Controversial crypto rules remain in infrastructure bill after House vote

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge

Controversial new cryptocurrency tax requirements are likely to become law through the bipartisan infrastructure bill. The cryptocurrency community rallied to fix the language, but the House voted to proceed with the bill as is on Tuesday, moving forward without any new amendments or opportunities to change it.

On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and a group of moderate Democrats reached a deal to approve a $3.5 trillion budget resolution, schedule floor action on the bipartisan infrastructure deal by September 27th, and advance voting rights legislation. The agreement comes after a group of moderate Democrats pledged to vote down the multitrillion-dollar social safety net package if it was approved before the bipartisan...

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The PS5 and Xbox Series X are available from Walmart

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Walmart is offering gamers a chance to get a PS5 and Xbox Series X today, Wednesday, August 25th, at 12PM ET / 9AM PT. That’s when the first wave of consoles will be made available, but the retailer has been known to release a few consecutive waves every ten minutes (12:10PM, 12:20PM, etc.) As always, try to sign in before things get started and enter your address and payment info to make the checkout process as speedy as possible. You may have better luck getting a console if you load up the site, and simultaneously have the page open within Walmart’s mobile app.

If you’re searching for the Sony PS5, Walmart has the $499.99 version that has a Blu-ray disc drive for game discs and movies, as well as the $399.99 digital version that lacks...

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Netflix’s ‘Tudum’ fan event will bring trailers, interviews, and announcements for its originals on September 25th

Netflix is hosting its own online fan event for the first time on September 25h. The event is called “Tudum” (as in the onomatopoeia of Netflix’s iconic logo sound), and promises an “exciting day full of exclusives and first looks,” for some of its most popular series and movies.

The three-hour event (which starts at 12PM ET) will include “breaking news and ... first looks, new trailers and exclusive clips during interactive panels and conversations with the creators and stars from Netflix,” and feature over 70 shows and movies on Netflix, including Stranger Things, Bridgerton,The Witcher, Cowboy Bebop, Red Notice,The Old Guard,and_The Umbrella Academy._

Additionally, Netflix will be hosting three pre-show events before the main...

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How to remove (but not delete) unneeded Google contacts

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

My friend (and occasional writer for The Verge) JR Raphael has a newsletter in which he recently wrote about cleaning up your Google Contacts list by deleting old and no-longer-wanted entries.

What a good idea, I thought. But.

Unfortunately, I am something of a hoarder when it comes to contacts. After years as a tech journalist, I have who-knows-how-many business contact listings, many of which are completely out of date. But although it’s likely that a lot of these people have moved to different companies and different email addresses, I feel I should keep the entries — what if I come across them at some point and want to check where I knew them from? Or what if they still work there even though it’s been several years and I want to...

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Several Best Buy stores will have Nvidia RTX 30-series GPUs available tomorrow

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

Nvidia’s RTX 30-series graphics cards are next to impossible to find in stock, but Best Buy is offering PC gamers an opportunity to buy one on Thursday, August 26th. Select store locations will have stock, and if you find your local store on this page by using the drop-down options, it’ll be among the locations getting some GPUs for Thursday’s restock.

You can’t just show up at any time of the day and pick one up. In order to be eligible to buy one, you’ll need to arrive at your store before 7:30AM local time and queue up. That’s the time when Best Buy employees will give one ticket to each person in line until there are no more tickets. If you get a ticket, Best Buy says it guarantees that you can purchase one graphics card, so be...

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The latest August Wi-Fi Smart Lock is cheaper than ever

The latest version of August’s lock is smaller and more discreet. | Photo: August

August’s latest Wi-Fi Smart Lock is on a special discount today through Wellbots. This small, discreet smart lock is on sale in both black and gray colorways for $199, and you can use promo code VERGE20 to take an additional $20 off the sale price while supplies last. This brings the Alexa-enabled August lock down to a new historic low price of $179, which is an exceptional deal for an app-connected smart lock that can be easily retrofitted to your existing deadbolt without the need for a locksmith. Read our review.

Continuing our run of great smart home deals, the Eufy Wi-Fi Video Doorbell 2K is at its all-time low price at Amazon. This wired doorbell is great if you’re looking to step into the smart home waters without diving too...

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Alphabet’s drone delivery service Wing hits 100,000 deliveries milestone

Wing, the drone delivery company operated by Google-parent Alphabet, is about to rack up 100,000 deliveries. The company says it will pass the threshold in the next few days, a significant milestone for a technology that has nevertheless yet to prove its utility at scale.

