AirPod Beanies bring back the infamous iPod Sock for a new generation

The infamous iPod Sock is getting a successor of sorts from accessory company Native Union, in the form of the “AirPods Beanies” — a cozy knit case where you can put your AirPods’ existing case for an added layer of protection.

For those of you who are a bit lost right now, a quick piece of history. Of all the products that Apple has made over the years, the iPod Sock definitely is one of them: a set of six colorful, two-tone knit sleeves that were designed to fit Apple’s various iPods for both style and protection. A bizarre piece of Apple’s history on par with the recent $20 screen cleaning cloth, the iPod Socks sold for the rather expensive (for socks) price of $29 for a pack of six.

Image: Apple

The original...

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Seagate violated sanctions by selling hard drives to Huawei, says Senate committee

Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

A US Senate committee says manufacturer Seagate likely violated government sanctions by shipping hard drives to Chinese manufacturer Huawei.

The Republican minority staff of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation released a report alleging Seagate ignored August 2020 restrictions on shipping semiconductor components to Huawei — a category the report alleges “likely includes hard disk drives.” The report orders Seagate to stop shipments to Huawei and urges the US Commerce Department to “prioritize” enforcement of the sanctions, which the Trump administration implemented after claiming Huawei posed a national security threat.

Seagate said in 2020 that the sanctions shouldn’t disrupt its shipments

Huawei has used...

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GM will start making Chevy Bolts again on November 1st

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

General Motors will start making Chevy Bolts again on November 1st, after shutting down production in late August following a global recall of the electric vehicle due to battery fire risk. The production restart at the company’s Orion assembly plant in Michigan will last for at least two weeks, as _Reuters_reports, though GM isn’t saying what will happen after that.

The production restart will come just a few weeks after GM announced that battery supplier LG agreed to foot the $2 billion bill for the recall. And it comes at a time when global supply chain shortages have most of the auto industry dealing with way more customer demand than it can handle — which has also been driving more people than usual to buy EVs.

GM recalled all...

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Let’s discuss how we’re reviewing the 2021 MacBook Pro

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales

It is morning. The birds are chirping, a coffee percolator is bubbling, keyboards are clacking, and an Apple startup chime is ringing. The Verge’s Dieter Bohn, Nilay Patel, and Monica Chin are also walking into the recording studio to chat about the new iteration of Apple’s MacBook Pros.

And that is what you can listen to today. On Tuesdays for the remainder of the year, The Verge’s flagship podcast The Vergecast will be featuring additional new episodes, with each focused on a specific topic usually discussed on our regular Friday shows.

On a typical Vergecast, you may hear a bit about the behind-the-scenes activity that goes along with reviewing something like the iPhone or a VR headset. Today’s show dedicates a morning to pulling...

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One of our favorite budget webcams is 40 percent off right now

The Microsoft Modern Webcam features HDR and a modest design that looks subtle atop a monitor. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

We may still be living day to day with supply constraints, chip shortages, and shipping delays, but we’re thankfully past the time of scalped prices for webcams as folks quickly shifted to working from home and Zoom-everything. Now there are even some great deals on a pair of webcams ripped right from our guide to the best webcams: the Microsoft Modern Webcam and the Logitech C920S Pro HD Webcam.

Microsoft’s Modern Webcam is seeing the bigger discount, with a $28 discount direct from the Microsoft Store knocking the price to just $42, down from its usual $70. This is the lowest price around for this small webcam, which features a built-in privacy shade that easily slides over the lens. The Modern Webcam is perfect for any Windows 10 or...

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Biden appoints Jessica Rosenworcel to officially lead the FCC

Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call

President Joe Biden named acting Federal Communications Commissioner Chair Jessica Rosenworcel to officially head the agency on Tuesday, propping her up as the administration’s leader to tackle broadband expansion and net neutrality. Biden also nominated progressive advocate Gigi Sohn as the third Democrat for the bench.

