How to watch SpaceX’s Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station

(From L to R) ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, along with NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn, Raja Chari, and Kayla Barron during a dress rehearsal ahead of flight. | Image: NASA/Joel Kowsky

SpaceX is launching another crew to space this evening, sending four astronauts to the International Space Station for a six-monthlong stay in orbit. Traveling inside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, the crew will get an early start on their mission, with liftoff scheduled for 9:03PM ET on November 10th out of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The mission is called Crew-3, and it will carry NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari, and Kayla Barron, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer. This will be the first trip to space for Maurer, Barron, and Chari — the mission’s commander. For Marshburn, this will be his third flight to space, and for each of his missions, he’s flown on a different vehicle. His first flight was on...

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iPhone 13 Pro vs. Pixel 6 Pro: what 2,000 photos tell us

When the iPhone 13 Pro launched earlier this fall, we said it had the “best camera” in a smartphone. The larger sensor behind the main wide-angle lens coupled with a wider f/1.5 aperture left us saying, “Whoa, look at this photo,” more often than we were used to. But a few weeks later, Google’s Pixel 6 Pro, with its 50-megapixel sensor that is hard-coded to produce 12.5-megapixel images, was finally released, proving a worthy competitor for the iPhone 13 Pro’s 12-megapixel camera.

The camera system on the iPhone 13 Pro is a major upgrade.

The Pixel 6 Pro has a massive 6.7-inch screen.

So this year, in order to settle the score, I set out to take 1,000 photos on each device. I carried them...

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Updating The Verge’s background policy

Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge

Today, The Verge is updating our public ethics policy to be clearer in our interactions with public relations and corporate communications professionals. We’re doing this because big tech companies in particular have hired a dizzying array of communications staff who routinely push the boundaries of acceptable sourcing in an effort to deflect accountability, pass the burden of truth to the media, and generally control the narratives around the companies they work for while being annoying as hell to deal with.

The main way this happens is that big companies take advantage of a particular agreement in the media called “background.” Being “on background” means that they tell things to reporters, but those reporters agree to not specifically...

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Microsoft partners with Meta to integrate Teams into its Facebook-like Workplace

Workplace integration into Microsoft Teams. | Image: Meta

Microsoft is partnering with Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, to integrate Microsoft Teams into Zuckerberg’s Workplace platform. Facebook Workplace, or Workplace by Meta as it’s now been rebranded, will soon integrate Microsoft Teams to livestream video into Workplace groups.

The Microsoft Teams integration into Workplace will also allow employees using Teams or Workplace to view, comment, and react to meetings in real time without having to switch between apps.

Image: Meta

Microsoft Teams and Workplace by Meta integration.

Microsoft is also integrating Workplace into Teams, which will enable Teams users to access Workplace content through an app within Teams. The app will be pinned to the Teams...

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This affordable robot vacuum is even cheaper right now at Woot

This isn’t my house. Skittles operate well outside of the five-second drop rule.

The latest (and even the not-so-new) robot vacuums from iRobot tend to cost, at least, a few hundred dollars. The sky is the limit, so to speak, when it comes to how much these can cost. But there’s a fantastic sale happening at Woot on this affordable model from a company called Yeedi. Its K650 Wi-Fi connected model with an 800-milliliter bin costs just $130 right now. It’s currently sitting at $180 from Amazon, to give you a sense of how much it usually costs.

This model claims to be great for pet owners, and through its companion app, you can schedule cleaning times, adjust the suction strength, and customize Yeedi’s optional magnetic boundaries, among other things. The Yeedi K650 is compatible with Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa...

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Latest iOS beta lets you manually scan for sneaky AirTags

Apple’s AirTags were released earlier this year. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Among the features added to iOS 15.2’s second beta is a new option in the Find My app that lets you manually scan your surroundings for AirTags and other Find My-enabled devices that someone might be using to track you. The feature, which is detailed by MacRumors, is accessible via a new “Items That Can Track Me” option listed in the Find My app’s Items menu.

