Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s AirPods Pro wireless earbuds are a go-to pick that’s often on sale | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

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

Updated versions of the AirPods were a no-show at Apple’s iPhone 13 event last month, but Apple did recently roll out a firmware update to bring Conversation Boost to the AirPods Pro. An earlier software update also expanded the Find My integration on the AirPods Pro and Max, allowing you to locate your misplaced headphones if they come within Bluetooth...

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AirPods Pro can help you hear conversations better after recent firmware update

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Apple’s promised Conversation Boost feature that uses the AirPods Pro to make it easier to hear people’s voices is available now (via Macrumors). Support for the new feature was included as part of the same update that made it easier to find AirPods Pro and AirPods Max using the Find My app.

Conversation Boost is included as a Custom Transparency Mode in Apple’s headphone accommodations. When the feature is enabled, the beam-forming microphones on the AirPods Pro attempt to isolate voices above any background noise and other conversations. There’s also access to sliders to modify the amplification, transparency, and tone of what you hear.

If your AirPods Pro are running firmware 4A400, you can enable Conversation Boost...

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The latest iOS 15.1 beta includes iPhone 13 Pro camera features

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Two new iPhone 13 Pro camera features that Apple promised would be coming in future software updates have shown up in the latest developer beta of iOS 15.1. Now users can record video with Apple’s ProRes codec, and there’s a switch to turn off the automatic macro mode switching (via 9to5Mac). With this release of the third beta, users have gained access to the toggles, which could indicate that the features are coming soon.

In the current versions of iOS, the iPhone 13 Pro will automatically switch from the main camera to the ultrawide camera when it detects that you’re close up to a subject, enabling the close-focus macro mode. Some reviewers found the switch (which happens without much of a UI indication) jarring, and Apple said it...

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Twitter’s latest pre-tweet prompts let you know when you’re about to jump into a Twitter fight

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is testing new prompts on iOS and Android that warn before you jump into a conversation that could get heated. In one example, there’s a prompt dropped right into a conversation in progress that says “conversations like this can be intense.” In another, which seems like it appears if you try to reply to one of those intense conversations, is titled “let’s look out for each other” and lays out three bullet points to encourage empathetic and fact-based conversations.

You can get a look at the prompts in the tweet below:

Ever want to know the vibe of a conversation before you join in? We’re testing prompts on Android and iOS that give you a heads up if the convo you’re about to enter could get heated or intense.

This is a work in...

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What If...?’s ending was spoiled weeks ago by Thor in a Hyundai commercial

What If..?’s finale debuted on Disney Plus today, and it brought some bigger multiversal mayhem with it. But fans may have already gotten the big reveal of the finale spoiled for them all the way back in August… thanks to a Hyundai Tucson commercial?

Spoilers for “What If… The Watcher Broke His Oath” andWhat If…?’s first season below:

Marvel projects are no stranger to commercials and product placement, of course, but the Hynduai commercial (part of a series of ads that the company has been doing together with Disney Plus) marks a particularly strange turn — one that mashes storytelling with advertising.

The main conceit of the bulk of What If…?’s early episodes was that the series was an anthology, providing standalone tales in...

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Here are the best iPad deals right now

Select iPad models go on sale quite regularly. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Deals on Apple’s iPads are more common than you might think. Whether you’re after the new entry-level iPad just introduced for 2021, the high-end iPad Pro, or something in between like the iPad Air or the latest 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 our deal hunters at _The Verge_are doing each and every day, so let us help you out.

Below, we’ve listed each iPad model that is currently available, some of which are outgoing models with freshly introduced replacements. While the best deals of the year may be just around the corner with Black Friday and Cyber...

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The founder of Facebook’s CrowdTangle tool is leaving

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Brandon Silverman, the founder and CEO of the Facebook-owned analytics tool CrowdTangle, is leaving the company, according to an internal farewell post to colleagues posted Wednesday that was seen by The Verge.

His departure comes as Facebook is under pressure to publicly share more data about the content that spreads on its service. CrowdTangle, a free tool that lets anyone track popular posts across Facebook and Instagram, is at the center of that debate. In recent years, it has been used to show that far-right personalities are regularly the most engaged-with accounts on Facebook. That irritated some Facebook executives who felt that the data being shared by CrowdTangle was incomplete, and earlier this year, the CrowdTangle team was...

