Ed Sheeran is coming to Pokémon Go to serenade Squirtles in sunglasses

Ed Sheeran (right) serenades a Squirtle with sunglasses (left). | Image: Niantic

Niantic has released details of Pokémon Go’s upcoming Ed Sheeran collaboration in a new blog post, a little over a day after first teasing the surprising crossover. The event kicks off on November 22nd at 2pm ET (11am PT), and will run for a little over a week until November 30th. The main feature appears to be a performance of some sort from Ed Sheeran, though what form this will take (a pre-recorded video? A virtual Ed avatar?) isn’t at all clear.

Niantic says the performance will include songs from Sheeran’s new album, titled =(yes, the name of the album is the equals sign), and that it’ll be accessible from the News section of the Pokémon Go app. Right now, this section is just a news feed of announcements and blog posts, so this...

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Mario Kart Live’s 2.0 update makes multiplayer much easier and cheaper

Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit, Nintendo’s AR-powered Mario Kart game that lets you race physical toy karts around your home with the Nintendo Switch, just got updated to version 2.0 with a much-requested feature: splitscreen local multiplayer.

Previously, multiplayer Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit was a complex and costly endeavor. You’d need two karts — the base game only comes with one — as well as two Nintendo Switch consoles, and the action would play out on each player’s Switch screen. With the 2.0 update, you can hook up one Switch to a TV so both players can stay on the couch as they race their karts around the room.

There’s also a new Relay Race mode that allows for multiplayer games with just a single kart. Between two and four...

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That ‘real’ Disney lightsaber? You’ll never get to touch it

© Disney © & TM Lucasfilm

I have some terrible news: Disney has confirmed you’ll never get to try the “real” retractable lightsaber whose very existence, subsequent reveal, and patented design made us giddy back in April and May of this year.

While the incredible disappearing lightsaber replica will indeed feature at Disney’s new Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser hotel — a _Westworld-_esque experience for the very wealthy where stays cost upwards of $4,800 and yet is already sold out for its first four months — GameSpot and _IGN_report that Disney won’t be letting you touch that lightsaber for yourself.

“Unfortunately, that lightsaber isn’t for guests to use or purchase. It’s strictly for use by the performers,” writes IGN.

“Trowbridge confirmed in a group interview...

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Apple pay equity and harassment organizer will leave the company after reaching a settlement

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Cher Scarlett, an Apple engineer who helped organize pay equity surveys and anti-harassment / discrimination campaigns at the company, will be leaving the company and requesting the withdrawal of a complaint she made to the National Labor Relations Board (or NLRB), according to a report from Bloomberg. The software engineer announced on Twitter that Friday would be her last day at Apple. Scarlett’s lawyers told _The Verge_that she had reached a private settlement with the company, but she declined to provide details about the terms when asked by Bloomberg.

Scarlett is leaving voluntarily, according to Bloomberg, unlike some other organizers who were fired from the company after speaking out. During her time at Apple, she was reportedly...

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Streamlabs will drop ‘OBS’ name after getting called out by open-source app

Photo by Rasit Aydogan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Streamlabs has promised to remove “OBS” from the name of its livestreaming software, Streamlabs OBS, following backlash from streamers and the open-source livestreaming platform OBS Studio. OBS Studio says it asked Streamlabs not to use its name, which stands for “Open Broadcaster Software,” only to have the company do so anyway. Streamlabs has also been accused of copying the website of another broadcasting software, with all the drama hashed out on Twitter.

The controversy started when Lightstream, another livestreaming app maker, tweeted out screenshots of its website right beside Streamlabs’, saying, “Hey, can I copy your homework?” suggesting that Streamlabs copied Lightstream. Stu Grubbs, the CEO of Lightstream, later retweeted the...

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Rittenhouse defense requests a mistrial after iPhone Mail app compresses key video evidence

Photo by Sean Krajacic - Pool/Getty Images

The Kyle Rittenhouse trial in Kenosha, Wisconsin has once again gone off track because of basic technology problems: Rittenhouse’s defense attorneys today requested a mistrial because prosecutors sent them a drone video via email, which compressed the video in size. This is after earlier arguments about what pinch-to-zoom does or does not do, and the judge struggling with the screenshot features on his Galaxy S20.

Rittenhouse faces five felony charges for shooting three men and killing two of them last year during a protest in Kenosha. CNN reports the motion for a mistrial is focused on when and how defense attorneys received a copy of a drone video showing the shootings that was shown to the jury in open court.

Rittenhouse’s lawyers say...

