The Verge staff talks about their favorite laptop bags

Photo: Mission Workshop

It’s surprisingly how attached you can get to a bag — especially the bag that you use to carry your laptop, your sweater, your lunch, your notebook, your exercise shoes, and all the other stuff you need. Whether you’re heading to the office, visiting a friend, hanging in a coffee shop, going on a hike, or just sitting outdoors to read or work, having a bag that can accommodate everything on your “gotta have this” list can help you avoid a lot of aggravation.

We asked the staff of The Verge to tell us about their go-to laptop bags. We got a variety of answers, including messenger bags, camera bags, backpacks, well-worn bags that have lasted for years, and leather bags with lots of style.

So here are some stories about why we like our...

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Microsoft announces new wired Xbox stereo headset

Microsoft has unveiled a refreshed Xbox stereo headset, a $59.99 wired model that’s more affordable than its stellar $100 wireless headset that launched earlier in 2021. It’s launching on September 21st, and as is to be expected, it’s missing a few features. But much of its design is intact. You can twist the dial on the outside of the right ear cup to adjust the volume, and there’s a mute button on the back side of the flexible microphone — mirroring what you get with the wireless version. The stereo headset doesn’t appear to have the chat / game audio mixing dial on the left ear cup as the pricier model does, but that’s not a horrible loss given the price difference.

This headset connects through your Xbox controller via its bold green...

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Amazon reportedly plans to open department stores, starting in California and Ohio

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A year after The Wall Street Journal reported Amazon had an interest in using empty mall spaces as fulfillment centers, the business paper is back with a rumor that Amazon is planning to open department store-style locations of its own. The reported plan is for stores that are smaller than your average 100,000-square-foot Macy’s or JC Penney location, with a footprint that’s only about 30,000 square feet, which is closer to the size of Kohl’s stores that already handle Amazon returns. Without specific information on what they might sell, they could stock clothing, electronics, and household items.

While private equity firms did their part, Amazon is now in the odd position of replacing stores that it helped kill off. If the plans turn...

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Apple’s iPad Mini is $100 off today

The iPad mini is Apple’s smallest tablet | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The latest iPad Mini is back at Cyber Monday-level pricing, offering the best deal possible for Apple’s most compact tablet. Walmart has it on sale today for $100 off, clocking in at $299 and matching the lowest price we’ve seen for one of the most powerful small-format tablets on the market. The 64GB Wi-Fi model is perfect for casual reading, consuming content, controlling smart home functions, or just browsing the web on the couch on a nice 7.9-inch screen. Apple is expected to release a new model this fall, but here’s a prime opportunity to save on the current version right now. Read our review.

Yesterday saw the Steam release of Tetris Effect: Connected_on PC,_and if you plan on jumping in, it’s available for 25 percent off through...

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Dell’s first portable monitor looks like it was yanked off an XPS laptop

Dell

Dell has announced a 14-inch portable USB-C monitor that’s priced at $349.99 and will be released globally on August 31st. It has a 1080p LED-backlit IPS panel (60Hz refresh rate, 6ms response time) and you can use it as a secondary display for your USB-C laptop.

The monitor, which Dell refers to as the C1422H, has narrow bezels and a minimalist design that makes it look as if it came off an XPS laptop. It features a built-in stand that tilts between 10 and 90 degrees. The portable monitor weighs less than two pounds, and it can reach a peak brightness of 300 nits.

There’s a USB-C port on each side of the base, both of which can receive and pass through power; they can also handle a video feed via DisplayPort 1.2 alt mode. You can get...

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Corsair’s latest headset has improved comfort, but it backpedaled on sound

Corsair

Corsair impressed me last year with its $150 HS75 XB Wireless, an Xbox-exclusive wireless headset that looked and felt more like a high-end set of headphones than a gaming accessory. They also had great sound quality and an easy-to-learn button layout with the right amount of features. It wasn’t necessarily a flaw that they only worked with Xbox consoles, but no one likes to be excluded. The company has now released the HS80 RGB Wireless for the same $150 price _with_PlayStation compatibility, but these aren’t quite the successor that I was expecting or hoping for.

This one works with the PS4, PS5, as well as PC with its USB-A wireless transmitter. Unlike most wireless headsets that use a dongle like this, I couldn’t get it to work with...

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Intel shows off its answer to Nvidia’s DLSS, coming to Arc GPUs in 2022

Intel Arc is the company’s first big foray into dedicated gaming GPUs, coming in Q1 2022, but we got another preview at some of additional details for the upcoming graphics cards at the company’s Architecture Day 2021 event — including a first look at Intel’s AI-accelerated super sampling, now known as XeSS.

