Amazon India allegedly rigged search results and ripped off sellers’ products

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon allegedly used its search system and user data to gain an edge over sellers in India, according to a new report from Reuters. The report — based on internal emails, strategy plans, and other documents — outlines an ambitious plan to dominate the platform with its in-house brands. According to the documents, that plan included strategies that Amazon has vehemently denied using amid antitrust scrutiny.

The Reuters story provides extensive details about Amazon India’s alleged activity, but two key pieces stand out. The first is a claim that Amazon employees used “search seeding” (or boosting the rankings of specific product listings) to ensure that company brands like AmazonBasics appeared “in the first two or three” search results...

Continue reading…

Bose’s new SoundLink Flex speaker has a rugged design and ‘astonishing’ sound

Bose is introducing its first new portable Bluetooth speaker in quite a while. The $149 SoundLink Flex has a ruggedized design with an IP67 rating for dust and water resistance, 12-hour battery life, and what Bose claims is “astonishing” audio performance for its size.

At 7.9 inches wide, 3.6 inches high, 2.1 inches deep, and weighing slightly over one pound, the SoundLink Flex is nicely compact and has a built-in utility loop for attaching to a carabiner. It’ll be sold in three colors: there’s black, smoke white, and blue.

Inside the SoundLink Flex is a custom transducer that Bose says is “as big as could fit” and capable of producing “bass that you can feel in your chest.” Using a feature that Bose calls “PositionIQ,” the speaker can...

Continue reading…

Acer’s new ConceptD 7 SpatialLabs Edition laptop uses eye-tracking cameras for a glasses-free 3D display

Acer is finally bringing its glasses-free 3D SpatialLabs tech to a laptop you can buy: the company has officially announced the ConceptD 7 SpatialLabs Edition.

Announced earlier this year, SpatialLabs combines a suite of hardware and software features. These features include a special stereo camera with two sensors that track your eyes and head, an optical lens on the display that refracts the two slightly different images to your eyes, and rendering software that adjusts the 3D images in real time as you move.

As part of its ConceptD lineup of products for designers and developers, Acer’s pitch here is that the 3D display will allow for users to see 3D projects for CAD designs, 3D printing, architecture, or animation in three...

Continue reading…

Acer’s Predator gaming projector is one of the first to support variable refresh rate

Just two people enjoying the delights of variable refresh rate on a projector. | Acer

Acer’s Predator lineup of gaming products now includes two 4K projectors: the GM712 and the GD711. Focusing on the GD711 first because that’s the one Acer chose to share the most information on, it’s an LED projector that boasts up to 1,450 ANSI lumens of brightness (or 4,000 LED lumens) with HDR10 support. It supports 4K resolution in standard mode, but it stands out with its variable refresh rate (VRR) mode that’ll display a smoother image as performance fluctuates in powerful consoles, including the Xbox Series X and fast PCs.

In that mode, it bumps the resolution down from 4K to 1080p resolution but boosts the refresh rate to 120Hz for consoles or up to 240Hz for PCs and notably can dynamically shift the refresh rate as needed. The...

Continue reading…

Acer’s Chromebook 515 is made for business on the go

The Chromebook 515 is a new line from Acer.

Like most laptop manufacturers, Acer has been courting remote workers and students with many of its new releases. I’ve spent some time with an early sample of the Chromebook 515, a new line targeting remote business users.

Perhaps most importantly for many work-from-home customers, the 515 looks to be a solid video-conferencing tool. The speakers, with the help of a built-in smart amplifier, deliver audio that’s surprisingly loud and easily fills a room — it’s louder than the audio of many much more expensive Windows laptops I’ve reviewed recently. The webcam has a physical shutter that’s easy to slide back and forth and did a good job keeping me visible in dim light (though it delivered a somewhat grainy picture). There are two...

Continue reading…

Anker announces Soundcore’s first audio glasses, priced at $200

Image: Anker

Anker is joining in on the trend of glasses that pull double duty as music listening devices. Today the company’s Soundcore brand announced the $199.99 Soundcore Frames. That price gets you the glasses’ temples and a frame of your choosing. The frames can be swapped out for any of the 10 different designs, but the chunky side temples always stay the same polished black style. They’re due to start shipping in mid-November and will be available from Anker’s website, Amazon, and Best Buy among other retailers.

