Harley-Davidson’s stunning vintage-inspired electric bikes are going on sale later this year

Nearly a year after announcing plans to spin out its own electric bike company called Serial 1, Harley-Davidson said it will sell a “limited” number of the gorgeous, vintage-inspired models that it originally said was just a “styling exercise.”

The S1 Mosh/Tribute is an homage to “Serial Number One,” the nickname for Harley-Davidson’s oldest known motorcycle built in 1903. The bike’s design, with its white tires, leather saddle and handgrips, and sleek black frame with gold lettering, harken back to that first prototype.

But under the glossy black paint and honey-colored leather accents, the bike is identical to Serial 1’s entry-level Mosh/Cty model. The S1 Mosh/Tribute (props to Harley for keeping all the vowels this time ) has many of...

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Facebook VP disputes report claiming the platform knows about multiple flaws it doesn’t fix

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook’s vice president of global affairs criticized a series of stories by the Wall Street Journal that reported the social network is aware of numerous problems across its platforms that cause harm to users, but does little to fix them.

In a post on Facebook’s blog, Nick Clegg wrote that while it was “absolutely legitimate for us to be held to account for how we deal with” some of the issues outlined in the Journal reporting, the stories “contained deliberate mischaracterizations of what we are trying to do, and conferred egregiously false motives to Facebook’s leadership and employees.”

This week, the Journal published a sweeping series of deeply reported stories on Facebook, based on its review of internal documents, concluding...

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Clive Sinclair, inventor of the ZX Spectrum personal computer, has died

Inventor and entrepreneur Sir Clive Sinclair has died at age 81. | Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Clive Sinclair, who invented the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, an early personal computer, died of cancer Thursday at age 81, his family confirmed. Sinclair was an inventor with an impressive list of electronic products to his name, some, like his pocket calculator, were quite successful, while others, like his Sinclair C5 “electric trike” vehicle, were decidedly not.

Born in England in 1940, Sinclair had a knack for creating gadgets. The Sinclair Executive “slimline” pocket calculator, released in 1972, sold well (likely in large part due to its low price ), and at one point was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art.

Sinclair’s ZX personal computers were priced lower than the then-popular Commodore 64, and well-liked by consumers in the UK....

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Save $800 on this 55-inch OLED TV at Best Buy this weekend

Slim and sharp

OLED TVs have developed a reputation for being sharp, clean, fragile, but also remarkably expensive. But this weekend you can save a whopping $800 on this 55-inch OLED TV from Sony at Best Buy. At just 2.3-inches thick without its stand, the A8H, much like other OLED screens, is impossibly slim. This makes it ideal for wall mounting especially for anyone in pursuit of that ultra-clean, Ikea catalog aesthetic. In terms of apps, the A8H has access to the Android TV catalog and offers voice control via Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple AirPlay2. Besides having 4 HDMI ports that include a single audio return channel, the A8H also has a trio of USB ports and built-in Bluetooth for everything else.

One of our biggest issues with the...

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Castlevania composer on returning to her ‘masterpiece’ with new Apple Arcade game

Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls isn’t just the long-awaited return of the vampire-whipping series. It also marks the return of some big names, including character designer Ayami Kojima and composer Michiru Yamane, who left Konami in 2008. Yamane previously worked on seminal Castlevania games like Symphony of the Night and Dawn of Sorrow, and after going freelance she teamed up with longtime Castlevania director Koji Igarashi on Bloodstained. Her credits also include Skullgirls, a few Suikoden games, and Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, though she calls her work on Castlevania her “masterpiece.”

Ahead of the launch of Grimoire of Souls, which is out now on Apple Arcade, I had the chance to ask Yamane a few questions over email about her...

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Valve’s latest Steam Next Fest for upcoming games will open on October 1st

Steam Next Fest is coming October 1st | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Valve announced Friday that its latest Steam Next Fest is coming the first week of October, giving access to playable demos of hundreds of upcoming PC games.