Drone deliveries began to catch the public imagination in the early 2010s as consumer quadcopters fell in price and AI control systems became more reliable. Then, in 2013, Amazon made wild promises about making drones a standard part of its delivery empire. But so far the technology has mainly found success at a much smaller scale: delivering high-value but physically small items like vaccines and blood in remote locations.

Wing’s success, though, hints that one future...

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How to watch Gamescom’s Opening Night Live stream

Gamescom is usually the biggest in-person video games conference, but it’s happening virtually for the second year straight due to the pandemic. That may be disappointing to people who wanted to go to Cologne, Germany, but the online presentation makes it a lot easier for viewers at home to see all of the highlights. Geoff Keighley’s two-hour-long Opening Night Live event is focused on doing just that, providing new Gamescom game announcements, trailers, and guest appearances.

As for what you can expect, Keighley promises a walkthrough of a full level from Call of Duty: Vanguard’s campaign playing on the latest consoles; some big news about Splitgate, the portal-based competitive FPS title that’s been popular lately; an update on Lego...

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Joe Rogan, confined to Spotify, is losing influence

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge | Photo by Vivian Zink/NBCUniversal via Getty Images

A Verge investigation shows how going exclusive stunted Rogan’s power

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The company behind PUBG is trying to create the next big fantasy epic

“Project Windless” concept art. | Image: Krafton

Krafton’s ‘Project Windless’ is still in its earliest stages

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Fitbit’s new Charge 5 has a rounded design and a color screen

Fitbit’s new Charge 5 in gold. | Image: Fitbit

It costs $179.95 and will be out this fall

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Popular online businesses are opening storefronts thanks to TikTok

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole

Viral fame, IRL customers

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Otter.ai can transcribe Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Cisco Webex meetings if you’re not there

Otter.ai is available on iOS, Android, and via the web. | Image: Otter.ai

Otter.ai is one of our favorite transcription tools thanks to the accuracy of its machine learning-generated notes. If you’re a paying user, you can also use its Otter Assistant feature to plug into your calendar and automatically join and transcribe meetings even if you’re not there. Previously, Otter Assistant only worked with Zoom meetings, but today the company is expanding it to integrate with Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and Cisco Webex meetings.

It’s a handy feature, depending on the platform (or platforms) on which you tend to have meetings. Zoom already offers third-party transcription features, for example, while Teams has its own built-in free transcription tool. If you’re already using one of these services, then the...

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OnlyFans says never mind, it actually won’t ban porn on October 1st

Image: Alex Castro / The Verge

In an abrupt tweet, video and image sharing site OnlyFans announced a reversal of the shocker announcement that it would ban sexually explicit content. According to the company, “We have secured assurances necessary to support our diverse creator community and have suspended the planned October 1 policy change. OnlyFans stands for inclusion and we will continue to provide a home for all creators.”

This comes just one day after its CEO said, in an interview with the Financial Times, that the reason for the ban was actually issues with its banking partners, not Mastercard as some had assumed.

Now OnlyFans creators, many of whom had already begun deleting content that violated the policy or started shifting their subscriber base to new...

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Halo Infinite is launching on December 8th

Halo Infinite, the next game in Microsoft’s long-running franchise, will launch on December 8th. The date appeared on the Microsoft Store today and will likely be officially confirmed later today during the opening of Gamescom. A source familiar with Microsoft’s plans tells The Verge that December 8th is accurate.

Microsoft had originally planned to launch Halo Infinite alongside the Xbox Series X / S in November 2020 but delayed the game to fall 2021 due in part to the challenges of game development during a pandemic.

Halo Infinite’s development has clearly been bumpy, and Microsoft even assigned Bungie veteran Joseph Staten to head up development of the game nearly a year ago. While we haven’t seen a great deal of campaign gameplay...

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Options Bae, Put Gang, and the new stock communities showing amateur traders how to make bank

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole

But the risk of trading means anyone can lose money trying

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Google adds Smart Reply to Docs comments to fill your life with more bland platitudes

Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images

Google is expanding the scope of its AI-powered Smart Reply feature to suggest responses to comments in Google Docs. It will be rolling out in the coming weeks to all users and will be turned on by default, though you can disable it via Tools > Preferences > Show Smart Reply suggestions.

It’s the latest territory claimed by Google’s AI Smart Reply and Smart Compose features. The latter is already available in Gdocs and elsewhere, while the former lurks most prominently in your Gmail inbox.

Image: Google

Smart Reply as it appears in comments in Google Docs.