The temples essentially act as true wireless earbuds, with two speakers in each one. This is a strategy we’ve seen from other companies like Razer. In Anker’s case, it makes it simple to switch the temples to a different frame;...

Continue reading…

On The Verge is happening October 22nd and 23rd, and you’re invited

An artistic rendering of The Verge’s 10-year party at Spring Studios in NYC.

Join us in New York City for live performances, amazing artists and creators, and much more

Continue reading…

DoorDash launches $1 million disaster relief fund for restaurants

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Restaurant delivery platform DoorDash has launched a restaurant disaster relief fund that will offer grants of up to $10,000 to US restaurants affected by natural disasters over the next year, the company said Wednesday. The $1 million fund will be open to eligible restaurant owners beginning November 1st and is a partnership with small business assistance platform Hello Alice. Restaurants affected by Hurricane Ida in August and the ongoing California wildfires are eligible to apply, the company said.

To qualify, restaurants must be experiencing hardship due to a state or federally declared natural disaster; have a brick-and-mortar location in the US with three or fewer locations; and have fewer than 50 employees per location. The...

Continue reading…

Apple’s AirPods Max are $100 off at Amazon and Walmart

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

Another day, another sweet deal on the Apple AirPods Max. This time you can get them in select colorways at Amazon and Walmart for $450. We haven’t seen these headphones drop below this price yet, so this is a perfect time to get your hands on some if you missed out on any of our previous deals. Our reviewer Chris Welch was impressed by the “tremendous build quality and sound” but was a little put off by the price. This sale helps soften the blow of the initial sticker shock and brings them a little closer to competitors from Sony and Bose. These robust cans offer a luxurious fit and finish, pairing them with amazing spatial audio and noise cancellation.

If you bought that shiny new OLED Switch, but you’ve already run out of storage...

Continue reading…

Snapchat is down, as many users can’t post or send messages

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

For the last couple of hours, Snap Streaks have been at risk as many users report they can’t successfully post story updates or send messages on the service. In a tweet, the Snapchat Support Twitter account confirmed there are issues this morning, telling people to “hang tight, we’re looking into it!”

The source of the issue is unclear, but this doesn’t seem to be a Facebook-level event that could take a long time to fix. The app itself is still mostly functional for some of us, and if you don’t try to post you may not notice anything is wrong right away. It’s also not crashing constantly, which has been a problem for Snapchat. So whenever service is restored, you may not need an update before you can connect again.

Based on user...

Continue reading…

AMD Radeon RX 6600 official: 1080p for $329, at retail any moment now

Surprise! AMD just revealed the $329* Radeon RX 6600, a new budget 1080p gaming graphics card that should be available at Amazon, Best Buy, Micro Center and Newegg starting as soon as the very moment we published this story at 9AM ET. Given how exorbitant GPU prices have been during the global chip crunch, you should probably stop reading if you want one and get with the clicking.

OK: If you’re reading these words, I’m assuming you’ve now secured either a new GPU or a dose of disappointment. Great! Now let’s discuss why you might actually want this video card, based on my recent briefing with AMD.

*all of these prices are made up by AMD and Nvidia and you’ll rarely ever see them

If you’ve read my colleague Tom Warren’s recent AMD RX...

Continue reading…

Apple Watch Series 7 review: time and time again

A bigger screen and faster charging are nice, but not reasons to upgrade

Continue reading…

Apple exploring AirPods that take your temperature and monitor posture: report

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple is reportedly exploring new health-focused features for its AirPods, according to The Wall Street Journal. Features might include using the earbuds to take wearers’ temperature, monitor their posture, and improve their hearing. The WSJ notes that it’s not clear if the latter function differs significantly from AirPods’ existing “Conversation Boost” feature.

According to the WSJ, these functions “aren’t expected by next year and might never be rolled out to consumers or the timing could change.” In other words, it sounds like the iPhone maker is just exploring these new health features, rather than actively working on integrating them with products due out in the next year or two.

Adding these sensors would make sense for Apple....

Continue reading…

How different is Amazon’s Halo View from the Fitbit Charge 5?

