Roblox is getting voice chat, starting first with ‘Spatial Voice’

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Roblox is taking its first steps to introduce voice chat by opening up a feature it’s calling “Spatial Voice” to select developers in an invitation-only beta, the company announced Thursday.

“With Spatial Voice, Roblox creators will begin to test developing experiences where conversations can happen in a realistic way, mirroring how we listen and respond to the world around us each day,” Roblox’s chief product officer Manuel Bronstein said in a blog post. Based on this limited description, it sounds like Spatial Voice will attempt to reflect the way voices carry in the real world and require you to be close proximity to another player to speak to them.

Adding voice chat raises concerns about moderation

Adding voice chat of any kind into...

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Amazon is reportedly planning to release an Amazon-branded TV as soon as October

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon is set to release Amazon-branded TVs as soon as October in the US, according to Insider. The TVs will have Alexa, screen sizes “in the range of 55 to 75 inches,” and will be designed and manufactured by third parties such as TCL, Insider reports. The company is also developing a TV designed in-house, Insider says, but it’s unclear when that might be released.

Amazon already has many irons in the fire with TVs — it partners with Best Buy to sell Toshiba and Insignia TVs that run Amazon’s Fire TV software, offers an AmazonBasics-branded TV in India, and has the Amazon Fire TV Stick and Amazon Fire TV Cube, which you can hook up to your TV. But this rumored new Amazon-branded TV could indicate that the company is stepping up its...

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The best Labor Day deals happening now

Last year’s M1 MacBook Air is just one of many items on sale this Labor Day weekend.

Labor Day deals are finally getting into full swing, with a slew of notable discounts going live on some major hardware and accessories across the tech spectrum. Whether you’re picking up some last-minute gear for school or preparing to hunker down for the fall TV season with your favorite streaming device, this weekend might be the last real opportunity for you to save some serious money on TVs, headphones, and other gadgets until Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around.

To make sorting through the abundance of deals easier, we’ve curated a selection of the best Labor Day sales and deals available, the bulk of which should last through the long weekend. We’ve also rounded up the best Labor Day TV deals, whether you’re in need of an...

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Twitter’s Super Follows could run into an App Store problem

Illustration by Alex Castro

The launch of Super Follows marked the beginning of the end for truly free content on Twitter, and the start of whatever Patreon-infused future lays ahead for the microblogging app. Supporting creators directly with monthly payments isn’t a bad thing, but as app researcher Jane Manchun Wong spotted on Thursday, the way they currently work on iOS is a little weird — each Super Follow subscription is an individual App Store in-app purchase (via MacRumors).

You can see for yourself by pulling up the App Store on an Apple device or the web. Twitter currently only lists 10 in-app subscriptions of various prices, each associated with Super Following an individual creator. Wong speculates only 10 are shown because the App Store isn’t designed...

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FAA grounds Virgin Galactic’s core spaceship pending probe into Richard Branson’s flight

Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images

Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo is grounded until the Federal Aviation Administration completes and signs off on an investigation into the company’s high-profile test flight carrying Richard Branson, the agency said Thursday. During that July flight, Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo veered out of its approved airspace on its descent toward land, the FAA said.

The company “may not return the SpaceShipTwo vehicle to flight until the FAA approves the final mishap investigation report or determines the issues related to the mishap do not affect public safety,” an FAA spokesperson said on Thursday. SpaceShipTwo, a winged suborbital space tourism plane that launches to the edge of space from a carrier aircraft, landed its crew of Branson and...

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Apple Watch Series 7 may have new watchfaces to take advantage of bigger screens

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

_Bloomberg’s_Mark Gurman shared more details Thursday about what to expect from the rumored bigger screens coming to the next Apple Watch.

Gurman has previously reported that the next watch, which he says will be called the Apple Watch Series 7, will be offered in 41mm and 45mm screen sizes. In his new article, he reiterated those sizes and added that the larger model’s screen will measure 1.9 inches diagonally, up from 1.78 inches on the bigger Series 6, and offer about 16 percent more pixels with a resolution of 396 x 484, up from 368 x 448. Both Series 7 watches will also have thinner borders around their screens, Gurman says.