Reactions to these AI-powered features are varied. Some enjoy the convenience of using AI to offer up those little verbal platitudes that keep the wheels...

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Nirvana baby sues band alleging child pornography

Spencer Elden, now 30, is suing over the iconic Nevermind album art. | Photo by Samir Hussein/Getty Images

The iconic nude baby photographed for the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind album is all grown up and suing the band, alleging the image violates child pornography laws. Spencer Elden, now 30, is seeking $150,000 from each of 17 named defendants, including record executives, Nirvana band members, and Courtney Love, the former wife and executor of Kurt Cobain’s estate, according to Variety.

The lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by Variety, claims that the defendants knowingly exploited young Elden to increase attention and boost sales.

“Defendants intentionally commercially marketed Spencer’s child pornography and leveraged the shocking nature of his image to promote themselves and their music at his expense,” reads the lawsuit....

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Samsung says it can remotely disable stolen TVs

Samsung says the feature is “already pre-loaded on all Samsung TV products.” | Image: Samsung

Samsung has revealed its TVs can be remotely disabled if the company finds out the units have been stolen. The feature is called the “Television Block Function” and Samsung says it was recently activated in South Africa after a number of Samsung TVs were taken from a company warehouse during a wave of protests and unrest last month.

Samsung says the technology is “already pre-loaded on all Samsung TV products” and “ensures that the television sets can only be used by the rightful owners with a valid proof of purchase.” It’s not clear, though, from Samsung’s description whether the feature is only intended to combat large-scale theft, or if it will ever be used to help individual consumers.

For the TV Block Function to work, Samsung...

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YouTube Premium subscribers can now turn on picture-in-picture on iPhone — here’s how

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In June, YouTube announced it would be bringing picture-in-picture to iOS. Now, it seems the much-demanded feature is finally available, though perhaps for a limited time only and only for YouTube Premium subscribers currently. Here’s how to get it.

If you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber, open up a web browser and head to www.youtube.com/new. Scroll down to where “Picture-in-picture on iOS” is listed and click “Try it out.” You’ll be prompted to sign in to your account. Then, while watching a YouTube video, just navigate away from the app using the home button or by swiping up and picture-in-picture will start. Locking your phone screen while watching PiP will pause the video, but you can resume it via the lock screen media controls.

...

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California accuses Activision Blizzard of ‘withholding and suppressing evidence’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Activision Blizzard’s leaders have promised to work to make the company a safe place for women to work — but California has now accused the company of illegally “withholding and suppressing evidence” and shredding documents that it requested for its investigation (via Axios). California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) originally filed the suit in July, which accused the company of creating a frat-like culture where female employees faced “constant sexual harassment” and discrimination.

The updated complaint can be read below, and you can read the original version here. Since the new version contains the same extremely disturbing details, it warrants the same content warning as the original.

The amended complaint says...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s AirPods Pro wireless earbuds | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Apple’s AirPods are among the most popular headphones on the market. Both the AirPods and AirPods Pro are compact, easy to pair with your devices, and offer reliable connectivity, which isn’t always the case with even the best true wireless earbuds. The AirPods Max, the latest pair of headphones to join the AirPods lineup, are just as dependable, albeit at a higher price.

Luckily, many of the most popular models routinely undergo a price cut. There are often sizable discounts available on the base model as well as the more expensive AirPods Pro and Max, which offer noise cancellation and better sound quality than the standard second-gen model.

Here, we’ll run through the best AirPods deals available, including those on the AirPods...

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Alaska Airlines evacuated a plane after a phone burst into flame

Alaska Airlines airplanes. | Image: Alaska Airlines

A cell phone caught fire in the cabin of an Alaska Airlines flight that had landed in Seattle from New Orleans on Monday evening. The phone was a Samsung Galaxy A21, Perry Cooper, a spokesperson for the Port of Seattle, told The Seattle Times.

“After much digging, I can tell you that the phone was burned beyond recognition,” Cooper said in an email to The Seattle Times. “However, during an interview with one of our Port of Seattle Police officers, the passenger volunteered the phone was a Samsung Galaxy A21. Again, we could not confirm it by looking at the remains of the device.”

Samsung did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Verge.

An Alaska Airlines spokesperson tells The Verge that the plane’s crew used fire...

