The Matrix: Resurrections trailer is finally here

The long-awaited trailer for the fourth Matrix installment is finally here alongside the film’s official title: The Matrix: Resurrections. The trailer for Resurrections was first previewed at a CinemaCon presentation from Warner Bros. Pictures on Tuesday, August 24th, in Las Vegas before being released to the public today.

The trailer features clips of Neo (Keanu Reeves), Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss), and Neil Patrick Harris playing the role of Neo’s therapist. “Am I crazy?” Neo asks, as his pre-awoken Thomas Anderson persona. “We don’t use that word in here,” Harris’ character replies.

“It’s time to fly”

The trailer also depicts what is widely suspected to be a young Morpheus (played by franchise newcomer Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) telling...

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Amazon Luna is expanding to Fire tablets and Chromebooks, and retro games are on the way

Amazon’s Luna cloud gaming service didn’t exactly impress us when it debuted in early access last October, but the company’s still expanding its test. On Thursday, it’s bringing its limited catalog of games to Chromebooks and Amazon Fire tablets, and opening up some new ways to try the service without paying its $6 or $15 monthly fees.

Technically, the service is still in early access — most people have to request access to play, and only in the contiguous United States. But Amazon’s extending its immediate approval signups to its own Fire tablets, the same way it extended them to Fire TV devices. By the way, there’s a new one of those today: Amazon also just announced its new Fire TV Stick 4K Max, which comes with a special auto...

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Amazon starts making its own TVs with new Fire TV Omni and 4-Series

Image: Amazon

Amazon is officially in the TV business. The company has announced its first lineup of Amazon-branded 4K Fire TVs, which will begin shipping in October. This is a major expansion from the company’s “Fire TV Edition” collaborations, where its popular streaming software comes preloaded on sets manufactured by other TV makers. But with its new Omni and 4-Series, Amazon is describing these as “Amazon-built TVs.”

The Omni series is the higher-end of the two, and beyond offering better picture quality, its other key selling point is hands-free voice control. Amazon includes far-field microphones in each model of the Omni series, which comes in 43, 50, 55, 65, and 75 inches. (Only the 65- and 75-inch models have Dolby Vision, but the others at...

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Marvel Unlimited relaunches with exclusive phone-optimized comics and a fresh new look

Marvel Unlimited — the company’s all-you-can-read subscription comics service — is getting overhauled today with a new logo, an updated app, a more streamlined design, improved search, and more.

And as part of the relaunch, Marvel is also announcing an addition to the service: “Infinity Comics,” a new line of exclusive comics that have been specifically designed for the vertical form factor of a modern smartphone, with scrolling panels that fill the entire width of a phone or tablet screen.

Marvel is investing big on Infinity Comics, too. It’ll launch with 27 comics available today, with plans for over 100 by the end of the year. Infinity Comics will be exclusive to Marvel Unlimited subscribers, but they’ll be fully in-universe (meaning...

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Amazon’s new Fire TV Stick 4K Max adds Wi-Fi 6 and faster performance

Image: Amazon

Amazon is today introducing a new flagship streaming stick that joins the Fire TV Stick 4K, Fire TV Stick, and Fire TV Stick Lite. Dubbed the “Fire TV Stick 4K Max” (sigh) and priced at $54.99, the company’s latest device has improved processing power, more memory, and also adds speedier Wi-Fi 6 wireless networking. Plus it maintains wide support for HDR formats including Dolby Vision. Preorders start today, and Amazon currently shows a delivery date of October 7th.

The Fire TV Stick 4K Max is 40 percent faster than the Fire TV Stick 4K, and Amazon attributes those gains to its new quad-core 1.8GHz processor and 2GB of RAM. It’s also now got a faster 750MHz GPU, and Amazon has added auto low-latency mode to help get the best possible...

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Google Pixel 6 teaser gives first real-world look at the upcoming phone

Google has released a new teaser trailer for its upcoming Pixel 6 that includes several shots of the smartphone being used in the real world. The footage comes a little over a month after Google released its first official images of the upcoming device, which were limited to renders rather than actual photographs.

Over on its Instagram page, Google has also teased the phone in a new post which may give some hints about when its official launch might take place beyond “this fall.” As _Android Police_points out, the clock widgets in these images show the date as “Tue 19th.” And yes, the 19th of October falls on a Tuesday. That’s a little later than when Google announced the Pixel 5 last year (September 30th), but it’s definitely the right...