Apple is working on new watchfaces

Apple is also working on new watchfaces. One, called Modular Max, will...

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The best Labor Day 2021 TV deals

Image: Samsung

Labor Day in the US is a great opportunity to get deals on many types of tech products. Of course, we’re covering all of the best discounts across categories in our detailed guide to the best Labor Day sales, but we’ve made this post just to focus on the many 4K TV deals happening this weekend. There are deals on value-focused models that make it easy to get started right away with streaming TV and movie content, as well as TVs that have high-end features and a higher cost.

The best Labor Day deals on affordable 4K TVs

TCL is usually known for TVs that come with Roku TV hardware built-in, but has started more recently to put out models that run on Android TV. Not to be confused with the even newer Google TV-equipped models that have a...

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Amazon is planning more aggressive moderation of its hosting platform

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon is planning to expand its in-house moderation team for Amazon Web Services, according to a new report from Reuters. Citing two sources within the company, the report says Amazon is planning to develop a proactive threat monitoring capability within AWS, which will seek out prohibited content on AWS servers and remove it before it’s reported by users.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Companies need to proactively monitor what’s on their platforms”

The company has long maintained an Acceptable Use Policy for AWS, which forbids using the service for computer intrusions, spam, or the promotion of violence or other crimes. But enforcement of those terms has been largely reactive, often relying on external...

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Twitch viewership dropped when streamers took a day off in protest

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Streamers took a day off Twitch on September 1st to bring attention to the persistent hate raids that have plagued the platform in the past weeks. While skeptics panned the idea, suggesting that the walkout participants weren’t influential enough to effect significant traffic changes, according to data compiled by Gamesight, a gaming analytics company, Twitch did see a drop in viewership.

Gamesight.io

In this graph shared with The Verge, Gamesight measured the number of active channels (meaning the number of live channels) and hours watched every day for the last nine days at noon Pacific Time. According to Gamesight’s data, the number of active channels and viewer hours at 12PM PT on September 1st was at its...

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BMW’s Joytopia metaverse has Christoph Waltz and Coldplay wait come back

I want to preface this post by saying I will never pretend to understand why corporations do some of the things they do. I was simply minding my own business, looking for information on BMW’s new concept scooter on the German automaker’s press site, when... well, here, look:

“BMW launches new streaming platform JOYTOPIA narrated by Academy Award winning actor Christoph Waltz for the IAA Mobility. Exclusive concert by British band Coldplay pulls back the curtain on a new virtual world.”

And right underneath that:

+++ BMW elevates brand communications to a new level +++ Exclusive concert by Coldplay celebrates the launch of the new JOYTOPIA virtual world +++ New brand channel will remain an integral element of corporate and brand...

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YouTube reports having 50 million Premium and Music subscribers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google has announced that it has 50 million users subscribed to or trying YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, which is a marked increase from the 30 million subscribers it reported in December 2020. This seems to mark a continued trend in people looking to make the jump from the free versions of YouTube and YouTube Music, even as more services are competing in the space.

Google doesn’t break down that 50 million number any further, so we don’t really know how many people are subscribed to YouTube Music or Premium and how many are using the services’ free one-month trial. However, its blog post spends a lot of time talking about music, hailing YouTube as the fastest-growing music-subscription service. _Variety_also compared Google’s numbers...

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Horizon Forbidden West won’t have an upgrade path from PS4 to PS5

A screenshot from_Horizon Forbidden West._ | Image: Sony

Horizon Forbidden West, the sequel to the much-beloved Horizon Zero Dawn, is now available for preorder ahead of the game’s newly announced February 18th, 2022, release date for both PS4 and PS5. But if you’re planning to play the game on PS4 and eventually try it on PS5, there’s no way to get a cross-gen upgrade.

Instead, you’ll have to buy the more expensive versions of the game that offer digital copies for both the PS4 and PS5 or start with PS4 and buy an entirely new PS5 copy of the game later at its full price. And you shouldn’t expect some kind of upgrade to be introduced down the line, as Sony says it has “no plans” for that kind of offer, even though you can transfer your save data from the PS4 to PS5 versions of the game.

To...