Amazon’s Halo View fitness tracker looks strikingly similar to the Fitbit Charge 5. | Amazon

If recent headlines were any indication, Amazon’s fall hardware event was all about Amazon’s forthcoming home robot, Astro, and its new home surveillance drone. Buried in the deluge of announcements, however, was the Halo View, an $80 fitness tracker that bears a striking resemblance to the recently released Fitbit Charge 5. The similarities become even more pronounced when you consider the View’s new display and its ability to track your heart rate and sleep quality. In many respects, it seems as if Amazon created a Fitbit Charge 5-like wearable at a price point that makes it far more accessible. Or did it?

We analyzed the two to find out. We have yet to test the Halo View, however, so note that the comparison below is based on the...

Continue reading…

Watch William Shatner fly to space on Blue Origin’s tourist rocket

William Shatner and his fellow passengers pose in their Blue Origin flight suits | Image: Blue Origin

Early Wednesday morning, famed Star Trek actor William Shatner will boldly go where he’s never been before: actual space. Shatner, best known for playing James T. Kirk, Captain of the USS Enterprise, is set to fly to space and back, along with three fellow passengers, aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket out of West Texas.

Today’s flight marks the second crewed flight for the New Shepard, a reusable passenger rocket developed by Blue Origin to take paying customers to the edge of space to experience a few brief moments of weightlessness. The company’s first crewed flight in July famously included Blue Origin’s founder, former Amazon CEO and currently the second richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos.

boldly going where he’s never been...

Continue reading…

Why look at reality when you can edit what you see in real time?

The adoption of augmented reality is happening slowly but surely, and it’s easy to see one possible future for the technology: hardware that lets you edit what you see in real time, replacing objects around you with virtual overlays. Call it mixed reality, to be more precise.

Recent research from the AI team at Porsche (yes, the carmakers — we’ll get to that in a bit) shows how this might work. The team has built an AI system dubbed TransforMR that detects objects like cars and people, removes them, then replaces them with CGI alternatives in real-time. The end-results are hardly flawless (edits are haphazard and the CGI models look like they were borrowed from 3D Movie Maker) but the concept is striking. It’s not hard to imagine...

Continue reading…

Ford to deploy ‘angels’ to troubleshoot busted EV chargers

Charging Ford’s electric Mach-E. | Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge

Ford has an interesting idea for how it can improve the reliability of electric car chargers in the US: charge angels. In an interview with Automotive News_,_Ford’s general manager of electric vehicles Darren Palmer, announced plans to deploy employees in specially equipped electric Ford Mach-Es to visit and test chargers when connected vehicle data or social media complaints suggest there might be a problem.

“All they’ll do all day long is go and check them to see where they fail and why,” Palmer said. Although details of the initiative are yet to be finalized, the company expects it to launch before the end of the year, ready for the release of the all-electric F-150 Lightning in 2022.

“Some of them are old and they don’t have the...

Continue reading…

OpenSea fixes vulnerabilities that could let hackers steal crypto with malicious NFTs

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

OpenSea has fixed vulnerabilities in its platform that could’ve let hackers steal someone’s crypto after sending them a maliciously crafted NFT. The issue was found by security firm Check Point Research, which noticed tweets from people claiming they were hacked after being gifted NFTs, according to a blog post. The researchers talked to one of the people saying they were attacked, and found vulnerabilities proving an attack could happen this way and reported the problems to OpenSea. The security firm says the NFT trading platform fixed the issue within an hour and worked with researchers to make sure the fix worked.

While the attackers potentially being able to drain entire wallets is certainly not a good look for OpenSea, it wasn’t a...

Continue reading…

Bird’s scooters will now emit annoying beeps when you drive on the sidewalk

Photo by Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Riding an electric scooter on the sidewalk is dangerous, but scooter-sharing companies have struggled to prevent their customers from engaging in risky behavior. Bird thinks it has found a solution: annoying beeps.

Using technology provided by a company called u-blox, Bird is rolling out an end-to-end GPS system “designed to deliver centimeter-level accuracy specifically for the micromobility industry.” Riders who stray onto the sidewalk will be bombarded with audio alerts from the scooter, as well as notifications on their smartphones, warning them to get back on the street. Failure to follow directions results in a de-powered scooter: the vehicle will slow down and eventually come to a stop.