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Roku’s first original film is Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas

Image: Roku

Roku’s first feature-length film is Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas, a TV movie based off the NBC show Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist, the company has announced. The film will be available free on the ad-supported Roku Channel in the US this holiday season, as well as in Canada and the UK. The film will be directed by Richard Shepard (who directed the show’s original pilot), and written and executive produced by the show’s creator Austin Winsberg.

Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas marks the latest step in Roku’s foray into original content, which kicked off with its acquisition of defunct streaming service Quibi’s library earlier this year. Since then it’s launched its own Roku Recommends show, and has ordered additional seasons of ex-Quibi...

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How Twitter’s communities could bring context back

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Moderators say smaller groups are helping them block trolls and build community

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BMW’s e-bike concepts are motorcycles outside the city, bicycles within

BMW’s two concept e-bikes envision geofencing to limit speeds inside cities. | Image: BMW

BMW recently showed off not one, but two e-bike concepts. The announcements are sprinkled with tons of gee-whiz claims that are easy to make when something only lives on paper, not roads. But one idea stood out to me as a real solution: the use of geofencing to limit fast e-bike speeds inside congested cities. Especially since BMW already has a working geofencing solution deployed around Europe.

In Europe at least, fast e-bikes known as speed-pedelecs (or Class 3 e-bikes in the US) are capable of going 45km/h (28mph), just like BMW’s new concept bikes, the BMW i Vision AMBY and BMW Motorrad Vision AMBY.

BMW sees the i Vision as a pedal-assisted e-bike fitted with a massive 2,000Wh battery that’s “fast charging,” naturally, for a range...

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Blockchain, explained

Blocks? Chains? How does this whole thing work?

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Google Photos will now ship individual prints directly to your door

Image: Google

Google Photos now lets you order prints of specific photographs and get them shipped to homes in the US for as little as $0.18 plus shipping, the company has announced. Although it’s previously been possible to print individual photos through Google Photos, until now you’ve had to pick them up from a local Walmart, CVS, or Walgreens. Otherwise, getting prints shipped has required paying for Google’s $6.99 a month photo subscription, which sends 10 cardstock photo prints each month.

Alongside the new shipping option, Google is also expanding the sizes available. There’s now the option of getting prints in larger 11x14, 12x18, 16x20, and 20x30-inch sizes, in addition to the previously available 4x6, 5x7 or 8x10-inch options. Canvas...

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Microsoft will let you control an Xbox with a TV remote soon

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Microsoft is starting to test the ability for TV remotes to navigate around the Xbox dashboard. A new version of the Xbox dashboard for Xbox Series S / X consoles is being tested with selected Xbox Insiders, and it enables new HDMI-CEC features that let ordinary TV remote controls navigate around the Xbox dashboard and control streaming apps like Netflix.

While the Xbox Series S / X consoles have had some HDMI-CEC features to control TV volume or turn on TVs when an Xbox boots up, these new additions mean you won’t have to reach for an Xbox controller if you just want to watch content from Netflix, Twitch, YouTube, or many other streaming apps.

these are the new Xbox controls in the dashboard pic.twitter.com/eY7HG8713i

— Tom Warren...

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Facebook and Ray-Ban’s smart glasses leak before launch

Facebook and Ray-Ban are set to announce their smart glasses collaboration later today, September 9th, and right on cue Evan “Evleaks” Blass has posted a ton of alleged photos of the product lineup. The glasses are called Ray-Ban Stories, and other than the box it doesn’t look like Facebook branding appears anywhere on the product.

Evleaks’ images include three distinct frame styles — Wayfarer, Round, and Meteor — and they all look pretty close to the classic Ray-Ban designs. The difference, of course, is the presence of two cameras by the hinges on either side. There’s also a button along the top of the right temple, which could potentially be used to operate the cameras.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously said of...

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iRobot’s newest Roomba uses AI to avoid dog poop

The dog poop avoiding feature is only available on the new Roomba j7+. | Image: iRobot

Using a robot vacuum has always been a bit hazardous for pet owners. Leaving a robovac to do its thing in your absence can be a problem if your less-than-perfectly-trained dog or cat also does _its_thing while you’re out. A quick Google of “Roomba dog poop” gives you some idea of what the outcome can be, as unheeding robots with spinning brushes barrel into the mess and proceed to spread it liberally around the house.

But now, Roomba-maker iRobot say it’s fixed this scatological problem. The company’s latest robovac, the Roomba j7+, uses built-in machine vision and AI to identify and avoid pet messes of all sorts. “It’s a big deal for us,” iRobot founder and CEO Colin Angle tells The Verge. “We’ve been working on it for a long time and...