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GM temporarily shuts down North American factories because of chip shortage

Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images

General Motors, parent company of Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick, said it was temporarily halting production at six of its North American factories as a result of the global chip shortage. It’s the latest major automaker to be affected by the tight supply of essential computer chips.

Four of GM’s US-based plants will be affected: Fort Wayne, Indiana; Wentzville, Missouri; Spring Hill, Tennessee; and Lansing, Michigan. Four other factories in Mexico and Canada will also go dark for several weeks as GM works to shore up its supply of chips. The halt in production will affect GM’s most profitable vehicles, including pickup trucks and SUVs.

“The situation remains complex and very fluid”

“During the downtime, we will repair and ship...

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Apple will ask before it targets you with its ads in iOS 15

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple will start asking for permission to enable Personalized Ads in iOS 15, the company’s method of serving relevant ads in the App Store and Apple News by analyzing what you read, purchase, and search for on your device (via 9to5Mac). The company used to collect that information by default, but now it plans to ask for permission. Apple required other developers to seek users’ permission with the debut of App Tracking Transparency, so it seems like it’s showing that it will hold itself to a similar standard.

The Personalized Ads pop-up should show up when you open the App Store if you’re running the most recent iOS 15 beta. In the pop-up, Apple writes that the ads will help you discover relevant apps, products, and services while...

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Audi’s Grandsphere concept car is another luxurious living room on wheels

Image: Audi

Automakers love concept cars that tease a future in which very rich people ride around in autonomous vehicles that look like luxurious living spaces. The latest is Audi’s Grandsphere, a spacious electric sedan with an interior that looks like it was designed by a Kardashian.

The car is designed to be adjustable based on the preferred driving style. If you want the car to drive itself, the steering wheel and pedals retract, leaving you sitting in a minimally designed living room setting with wood trim and wool textures. Instead of a screen, the car’s operating system is projected on the surface of the wood dashboard under the windshield. And when you’re ready to drive yourself, the manual controls simply appear.

Grandsphere is Audi’s...

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Amazon’s Wheel of Time show is finally revealed in its first trailer

Jan Thijs

The first trailer for The _Wheel of Time_TV series has arrived, giving an early look at Amazon’s upcoming adaptation of Robert Jordan’s epic 14-book fantasy series ahead of its November 19th release date on Amazon Prime Video.

The trailer sets the stage for the series, establishing some of the basic tenets of Jordan’s world, with a specific focus on Moiraine Damodred (Rosamund Pike), a member of a group of female magic wielders known as the Aes Sedai, who are capable of wielding the One Power to accomplish feats like controlling the elements and healing others.

The trailer also shows off a first look at The Wheel of Time’s younger cast: Madeleine Madden as Egwene al’Vere, Marcus Rutherford as Perrin Aybara, Barney Harris as Mat Cauthon,...

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Twitter has plans to let users hide their old tweets

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Twitter is planning new features to give people more privacy options, according to Bloomberg. The social network’s plans reportedly include the option to archive old tweets so they’re not visible to other users after a given period of time (like 30, 60, or 90 days or a full year). They also include possible options to limit who can see which tweets you’ve liked, to let people remove themselves from a conversation on Twitter, and to let people remove followers without outright blocking them.

_Bloomberg_describes the new features as a suite of “social privacy” changes that are aimed at making people more comfortable engaging on Twitter. Internal research at Twitter apparently found that many users don’t even understand whether their...

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Samsung announces tiny and huge versions of one of its best TVs

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Samsung has announced new sizes for some of its best TVs, giving more choices to consumers who want the option of either a small or massive flagship TV. Samsung has added 43-inch and 98-inch sizes to its QN90A lineup of “Neo QLED” 4K TVs and an 85-inch option for its The Frame TV. The Neo QLED TVs have Samsung’s flagship panels, which use Mini LED backlights to improve contrast and picture quality. These kinds of flagship-class panels used to be limited mostly to the 55- to 77-inch range, but they seem to be making their way to size classes that used to be reserved for budget TVs.

Samsung hasn’t yet announced pricing for these TVs. At the moment, the 50-inch QN90A sells for $1,400 (with an MSRP of $1,500), and the 85-inch model can be...