XeSS looks set to take on Nvidia’s own Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) tech, will make its debut alongside the first Arc GPU architecture, known as Alchemist, in early 2022. Much like DLSS, it will upscale games from a lower resolution to provide smoother frame rates without a noticeable compromise in image quality.

Intel is also using dedicated Xe-cores in its upcoming GPUs to power its XeSS technology, with dedicated Xe Matrix...

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Intel previews its Alder Lake chip, promises hybrid CPUs for desktops and laptops

Intel has spent much of 2021 announcing plans for its future: a new IDM 2.0 strategy, new naming schemes for its process nodes, and new desktop GPUs. At Intel’s Architecture Day 2021, we finally got a preview of how some of those changes are coming together in new chips, starting with the upcoming Alder Lake lineup later this year.

As the company has been teasing since last year’s Architecture Day, Alder Lake will feature Intel’s latest hybrid architecture: instead of simply offering the next generation of powerful Intel CPU cores, it’ll offer a mix of both performance and efficiency x86 cores, both of which Intel previewed as part of its announcements.

Additionally, Alder Lake will be the first chip released on Intel’s newly renamed...

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GM and AT&T are teaming up to bring 5G to Chevy, Cadillac, and GMC cars by 2024

General Motors and AT&T are partnering to bring 5G connectivity to “millions” of vehicles over the next decade. The improved connectivity will mean better software performance, enhanced navigation, and faster music and video streaming capabilities, company officials said.

Starting with model year 2024, all Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC vehicles will come equipped with 5G. In addition, all of GM’s current model year 2019 and newer vehicles, which are equipped with 4G LTE, will experience “faster connectivity speeds and many of the same performance benefits of future 5G-equipped vehicles” thanks to GM’s fifth-generation cellular network architecture.

In other words, cars made in 2019 and beyond will have improved data speeds and software...

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Binance is facing an unconventional new legal claim over May 19th outage

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A group of disgruntled investors is pursuing a formal claim against the cryptocurrency platform Binance for allegedly causing millions in damages through an unanticipated outage earlier this year. Filed in an international business arbitration court, the case represents the largest investor action ever brought against a cryptocurrency platform, and a major test of the rights of investors speculating in digital currency markets.

The case stems from a widespread service outage on May 19th, which coincided with a massive drop in the price of Bitcoin. Binance wasn’t the only platform affected, as a mass selloff clogged blockchain transactions and overwhelmed reserves, but the complex financial products offered by the platform made the damage...

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Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3 review: flipping into the mainstream

Third time is maybe the charm

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Ghost of Tsushima’s purring cats might be my favorite PS5 feature

Since the PlayStation 5 debuted, we’ve seen lots of novel uses of its DualSense controller. Game developers have utilized the haptic vibrations to simulate weather like falling rain or blowing wind, while the added resistance in the triggers makes firing a weapon or making an exhausted NBA star sprint all the more immersive. Often these features help make seemingly small interactions feel more notable — and my favorite new example is the cats in Ghost of Tsushima: Director’s Cut on the PS5.

The new version isn’t really a director’s cut, at least in the typical sense, but rather an enhanced version of the open-world samurai game that originally launched as the last big PS4 exclusive in 2020. That game married a fairly standard open-world...

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Fossil’s upcoming Wear OS smartwatch leaks with Snapdragon 4100 Plus

Fossil’s Gen 6 smartwatch. | Image: WinFuture

Fossil’s upcoming Gen 6 smartwatch has leaked thanks to a retailer listing spotted by WinFuture. Notably, it appears to be Fossil’s first smartwatch with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 Plus processor, which launched last year but has so far only appeared on a handful of devices. The new watch follows Fossil’s Gen 5 lineup, which dates back to 2019, and received new LTE-equipped models this year.

The Gen 6 will be Fossil’s first Wear OS smartwatch since Google announced it was collaborating with Samsung on the third-generation of its operating system. But based on currently available information, the wearable is unlikely to launch with the new software. When Google announced its Wear OS 3 update plans in July it said that Fossil’s...

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Inside Facebook’s metaverse for work

Facebook

Facebook is bringing the office to VR with Horizon Workrooms

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DTS’s Play-Fi multiroom audio platform is getting a big home theater upgrade

Image: DTS

Play-Fi, the multiroom audio platform from DTS, is getting a home theater upgrade with Play-Fi Home Theater, a new set of wireless audio features designed to cut down on the amount of cables needed when using a TV with external speakers. Play-Fi Home Theater works using a TV’s built-in Wi-Fi with “no adapters, no dongles, and no add-on boxes” according to DTS, and is launching with as-yet unnamed TVs in the third quarter of this year.