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Android 12’s last beta brings a few makeovers and new widgets

Today, Google released the final Android 12 beta before the OS properly launches, and with it a few of the visual changes and features we saw back when Android 12 was announced. Some of the notable inclusions in Beta 5 are the lovely geometric clock widgets, a redesigned calculator, and a new lock screen shortcut.

The clock app has also gotten some tweaks, according to 9to5Google, with an updated design, new animations, and (of course) colors that are responsive to your phone’s theme.

9to5Google also reports that Beta 5 brings the promised Material You overhaul for the calculator app as well, complete with pastel colors and more playful buttons. Here’s new vs. old:

Image: Google

The new design of Calculator 8.0...

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Fraud, or just a failure? Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes’s trial opening arguments

Elizabeth Holmes, outside the courtroom | Getty

Who is Elizabeth Holmes, really?

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Nerf Hyper review: where the rubber meets the foam

The Nerf Hyper Rush-40.

Are these new blasters really the future of Nerf?

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Here are the best Kindle deals right now

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

When it comes to finding a device to use to read your ebooks, you have a few options to choose from. You can always buy a tablet or use your smartphone, but those devices are multipurpose and can be used for a ton of things, like surfing the web or doom-scrolling on Twitter. If you are looking for something to strictly read books, e-readers, while niche, are designed to store all of your books in a virtual library with limited functionality.

Amazon, having helped pioneer the e-reader, has dominated the space for years with its Kindle lineup, which consists of three unique models with their own pros and cons.

Below, we’ve listed each model currently available for purchase. Sometimes, there isn’t a deal for one, or any, of the products....

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Google settles with worker allegedly fired for his workplace activism

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google reached a settlement with a fired employee who the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) claims was let go from the company for his workplace activism, _Bloomberg_reports. The employee, Laurence Berland, was fired in 2019 allegedly for violating Google’s data security policies. He had been a vocal critic of Google’s work with the US Customs and Border Protection and was terminated amid internal organizing.

The settlement was approved in July by the NLRB, though the terms haven’t been revealed, according to Bloomberg. Google hasn’t replied to a request for comment from The Verge.

The NLRB has accused Google of violating labor law in firing Berland and four other workers in 2019 over organizing activities and is still battling Google...

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Robinhood opens up a slow and steady approach to crypto investing

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Robinhood is rolling out a new feature that lets you automatically invest in cryptocurrencies on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule. The investment app says this service will let you automatically invest in things like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Dogecoin, and other supported cryptocurrencies without a commission fee.

Before we go any further, though, I should warn you that nothing in this article is qualified or expert financial advice. It’s probably wise to talk with an expert who can help you come up with an investment strategy that’s right for you.

Robinhood’s approach here is automatic investing, not trading. It won’t sell the crypto for you when an algorithm decides it’d make financial sense to do so. Instead, it’s just steadily building...

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Addison Rae signs Netflix film deal after going from TikTok to He’s All That

Photo by Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Netflix

Netflix is doubling down on TikTok star Addison Rae with a new multi-picture film deal that could see the social media celebrity bringing even more eyes to the streaming service, As part of the deal, Netflix will develop projects specifically for Rae to star in and executive produce (via Variety).

The motivation seems to be the early success of He’s All That, the gender-swapped remake of _She’s All That,whichwas first announced in September 2020. The company projects the film will be watched by more than 55 million households in the first month of release and says it reached #1 on the company’s chart “in 78 countries, including Brazil, France, and Saudi Arabia.” Critical reception to_He’s All That has been mixed, from surprisingly...

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The LAPD built collecting social media info into its interview process for civilians

Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The Los Angeles Police Department asked officers to gather social media information as a standard part of their interviews with civilians, whether or not the people were implicated in a crime. The practice, revealed in public records obtained by the Brennan Center for Justice, is part of a larger LAPD social media monitoring strategy — one that’s similar to other US police department policies but may go beyond them.

As the Brennan Center notes, a 2015 memo from LAPD Police Chief Charlie Beck told the department that “similar to a nickname or an alias, a person’s online persona or identity used for social media and communication can be highly beneficial to investigations and possibly even future outreach programs.” Beck said that officers...

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Jeff Bezos’ Earth Fund pledges $150 million to climate justice groups

Jeff Bezos speaks during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019. | Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Jeff Bezos’ $10 billion Earth Fund just doled out millions more in funding to groups fighting off climate change. This time, a lot of the cash is going to groups that advocate for communities of color and low-income neighborhoods, which often face the first and worst effects of climate change and fossil fuel pollution.

The fund announced a total of $203.7 million in new grants today. Of that, more than $53 million will go toward communications on climate change and efforts to cut emissions from businesses. Another $20 million will go to groups focused on climate justice — a movement to stop climate change from taking a disproportionate toll on already marginalized communities.

