Wipeout gets ‘reimagined’ as a mobile game where you manage instead of drive

Wipeout, the fast-paced, futuristic racing series that’s synonymous with PlayStation, is coming to iOS and Android mobile devices later in 2021. The new game is called Wipeout Rush, and unfortunately, it might not be what you’re after if you’ve adored previous entries in the series.

The game, developed by Rogue, is a card-based racing game that doesn’t actually put you in the driver's seat. Instead, you’ll be the team manager of racers who will get to do all of the fun driving while you’re dealing with cards. The game promises to dive into the lore of Wipeout, and I’m most looking forward to finding out why the player can’t drive. Did they lose their license?

Here’s a description of Wipeout Rush, as noted on Rogue’s site.

For fans of...

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The Razer Blade 15 Advanced is $800 off at Amazon today

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

Gaming laptops are by no means cheap, but today you can save $800 on the Razer Blade 15 Advanced at Amazon. This laptop was built expressly for the purpose of delivering desktop gaming performance in a laptop form factor. Packing an RTX 2070 Super Max-Q graphics card and a 10875H Intel processor capable of topping out at 5.0GHz, the Razer Blade 15 does exactly that. The FHD display has a 300Hz refresh rate, better than you’d see on most desktop gaming monitors, allowing for sharp reaction times and virtually no lag, letting you get the drop on your enemy. A 1TB NVMe SSD and 16GB of RAM round out the laptop’s specs, offering you plenty of onboard storage and speed. Read our Razer Blade 15 Advanced review.

Ahead of the new 2021 base iPad...

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Meet the YouTubers determined to find lost media

Image: Bobdunga

When I was 11, I remember seeing a weird commercial on television. During the commercial break of a Slamball rerun (remember Slamball?) on Cartoon Network, I saw an AIDS awareness ad. It was made specifically for kids, and it was accompanied by an annoying rap. I distinctly remember the chorus: “What do you know about AIDS?!” It’s been stuck in my head for years. I guess you’re expecting me to link the commercial I’m describing, right? Well, I can’t, because I’ve never found it. I’ve never even seen it mentioned online. This commercial is what’s known as “lost media.”

Online, there’s a lost media community dedicated to preserving everything from unaired television pilots to unreleased video game prototypes. Currently, the lost media...

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The new ninth-gen iPad is $30 off before it’s even out

Apple just announced the ninth-gen entry-level iPad on Tuesday at the iPhone 13 event and began taking orders, with availability opening up on September 24th. But now, Walmart is offering a nice discount on preorders of its own. You can preorder the new base model 2021 iPad with a $30 discount, bringing the price down to just $299 for the 64GB Wi-Fi configuration. It will ship a little bit later than if purchased through Apple, around September 29th, but it’s rare get a 10 percent discount on a brand-new product if you’re willing to wait just a few more days.

The new iPad is the latest version of Apple’s most popular model of tablet. It features a 10.2-inch non-laminated Retina display, Touch ID fingerprint sensor built into the...

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GoPro announces Hero 10 Black with 5.3K60 and smartphone-like features

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

GoPro has announced the next version of its action camera, which has a new processor that lets the camera shoot in higher frame rates (for that cool slow-motion footage), have better stabilization, and automatically upload videos to the cloud while charging. The new processor also works to make using the GoPro Hero 10 Black a faster, more responsive experience.

In a lot of cases, the Hero 10 can shoot at double the frame rate of the Hero 9: it can now shoot at 5.3K at 60 frames per second (offering both the frame rate improvement as well as a small resolution bump) and can shoot at 4K120, and 2.7K240. While 240fps is still as slow (er, fast?) as the camera will get, it’s now able to shoot that frame rate at 2.7K, versus the 1080...

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The GoPro Hero10: small step for the Hero10, big leap for GoPro

A familiar body, but with all-new brains

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The Lucid Air is the first electric car with a 520-mile EPA-rated range

Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

Lucid Motors’ Air Dream Edition has received an Environmental Protection Agency-rated range of 520 miles, making it the longest-range EV ever rated by the agency.