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Barbie EV mockup debuts, and on an unrelated note, Mattel’s stock is up

Image: Mattel

Here are some facts. Mattel promoted a new toy Barbie car on Wednesday by showing off a full-size mockup at the 2021 LA Auto Show. The mockup was, according to Roadshow, based on an all-electric Fiat 500e. Not long after, Mattel’s stock pared back early-morning losses and finished the day’s trading slightly in the green.

Now, are those things related? Probably not. But weirder things have happened, especially lately. Hertz announced a deal with Tesla and hired Tom Brady to make commercials, and then Elon Musk said the deal wasn’t done. Rivian passed every automaker in market cap except for Toyota and Tesla despite only shipping a few electric pickup trucks. Startups like Faraday Future, Canoo, and Lordstown Motors have collectively...

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Crypto collective raises $27 million to bid for rare copy of US Constitution

One of 13 remaining copies of the Official Edition of the Constitution. | Image: Sotheby’s

Say you want to buy an early printing of the US Constitution, but you’ve only got a couple of bucks. Normally, you’d be out of luck, but maybe not today: over the last week, a collective has formed to raise enough money to buy a rare early printing of the Constitution at auction, raising money from anyone who wants to chip in online.

The document is expected to sell at Sotheby’s for as high as $20 million — what would seem to be an insurmountable price for a crowdfunding initiative. And yet, somehow, the collective has raised $27 million to date. And they still have more than 24 hours to go.

There’s a lot going on here, so I’m just going to break it down piece by piece:

• The document being purchased is one of 13 remaining copies of the...

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HaptX says Meta copied its patented design for haptic glove

Meta Reality Labs

Haptics company HaptX claims Meta (formerly Facebook) copied its patented designs in a glove that the tech giant revealed yesterday. HaptX — a longtime player in the virtual and augmented reality industry — says parts of the glove appear “substantively identical” to its own work using pneumatics to simulate physical touch.

“We welcome interest and competition in the field of microfluidic haptics; however, competition must be fair for the industry to thrive,” said HaptX founder and CEO Jake Rubin in a statement. “While we have not yet heard from Meta, we look forward to working with them to reach a fair and equitable arrangement that addresses our concerns and enables them to incorporate our innovative technology into their future...

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PlayStation boss reportedly calls out Activision Blizzard in staff memo

PlayStation leadership has asked Activision Blizzard how it will address the allegations in the shocking Wall Street Journal report about the embattled studio, according to Bloomberg. PlayStation boss Jim Ryan reportedly informed employees of the action in an email.

“We outreached to Activision immediately after the article was published to express our deep concern and to ask how they plan to address the claims made in the article,” Ryan wrote, reports Bloomberg. “We do not believe their statements of response properly address the situation.”

Activision Blizzard and Sony didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. We’ve asked Microsoft and Nintendo if they have communicated concerns to Activision Blizzard.

The WSJ alleges Kotick...

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Wyze Buds Pro review: budget Bluetooth buds worth buying

My Amazon pods are headed to the recycler

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Instagram to shut down Threads as Meta consolidates its messaging platforms

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram’s standalone messaging service Threads will cease to exist by the end of 2021, Meta has confirmed to TechCrunch. The app will display a notice prompting users to return to Instagram starting November 23rd.

Threads was a similar idea to Facebook Messenger — it allowed users to send and receive Instagram DMs in a dedicated messaging interface outside of the main app. It had a collection of quirky features, including automatic statuses that the app could set for you based on what your phone was doing. All of those tools will be available in Instagram itself by the time Threads shuts down, the company said in a statement to TechCrunch.

“We’re bringing the fun and unique features we had on Threads to the main Instagram app.”

Meta...

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Fisker’s electric Ocean SUV has a rotating center screen

EV startup Fisker Inc. has revealed the production version of its first electric vehicle, the Ocean SUV, at the 2021 LA Auto Show. It’s largely similar to the first prototype that debuted at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show, though there are a few new standout features — including a 17.1-inch touchscreen that rotates from portrait to landscape orientation.

“When you use your phone and type on it, you hold it like this, and when you take a picture or if you want to watch a movie, you turn the phone around,” Fisker Inc. founder and CEO Henrik Fisker said while miming a phone during a livestream of Wednesday’s event. “In our vehicle we have a screen, on a push of a button, it changes from portrait mode to landscape mode. It just rotates....

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Kia’s EV9 concept car is a big, boxy vision of our electric future

Kia revealed the EV9 SUV, an extra-large concept EV with Soul-like angularity and an estimated range of up to 300 miles. Like the previously unveiled EV6, the EV9 will be built on Hyundai’s new Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP) that the automaker says will serve as the basis for an entire family of planned EVs. The concept made its debut at the 2021 Los Angeles Auto Show.