A movement to stop climate change from taking a...

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Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now

The Product Red edition of the Series 6 has often recieves the biggest discounts. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Thinking about picking up a new Apple Watch? There are lots of expectations for a new Series 7 model ahead of Apple’s “California Streaming” event on September 14th, however, the new editions might bring larger sizes in addition to higher price points than we often see with the current models. Each Apple Watch offers ample functionality, and has seen more than its fair share of discounts over the last year. So which ones should you consider if you’re in the market for Apple’s popular smartwatch while trying to shop smarter?

There are currently three Apple Watch models to choose from, all of which support watchOS 7. The latest model — and the highest end — is the Apple Watch Series 6, which starts at $399 for the GPS model or $429 with...

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NASA sets new date for James Webb Space Telescope launch

The James Webb Space Telescope, humanity’s next big space-bound eye on the cosmos, has a new launch date of December 18th, NASA announced on Wednesday. It’s the latest among dozens of other delays for a telescope that was originally planned to go to space as early as 2007.

The $8.8 billion observatory, named after NASA’s second administrator, is a tennis court-sized successor to NASA’s famed Hubble telescope. Its 18 hexagonal gold-plated mirrors will allow the spacecraft to view distant planets and the far reaches of the universe with a level of detail that far surpasses Hubble’s capabilities.

Astronomers have been looking forward to the telescope’s launch for years, but its development has been set back by years of delays, development...

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Whoop’s new fitness tracker is better thanks to a battery breakthrough

Fitness company Whoop has a new tracker that squishes five LEDs, four photodiodes, a pulse oximeter, skin temperature sensor, and more into a package that is 33 percent smaller than its predecessor — all while still offering five days of battery life. But a particular change to the tracker’s battery chemistry is one of the biggest reasons Whoop was able to do all this in the first place.

The change was pioneered by a Silicon Valley company called Sila Nanotechnologies, which was co-founded in 2011 by Gene Berdichevsky, one of Tesla’s earliest employees. And it’s one that, if it scales up, could help break some of the biggest limitations currently facing lithium-ion technology.

On paper, it’s a simple change: the battery’s anode is now...

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Coinbase says SEC threatened lawsuit over Lend feature

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase seems to have some issues with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over a planned feature that lets people lend cryptocurrency through its platform. In a Medium post on Tuesday, Coinbase’s chief legal officer wrote that the regulatory agency threatened to sue the company if it launched the feature. Coinbase’s CEO posted a Twitter thread on Tuesday evening saying that the SEC wasn’t clear about what it wanted.

According to Coinbase’s CEO, Brian Armstrong, the company told the SEC about its new Lend feature as a courtesy but didn’t anticipate pushback, based on his impression that similar features exist on other platforms. However, according to Armstrong, the SEC informed the company that the lend...

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How a GameStonk YouTuber is shaking up the California recall

Kevin Paffrath wants to be the candidate for the /r/wallstreetbets voter

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The first ‘Designed for Google Meet’ device is a $200 phone dock

Image: Appcessori Corporation

As cool as videoconferencing hardware can look, it’s often exorbitantly expensive — the $2,000 Series One Desk 27 for Google Meet being a perfect example. Luckily, alongside that expensive Meet machine, Google also announced its “Designed for Google Meet” program and a more affordable first entry, the Rayz Rally Pro. It’s a $200 Nest Mini-like phone speaker that doubles as a microphone for Google Meet calls.

The Rayz Rally Pro comes in a gray-tone fabric-covered body that looks a bit like Google’s smart speakers but with a phone dock carveout. The speaker dock comes in two varieties: a Lightning connector iPhone model and a Google Pixel version that should work with any USB-C phone. Both versions can work as a Bluetooth speaker,...

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Microsoft’s new Xbox controller firmware lets you quickly switch between paired devices

Existing Xbox One controllers. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

Microsoft is starting to test a new firmware update for existing Xbox One, Xbox Elite 2, and Xbox Adaptive Controllers today that will bring some important improvements to existing hardware. The biggest addition is the ability to quickly switch between paired devices on an Xbox controller, and Microsoft is also adding Dynamic Latency Input (DLI) to improve input latency on older controllers.

This new firmware update includes Bluetooth Low Energy support for compatible controllers. Most of Microsoft’s existing Xbox One controllers include Bluetooth support for use on smartphones or PCs, but the controllers connect to Xbox consoles through the Xbox Wireless protocol. This new firmware will now make it easier to switch between the two,...

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