A video teaser showed glimpses of a few games to expect to see in demo, including Airhead from Octato Games, Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer’s Legacy from Ludomotion, ANNO:Mutationem from Thinking Stars, Mahokenshi from Game Source Studio, _Starship Troopers— Terran Command_fromThe Artistocrats,Life of Delta from Airo Games, and more. And IGN reported that The Last Campfire, from Hello Games, the creators of No Man’s Sky, will also have a playable demo available as part of Next Fest.

Gamers can “explore the latest from veteran devs and first-timers alike,” according to the promotional...

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Why you need a personal laptop

Yep, if my employer gave me a ThinkPad X1 Carbon, I’d want to use it all the time too. Don’t do it! | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

It’s a decision that may seem like a no-brainer. You’ve got a new job, and they’ve just given you a brand-new ThinkPad. Perfect, you think to yourself. It’s about time I got rid of that10-year-old MacBook Air.

I’ve been there. Surveys have shown that over half of workers use work-issued devices for personal tasks — whether sending personal messages, shopping online, accessing social media, or reading the news. The prospect of using your work laptop as your only laptop — not just for work, but also for Netflixing, group chat messaging, reading fanfiction, paying bills, and emailing recipes to your mom — is understandably tempting, especially for folks who work from home. Keeping work tasks and personal tasks in one place may feel like...

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Here are the best Amazon Echo deals right now

The Echo Show 5 (left), Echo Show 8 (middle), and the Echo Show (right). | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

When it comes to smart speakers, Amazon has a slew of voice-enabled Echo devices to choose from, one for practically every occasion. Maybe you want to add Alexa to a room, for example, or you’re looking for an Echo device that will allow you to easily manage your lightning or other smart home products. Regardless of the reason, these are the best Echo deals available right now.

The best Echo Dot deals

Late last year, Amazon released the fourth generation of the Echo Dot, which looks more like a sphere than an actual dot. But if you prefer the previous design, don’t worry: Amazon has not discontinued the third-gen Echo Dot, which still retains the familiar dot shape.

We’ve previously seen the fourth-gen Echo Dot drop to an all-time low...

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Sony subsidiary makes a PS5 SSD that’s even further out of your reach

Image: Nextorage

Sony subsidiary Nextorage has released an SSD that’s perfect for the PS5 (via Tom’s Hardware): it has a heatsink (which Sony says is a requirement), is fast enough to well surpass Sony’s recommendations, and comes in 1TB and 2TB varieties, which gives you plenty of storage for your games. The catch? It’s kinda expensive, isn’t available in the US, and doesn’t seem to have an official “PlayStation approved” stamp despite its maker’s affiliation with Sony.

Nextorage describes itself as a “Sony group company specializing in the memory storage solutions business,” and its NEM-PA SSD ticks all the boxes for PlayStation 5 compatibility. When news of the drive first broke, it seemed like the solution to the confusion that can currently come...

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Fortnite adds another virtual influencer to its battle royale

Last season, one of the more curious additions to Fortnite was Guggimon, a terrifying-looking rabbit creature that also happened to be a virtual influencer with millions of followers on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Guggimon was created by a company called Superplastic — which has previously worked with the likes of the Gorillaz — and now it’s bringing another one of its characters to the battle royale: Janky, a streetwear cat (I think?) that’s available in the Fortnite item shop starting tonight.

It may seem like an odd fit, but Fortnite’s ever-growing metaverse has steadily been spreading to just about every facet of pop culture, from sports to music to superheroes. With all that going on, some CG characters that partner with...

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How bad were Elizabeth Holmes’ 1AM emails?

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Enough for workers to secretly save them

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Amazon says it’s permanently banned 600 Chinese brands for review fraud

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Remember when gadget vendors Aukey, Mpow, RavPower, Vava, TaoTronics and Choetech started mysteriously disappearing from Amazon’s online storefront, and it turned out Amazon had intentionally yanked them while vaguely gesturing to the sanctity of its user reviews? Turns out they were just the tip of the iceberg. Amazon has now permanently banned over 600 Chinese brands across 3,000 different seller accounts, the company confirms to_The Verge_.

