agreed to pay $625 to each of the affected vehicle owners

“This amount is many times the prorated value of the temporarily reduced maximum voltage, and thus represents an excellent and efficient result for the Settlement Class,” the court document reads. “In return, the Settlement Class will release...

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The bad science behind trans healthcare bans

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Lawmakers cling to flawed evidence while restricting care for trans youth

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How to use transitions to make your TikTok videos more interesting

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you’re a TikTok creator, then you know how quickly those minutes of video can fly by. One of the ways you can move storytelling along is by using transitions between clips.

While TikTok offers a handful of templates that resemble slideshow presentation transitions, these don’t seem to be very popular. Instead, many users opt for manual transitions that use video editing and recording tricks to make their video flow from one clip to the next. Some of these transitions are relatively simple and only require a couple of steps, while others need a little bit of planning.

All the transitions serve a purpose, though, and that is to move the video along and keep pace with either the music or what the person is saying. Transitions can also...

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Russia blames software glitch for misfired engines that shoved ISS

Roscosmos

Russia’s space agency blamed a “short-term software failure” for yesterday’s engine mishap with its new science module. The module’s thrusters unexpectedly fired hours after docking, shifting the International Space Station off its normal position. The software glitch caused the Nauka module to think it was supposed to back away from the station.

The space station, a football field-sized research laboratory floating 270 miles up in low-Earth orbit, was shoved 45 degrees off track once Nauka’s thrusters started firing. NASA said it lost control of the station’s positioning minutes later, but it was eventually repositioned back to normal after thrusters from another Russian module counteracted Nauka’s errant firings.

“Due to a short-term...

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The Mark Cuban-founded audio app Fireside is asking its own users to invest

Fireside

The Mark Cuban-funded and co-founded audio app Fireside has yet to publicly launch, but already it’s asking the limited creators on its platform for money. In an email sent to users late last night and viewed by The Verge, co-founder and CEO Falon Fatemi says she and the team are accepting investments through the month of August from anyone who’s interested.

“If you believe in our vision, this is your chance to be part of it,” she writes. “Put your money where your mouth is :) (We did.)”

The email says more details are to come and doesn’t disclose the deal terms, how the investments will work, what the app’s valuation is, or how much the team is hoping to raise. But the email does also make a couple other announcements about the future...

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Amazon fined record $887 million over EU privacy violations

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Now that Amazon’s Q2 earnings are in, it has submitted a 10-Q filing with the SEC that includes additional details like this eye-popping note about a fine imposed by Luxembourg’s National Commission for Data Protection (CNPD) (via Bloomberg).

On July 16, 2021, the Luxembourg National Commission for Data Protection (the “CNPD”) issued a decision against Amazon Europe Core S.à r.l. claiming that Amazon’s processing of personal data did not comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation. The decision imposes a fine of €746 million and corresponding practice revisions. We believe the CNPD’s decision to be without merit and intend to defend ourselves vigorously in this matter.

The largest GDPR fine to date was a €50 million penalty...

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The bipartisan infrastructure bill is good for EVs, bad for the climate

If it’s approved, the bipartisan infrastructure deal announced this week will make it easier for Americans to buy and own an electric car. But it won’t help meet President Joe Biden’s ambitious goal to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030.

Experts in urban policy and electrification told _The Verge_that the money authorized for a nationwide network of EV chargers would have a measurable impact on Americans’ car-buying choices. The $1 trillion deal ($550 billion of which is new spending) includes $7.5 billion to fund Biden’s plan to build half a million EV chargers across the country, which will help mend the mostly fractured, occasionally broken system we currently have. A more dependable charging network will likely help juice EV sales...

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How Facebook became a lifeline for immigrant bike messengers

Illustration by Ari Liloan for The Verge

‘We are delivery boys who want to raise our voices’

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Vaccine carrots only got us so far — now, it’s time for sticks

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

This week, the dam broke. With COVID-19 surging around the United States and vaccination rates stagnating, federal agencies and state governments started announcing vaccine mandates for their workers. The Department of Veterans Affairs was the first federal agency to introduce a mandate, and Thursday, President Joe Biden announced that all federal employees would have to be vaccinated or face testing and other protocols. New York City and Los Angeles will also require city workers to get vaccinated.

Private companies are doing the same. Google said Wednesday that employees would have to be vaccinated to come to the office, and Facebook and Lyft followed with their own announcements hours later. Some New York City restaurants are...

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Here’s why Apple says it hates leaks

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple is a notoriously secretive company, and a cease and desist letter recently acquired by Motherboard sheds new light on _exactly_why, arguing that leaks harm accessory makers, consumers, and Apple itself.

The C&D order reportedly sent to a Chinese citizen by Apple’s lawyers in China, says that leaks about Apple’s iPhone dimensions could mislead case manufacturers, who might make accessories that are incompatible with the final product. As Apple puts it, “third-party accessory manufacturers may develop and sell mobile phone cases and other accessories that are not actually compatible with the unreleased products.” Motherboard notes that the market for Apple accessories is estimated to be worth almost $20 billion worldwide.

“The secret...

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