The decision comes late into Biden’s term, beating out both former presidents Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon who nominated their FCC chairs well into September of their first years. If confirmed by the Senate before December, the FCC’s 2-2 deadlock would end and provide Democrats with a majority to push forward Biden’s telecom agenda. But it’s unclear if senators plan to move on Rosenworcel and Sohn’s confirmations...

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Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695 is a faster mid-tier 5G chip

Getty Images/iStockphoto

Qualcomm is announcing a pile of new Snapdragon chips today across its mid- and entry-level product lineups: the Snapdragon 778 Plus, 695, 680, and 480 Plus, offering more options to device manufacturers when it comes to picking the best processor for a phone — and, in theory, more choice for customers when they’re looking to buy one.

The most notable new chip is the Snapdragon 695, which replaces the Snapdragon 690 in Qualcomm’s lineup. Unlike the old model, the Snapdragon 695 will support both mmWave and sub-6GHz versions of 5G, which should help improve data speeds even on cheaper phones (which have thus far tended to skip out on offering mmWave support). There’s also a considerable boost in performance: Qualcomm promises a...

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Microsoft working on Windows 11 SE and low-cost Surface Laptop to take on Chromebooks

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Microsoft is about to compete even more directly with Chromebooks. The software giant is reportedly preparing to launch a new low-cost Surface Laptop aimed at education markets, specifically K-12, alongside a new edition of Windows 11 named Windows 11 SE.

_Windows Central_reports that the upcoming Surface Laptop could also be named Surface Laptop SE and will likely include an 11.6-inch (1366 x 768) display, with Intel’s N4120 Celeron processor and up to 8GB of RAM. This budget laptop is designed for K-12 students and to be as low cost as possible, with a single USB-A and USB-C port.

While Microsoft has used the SE moniker for Windows versions before (hello Windows 98 SE), Windows 11 SE won’t be a second edition of Windows 11. Instead,...

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YouTube Kids’ new monetization policy could defund consumeristic videos

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube is making it harder for kids’ videos that it deems “low quality” to qualify for monetization (via Engadget). The platform outlined its updated policies in a post on the YouTube Blog, noting that channels with “made for kids” content will need to abide by a stricter set of guidelines if they want to stay in the YouTube Partnership Program (YPP).

Its policies are meant to discourage kids’ content creators from pushing out videos that it describes as “heavily commercial or promotional” or if it encourages “negative behavior or attitudes.” If a channel violates these guidelines, YouTube may suspend them from YPP. Meanwhile, any individual videos that break the rules will lose advertisers.

“If a channel is found to have a strong focus...

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Supernatural, the VR workout app, adds boxing for more variety

You will punch your way to a much higher heart rate. | Supernatural

Supernatural, the Beat Saber-like VR app for the Oculus Quest and Quest 2 that gets you to work up a sweat by beating targets with virtual bats, has added another way to wreck a target: your fists. Boxing is the latest workout introduced on Supernatural and like the original bat-oriented “Flow” workout, it works up a sweat while being fun.

Supernatural Flow is sort of like Beat Saber crossed with high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Each workout can last from seven minutes to an hour, and there’s an enthusiastic coach shouting encouragements in your ear and guiding you through the session as you dance, lunge, squat, and murder targets with your VR bats.

The problem with Supernatural, at least for me, is that you can plateau. The...

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General Motors wants to help build 40,000 electric vehicle chargers in the US

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

General Motors will work with its network of dealers to help spur the installation of 40,000 electric vehicle chargers in the US, the company announced today. It will also begin selling its own “Ultium” branded Level 2 chargers for home or business uses.

GM said that it hopes the new project will spur the creation of EV charging stations in urban and rural underserved areas. The automaker will give each of its dealers “up to 10 Ultium Level 2 destination charging stations” to install throughout their communities, but the automaker does not plan on paying for all 40,000 chargers. Rather, it will work with its dealers and community leaders to find the appropriate financing.

Unlike Tesla or Volkswagen, GM does not own its own EV charging...

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YouTube gets serious about podcasting

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Hello, hello, and welcome back to the workweek. I hope everyone had a lovely weekend, and shout out to those of you who attended On The Verge. It was so nice to see people IRL and actually meet face to face. I hope we can do it again soon! Anyway, today’s a busy one with a couple scoops and analyses. Off we go.