Amazon says that’s the grand tally after five months of its global crackdown, and it’s no longer being shy about why: a spokesperson tells us these 600 brands were banned for knowingly, repeatedly and significantly violating Amazon’s policies, especially the ones around review abuse.

The South...

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SpaceX’s first private crew shows what they’ve been up to in orbit

It was a brief orbital talent show.

“Hayley is a champ at spinning,” Sian Proctor, one of the four private citizens currently orbiting Earth inside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, said of her crew mate Hayley Arceneaux, who was somersaulting in the weightlessness of space on camera. “She’s been spinning ever since we got on orbit.”

SpaceX

Hayley Arceneaux spinning inside Crew Dragon.

Christopher Sembroski, another crew mate, whipped out a ukulele and threatened to play it live on camera to over 55,000 viewers on SpaceX’s live YouTube stream — “You can turn your volume down if you wish, but I’ll give it a shot.” He did a little riff while Arceneaux was holding the mic, and it wasn’t half bad. “It’s still before...

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Niantic is shutting down its AR Catan game after a year of early access

Image: Niantic

Pokémon Go developer Niantic is shutting down its augmented reality game Catan: World Explorers, the company announced on Friday (via Protocol). An AR adaptation of the popular board game Catanannounced in 2019, _World Explorers_was the company’s latest attempt to recreate the magic of Pokémon Go, but soon it’s all coming to an end.

After a year of early access, the game will not be playable after November 18th and Niantic says later today it “will be taking the game down from the App Store and removing real-money purchases from the Shop.” For the players that stick around, the company says it will increase in-game bonuses for the remaining weeks the game is live.

Surely something other than Pokémon can catch on

It’s not entirely clear...

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Here’s how the new iPad Mini compares to the last-gen model

The iPad Mini (2021) is the latest in Apple’s line of smaller tablets. | Image: Apple

With the announcement and impending release of the new iPad Mini and its revamped design, it might be all too easy to stan the new model and completely write off its predecessor. While the new model has a lot to offer — namely a larger screen, faster processor, refined design akin to the 2020 iPad Air, and a USB-C port — it also has a quality that is not so desirable: a higher introductory price.

The iPad Mini line has been notoriously discount-immune over the years, possibly because of its specialized position in the market and lack of competition. The outgoing iPad Mini only recently started receiving significant discounts, falling to $300 soon before the new model was announced, but it started at $399 from the get-go. The new iPad...

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Florida man used Disney employee iPad to magically skip lines

Photo by Liao Pan/China News Service via Getty Images

There are tons of books and blogs telling you how to have a magical Disney World experience, but one Florida man discovered the ultimate travel hack: using an app that lets you skip lines running on a possibly stolen employee iPad (via Gizmodo). According to central Florida’s WESH2 news, 30 year-old Rennan Carletto allegedly did just that in June, by giving himself and a group traveling through the park with him an unauthorized jump to the front of the line.

According to a WPTV report, Carletto was leading an unauthorized tour of Hollywood Studios (Disney World’s worst park, no offense) and using the iPad to skip lines for the park’s rides by making reservation overrides. One Disney World fan site theorizes that he may have been taking...

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8 new HomeKit features arriving with Apple’s September 20th software updates

Image: Apple

With new iPhones come new features. And starting next week, Apple HomeKit users will get plenty courtesy of iOS 15, HomePod 15, tvOS 15, and watchOS 8 software updates. Apple has confirmed that these will all be available on the same day, September 20th.

So, if you’ve been excited about unlimited HomeKit Secure Video cameras, the HomePod Mini as a speaker for your Apple TV 4K, or the chance to see your doorbell on your Apple Watch, you’re in luck.