Hit the link, and the app will report if there are any devices nearby that aren’t owned by you and which have Apple’s tracking technology enabled. The app can then give instructions on how to disable the device. Alternatively, there’s a “Help Return Lost Items” option for items that have ended up in your vicinity accidentally rather than maliciously, which replaces the previous...

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Android users get another app-based Google TV remote option

The remote interface featuring a large touchpad and shortcut buttons. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Google has updated its Google Home Android app to add a built-in remote for Android TV, Google TV, and other devices like the Nvidia Shield. The feature, which was spotted by 9to5Google, is a helpful option if you misplace a physical remote control. To use it, head to the page in the Google Home app for the device you want to control, and then tap “Open remote” in the bottom left corner of the page.

Although the Google Home remote feature is only available on Android for now, its eventual launch on iOS has the potential to be the far more useful addition. That’s because Android users already have the option of using a similar software remote via the Google TV app as well as a remote tile in quick settings. iOS users, meanwhile, don’t...

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Google loses key appeal against €2.4 billion EU shopping antitrust case

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The EU’s second-most senior court, the General Court, has upheld a 2017 ruling by the European Commission which found that Google broke antitrust law in how it used its search engine to promote its shopping comparison service and demote those of its rivals.

Google and its parent company Alphabet appealed the decision, but the General Court today dismissed that appeal and upheld a fine of €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion). Google and Alphabet now have the option to appeal the decision yet again with the EU’s highest court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

This is one of three antitrust cases pursued against Google

This outcome is significant as it strengthens antitrust arguments made by the EU’s influential competition commissioner...

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Grand Theft Auto remaster gameplay footage leaks online

The UI will look familiar to anyone who’s played the original games. | Screenshot: Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition

Gameplay footage from Rockstar’s upcoming remaster of its PS2-era Grand Theft Auto trilogy has appeared online, after gameplay footage was apparently uploaded from early copies. _VGC_has collected togetherthreeYouTubeuploads and one Reddit post, which between them show over an hour of footage of Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Although _Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy — The Definitive Edition_is just one day away from release, Rockstar hasn’t shared any substantial gameplay footage from the remastered games. A trailer released last month focused almost exclusively on cutscenes from the three games rather than the gameplay enhancements Rockstar is promising for the almost two-decade-old...

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Elizabeth Holmes hired a bunch of experts so she could ignore them

It seems like the doctors were just at Theranos for show

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Judge denies stay in Epic v. Apple

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Epic v. Apple judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers says Apple must comply with an order to let developers add links and buttons to external payment options, denying the company’s motion for a stay.

Judge Gonzalez Rogers issued her order after a Tuesday hearing concerning the blockbuster antitrust lawsuit, which Fortnite publisher Epic Games filed in 2020 and which went to trial this year. During the hearing, Apple said it needed more time to rewrite its anti-steering policies — rules that bar app developers from linking to payment methods besides the iOS App Store.

“This will be the first time Apple has ever allowed live links in an app for digital content. It’s going to take months to figure out the engineering, economic, business, and other...

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Facebook and Instagram will delete ‘sensitive’ ad targeting groups linked to race, politics

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta, the new name for the parent company that oversees Facebook and Instagram, suddenly wants to be less creepy. According to a post on the Meta for Business blog, the company is blocking advertisers from using detailed ad targeting options that show ads based on your engagement in “sensitive” areas including race or ethnicity, religious views, political beliefs, sexual orientation, health, and a whole lot more.

“We’ve heard concerns from experts that targeting options like these could be used in ways that lead to negative experiences for people in underrepresented groups,” Graham Mudd, Meta’s vice president for marketing and ads writes in the post.

Meta emphasizes that detailed targeting options aren’t actually based on your physical...

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Netflix reveals Straw Hats cast for upcoming One Piece live-action show

Iñaki Godoy will play Luffy in Netflix’s_One Piece_live action show. | Image: Netflix

Netflix has revealed five key cast members for its upcoming show based on the hugely popular manga and anime franchise One Piece. The cast, announced Tuesday, will play characters in the Straw Hats crew, the central group of the series.