DTS’s Play-Fi standard has been around for close to a decade, and is designed to let you build up a multiroom audio setup using speakers and other components from different manufacturers. That’s in contrast to systems like Sonos, which only streams to Sonos-branded equipment. The standard can already be...

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The four numbers Apple won’t let you engrave on your iPhone in China

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple is censoring words and phrases customers can engrave on products in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, according to a new report by the Brussels-based CitizenLab. The iPhone-maker has always said it filters engraving requests to avoid racist language, vulgarities, or intellectual property violations, but CitizenLab says the company’s restrictions of political references in Hong Kong and Taiwan particularly go above and beyond legal requirements.

“We found that part of Apple’s mainland China political censorship bleeds into both Hong Kong and Taiwan,” write the report’s authors. “Much of this censorship exceeds Apple’s legal obligations in Hong Kong, and we are aware of no legal justification for the political censorship of content in...

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What Twitter should copy from Tinder

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

You’ll likely be able to verify yourself twice on Tinder before you can do it once anywhere else

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Nvidia expects GPU supply constraints for the ‘vast majority’ of 2022

Nvidia’s GeForce RTX 3080 GPU. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

Nvidia warned earlier this year that the great GPU shortage would last throughout 2021, and now the company expects supply issues to continue well into 2022. Speaking on Nvidia’s Q2 fiscal 2022 earnings call this week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he expects supply constraints for the majority of next year.

“I would expect that we will see a supply-constrained environment for the vast majority of next year is my guess at the moment,” said Huang according to a transcript of the call, spotted by Videocardz. Nvidia has committed to securing long-term supply commitments, but demand is still higher than supply right now during a global chip shortage.

Nvidia’s warnings of a GPU shortage well into 2022 might not seem as bad as they sound,...

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Nvidia admits acquisition of British chip designer Arm may take longer than 18 months

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had admitted for the first time that the company’s planned acquisition of British chip designer Arm may take longer than the initially-scheduled 18 months. The acquisition, which would bring together two of the most powerful chip companies in the world, is facing scrutiny from regulators in the US, UK, and China.

“Our discussions with regulators are taking longer than initially thought, so it’s pushing out the timetable,” Huang told The Financial Times. “It’s not one particular delay,” he added. “But we’re confident in the deal, we’re confident regulators should recognise the benefits of the acquisition.”

“Our discussions with regulators are taking longer than initially thought”

Huang was previously unwavering...

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Jabra’s new true wireless earbuds are designed to help cope with hearing loss

The Jabra Enhance Plus. | Image: Jabra

Jabra’s Enhance Plus are a new pair of true wireless earbuds aimed at helping people who experience “mild-to-moderate” hearing loss. They’re meant as a half-step towards a more traditional hearing aid solution, for people who might not be ready to wear a device all day. The Enhance Plus will be released first in the US at the end of the year, and will be sold through licensed hearing care professionals at a price that’s yet to be announced.

Although Jabra is perhaps best known for its true wireless earbuds like the Elite 85T, its parent company GN Group has a long history in the hearing aid business. Now Jabra is also getting involved. It announced a new hearing aid lineup in June, and last year it added a hearing test feature to its...

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Oppo introduces true continuous zoom lens for smartphones

Oppo has held a “Future Imaging Technology Launch Event” online today to make some camera-related announcements, following the reveal of its “next-generation” under-display selfie camera earlier this month.

Oppo is known for demonstrating camera tech in prototype form long before it hits the market. The company was the first to demonstrate periscope telephoto cameras and under-display cameras, for example, both of which are increasingly common on high-end devices.

The first new announcement is a telephoto lens with continuous optical zoom. Unlike periscope telephoto lenses used today, the lens elements move throughout the 85-200mm-equivalent zoom range meaning that the images should be crisp at every focal length without...

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NFTs, explained

Image: Cryptokitties.co

There’s nothing like an explosion of blockchain news to leave you thinking, “Um… what’s going on here?” That’s the feeling I’ve experienced while reading about Grimes getting millions of dollars for NFTs or about Nyan Cat being sold as one. And by the time we all thought we sort of knew what the deal was, the founder of Twitter put an autographed tweet up for sale as an NFT. Now, months after we first published this explainer, we’re still seeing headlines about people paying house-money for clip art of rocks — and my mom still doesn’t really understand what an NFT is.

You might be wondering: what is an NFT, anyhow?

After literal hours of reading, I think I know. I also think I’m going to cry.

Okay, let’s start with the basics:

What is an...