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Asus’s new Zenbook 14X is the latest thin and light laptop with an OLED screen

This is the Asus Zenbook 14X. | Asus

Asus’s Zenbooks are known for being quite lightweight and quite affordable. But the company is adding another calling card to the line: OLED display technology.

The new 14-inch Zenbook 14X OLED will be available with either a 4K OLED HDR display or a 2.8K OLED 90Hz display. Given those resolutions, either should be a significant step up in picture quality from the Zenbook 13 OLED, the ultraportable OLED model Asus released earlier this year. That device has an FHD OLED display (which was still quite vivid and bright in our testing).

The Zenbook 14X OLED will cover 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut and a 0.2ms response time. Asus claims it will emit “70 percent less harmful blue light than normal LCD”.

Screen aside, the 14X weighs...

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Asus is going all-in on OLED laptops

Here’s the new ProArt Studiobook 16 OLED. | Image: Asus

Asus has announced the ProArt StudioBook 16 OLED and the ProArt StudioBook 16 Pro OLED, two of the first 16-inch laptops to include 4K OLED HDR displays. Per Asus, the displays will cover 100 percent of the DCI-P3 color gamut and deliver a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio (neither of which is uncommon among 4K OLED panels). The laptops target creative professionals who work in “color-critical” applications.

The two devices come with an interesting new peripheral called the Asus Dial, a physical wheel on the left side of the keyboard deck. Users can map this controller to adjust various parameters in Adobe apps, which Asus says include After Effects, Photoshop, Photoshop Lightroom Classic, and Premiere Pro.

The StudioBook 16 and StudioBook 16...

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TV streaming service Locast suspends service after court ruling

Locast has announced that it is suspending its TV streaming service starting today, following a court ruling earlier this week in a lawsuit from ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, which jointly sued the nonprofit service shortly after it launched.

“As a non-profit, Locast was designed from the very beginning to operate in accordance with the strict letter of the law, but in response to the court’s recent rulings, with which we respectfully disagree, we are hereby suspending operations, effective immediately,” an email to Locast users sent out this morning reads.

Locast was launched in 2019 as an internet-based alternative to over-the-air television, rebroadcasting local, free over-the-air signals over the internet to users in those...

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Moonfall is a disaster movie about the Moon falling

You pretty much always know what to expect from a Roland Emmerich movie: namely, that a good chunk of the planet is going to be destroyed. The director of films like 2012 and The Day After Tomorrow is now taking that to its logical extreme with Moonfall, a movie about the Moon... falling.

According to the synopsis, the movie is set when “a mysterious force knocks the Moon from its orbit around Earth and sends it hurtling on a collision course with life as we know it.” It stars Halle Berry as a NASA exec who seems to know how to stop it, but the only people who believe her are a former astronaut (Patrick Wilson) and a conspiracy theorist (John Bradley). “These unlikely heroes will mount an impossible last-ditch mission into space, leaving...

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FTC bans spyware app SpyFone, orders it to delete illegally harvested data

The FTC has voted to ban SpyFone | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

On Wednesday, the Federal Trade Commission announced it had banned spyware maker SpyFone and its CEO Scott Zuckerman from the surveillance business. The commission called SpyFone a “stalkerware app company” that allegedly harvested and shared data about people’s movements, phone use, and online activity via a hidden device hack.

“The company’s apps sold real-time access to their secret surveillance, allowing stalkers and domestic abusers to stealthily track the potential targets of their violence,” the FTC said in a statement. “SpyFone’s lack of basic security also exposed device owners to hackers, identity thieves, and other cyber threats.”

In addition to the ban, the FTC ordered SpyFone to delete illegally harvested data and notify...

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Red Notice’s first trailer is full of explosions, car chases, art heists, and Ryan Reynolds quips

Frank Masi/NETFLIX

Red Notice_,_Netflix’s next big action movie swing, has gotten its first trailer, showing off the fast (and dare I say, furious) antics of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. He plays the FBI’s top profiler as he hunts down the world’s two most wanted criminals — played by Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot.