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Valve opens up a Steam Deck to explain why it thinks you shouldn’t

Image: Valve

Valve has posted an official teardown of its upcoming handheld gaming PC, the Steam Deck. Before diving into the teardown, though, the company spends about a minute to strongly caution against taking one apart unless you’re sure you know what you’re doing.

“Even though it’s your PC — or it will be once you’ve received your Steam Deck — and you have every right to open it up and do what you want, we at Valve really don’t recommend that you ever open it up,” a Valve representative said in the video. “The Steam Deck is a very tightly designed system, and the parts are chosen carefully for this product with its specific construction, so they aren’t really designed to be user-swappable.”

Image: Valve

The inside of a...

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Apple is making it easier to delete accounts attached to third-party apps

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple will require developers that offer a way to create accounts in their apps to also offer a way to delete them, starting with app submissions on January 31st, 2022, the company shared Wednesday. The account deletion requirement was originally announced alongside several other changes to Apple’s developer guidelines at WWDC 2021.

Account deletion is a minor convenience, but considering how often apps require accounts and how easy it is to delete an app without ending your relationship with the company connected to it, it’s welcome. Apple’s announcement suggests only that developers “allow users to initiate deletion of their account from within the app,” so it’s possible implementations of these account deletion features could bump you...

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Facebook reportedly slows feature development for ‘reputational reviews’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook is slowing down the release and development of some new products and features to make sure they won’t bring more scrutiny towards the company or harm children, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The “reputational reviews” come as Facebook is facing backlash from the public and policymakers after a wave of reports citing Facebook’s own research showing ways Instagram could have a negative effect on teen girls’ mental health. Facebook was also slammed in congressional hearings by whistleblower Frances Haugen, who shed more light on Facebook’s internal research, as well as its business model and algorithms.

Some of Facebook’s recent public actions and statements back up the idea that it’s being extra careful right...

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Facebook’s whistleblower report confirms what researchers have known for years

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

For weeks, Facebook has stared down mounting anxiety over a leaked internal study about the harmful effects of Instagram on teenage girls — and Tuesday night, Mark Zuckerberg finally responded to the scandal personally. In an open letter to Facebook staff, Zuckerberg scoffed at concerns raised by whistleblower Frances Haugen, doubling down on earlier Facebook claims that the report has been misinterpreted.

“If we’re going to have an informed conversation about the effects of social media on young people, it’s important to start with a full picture,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We’re committed to doing more research ourselves and making more research publicly available.”

But for researchers who study social media, the internal study that sparked...

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Medtronic issues ‘urgent’ recall of insulin pump controller vulnerable to hacks

Photo by KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images

Medical device company Medtronic issued an urgent recall of the remote controller for certain insulin pumps because they’re vulnerable to hacks. It’s possible for someone to copy the signals sent from the controllers to the pumps and deliver or block a dose of insulin, which could be dangerous for diabetic patients using the pumps.

In the recall statement, Medtronic saidthat it wasn’t aware of any situations where this type of hack has occurred. The company was first made aware of the issue in 2018 after an independent cybersecurity researcher found the vulnerability and told users about the problem. That initial alert told users how to disable the remote control feature when they weren’t using it.

Now, the company says people shouldn’t...

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NASA shuffles astronaut crew assignments amid ongoing Boeing delays

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft | Photo by GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images

Two NASA astronauts originally slated to launch on an upcoming flight of Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft have been reassigned to an upcoming SpaceX flight instead, as delays continue to push back Starliner’s next flight to space. Astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada were supposed to be among the first human passengers on Starliner during its first crewed flights in the coming years. Now, they’ll fly together on SpaceX’s fifth crewed mission to the International Space Station, which is slated to take place in the fall of 2022.

Mann and Cassada were first assigned to fly on Starliner in 2018. Mann was supposed to fly on the Starliner’s first crewed test flight, along with Michael Fincke and Butch Wilmore — a critical test to prove...

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Nintendo will reveal Animal Crossing’s next big update on October 15th

Like the Smash Direct before it, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting its own showcase coming October 15th. The Animal Crossing Twitter account revealed the news, promising 20 minutes of updates and announcements of what to expect for Nintendo’s bucolic hit of the pandemic.