SCOOP: Amazon is building a top-secret live audio app

Earlier today, I published a story about Amazon’s work on a live audio app, codenamed Project Mic. The app takes bits from Anchor and bits from Clubhouse — users can host DJ sets, like they would a radio show, and intersperse songs with talk. The idea is to reinvent radio. (I feel like I should have put a trigger warning on that sentence for some of you — sorry!)

The other...

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How to get up-close photos with the iPhone 13 Pro’s hidden macro mode

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max have great cameras, some of the best you can buy in a phone. They’ve also got an exclusive new feature Apple never offered before: a macro mode that lets you take extreme close-ups — just two centimeters away! — of intricate things you can barely see with the naked eye. Your pet’s incredibly fine fur, the veins of leaves, and the sub-pixels in your computer monitor’s screen are all now within reach.

But Apple doesn’t give you a macro mode _button_per se — it’s automatic. When you bring the phone within 10 cm of an object, it automatically switches to the ultrawide lens, which some users found jarring enough that Apple now lets you turn off auto-macro-switching in iOS 15.1.

But if you do that, and then...

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Amazon Kindle Paperwhite (2021) review: a bigger and better book

The most popular Kindle gets its biggest update in nearly a decade

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Oura adds period prediction and heart rate to its next-gen smart ring

Oura

Oura’s Generation 3 smart ring will have a whole new slate of features, including period prediction, blood oxygen monitoring, and real-time heart rate tracking. The new ring will jump from three to seven temperature sensors and add a pulse oxygen sensor, Oura CEO Harpreet Rai told The Verge.

A new, green LED light will monitor heart rate throughout the day. Starting at the end of 2021, users will also be able to record their heart rate during exercise and see information about heart rate recovery after a workout is done.

The upgrades underscore the company’s focus on health, Rai says, particularly the period prediction feature. The new ring will use shifts in temperature and user feedback to predict when a user might get their period...

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Photoshop will get a ‘prepare as NFT’ option soon

The Content Credentials panel in Photoshop. | Image: Adobe

Adobe is launching a system built into Photoshop that can, among other things, help prove that the person selling an NFT is the person who made it. It’s called Content Credentials, and NFT sellers will be able to link the Adobe ID with their crypto wallet, allowing compatible NFT marketplaces to show a sort of verified certificate proving the art’s source is authentic.

According to a Decoder interview with Adobe’s chief product officer Scott Belsky, this functionality will be built into Photoshop with a “prepare as NFT” option, launching in preview by the end of this month. Belsky says attribution data created by the Content Credentials will live on an IPFS system. IPFS (InterPlanetary File System) is a decentralized way to host files...

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Honor 50 launches globally for €529, complete with Google apps and services

The Honor 50. | Image: Honor

The Honor 50 is releasing globally with prices starting at €529, the former Huawei sub-brand announced today. The smartphone was originally announced for the Chinese market in June, but today sees the company confirm its global pricing and its early November release date. For €529 (about $615), you get 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage, and there’s also a €599 (about $695) model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. Honor says the phone will be available in over 40 countries, but there are no immediate plans to release the phone in the US.

The big news with the Honor 50 is that it’s the company’s first device to ship with Google’s apps and services since splitting from former parent company Huawei. Google pulled Huawei’s Android license...

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Adobe brings a simplified Photoshop to the web

The beta of Photoshop on the web. | Image: Adobe

Adobe is bringing Photoshop and Illustrator to the web, letting you make changes to documents hosted in the cloud without having to download them and open up the app.

It’s a fascinating step forward for these two programs, but it’s also a very small one for now: these are not fully featured versions of Photoshop and Illustrator — or anywhere close to it. You can navigate layers, leave annotations and comments, and make basic edits using tools like the eraser, spot healing brush, and selection lasso. But you’ll still have to open the app for any substantial changes.

“We’re not bringing all the features on day one, but we really want to unlock all those basic edits that are just best done now in the browser with whoever you’re working...