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Feiyu one-ups DJI by letting you stick its tiny self-balancing camera to anything you like

Half a decade ago, dronemaker DJI realized its miniature aerial steadicams might be handy to carry around on foot — but it’s not the only company monopolizing on the shrinking tech. Rival FeiyuTech now has a DJI Pocket competitor that ups the ante by letting you detach the entire motorized gimbal, so you can stick a lightweight self-balancing camera to your car, helmet, wrist, or any magnetic surface up to three feet away.

It’s called the FeiyuTech Pocket 2S, and it’s on crowdfunding site Indiegogo right now for $399, or a little less if you take advantage of its early bird discounts.

According to the company, the camera shoots up to 4K footage at 60 fps with a Sony IMX 317 sensor, and can do up to 3 hours of continuous recording at...

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Netflix is finally adding support for spatial audio on iPhone and iPad

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Netflix is beginning to roll out support for Apple’s spatial audio feature on iPhone and iPad, the streaming giant said to 9to5Mac on Wednesday. A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the rollout to _The Verge,_saying that the rollout begins Wednesday and that users should expect to see it over the next few days. You may have it already — some users on Reddit are reporting that it’s working for them.

Apple’s spatial audio, which you can only take advantage of with the AirPods Pro and AirPods Max on an iPhone or iPad, is designed to make you feel more immersed in what you’re listening to with an impressive surround sound effect. If you want to give spatial audio a shot and don’t have it on Netflix yet, you can try it out on other services like...

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Microsoft’s new Paint redesign for Windows 11 includes a dark mode

The new Paint design in Windows 11.

Microsoft is redesigning its Paint app in Windows 11. The app will be updated with a new command bar that borrows most of the same options and tools as what exists in the ribbon interface for Paint on Windows 10. It’s the first major update to Paint in years, and it even includes a dark mode.

Microsoft’s head of Windows and devices, Panos Panay, teased the new Paint redesign on Twitter today. The teaser video includes a brief look at improvements to the font picker, brushes, and a dark mode for Paint. The tools look a lot more usable now, with a quick picker that shows all the different brushes and their effects. Microsoft’s font tool for Paint also floats now, with options for size, alignment, and more.

Here’s another @Windows 11...

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Facebook’s delayed 2022 office return did not apply to these contractors

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook announced plans to delay employees’ return to the office until 2022 earlier in August, but CNBC writes that some Facebook contractors employed by Accenture have been working in person since a week before. This might not be a surprise as The Verge previously reported that some of Accenture’s contractors in Texas were instructed to return to office work as early as October 2020.

A Facebook spokesperson tells The Verge that the 2022 return to office plan applies to a majority of all full-time and contingent office employees in the US, regardless of if they’re employed by Facebook or a contracting firm:

“While the majority of full-time employees and contingent workers for Facebook continue working from home, some have returned to...

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The Overwatch League’s 2021 regular season was full of drama amid an uncertain future

Blizzard

With one more tournament and the playoffs to go, here’s an overview of the league’s fourth season

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Facebook releases a report on the most-viewed content in News Feed

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook has released a report to show what content was most widely viewed by Americans in the last quarter, and the list includes a post from President Biden, a video from 5-Minute Crafts, and arguments about whether you should put sugar on spaghetti. Facebook’s report comes as a response to frequent reports that some of the platform’s posts with the most interaction are from right-wing sources that critics say could have a radicalizing effect on users. Facebook says that the report shows what people actually see on the platform, as opposed to what content on Facebook gets the most interaction, and that it’ll be creating these reports on a quarterly basis in the future. However, the picture the report paints is, by Facebook’s own...

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Twitter is making it easier for other apps to point to Spaces

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is updating its API v2 so that developers can look up its Spaces social audio rooms, the company announced Wednesday, which could allow them to share information about Spaces more easily outside the Twitter app.

Twitter has been rapidly improvingSpaces, but before now, you could only see them on Twitter’s own apps. But starting Wednesday, “all developers using the new Twitter API v2 will be able to look up live or scheduled Spaces using criteria like Spaces ID, user ID, or keyword,” Twitter says, which sounds like it means that a developer can use that information to point you to a Space from within their own app.

You can still only attend a Space on Twitter, though

This doesn’t appear to mean that developers will be able to...

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Cryptocurrency supporters are in the middle of their first big fight in Congress

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Last week, the Senate approved a massive infrastructure package making serious investments in building out the US’s roads and bridges. It would be the largest domestic spending bill in almost a decade, and nearly every powerful lobbying shop circled Washington for months trying to shape its language.

But one industry was surprisingly thrown into the fight last minute: cryptocurrency. When the Senate finally announced the bill text earlier this month, it included a provision that could impose devastating new tax requirements for wallet developers and miners. Suddenly, the cryptocurrency industry and its few lobbying shops faced one of its largest regulatory threats ever. They needed all of the digital foot soldiers they could get to help...

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