[Announcement]
The #AnimalCrossing: New Horizons Direct will air on Oct. 15 at 7am PT! Tune in for roughly 20 minutes of information about the content coming to Animal Crossing: New Horizons in November. #ACNHpic.twitter.com/gc7rfFoxpk

— Isabelle (@animalcrossing) October 6, 2021

New Horizons has been in a bit of a new-content dearth. While seasonal items used to spruce up villagers’ islands are added regularly, new events have been a bit slower to roll out....

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Halide’s latest update brings the iPhone 13 Pro’s Macro Mode to older iPhones

Images: Halide

Halide is one of the best photography apps on the iPhone, and the company has just updated its app with a new macro feature, designed to perfectly complement the new macro mode that Apple added with this year’s iPhone 13 Pro models.

But Halide’s 2.5 update doesn’t just add support for the iPhone 13 Pro’s existing macro feature that Apple made. It takes things a step further and adds a macro mode for older iPhones, too, using Apple’s Neural Engine for “AI-based detail enhancement,” which uses a neural network to squeeze extra detail out of the close-up shot, even when you crop in.

The “official” macro mode on the iPhone 13 Pro and 13 Pro Max uses the new ultra-wide lens that Apple offers on its more premium models, which — unlike the...

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The Chevy Silverado EV will debut at the 2022 Consumer Electronics Show

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

General Motors will debut the all-electric Chevy Silverado at the 2022 Consumer Electronics show in January in Las Vegas, Nevada, as part of CEO Mary Barra’s opening keynote address.

The Silverado EV will be the second electric truck announced by GM, following the pickup version of the resurrected Hummer. The Silverado is one of the flagship vehicles in the company’s much larger push into electric vehicles — an effort that GM described in greater detail on Wednesday during an investor event where it also announced a new version of its hands-free driver assistance system. It will be the first electric truck for the Chevy brand, though, and it’s sort of fitting that it will debut at CES, considering that the production Bolt EV was r...

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GM reveals Ultra Cruise ‘hands-free’ system that covers ‘95 percent’ of driving scenarios

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

After years of teases, General Motors is finally pulling the curtain back on its next-generation “hands-free” driver-assist technology.

Dubbed Ultra Cruise, the new system uses sensors like cameras, radars, and lidar to control the steering, acceleration, and braking on 2 million miles of paved roads and in “95 percent” of driving scenarios, the automaker says. Ultra Cruise will be available in a handful of premium model vehicles in 2023, though GM wouldn’t disclose which models will receive the new active driver-assist system.

The news was announced as part of GM’s two-day annual investor event, in which GM also announced news about its plan to double revenues by 2030 as it seeks to become a software company in addition to making cars....

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Recycled plastic won’t solve tech’s waste problem

A man collects garbage, including plastic waste, at the beach of Costa del Este, in Panama City, on April 19, 2021.  | Photo by LUIS ACOSTA/AFP via Getty Images

It doesn’t get at the root of the problem

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AT&T is allegedly One America News Network’s biggest backer

AT&T allegedly played a pivotal role in the creation of One America News Network (OAN), a right-wing outlet frequently criticized for spreading false news stories, according to a Reuters report. Based on court documents and other sources, Reuters recounts the telecom giant’s executives telling OAN creator Robert Herring Sr. that they wanted a conservative outlet that could sit alongside Fox News and balance out more liberal channels.

“They told us they wanted a conservative network,” Herring reportedly said in a 2019 court deposition. “When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.”

Reuters’ story draws on records from the companies’ tumultuous legal history, including an OAN complaint against AT&T and a retaliation lawsuit filed...

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The best laptop you can buy in 2021

Image: William Joel/The Verge

The best laptops for you, from ultraportables to high-powered editing machines

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Sony Alpha ZV-E10 review: interchangeable lens vlogging machine

Warning: will likely lead to expensive lens purchases

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Twitch confirms major data breach after its source code and secrets leak out

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitch has confirmed that it has suffered a major data breach. “We can confirm a breach has taken place,” says a Twitch spokesperson on Twitter. “Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of this. We will update the community as soon as additional information is available.”

Hackers have so far leaked data that includes source code for the company’s streaming service, an unreleased Steam competitor from Amazon Game Studios, and details of creator payouts. An anonymous poster on the 4chan messaging board released a 125GB torrent earlier today, which they claim includes the entirety of Twitch and its commit history.