The EPA rating certifies Lucid’s claim from over a year ago that its forthcoming electric sedan would be the longest range production EV on the market. It also represents a victory for Lucid Motors CEO and CTO Peter Rawlinson, who led development of the Model S when he worked at Tesla and has said that the Air will outmatch Elon Musk’s company in terms of range, luxury, acceleration, and price.

The Air Dream Edition bests the longest-range Tesla, the Model S Long Range Plus, by over 100 miles. But that added range will come at a cost, with the Dream Edition with 19-inch...

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Make iPhone 13 preorders a one-step process on Friday by following these steps

The process lets you make your selection ahead of preorders opening. | Screenshot: Apple.com

If you’re planning on preordering one of Apple’s new iPhone 13 models at 8AM ET on Friday, September 17th, you might be interested to know that US customers can pre-register their details to make the checkout process a little easier. Now, before you say anything, I completely agree that the idea of _pre-registering_for a preorder sounds ridiculous. But if you’re someone who wants to complete the preorder as quickly as possible to guarantee an early ship date during a time of global component shortages, it’s a useful trick to know. Just be aware that this process is only available until midnight on Thursday, Eastern Time.

This isn’t the first time Apple has offered pre-registration. But previously this route appears to have been reserved...

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WhatsApp begins testing a yellow pages-style business directory

WhatsApp is piloting a new business directory in São Paulo, Brazil that lets users find local shops and services with a presence on the app, the service’s head Will Cathcart has announced. Screenshots show how WhatsApp will show businesses sorted by categories like “grocery store” and “restaurant,” before letting users chat directly with them. Reuters reports that the test will include thousands of businesses in the city.

Although the Facebook-owned messaging service is most famous as a person-to-person messaging service, e-commerce has become an increasingly important part of its offering in recent years. As of last October, WhatsApp reported that over 175 million people globally used the service to message a WhatsApp business account...

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Electric scooter startup Gogoro is going public

Image: Gogoro

Gogoro is the latest EV company to jump on the trend of going public by merging with a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The Taiwanese e-scooter and battery-swapping tech startup announced Thursday that it will combine with a SPAC called Poema Global Holdings, which is listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. The deal — which is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022 — will net Gogoro around $550 million, and will value the startup at more than $2.3 billion.

It’s a huge step for the scooter company, which has been rapidly expanding this year. In April, Gogoro announced a partnership with the largest two-wheeler manufacturer in the world to bring its electric scooter and battery tech to India. That was Gogoro’s most major...

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Alphabet’s Project Taara laser tech beamed 700TB of data across nearly 5km

Project Taara link | Image: X

In January, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, shut down Project Loon, an initiative exploring using stratospheric helium balloons to distribute wireless internet (an attempt to use solar-powered drones folded in 2017). However, some technology developed as a part of the Loon project remained in development, specifically the Free Space Optical Communications (FSOC) links that were originally meant to connect the high flying balloons — and now that technology is actively in use providing a high-speed broadband link for people in Africa.

Sort of like fiber optic cables without the cable, FSOC can create a 20Gbps+ broadband link from two points that have a clear line of sight, and Alphabet’s moonshot lab X has built up Project Taara to...

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How do you cross-examine a whistleblower?

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Theranos lab assistant-turned-whistleblower Erika Cheung testifies in the Elizabeth Holmes wire fraud trial

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The PS5 SSD buying guide

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

Sony’s update adding the much-anticipated support for M.2 SSD storage expansion is here, letting you install more PS5 games than the 825GB built-in SSD allows. When the feature first launched in beta, Sony provided a list of requirements, making it clear that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to just grab any SSD and chuck it in your PS5. We’ve tried to list as many of the compatible ones as we can, as stock has seemingly been hit pretty hard — the more options you have, the more likely you are to actually get your hands on one.

Which SSDs work with the PS5?

Sony’s main requirements are that the SSD is PCIe Gen4 and at least 250GB. However, Sony makes it very clear that your SSD needs a heatsink, which can complicate things, given the l...

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SpaceX launches its first private crewed mission to space

SpaceX launched four private citizens to space on Wednesday, kicking off the first-ever crewed missionto orbit without any professional astronauts on board. Dubbed Inspiration4, the mission marks the latest private foray into space as companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX compete to normalize space travel for paying tourists, not just government astronauts.

SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lifted off on time at 8:02PM ET from the company’s 39A launchpad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, soaring from Florida’s east coast under clear night skies. Inside the capsule is billionaire entrepreneur Jared Isaacman, a trained pilot and founder of payment-processing firm Shift4 Payments, and three others he picked and paid for to ride with him: Hayley...

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The Apple rumors were wrong

Pictured: Tim Cook, knowing he’s not about to announce the thing I want. | Image: Apple

For many who follow tech news closely, Apple’s event on Tuesday had a few big surprises — not because there were completely unexpected announcements, but because we didn’t see things we really thought we’d be getting. Rumors that had enough smoke to be almost a sure-fire thing in previous years ended up falling flat.

For example:

The Apple Watch was rumored to get a complete redesign, featuring flat edges and a flat screen. We saw this design in renders, reportedly leaked CAD files (which act as a 3D blueprint for products), and even heard that it’d be happening from noted Apple reporter Mark Gurman two days before the event. While the Apple Watch that showed up on stage does have some design tweaks, it looks nothing like what we were...

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Samsung begins mass-producing 90Hz OLED laptop screens

OLED lives on this ProArt Studiobook 16. | Image: Asus

Samsung Display is following through on its promise to ramp up OLED production. The company has begun mass-producing laptop-sized 90Hz OLED panels, which will appear in multiple upcoming 14-inch laptops from Asus.

“The demand for laptops is increasing steadily as working from home and remote learning become the new norm,” Asus Vice General Manager Y.C. Chen said in a statement. “OLED displays can meet consumers’ various needs as they’re using laptops for school, virtual meetings, video streaming, gaming, and more.”

In a statement, Samsung Display said, “The 90Hz OLED panel offers more options for consumers who are looking to enjoy high-performance content on their laptops. With our innovative OLEDs, we’re further pioneering and leading...

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The iPhone 13 event was a case study in Tim Cook-era product refinement

For the past ten years, Tim Cook’s greatest accomplishment as Apple CEO has been vastly more of the same. More iPhones, more iPhone accessories, more apps, and so much more money. While the Mac and iPad have occasionally fallen into disrepair, the company keeps coming back with new reasons to buy its greatest hits every year — and this year’s iPhone 13 event is a near-perfect case study in how far refinement can take you.

As my colleague Jon Porter points out, the iPhone 13 is effectively the iPhone 12S, an iterative, incremental update to last year’s phones instead of something that feels brand new.

Almost everything got better

But oh, what an update. What company wouldn’t dream of being able to say they improved the processing power...

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Finally, some good news for Quibi

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Quibi’s zombie may finally be able to rest its weary head. The company’s successor has settled an ongoing feud with eternal thorn-in-its-side Eko.

Eko, an interactive video company, and Quibi's successor QBI Holdings announced today that they’d reached a settlement in the legal battle over Quibi’s perspective-shifting Turnstyle feature, which Eko alleged the streaming service had swiped from its own proprietary video technology. Both companies have agreed to dismiss their legal action against one another, and Quibi will hand over both the video technology and Turnstyle IP to Eko as part of their agreement.

“This result will help ensure that Eko remains the undisputed leader in interactive storytelling technology,” Eko boss Yoni Bloch...

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The best deals on 4K TVs

The 55-inch Samsung Crystal TU-7000 is on sale at Best Buy for $450. | Image: Samsung

There are a lot of 4K TVs available to choose from, complete with a wide variety of prices and performance. And, with many fall sales approaching, now might be the best time of the year to get an amazing TV deal. Even if your budget is less than $500, you can get a good 4K TV in a bigger size than you might expect. Whether you want a secondary TV for the bedroom or a high-end OLED that’s built for a cinema-like experience, we’ve picked out the best TV deals across four common categories:

• The best 4K TV deals for most people
• The best TV deals on a budget
• The best deals on OLED TVs
• 4K TVs for the Sony PS5 and Microsoft Xbox Series X

We will provide regular updates to this post so be sure to check back periodically for the most up-to-date...