The EV9 may have the angles of a Soul, but it has the body of a Telluride. The concept SUV measures 194 inches in length, 81 inches in width, 70 inches in height, and has a wheelbase of 122 inches. That’s taller, longer, and wider than the Kia Telluride and certainly would fall into the category of “dangerously huge SUVs” if it ever gets made.

The EV9 may have...

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If your iPhone 12 or 13 is having issues with calls, updating iOS may help

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

A new iOS update is starting to hit phones — no, not the seemingly feature-packed iOS 15.2, but iOS 15.1.1, which Apple says will solve an issue with calls dropping. According to the update note, the new version of iOS “improves call drop performance on iPhone 12 and iPhone 13 models.”

While we haven’t seen large amounts of users complaining about their new-model iPhones dropping more calls than normal, it’s nice to see that Apple is paying attention to how its phones perform as, well, phones.

15.1.1 is worth updating to if you’ve been having issues with calls dropping

You can update to iOS 15.1.1 by going to Settings > General > Software Update. If you find updating to be a pain and haven’t been experiencing any call issues, though, it...

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Withings’ ScanWatch takes an extra step to start using its EKG

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

In order to use the EKG feature on the newly available Withings ScanWatch, people have to first get the tool unlocked through a prescription from a healthcare provider — a first for EKG-enabled smartwatches on the market. Other smartwatches like the Apple Watch let people start using the feature right out of the box.

The requirement was part of Withings’ Food and Drug Administration authorization, which says that the device can track heart rhythms and detect atrial fibrillation “when the monitor is prescribed or used under the care of a physician.” The extra step of obtaining a prescription came out of the company’s initial conversations with the agency, Shikha Anand, Withings’ chief medical officer, told The Verge.

“We don’t imagine...

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Heated seats for 2022 Chevy trucks are the latest victim of the chip shortage

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

If you’re looking to buy a 2022 Chevrolet (or nearly any GM vehicle) this winter, you might want to invest in a warmer pair of sweatpants: the company has announced that due to the ongoing chip shortage, it’ll no longer be able to offer heated or ventilated seats on virtually all its upcoming SUVs and pickups, as first reported by Automotive News.

“By taking these measures, it will enable continued production and delivery of inventory to help respond to the strong customer and dealer demand for all our products as the industry continues to rebound and strengthen,” a letter to dealers from GM obtained by Automotive News reads.

The change went into effect earlier this week on November 15th and affects a wide range of Chevy and GMC...

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Google says it’s improving fingerprint scanner performance with a Pixel 6 update

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Google quietly rolled out a Pixel 6 update that addresses fingerprint scanner issues, as first reported by XDA Developers. The update details have been confirmed in a post on a Google Support page, which vaguely notes that it includes “minor bug fixes and some fingerprint sensor performance improvements for Pixel 6 and 6 Pro,” without really giving us any details about how the sensor was improved.

Dan Siefert called out the fingerprint reader in our reviews of the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro last month, noting that it’s often finicky to use or slow to recognize your print. Google responded by saying that the scanner’s “enhanced security algorithms” may result in sluggish or unreliable performance. Google never really indicated whether the...

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Instagram will now let you rage shake your phone to report a problem

Rage shake your phone to tell Instagram about a problem | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram head Adam Mosseri said Wednesday that the company has added two new features to improve user experience, including a “rage shake” that will let users report a problem more quickly. If you’re using the app and it isn’t working as it’s supposed to, shake the phone while the app is open, and a pop-up screen will ask, “Did something go wrong?” with space for you to report the issue.

This feature will give Instagram feedback that will help it prioritize bug fixes, Mosseri said. “You can explain exactly what happened, how you ended up in that place, and all of the emotions and feels that you’ve got going on, and we’ll have someone take a look at it,” he said.

Covering ✌️ this week:
- Carousel Deletion (finally!)
- Rage Shake

Did you...

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Discord is quietly building an app empire of bots

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Discord has been quietly building its own app platform based on bots over the past few years. More than 30 percent of Discord servers now use bots, and 430,000 of them are used every week across Discord by its 150 million monthly active users. Now that bots are an important part of Discord, the company is embracing them even further with the ability to search and browse for bots on Discord.

A new app discovery feature will start showing up in Discord in spring 2022. Verified apps and bots (which total around 12,000 right now) will be discoverable through this feature. Developers will be able to opt into discoverability, once they’re fully prepared for a new influx of users that can easily find their bots.

Bots are powerful on Discord,...