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Adobe’s Scott Belsky on how NFTs will change creativity

‘Prepare as NFT’ coming to Photoshop

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Adobe is adding a collaborative mood board to Creative Cloud

Creative Cloud Canvas is Adobe’s answer to services like Miro. | Image: Adobe

Adobe is trying to make Creative Cloud’s website into more of a hub for collaborating across teams. So today, it’s announcing a few new tools headed to the platform: basic web-based versions of Photoshop and Illustrator, a new feature called Canvas that lets you make mood boards, and a feature called Spaces that lets teams arrange and synchronize assets for projects.

Canvas is similar to a bunch of tools that designers already use — there’s Miro, PureRef, you could even do something like this in Figma if you wanted to — but it comes with the perk of being integrated with Adobe’s ecosystem. You can pull Cloud documents onto a canvas, and they’ll link back to the original file, letting you open them up to make changes.

I...

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Returnal finally adds a ‘suspend’ feature to let you pause the game mid-run

Returnal’s 2.0 update is out today, bringing two of the most requested features for Housemarque’s punishingly difficult sci-fi roguelike: the option to suspend the game in the middle of a run without losing progress, and a photo mode for capturing all of Atropos’ most stunning visuals.

The lack of a suspend mode has been one of the biggest knocks against the otherwise well-received title. An average run in Returnal can easily take upward of 45 minutes and had to be completed in a single gameplay session. Players were unable to close out Returnal and come back to a run later, and if the console was accidentally shut down or lost power, you’d lose all your hard-won progress.

The new “Suspend Cycle” mode aims to fix that. It’s not a...

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Amazon is building a Clubhouse competitor that turns hosts into DJs

Illustration by Alex Castro

Amazon is next on the list of companies getting into the live audio game. The company is building a new app, codenamed “Project Mic,” that gives anyone the ability to make and distribute a live radio show, complete with music, according to a presentation viewed by The Verge. This project’s big goal is to democratize and reinvent the radio. The app will be focused on the US initially.

Listeners will be able to tune in through the app, as well as through Audible, Amazon Music, Twitch, and Alexa-equipped devices. With the Alexa devices, listeners will be able to interact with shows using just their voice. The app experience will also be optimized for the car, playing into Amazon’s idea of trying to reinvent radio. A mockup app image viewed...

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Palm’s brand resuscitated again for true wireless earbuds

Image: Palm Ventures Group, Inc

After launching the Palm Phone in 2019, the reincarnated “Palm” is back again with its next new product. But it’s not another smartphone. Instead, the startup that now owns the Palm brand is jumping on the trend of true wireless earbuds. The Palm Buds Pro — yes, yet another “Pro” gadget — are available to preorder starting today for $99, though they’ll eventually rise to an MSRP of $129. For that price, you’ll be getting a set of earbuds with noise cancellation, bass-heavy 10-millimeter drivers, and IPX4 water and sweat resistance.

Palm says the earbuds fit into its “lightweight product philosophy” that began with the tiny, TCL-manufactured Palm Phone, which is no longer available. As for who’s making the Palm Buds Pro, Palm Ventures...

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Amazon’s broadband satellite venture Kuiper teams up with Verizon to expand 5G coverage

An Atlas V launching at night. Project Kuiper has bought nine launches of Atlas V rockets to send its satellites into orbit. | Image: United Launch Alliance

Amazon’s ambitious satellite venture, called Kuiper, is teaming up with Verizon to further expand 4G/LTE and 5G coverage to remote areas of the globe. Through the new partnership, Kuiper’s future satellites could provide connectivity to future Verizon cell towers that don’t require as much costly infrastructure to build.

Kuiper is Amazon’s $10 billion initiative to launch a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit to provide broadband internet coverage to the Earth below. With satellites flying at altitudes between 366 miles and 391 miles high (or 590 kilometers and 630 kilometers up), the plan is to provide connectivity to remote and rural areas, where it is difficult to provide internet coverage through traditional fiber....