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T-Mobile execs miss the Galaxy Note as much as you do

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In the shadow of the iPhone 13, and an aggressive new “Forever Upgrade” plan to sell them, T-Mobile executives are complaining about Samsung’s phones, _Fierce Wireless_reports. Specifically, the lack of them.

“Samsung has really fallen behind the eight ball relative to other OEMs on the global supply chain issue,” T-Mobile chief financial officer and executive vice president Peter Osvaldik said at an BofA Securities investor event on Tuesday. The issue seems to be that a majority of T-Mobile’s customers are “very significant Samsung lovers,” according Osvaldik, and that Samsung “discontinuing” the Galaxy Note — which “customers just loved” — and a shorter supply of S-series phones have had an impact on the carrier.

T-Mobile customers...

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Battlefield 2042 delayed by nearly a month

A screenshot from_Battlefield 2042._ | Image: EA

Battlefield 2042, Dice’s upcoming entry in the Battlefield series, has been delayed by nearly a month, Dice parent company EA announced Wednesday. The game’s release date has been pushed from October 22nd to November 19th.

“Building the next generation of Battlefield during a global pandemic has created unforeseen challenges for our development teams,” Oskar Gabrielson, studio GM at Dice said in a statement on behalf of the Battlefield 2042 team. “Given the scale and scope of the game, we had hoped our teams would be back in our studios together as we move towards launch. With the ongoing conditions not allowing that to happen safely, and with all the hard work the teams are doing from home, we feel it is important to take the extra...

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Google’s rumored Pixel 6 Tensor processor sounds extremely weird

Photo: Sundar Pichai / Twitter

Google is set to debut its first in-house smartphone chipset, the Tensor SoC, in its upcoming Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro phones. And if the latest report from XDA is correct, the Tensor’s rumored CPU setup could be very, very weird — even by Google standards.

So far, Google has largely been hyping up the Tensor SoC’s AI performance; but it hasn’t revealed any information on the basic CPU and GPU specs of the chip. Google’s Rick Osterloh would only tell The Verge that “the standard stuff people look at will be very competitive and the AI stuff will be totally differentiated.”

Some aspects of the Tensor’s components have already come to light. An earlier XDA report notes that the Pixel 6 will likely use an off-the-shelf Arm Mali-A78 GPU...

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These climate stars are among the world’s most ‘influential’ people

Miss Phyllis Omido, a Kenyan environmental activist and Goldman Environmental Prize Winner. In a groundbreaking judgement Kenya’s Environment and Land Court ordered the government and two private investors to pay Kenya Shillings 1.3 billion (12 million USD) as a compensation to the residents of Owino Uhuru affected by lead poisoning. | Photo by James Wakibia/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Climate change was a big theme in Time Magazine’s 2021 list of “Most Influential People,” with a handful of climate scientists and environmental advocates making the list along with celebrities like Dolly Parton and Naomi Osaka.

2021 isn’t the first year rock star environmentalists have made Time’s list. Teen activist Greta Thunberg was Time’s “Person of the Year” in 2019. Green New Deal champion Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was also among the “most influential” that year. This year’s honorees may not be as widely known, but they’ve had a huge impact on how the world grapples with an existential crisis.

“Possibly the greatest challenge humanity has faced”

Tackling climate change is “possibly the greatest challenge humanity has faced,” one...

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Become a true impostor with an official Among Us costume

The official_Among Us_costumes. | Image: Amazon

Halloween is just around the corner, and if you still need a costume (smh if you haven’t gotten one yet, Halloween is 46 days away, what are you doing?) might I recommend the new official Among Us crewmate costumes?

If you get one of these ridiculous inflatable outfits, you’ll surely fool everyone around you into believing you’re not suspicious in any way whatsoever. Definitely not an impostor, nope. Just see for yourself:

roll up into the finest establishments with our new Among Us costumes ✨ @toikido1

u can grab these on Amazon, Walmart, HMV, and other retailers globally! BE!! THE SPACEBEAN!!! pic.twitter.com/9LVvKBzvwM

— Among Us (@AmongUsGame) September 15, 2021

The costumes come in two sizes, an adult version and a kids...