Here’s a look at all the new HomeKit and HomeKit-related features that will be dropping on Monday.

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

A new software update will let you pair a single or pair of HomePod Minis to your Apple TV 4K.

Control your Apple TV with Siri

F...

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Clubhouse appears to be working on Waves, a new way to invite friends to rooms

Image: Clubhouse

Clubhouse appears to be working on a new way to invite people to audio rooms in its app, based on screenshots shared by researcher Jane Manchum Wong. The invite feature, called “Waves,” is focused on the more casual, social side of Clubhouse, rather than the creator-focused live shows that have had the company’s attention.

Based off the screenshots Wong shared, Waves lets you wave at friends —with a button identical to the hand in Clubhouse’s logo — to invite them to chat. If they reply, they automatically get added to an audio room so you can talk. A spokesperson declined to comment on Wong’s discovery, but it seems likely that the feature is intended for Clubhouse’s social rooms (one of several audio room types the company offers).

C...

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How and where to replace your old, depleted iPhone battery

Credit: Apple Fixer/ Instructables

Your iPhone’s aging lithium-ion batteries will eventually start to lose their ability to retain a charge — and that can be highly frustrating, especially if you’re out and about all day. If that is happening to you, there are several solutions: you can switch over to the latest iPhone, start carrying a battery charger around with you, or — simply replace the battery.

To first identify whether your battery is ready for a change, you can check to see what the current health of your battery is by going to “Settings” > “Battery” > “Battery Health.” This is where you can find out your battery’s current maximum capacity. A small notice at the very top may appear if your iPhone’s battery is ready for a swap.

The “Battery”...

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Treasury to issue new cryptocurrency sanctions after ransomware attacks

The Biden administration is preparing to issue a series of actions, including sanctions, to make it more difficult for hackers to profit off of ransomware attacks through the use of digital currency, as first reported by the Wall Street Journalon Friday.

According to the Journal, the Treasury Department plans to impose these new sanctions as soon as next week. The sanctions would reportedly target specific traders and cryptocurrency exchanges, in the hope of deterring exchanges from processing these transactions when they’re made. The department will also issue new guidance for businesses regarding the risks they take on by complying with ransomware payment requests.

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to a request for...

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Dell Latitude 9420 review: pricey performance

A dream for workers and IT departments alike

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Apple’s seven-minute tour shows off what’s new in the iPhone 13

Image: Apple

Apple released a seven-and-a-half-minute video to act as a guided tour of the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro’s features, and to make the differences in the lineup clearer. In the clip, Apple also goes through some of the phone’s new video and camera features like cinematic mode, photographic styles, and macro photography, and emphasizes the phones’ increased battery life.

The video doesn’t really give us any new info, but it does give us more (obviously very carefully crafted) footage of the iPhone 13 outside of a blank black or white background.

Image: Apple

Here’s a good idea of what your fancy iPhone 13 Pros will look like covered in iced tea.

Also, the video has a particularly funny scene, meant to show off the...

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The iPhone’s notch: should it stay or should it go?

Let’s discuss

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Snapchat is getting an Among Us clone from Zynga

Image: Zynga

Zynga is bringing a social deception game called ReVamp to Snapchat’s games platform “soon,” the developer announced on Friday. ReVamp, clearly inspired by the popularity of games like Among Us_,_is a real-time multiplayer game where players try to find the vampire among... them.

Players in ReVamp “aim to reveal who the vampire player is among their group of friends while they renovate the rooms of an old mansion,” Zynga’s description says. The game also features the frequently contentious voting round, where players decide to remove people they suspect are imposters, except with ReVamp they’re finding a vampire in a group of humans, as opposed to an alien in a group of “spacebeans.” This is only the third game Zynga has released for Snap...