The problem Bird is trying to solve is a...

Continue reading…

Windows 11’s first update makes AMD CPU performance even worse

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

AMD warned last week that its chips are experiencing performance issues in Windows 11, and now Microsoft’s first update to its new OS has reportedly made the problems worse. _TechPowerUp_reports that it’s seeing much higher latency, which means worse performance, after the Windows 11 update went live yesterday.

AMD and Microsoft found two issues with Windows 11 on Ryzen processors. Windows 11 can cause L3 cache latency to triple, slowing performance by up to 15 percent in certain games. The second issue affects AMD’s preferred core technology, that shifts threads over to the fastest core on a processor. AMD says this second bug could impact performance on CPU-reliant tasks.

The first Windows 11 update arrived yesterday

TechPowerUp...

Continue reading…

Realme’s extremely green GT Neo 2 flagship has a Snapdragon 870 for $425

Realme has launched its latest flagship phone for India, the GT Neo 2. It’s similar to the impressive Realme GT that came to Europe a few months ago — this one is better in some ways but worse in others. Depending on your taste, you’ll probably feel quite strongly about which bucket the neon green version pictured above falls into. (It also comes in black and blue.)

While the GT has a Snapdragon 888 processor, the GT Neo 2 is built around an 870. This is basically Qualcomm’s speed-bumped version of the 865 Plus, which was itself a faster version of last year’s flagship chip — the main core now runs at 3.2GHz. Realme says the GT Neo 2’s new vapor cooling system is 30 percent larger and 20 percent more efficient, making use of stainless...

Continue reading…

Quake remaster is now 4K 120fps on PS5 and Xbox Series X / S

Image: Bethesda

The “next-gen upgrade” for this year’s Quake remaster, which adds support for up to 4K / 120fps gameplay, is now available for the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. The upgrade is available for free, according to Bethesda, and there’s no time limit to redeem it. The PC version of the game isn’t getting the upgrade, since it already supports 4K / 120fps.

As well as the framerate improvements, the upgrade also adds support for the PS5 Dualsense controller’s adaptive triggers and integrated speaker. Meanwhile, Xbox players get Play Anywhere support, a Microsoft technology that means ownership of the game and progress automatically carries over to its PC version.

The upgrade process is a little different for the PlayStation and Xbox....

Continue reading…

Bowers & Wilkins updates iconic Zeppelin speaker with Alexa and AirPlay 2

New streaming tech, old Zeppelin shape. | Image: Bowers & Wilkins

Bowers & Wilkins has announced a new Zeppelin speaker that updates the eye-catching design with modern connectivity and smarts. The new speaker supports wireless standards like Qualcomm’s AptX Adaptive and Apple’s AirPlay 2 and also has Alexa built-in for voice control of your music. The new Zeppelin is available to order in light or dark grey starting today and is priced at $799 / £699 / €799.

The original Zeppelin was one of the most iconic iPod docks available when it launched in 2007, and it’s been updated several times over the years as the way we listen to music has changed. 2011’s Zeppelin Air added support for Apple’s AirPlay standard alongside its existing 30-pin dock, while the 2015 Zeppelin Wireless dropped the dock entirely...

Continue reading…

Fujifilm launches wide-format version of its Instax Link mobile printer

Fujifilm has announced a new mobile printer that uses its larger Instax Wide format film. The Instax Link Wide Smartphone Printer is a similar idea to the existing Instax Mini Link: hook up your phone over Bluetooth and use an app to edit and print your own Polaroid-style snapshots from your camera roll.

Instax Wide film is much bigger than Instax Mini — it’s about the size of two credit cards side by side. That means your Link Wide printouts might not be as easy to carry in a wallet as Instax Mini photos, but they should be a lot more viewable and usable for other purposes.

The Link Wide printer is also compatible with Fujifilm’s X-S10 mirrorless camera from last year, allowing you to print directly without a phone. Of course, you can...