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FAA grants could clean up airport emissions

Airplanes sit on the tarmac at Charlotte Douglas International Airport with the city skyline in the background on April 21, 2020 in Charlotte, North Carolina.  | Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is giving out more than $35 million in grants so that airports in the US can cut down their pollution, the agency announced today. Gas-burning vehicles that shuttle travelers and their luggage around airports and other on-the-ground equipment create emissions that worsen air quality and add to the climate crisis. Electrifying those operations could make travel at least a little more sustainable while the technology to clean up planes’ pollution is still nascent.

$5.9 million will go towards “zero-emission” vehicles

$5.9 million will go towards “zero-emission” vehicles and charging infrastructure. Charlotte/Douglas International Airport in North Carolina will get the biggest chunk of that change:...

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Conservative pranksters face $5 million proposed fine over robocalls

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission proposed an over $5 million fine against conspiracy theorists and conservative activists John Burkman and Jacob Wohl for making hundreds of robocalls spreading 2020 election misinformation.

In its proposal, the FCC said that the agency is weighing a $5,134,500 fine against Burkman and Wohl for making over 1,100 robocalls in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA. The violating pre-recorded calls told voters that their personal information would be “part of a public database” that would be used by “police departments to track down old warrants and be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debts” if they chose to vote by mail in the 2020 election.

It’s the...

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LG’s OLED TV from my dreams reportedly delayed to 2022

At CES 2021, LG Display announced that it intended to produce a 42-inch OLED TV panel sometime in 2021. You weren’t alone if, like me, you got really excited, and also expected one of these more compact OLED panels to have already launched. That’s not happening this year, according to sources speaking to The Korea Economic Daily, who say that the launch of LG’s planned 42-inch OLED TV has been pushed to 2022 instead, alongside the new 2022 TV lineup and debut at CES 2022.

The delay doesn’t seem to have been caused by issues with production, according to _The Korea Economic Daily._While its sources expected LG to launch the 42-inch in the second half of 2021 following mass production of the panels, they say the company switched the launch...

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Samsung will let you unlock your Z Fold 3’s bootloader, but at the cost of your cameras

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

Samsung seems to be trying to discourage users from modifying the software on their new Galaxy Z Fold 3s, giving them a message that unlocking the phone’s bootloader will render the phone’s cameras unusable (via Android Police). This isn’t the first time we’ve seen phone manufacturers pull this sort of trick, but it seems to represent an escalation in Samsung’s fight against its users who want to gain complete control over their phones.

An XDA Forums user confirms that after unlocking the bootloader, the Z Fold 3’s cameras were completely non-functional: facial recognition, loading the camera app, and trying third-party camera apps all failed for them. The user reports that re-locking the bootloader made the cameras work again.

...

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Twitter boosts Spaces by showing which ones your friends are attending

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is experimenting with a way to make it easier to find Spaces that you might be interested in. Some users on iOS or Android will now see if someone they follow is listening in on a Space right at the top of their timelines, according to the Spaces Twitter account.

Twitter has already been surfacing Spaces in that top bar (where you might have also seen Fleets before Twitter shut them down), but previously, it only showed Spaces from people you follow who were hosting the social audio rooms. Now, though, you might also see when somebody you follow is tuning into one.

we’re experimenting with ways to help you discover more Spaces. for some of you on iOS and android, if someone you follow is listening to a Space, you’ll see it at...

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YouTube is forcing the popular Groovy Discord music bot offline

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google-owned YouTube is starting to crack down on Discord music bots. The search giant has sent a cease and desist to the owners of the popular Groovy Bot, which lets Discord users play music from YouTube videos and is installed on more than 16 million Discord servers. Google wants the service gone within seven days, and Groovy is complying by shutting down its bot on August 30th.

“Groovy has been a huge part of my life over the past five years. It started because my friend’s bot sucked and I thought I could make a better one,” says Nik Ammerlaan, Groovy Bot owner, in a message announcing the closure. The Groovy Bot sources music from YouTube and allows Discord users to play and share it in servers where the bot is installed.

Groovy Bot...

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Walmart is launching a new white label delivery service

Image: Walmart

Walmart plans to offer its logistics and delivery services to other companies as part of a new last-mile delivery business, the company announced on Monday. The service, called Walmart GoLocal_,_hopes to serve as a white label delivery offering for businesses big and small, and yet another way for Walmart to try to edge out Amazon.

Details on Walmart GoLocal are fairly sparse, though Walmart does say the service will be “competitively priced” and that it has “already established a number of contractual agreements with national and enterprise retail clients.” Walmart tells _The Verge_pricing will be based on “the needs of the client and based on what they want to offer to their customers.” The GoLocal website offers a few more details:...

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