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Tim Cook tells Apple employees he’s ‘looking forward to moving forward’ after Epic ruling

Apple CEO Tim Cook told employees that he was “looking forward to moving forward” after a verdict in the Epic v. Apple antitrust case. In an all-hands meeting with employees, Cook echoed the line Apple has taken publicly on the case, celebrating the company’s legal wins and downplaying its loss on an unfair competition claim.

“If you sort of back up and remember what the App Store is about, the App Store was built to be a trusted place for users so they could go explore and discover apps. It was meant to be a great business opportunity for developers,” Cook told employees, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Verge. “Epic came along and wanted basically to be handled in a special way. Our rules are that we treat...

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Apple’s new COVID-19 policy requires vaccinations to skip ‘frequent’ testing

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Starting next month, Apple will “infrequently” test vaccinated employees who come into its offices and stores for COVID-19. Unvaccinated employees will have to get frequent testing. Apple CEO Tim Cook and senior vice president of retail and people Deirdre O’Brien announced the new policy during an all-hands meeting reported by _The Verge_today.

The company’s updated guidelines appear to line up with the OSHA standards that will be established as a result of the Biden Administration’s push to increase vaccination rates. Those standards say companies of 100 people or more must require either immunization or weekly testing.

Apple recently pushed back the date when it expects employees to return to its office in response to a surge of cases...

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Here’s exactly how much bigger the iPhone 13 batteries are

Image: Apple

We’ve just gotten our first look at the iPhone 13s’ battery sizes, thanks to a product information sheet posted on Apple’s behalf to hazardous material information and response company Chemtrec’s website (via 9to5Mac). The document shows that the batteries in iPhones have gotten significantly bigger since last year — 13 percent larger, on average — and the 13 Pro Max’s battery is getting comparable to devices like the Nintendo Switch.

In the document, battery sizes are reported in watt-hours instead of the more traditional milliamp hours. Even though most phone manufacturers give battery sizes in milliamp hours, they’re often less accurate and harder to compare devices, so we prefer watt-hours. Here are the battery sizes of Apple’s new...

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Digital messages from patients to doctors spiked during the pandemic

Photo by Frank Molter/picture alliance via Getty Images

Doctors say they’re overwhelmed by the volume of digital messages they receive from patients during the pandemic, and new data backs up their experience. The number of messages increased by over 150 percent at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the levels stayed high over the course of 2020, according to an early look at data from the electronic health record company Epic.

“They want to be responsive to the patient needs,” says A Jay Holmgren, an assistant professor in the Center for Clinical Informatics and Improvement Research at the University of California San Francisco, who collected the data and posted it on Twitter this week. But there aren’t good systems in place to help doctors to manage the influx.

There are few reasons...

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A privacy-focused permissions feature from Android 11 is coming to older phones too

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Android 11’s auto-resetting permissions, where the operating system will restrict an app’s permission to access sensitive phone features like its storage or cameras if it hasn’t been opened for several months, are coming to older devices, Google has announced. The feature originally launched with Android 11 last year, but soon it’ll be available on any phones running Android 6 and above with Google Play services, which Google says should cover “billions” of Android phones released since 2015.

The feature is designed to help protect your privacy by preventing older apps from having unfettered access to your phone if you haven’t used them in months. You might be happy to give a novelty camera app access to your storage while it’s all the...

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Riot continues to expand beyond League of Legends with new PC launcher

A screenshot of the new Riot Client. | Image: Riot Games

Riot Games is perhaps best known for developing League of Legends, but in recent years, it’s added games like auto battler Teamfight Tactics and the hit shooter Valorant to its roster of titles. To make it easier to open all of Riot’s games on your PC, the company is releasing the Riot Client, a unified launcher that starts rolling out later this month.

“All desktop Riot games will be accessible from one client, with each game having its own dedicated product page with game-specific content including the latest news and events,” Riot’s Liz La Londe wrote in a blog post. “You’ll be able to clean up your desktop and only have one Riot Client launcher where all your favorite Riot games will live! However, if you prefer, you can maintain...

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