The currently announced cast stars:

• Iñaki Godoy as Luffy
• Mackenyu as Zoro
• Emily Rudd as Nami
• Jacob Romero Gibson as Usopp
• Taz Skylar as Sanji

welcome to the Straw Hats ☠️⛵️ #onepiecepic.twitter.com/s3UvjkShbL

— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) November 9, 2021

Netflix also shared a note from _One Piece_creator Eiichiro Oda about the development of the series, which reportedly will have 10 episodes. Unfortunately, Oda doesn’t say much about what you can expect from the show, and as for when it might...

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Data used to build algorithms detecting skin disease is too white

Illustration by Ana Kova

Public skin image datasets that are used to train algorithms to detect skin problems don’t include enough information about skin tone, according to a new analysis. And within the datasets where skin tone information is available, only a very small number of images are of darker skin — so algorithms built using these datasets might not be as accurate for people who aren’t white.

The study, published today in The Lancet Digital Health, examined 21 freely accessible datasets of images of skin conditions. Combined, they contained over 100,000 images. Just over 1,400 of those images had information attached about the ethnicity of the patient, and only 2,236 had information about skin color. This lack of data limits researchers’ ability to...

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Johnson & Johnson’s CEO joins Apple’s board

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple has announced that Johnson & Johnson’s current CEO, Alex Gorsky, will join its board of directors. Gorsky’s move to Apple’s leadership team (he’ll step down from his role at J&J in January) comes at a time when the company is focusing even more on health and how it can make data more accessible to users and their doctors.

In the press release announcing Gorsky’s role at Apple, Tim Cook calls him “a visionary in healthcare” who has a “passion for technology.” Apple hasn’t kept its ambitions in health a secret — the Apple Watch is largely seen as a fitness device, and its users can contribute data to various studies. Recent updates to iOS and watchOS have brought new health features that make it easier to share medical records with...

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Will these top Steam games support Steam Deck? We ask their developers

Valve’s $400 Steam Deck gaming handheld runs Linux, but it can play Windows games too. Many of them, anyhow! Some of the biggest games on Steam use anti-cheat software that doesn’t play nice with the Proton compatibility layer which lets Windows games work. That’s changing this year, with both Epic’s Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) and BattlEye confirming to The Verge that support is on the way, and Epic says it takes “just a few clicks.” Valve says BattlEye support is as easy as an email.

But will game developers let their games take advantage? Not necessarily! We reached out to every developer of every top EAC and BattlEye game on Steam. Initially, only four of them gave us a definite yes, but it seems we’ve got at least one more on the way.

H...

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NASA delays ambitious human lunar landing to 2025

An artistic rendering of SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander, developed in partnership with NASA, on the surface of the Moon | Image: SpaceX

NASA is pushing back its target date for returning humans to the Moon, now eyeing a crewed lunar landing in 2025 instead of 2024 as originally planned. NASA blames the delay on recent lawsuits over contracts for the agency’s lunar lander, as well as changes to the scope of some of NASA’s programs and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The space agency is eyeing a human lunar return with its flagship program, called Artemis. As part of the initiative, NASA hopes to land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon this decade while working to figure out sustainable ways to live and work on the lunar surface. Artemis relies on a complicated suite of vehicles, including the Space Launch System, or SLS, a massive new rocket NASA has been...

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Unity to pay $1.6 billion for The Lord of the Rings VFX maker Weta Digital

Photo by Albert L. Ortega/Getty Images

Unity, which makes the popular Unity game development engine, announced an intent to acquire the tools, pipeline, technology, and some engineering staff from Weta Digital, which is perhaps best known for its work on the The Lord of the Rings movies. Weta Digital was co-founded by LOTR director Peter Jackson and has worked on huge entertainment franchises like Game of Thrones, The Planet of the Apes, and many Marvel movies.

The deal is a major bid by Unity to bring powerful new tools to visual effects (VFX) teams, game developers, and other industries that rely on computer graphics. It’s also a big move to compete with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine, which has been used by Industrial Light & Magic in The Mandalorian and by League of Legends...