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Here are the best iPad deals right now

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Deals on Apple’s iPads are more common than you might think. Whether you’re after the affordable — now outgoing — entry-level iPad from last year, the high-end iPad Pro, or something in between like the iPad Air or iPad Mini, there’s usually some sort of sale happening somewhere. Of course, it’s difficult to know exactly where you can find those deals unless you’re looking around at all of the major retailers. But that’s often what deal our deal hunters at _The Verge_are doing each and every day, so let us help you out.

Below, we’ve listed each iPads model that is currently available, some of which are also available refurbished. You should also be aware that Apple is currently running its back-to-school promotion until September 27th,...

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OpenSea product chief accused of flipping NFTs using insider information

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

OpenSea, the biggest NFT trading marketplace, said today that one of its employees used internal information to buy NFTs that were about to be featured on its homepage — and likely spike in value. Accusations were made against OpenSea’s head of product, Nate Chastain, last night after a community member publicized suspicious transactions from his wallet. “Yesterday we learned that one of our employees purchased items that they knew were set to display on our front page before they appeared there publicly,” the announcement tweeted by OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer read. “​​This is incredibly disappointing.” The site explicitly prohibits “deceptive or manipulative trading activities” in its Terms of Service.

The statement was prompted by a...

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How to wipe your iPhone before selling it or trading it in

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

Whether you’re trading in your old iPhone for a discount on a new one, selling it, giving it away, or recycling it, you’re going to want to erase all of your data first. Not only do you want to keep personal information from falling into the wrong hands, but let’s face it: nobody’s going to want a phone with your old selfies on it.

After you’ve transferred all of your data to a new phone (or, if you’re not getting a new phone, backed your data up), here’s how to wipe your iPhone:

Get rid of a few identifiable features

• Disable “Find My iPhone” by going to “Settings” > “Find My” > “Find My Phone” and toggling “Find My Phone” and “Find My Network” to off.
• Unpair any devices from your phone, including your Apple Watch.
• Toggle iMessages...

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Why your Nintendo Switch might seem borked after the Bluetooth update

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

Did the Nintendo Switch’s surprise Bluetooth audio update yesterday make your handheld worse instead of better? That’s what happened to me: instead of inviting me to the magical world of wireless audio, it repeatedly failed to detect my headsets and connect to them reliably.

Worse, it suddenly took more than 30 seconds to wake my Switch from sleep! That’s a huge pain in the ass, considering one of the Switch’s single greatest strengths is how you can instantly jump back into a game.

But after a whole bunch of testing, I think I know what’s going on — and if you’re seeing the same thing, a full Switch shutdown seems to offer a partial fix.

It’s not quite that simple, though, so read on for the details.

The Nintendo Switch Bluetooth...

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Apple’s tvOS 15 update arrives September 20th sans SharePlay

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

The refreshed Apple TV 4K hit shelves in April, but the anticipated tvOS 15 update that introduces exciting updates to the Apple TV experience was previously only available in beta. That will change next week: Apple has confirmed tvOS 15 will become widely available to everyone on September 20th.

Apple confirmed to The Verge that the tvOS 15 update will go live the same day as its other operating system updates, which include iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8. The tvOS 15 update brings a number of new features to the Apple TV experience. SharePlay is arguably the most exciting addition to the experience and will allow FaceTime users to stream titles together in sync across their Apple devices, including on Apple TV. However, Apple c...

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SIM swapper charged in cryptocurrency theft scheme

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A University of California San Diego student named Richard Yuan Li was indicted on August 26th for a SIM swapping scheme that involved stealing phone numbers and accounts and extorting at least 40 people for cryptocurrency and other payments, according to a new release the US Department of Justice shared on Monday.

According to the indictment (PDF), Li convinced Apple customer service in 2018 to send him a replacement iPhone 8 for one he claimed was lost in the mail. Li and others then convinced carriers to port victims’ phone numbers to the iPhone 8 to take control of their accounts — and in some cases, drained their crypto wallets directly.

A phone number could give you access to many different accounts

“Li and his co-conspirators...

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