Based on the trailer, it seems Johnson’s Agent John Hartley actually catches Reynolds’ character, Nolan Booth — dubbed “the world’s greatest art thief” — fairly early on, forcing the two to partner up in order to catch Gadot’s character, “The Bishop.” She’s described as “the world’s most wanted art thief,” which is apparently a different thing than being the world’s greatest art thief. This is also, broadly, the plot of Hobbs & Shaw, a movie that...

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Nintendo’s new Big Brain Academy is like Mario Party with brainteasers

Nintendo

Nintendo sneakily announced Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain, a new educational puzzle game for the Switch that sees the revival of a franchise that previously appeared on the DS handheld (and later ported to Wii U’s Virtual Console). It’ll release on December 3rd, 2021 for $29.99, and in it you’ll race through puzzle mini games and challenges to flex your smarts.

In addition to single player modes, the game will support couch multiplayer and online play. Nintendo is even implementing a ghost data system, so you can test your skills against people who have gotten higher scores.

#BigBrainAcademy: Brain vs. Brain is coming to #NintendoSwitch on 12/03! Flex your brainpower or engage in a battle of brains with your family and friends! ...

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Fujifilm just announced its cheapest medium format camera yet

Image: Fujifilm

Today is Fujifilm’s September X Summit event, and the company has announced a slew of new hardware including several cameras and lenses for both the GFX and X systems. Leading the way is the new GFX 50S II, the company’s latest medium format camera. More importantly, at $3,999 body-only, it’s Fujifilm’s cheapest way into the GFX system yet. For comparison, the GFX 100S costs $5,999 and the GFX 50S still goes for $5,499. So dropping under $4,000 could mean big things for the lineup.

The GFX 50S II has a 51.4-megapixel sensor that’s 1.7x larger than what you’d get in a full-frame camera, 5-axis in-body image stabilization good for 6.5 stops, improved autofocus (compared to the 50S), and a body that’s the same size as the GFX 100S. At 1.98...

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WhatsApp fined $267 million for breaching EU privacy law

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook-owned WhatsApp has been fined €225 million ($267 million) for breaking the European Union’s data privacy rules. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) announced the decision in an 89-page summary (PDF), noting that WhatsApp did not properly inform EU citizens how it handles their personal data, including how it shares that information with its parent company.

WhatsApp has been ordered to make updates to its already lengthy privacy policy and change how it notifies users about sharing their data. This will bring it into compliance with Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which governs how tech companies gather and use data in the EU. GDPR came into effect in May of 2018, and WhatsApp was one of the first...

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The best budget laptop of 2021

We’ve got the best cheap laptop for you, no matter your budget.

The best cheap laptops for video editing, gaming, and more

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Apple’s AirPods Max are $80 off at Woot

Though expensive, the AirPods Max feature fantastic sound and noise cancellation. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Apple’s notoriously expensive AirPods Max headphones are, in some ways, more of a luxury purchase — but today you can live it up for just a little less thanks to the Woot’s ongoing “Sounds of Summer” sale. Well, if you’re an Amazon Prime member that is.

Now through the end of the month (or while supplies last), Prime members can save $80 on a pair of the AirPods Max, regardless of color. Woot’s current deal includes a one-year limited warranty from Apple and brings the price down to a cool $470, one of the lowest prices we’ve seen on Apple’s excellent noise-canceling headphones in recent months.

Despite their price, the AirPods Max are some of the best noise-canceling headphones you can buy right now. The Max can easily block out...

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What losing Paradise tells us about today’s blazes

An aerial view of homes destroyed by the Camp Fire in Paradise, California on February 11, 2019, three months after the deadly wildfire. | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Thousands of Californians have fled their homes this week, as the Caldor, Dixie and other fires continue to blaze across the state. Despite the best efforts of firefighting teams, the Dixie Fire already torched the small mountain town of Greenville in early August, robbing many residents of a home to which to return.

The exodus sparked by each blaze has become an eerily familiar scene as fire seasons in the Western US grow more intense with climate change. Each community that loses part, or all of itself brings to mind the carnage left behind by the Camp Fire in 2018. That’s when Paradise, California was nearly wiped off the map, and surrounding communities suffered similar losses.

“Paradise is worth being remembered”

Journalist Lizzie...

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