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Ecobee’s new home security service has a professional monitoring option

Image: Ecobee

Ecobee now gives you the option to pair its smart home monitoring devices with a professional security service. With the company’s new Smart Security service, which replaces the Haven service it formerly offered, you can enable 24/7 professional monitoring (which is still in beta) for an additional $10 / month as a part of the Complete subscription plan. This price is half of what Ring now charges for its Pro plan that comes with a professional live monitoring service.

Ecobee’s Smart Security service uses the RapidSOS emergency response platform to send crucial data to emergency responders. It relays your home’s entry and exit data to first responders, as well as any video and audio snippets captured by Ecobee devices.

Ecobee is offering...

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FuboTV crosses 1 million subscribers six years after launch

Image: FuboTV

Sports-focused streaming TV service FuboTV has surpassed 1 million subscribers, the company announced today. The news came as part of FuboTV’s third-quarter financial earnings report: it ended Q3 with 944,605 subscribers but crossed the million figure after the quarter closed.

“FuboTV’s achievement of hitting the 1 million subscriber mark since the third quarter ended is an extraordinary milestone by any measure but particularly remarkable given the momentum of our business over six short years,” said co-founder and CEO David Gandler. FuboTV is also highlighting its growth in revenue, advertising earnings, and viewing hours. The latter reached 284 million hours of streamed content during the quarter, up 113 percent year over year. In his...

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Workhorse’s new CEO admits the startup’s electric van is no workhorse

Image: Workhorse

The new CEO of struggling EV startup Workhorse admitted Tuesday that he’s not sure the company’s C-1000 electric van can stand up to the kind of punishing work required by delivery companies. In other words, Workhorse’s EV isn’t a workhorse.

“As I’ve talked to the big customers at UPS, FedEx, others, they expect to have these trucks last 15 to 20 years and go 15 to 20,000 miles a year and carry up to seven or 8,000 pounds of payload,” CEO Rick Dauch said during a revealing conference call about the company’s third-quarter financial results. “I’m pretty darn sure the C-1000 can’t meet those kind of stringent requirements. Okay? That’s the bad news.”

More bad news? Not only does Workhorse have to redesign its flagship C-1000 delivery...

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Discord fans are worried NFTs might be on the way

After an image of a Discord survey inquiring about users’ attitudes on NFTs went viral, social media erupted as people speculated if Discord would be the newest participant in the NFT scam race / gold rush.

It’s not... yet.

Oh No pic.twitter.com/YEfVt8Xrwe

— Jason Scott (@textfiles) November 8, 2021

The image is from a now-expired survey that was distributed in August of this year. Among questions about the participant’s knowledge of NFTs and whatever the hell Web3 means, the survey asks open-ended questions about their favorite crypto Discord communities and what, if any, crypto-related problems Discord could potentially solve. According to a Discord spokesperson, the survey was only a fact-finding endeavor targeted specifically...

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Google is taking sign-ups for Relate, a voice assistant that recognizes impaired speech

Google launched a new app called Relate, a voice assistant that recognizes impaired speech. | Image: Google

Google launched a beta app today that people with speech impairments can use as a voice assistant while contributing to a multiyear research effort to improve Google’s speech recognition. The goal is to make Google Assistant, as well as other features that use speech to text and speech to speech, more inclusive of users with neurological conditions that affect their speech.

The new app is called Project Relate, and volunteers can sign up at g.co/ProjectRelate. To be eligible to participate, volunteers need to be 18 or older and “have difficulty being understood by others.” They’ll also need a Google account and an Android phone using OS 8 or later. For now, it’s only available to English speakers in the US, Canada, Australia, and New...