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Twitch streaming is returning to the Xbox dashboard

Microsoft is bringing back Twitch streaming integration directly into the Xbox dashboard. Twitch first appeared directly integrated into the Xbox One dashboard in 2014, using the original Snap interface to allow players to stream directly to the service. Now it’s coming back into the Xbox Guide interface, with similar integration and webcam support.

Alpha and Skip-Ahead alpha Xbox testers can access the new integration right now, and it’s simple to use. You can adjust game volume or microphone volume, include party audio from friends, and see a list of viewers and how long you’ve been streaming with an overlay on top of your games.

The Twitch integration also includes the ability to switch resolution and bitrates from 360p at 500kbps up...

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Sony Xperia Pro-I is a camera first, 5G phone second

Image: Sony

Sony is ready to throw-down with a new camera-first 5G phone — the Xperia Pro-I — in the battle for smartphone camera supremacy. Less than 12-hours after the Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro’s reviews started dropping online, and all the camera enthusiasts trying to determine whether the Pixel 6 Pro or the iPhone 13 Pro Max has the best smartphone camera, Sony wants to be in the mix with the Xperia Pro-I.

The “I” in the Xperia Pro-I stands for imaging, which pays homage to Sony’s popular line of Alpha mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras and professional video cameras, rather than point-and-shoot camera model names like the Sony RX100 VII (Mark 7). At least that’s what the Sony representatives who were briefing journalists ahead of this...

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Facebook hires Britney Spears’ lawyer to fight an upcoming TV show

Photo illustration by William Joel | Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP via Getty Images

Facebook probably wishes it had a delete button for its timeline now that it’s threatening an upcoming TV show with a lawsuit for potentially tarnishing the brand’s reputation.

Doomsday Machine is the upcoming television adaption of An Ugly Truth, a book that exposes Facebook’s missteps on issues like misinformation, hate speech, user security. The drama will star Claire Foy as Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and will tackle the chaos surrounding misinformation during the 2016 election, as well as more recent controversies like the XCheck program, which let celebrities and other high-profile figures bypass content moderation.

As the series begins to come together, Facebook is threatening producers Anonymous Content with a lawsuit — and it’s...

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Why smart alarm clocks can’t be trusted

Smart alarm clocks like this Echo Dot with Clock have lots of great features, but are missing one key feature.

When you buy a product labeled “smart,” it should be better than the “dumb” version, especially considering it costs twice as much (at least). But that’s not the case with smart alarm clocks, which are very dumb in one specific way.

Smart alarm clocks are bedside buzzers with smart features, letting you set an alarm with just your voice, waking you up with your favorite Spotify playlist, possibly tracking your sleep, and definitely controlling your smart home. Most have touch screens, some have radar, very few have cameras (thankfully), and others can use lighting to wake you up more naturally than a jarring buzzer. But what none of them have is a backup battery, something that’s been standard on the dumb versions for decades.

If your...

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Facebook says it’s refocusing company on ‘serving young adults’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s redirected teams within his company to “make serving young adults their north star.” The comment, made on a call with investors this afternoon, speaks to Facebooks’ concerns about declining usage among teens and young adults.

“So much of our services have gotten dialed to be the best for the most people who use them, rather than specifically for young adults,” Zuckerberg said.

TikTok is “one of the most effective competitors we’ve ever faced”

He suggested the change will be more than just lip service. Facebook usage among older users will grow slower than it otherwise would have because of the changes, Zuckerberg said. Even with those tradeoffs, he said, “I think it’s the right approach.”

Zuckerberg...

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Go read this look into how Amazon’s HR falls way behind

An email sent to Jeff Bezos from an Amazon warehouse worker began an internal investigation that found that the e-commerce giant falls behind when it comes to supporting its 1.3 million employees, according to _The New York Time_s.

From unjustified terminations to losing benefits with no warning, the employees inside the warehouse and the ones administering the leaves found themselves on the brink of burnout and sacrificing their lives to make up for countless HR issues related to paid and unpaid leave. Employees struggled to reach case managers, and doctor’s notes seem to simply disappear as paychecks were docked.

To add to the dysfunction, Amazon’s team didn’t have any policies to accommodate local laws like one in its home state. An...

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