Continue reading…

Some of Verizon’s Visible cell network customers say they’ve been hacked

Image: Visible

Some customers of Verizon’s Visible service are using social media to say that hackers have accessed their accounts, changed their information to lock them out, and in some cases even ordered phones using their payment info (via XDA). If you’re not familiar, Visible is a cell service owned and operated by Verizon that pitches itself as a less expensive, “all-digital” network, meaning there aren’t any physical stores like you’d get with a traditional carrier. Starting on Monday, customers on both Twitter and Reddit reported en masse that they’d been getting emails from the company about changed passwords and addresses, and that they’ve had difficulties contacting the company’s chat support.

Visible’s customer service account on Twitter...

Continue reading…

Trans employees at Netflix plan walkout even as one activist is reinstated following suspension

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The trans employee resource group at Netflix is planning a company-wide walkout on October 20th to protest statements made by co-CEO Ted Sarandos regarding Dave Chappelle’s latest comedy special The Closer.

“Trans Lives Matter. Trans Rights Matter. And as an organization, Netflix has continually failed to show deep care in our mission to Entertain the World by repeatedly releasing content that harms the Trans community and continually failing to create content that represents and uplifts Trans content. We can and must do better!” wrote a leader of the trans ERG in an internal organizing message.

The event comes even as Netflix has reinstated Terra Field and two other employees who were suspended after attending a director-level meeting...

Continue reading…

Samsung announces Unpacked 2 event for Wednesday Oct 20th, right after Apple and Google

Samsung has just sent out invitations for an event it is holding online on Wednesday, October 20th at 7AM PT / 10AM ET. It’s called “Galaxy Unpacked Part 2,” which is possibly an indication that rather than all new Galaxy phones, we may be seeing iterations on existing ones.

With Samsung’s announcement, we’ll now have an Apple event on Monday (where we are expecting new MacBook Pros), Google’s Pixel 6 launch on Tuesday, and now Samsung’s apparently smaller event on Wednesday.

In addition to the invite’s image, Samsung’s newsroom post announcing the event hints at some kind of personalization for Galaxy devices: “Our users are multifaceted and live life in so many colorful, interesting, and unique ways. As such, the technology they use...

Continue reading…

G4 TV returns November 16th with Attack of the Show, Xplay and more

Image: G4 TV

After more than a year of teasing and occasional streams, G4 will make its return as a linear TV channel on November 16th. So far, the channel is confirmed to appear on Comcast/Xfinity, Verizon Fios, Cox, and Philo. Since announcing its return last year, G4 has put out some reunion content plus occasional streams on Twitch, where the network will maintain a “multi-year promotional and commercial partnership.”

Though the original G4 faded out when it got rebranded as the Esquire Channel about eight years ago, the network’s new mantra is that “we never stopped playing.” Network president Russell Arons writes in a statement that G4 “can’t wait to have our fans join us in our hilarious and fairly preposterous sandbox.”

When G4 comes back...

Continue reading…

Netflix is adding the original Cowboy Bebop so you can watch it all before the live action adaptation

An image from_Cowboy Bebop._ | Image: Netflix

Netflix is adding the original Cowboy Bebop anime series to its catalog on October 21st, giving you about a month to watch it all ahead of the live-action series’ debut on November 19th.

This is great news for me personally. I’ve been extremely intrigued by what Netflix has shown from the live-action series — which so far has included a series of images and the opening title sequence, which is inspired heavily by the one from the anime — but I haven’t seen the original show for myself. Now that the whole show will be on Netflix, I can see it all with a subscription to just one streaming service.

Bang… COWBOY BEBOP, the original anime series, is coming to Netflix worldwide on October 21 pic.twitter.com/BN3LF2XVSl

— Netflix Geeked...

Continue reading…

Netflix calls Squid Game its ‘biggest ever series at launch’

Image: Netflix

Netflix’s hugely popular series Squid Game has become its biggest title ever at launch, the company said Monday.

The company’s Netflix Geeked account tweeted Monday that Hwang Dong-Hyuk’s survival thriller reached 111 million global accounts in its first 17 days on the service. Additionally, Squid Game is the first Netflix series to surpass 100 million in its first 28 days on the service, a spokesperson told The Verge. Netflix typically uses 28-day windows to measure the performance of a title on its platform.

The spokesperson confirmed to The Verge that the figures it shared are based on the number of accounts that watched the series for at least two minutes, its standard metric for ranking titles (though it has used additional...

Continue reading…