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How to clean your earbuds

Keeping your earbuds clean is helpful, hygienic, and easy. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Earbuds have been the listening choice of many for ages, and sales of wireless earbuds took off when Apple removed the headphone jack of the iPhone 7 and released AirPods. Since then, seemingly every brand under the sun, and even some resurrected from the depths, have released true wireless earbuds. Some are small and cheap. Some are big and expensive. Some have one-size-fits-most hard plastic designs. Some have user-replaceable rubber tips that accommodate different size ears. But one thing that unites all earbuds is that, eventually, they get disgustingly gross, with a buildup of earwax and debris that can hinder sound quality and reduce overall volume output. As a result, you should take the time to clean them once in a while.

Here...

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Samsung announces its next-gen RAM for phones and ‘the metaverse’

Image: Samsung

Samsung has announced its next-generation RAM tech made for mobile devices, which it says can be used in future smartphones but also in servers, cars, and “the metaverse.” While Samsung’s press release doesn’t mention how its new LPDDR5X RAM chips could help people enter the “digital reality,” the tech should help make devices run faster and last longer.

Putting the buzzwords like metaverse, AI, and 5G aside, Samsung is promising some real improvements to speed and power usage: it says its next-gen RAM will have 1.3-times faster processing speeds versus the previous-gen LPDDR5, will be capable of higher densities (up to 64GB per chip), and will use 20 percent less power than the last generation. Some of these improvements, according to...

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All the news about Netflix’s gaming efforts

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Netflix is getting into video games

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Even Tim Sweeney thinks the Dell XPS 17 needs better cooling

Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge

Tim Sweeney has made many headlines this year as the main character of Epic’s turbulent courtroom war with Apple. But on Tuesday, the CEO appears to have revealed an equally noteworthy side of himself: He’s a Dell XPS 17 user.

Sweeney’s affinity for the XPS 17 dates as far back as September of this year. The executive tweeted a link to Dell’s XPS 17 purchase page on the 19th, remarking that the laptop had “great options, simple view, customer-friendly defaults, reasonable prices, easy checkout.” Further down the thread, Sweeney complained that the high prices of entry-level workstations often drive developers to purchase gaming PCs instead.

Almost two months later, a new tweet suggests that Sweeney has joined the ranks of XPS 17 users....

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Among Us gives crewmates their own powers just in time for Thanksgiving murder sessions

_Among Us —_the incredibly easy-to-play, viral backstabbing game where you spend the majority of your time lying to your friends while doing cutesy inane tasks aboard a rickety deathtrap — is getting perhaps one of its biggest updates yet: one that will decidedly change the game and one that’s more than a little inspired by a popular mod that got squashed under the momentum of the official franchise.

As you’ll read in the full blog post, version 2021.11.09 introduces crewmate roles for the very first time, giving your humble workers superpowers, like being able to tell who’s dead (Scientist), sneak through the same vents as the imposters (Engineer), or shield other crewmates from getting killed (Guardian Angel). There’s a new type of...

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The PlayStation 5 will be available, once again, at Walmart starting at 3PM ET

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Walmart is hosting yet another restock event for the PlayStation 5. The latest one is happening today at 3PM ET / 12PM PT. The retailer has seemingly alternated between offering consoles exclusively to those paying for its Walmart Plus plan and others that are a free-for-all for regular customers, comparatively speaking. Today’s restock fits in the latter category, so you can head over to Walmart’s site to get either the $499.99 PlayStation 5 console that has a Blu-ray disc drive or the $399.99 Digital Edition that omits the disk drive.

As usual, we recommend logging in to an account you might already have or creating one. It can help to have your billing and shipping info already saved in your account, reducing the time it takes to...

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Netflix Games is available on your iPhone and iPad

Image: Netflix

Netflix just brought its new gaming service to all subscribers on Android, but now it has officially come to iOS. The service gives users access to a limited selection of mobile games without ads or in-app purchases.

A tweet from Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman confirms that the five launch games are already available as individual downloads from the App Store. These include Stranger Things: 1984, Stranger Things 3 The Game, Shooting Hoops, Teeter (Up), and Card Blast.

Netflix Games is coming to iOS! Starting tomorrow, you can access Netflix Games through the Netflix app on any mobile device, anywhere in the world. pic.twitter.com/LoHYFi4xBX

— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) November 9, 2021

There’s been some concern about Netflix...

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