We can confirm a breach has taken place. Our teams are working with urgency to understand the extent of...

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What’s good, bad, and missing in the Facebook whistleblower’s testimony

Today let’s talk about Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony before the Senate: the good, the bad, and what ought to happen next.

For more than three hours on Tuesday, Haugen addressed a subset of the Senate Commerce Committee. She appeared calm, confident, and in control as she read her opening remarks and fielded questions from both parties. While she brought more nuance to her critique than most Facebook critics — she supports Section 230, for example, and opposes a breakup of the company — she also said the company should declare “moral bankruptcy.”

“becoming an almost trillion-dollar company by buying its profits with our safety”

“This is not simply a matter of certain social media users being angry or unstable, or about...

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A major Hollywood union threatens to strike over streaming pay

Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Members of a union representing tens of thousands of television and film production workers announced this week that its members voted overwhelmingly to authorize a nationwide strike over stalled negotiations on several new contracts. A strike could severely disrupt production across Hollywood — but only if the union determines its discussions for improved pay on streaming productions and better working conditions aren’t moving forward.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) announced Monday that 90 percent of its roughly 60,000 members participated in the vote, with 98 percent of those casting their ballots in favor of a strike authorization. What that meant isn’t that a strike was necessarily imminent, but...

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iPhone 13 Mini and 13 Pro Max battery life: better, and a beast

iPhone 13 Mini and iPhone 13 Pro Max | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

I wanted to spend more time with both the iPhone 13 Mini and the iPhone 13 Pro Max before I weighed in with a final verdict on their respective batteries. I’ve updated my full reviewsof each to reflect my impressions after using them for a couple weeks, but I figured it might be helpful to lay out what I’m seeing separately.

The long and the short of it is that, in both cases, the batteries exceeded my expectations. Apple really did improve on the feature that matters most to most people: these phones last longer than their predecessors.

It’s easy to talk about the battery life on the iPhone 13 Pro Max. It’s ridiculous. It goes and goes, lasting so long that I had to actively work to kill the thing in less than a full day by just...

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iPhone 13 review: yep, bigger batteries are better

So are bigger cameras

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iPhone 13 Pro review: a better display, the best camera, and incredible battery life

Smooth operators

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The Facebook whistleblower hearing unearthed the danger of engagement algorithms

Photo by Matt McClain-Pool/Getty Images

On Tuesday, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen appeared before a Senate Commerce Committee subcommittee in one of the most significant hearings for the company over the last few years.

Haugen’s testimony followed bombshell reporting from the _Wall Street Journal_last month that detailed the ways in which Facebook’s products can inflict harm on users. The _Journal_stories were based on a series of internal reports at Facebook that Haugen leaked to the newspaper. One specific set of reports suggested that Facebook knew Instagram was “toxic” for teenage users, especially young girls.

“Facebook has put profits ahead of people,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said on Tuesday. “I hope we will discuss whether there is such a thing as a safe...

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How to scan your Windows PC for malware

Illustration by Maria Chimishkyan

If you think your PC is infected with some kind of malware or you just want to do a scan as part of a digital cleanup, Windows has a built-in security tool that can help you on your way — no third-party software to install or pay for. It’s called Windows Security.

Once upon a time, Windows Security was called Windows Defender Security Center, but the app is largely similar. Searching “Windows Defender” in the Start menu will bring up Windows Security, and even now, Microsoft often refers to its actual antivirus scanning as Windows Defender.

Microsoft’s built-in anti-malware software used to be thought of as totally worthless, but these days, it can hang with big names like Kaspersky and Avast in independent tests (blocking 99.7% of...

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Adidas is making Xbox sneakers

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft’s Xbox team is partnering with Adidas to create limited-edition Xbox sneakers. The collaboration will see Adidas produce an Xbox sneaker to mark 20 years since the original release of the Xbox console. The sneakers include the Xbox logo and translucent green details.

While this appears to be a limited-edition sneaker that Microsoft will use for giveaways, there will also be a separate Xbox-inspired sneaker available for purchase later this year. “This is just the beginning of our partnership with adidas, and over the next few months we’ll continue to mark our 20th anniversary by launching additional sneakers inspired by past and present Xbox console generations, including the first-ever sneaker available for purchase by our...

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