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Hyundai goes really big with its latest electric concept SUV

Hyundai revealed a new electric vehicle concept at the 2021 Los Angeles Auto Show, showing how its scalable EV platform can be stretched to accommodate extra-large SUVs. The Hyundai Seven is built on the automaker’s Electric-Global Modular Platform (E-GMP), which also underpins the upcoming Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Genesis GV60.

Unlike those vehicles, though, the Hyundai Seven is just a concept and isn’t guaranteed to go into production. That said, given how popular SUVs are with the car-buying public, it seems likely that the Seven will eventually reach dealerships in some form or the other. (Hyundai’s 45 concept eventually became the Ioniq 5.)

a range of “over 300 miles”

Using chargers with 350kW capacity, the Hyundai Seven is capable...

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The shareholder fight that forced Apple’s hand on repair rights

A repair tutorial from iFixit shows a user accessing the internal electronics of an iPhone | iFixit

Wednesday morning, Apple announced that the company will soon make parts and repair manuals available to the general public, reversing years of restrictive repair policies. The new policy represents a seismic shift for a company that has fought independent repair for years by restricting access to parts, manuals, and diagnostic tools, designing products that are difficult to fix, and lobbying against laws that would enshrine the right to repair.

But Apple didn’t change its policy out of the goodness of its heart. The announcement follows months of growing pressure from repair activists and regulators — and its timing seems deliberate, considering a shareholder resolution environmental advocates filed with the company in September asking...

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Robinhood says hackers also got thousands of phone numbers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Robinhood has revealed that “several thousand entries” in a list obtained by hackers included phone numbers, indicating that a November 3rd security breach compromised more information than the company originally reported. More precisely, the list contains around 4,400 phone numbers according to Motherboard, which reportedly obtained the list from a “proxy for the hackers.”

Earlier this month, Robinhood reported that an employee falling victim to a social engineering attack led to hackers obtaining 5 million customers’ emails, and 2 million customers’ names. Additionally, around 300 customers had more details like zip codes and dates of birth stolen, while 10 customers had “more extensive account details revealed.” Phone numbers weren’t...

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The PlayStation 5 is available for Verizon customers right now (update: sold out)

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Update November 17th, 1:00PM ET: Verizon’s waves of PlayStation 5 consoles on its site have ended for today, as it now only shows out of stock. We’ll be sure to keep you up to date when we hear about the next restocks from Verizon and all the usual retailers.

If you’re shopping for Sony’s next-gen console, it may feel like a PlayStation 5 is one of the scarcest materials on the planet. The PS5 launched more than a year ago, yet it remains difficult to get a hold of one. Things have gotten a bit easier recently, with more frequent restocks from retailers and directly through Sony, but the struggle is real.

But right now, Verizon customers can pick up the standard, disc-based PS5 for $500 directly from the carrier. The console listing is...

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Activision Blizzard shareholders demand Bobby Kotick’s resignation

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Activision Blizzard shareholders issued a letter calling for the resignation of CEO Bobby Kotick and two long-serving members of the board of directors a day after the _Wall Street Journal_reported Kotick not only knew about numerous cases of sexual harassment at the company but worked to cover them up.

“As new reporting indicates, and in contrast to past company statements, CEO Bobby Kotick was aware of many incidents of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and gender discrimination at Activision Blizzard,” wrote the SOC Investment Group, which works on behalf of union pension funds invested in Activision Blizzard and other companies. “We, therefore, call on Mr. Kotick to resign as CEO of the company.”

The letter also calls for the...

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A look under the hood of the most successful streaming service on the planet

Illustration by Anuj Shrestha

Netflix’s secret sauce is something none of us ever see

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Amazon Fire TV Omni review: useful Alexa features, underwhelming picture

Amazon’s first TV has an appealing price and useful features but isn’t on par where it counts

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How to delete your Instagram account

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you’ve made the decision to delete Instagram, whether because you’ve outgrown the need for a certain finsta or because its parent company Meta is courting controversy again, doing so isn’t as quick or easy as it should be. It can’t even be done from within the Instagram app.

Go ahead and take a moment to make an obligatory “I’m deleting Instagram” post if you'd like, and then follow these steps to ditch your account — they can be followed using either a computer or phone, as long as you’re using a browser.

• First, you’ll have to go to Instagram’s special account removal request page, which can be found here, or by following the link in Instagram’s account deletion help article. If you’re not logged into Instagram for the web (most...

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The new 14-inch MacBook Pro is up to $100 off at B&H Photo

The newest MacBook Pros are a return to form, complete with more ports. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Each and every day we get closer to Black Friday, the deals keep heating up. There are already a lot of great early Black Friday sales to pore over, and we’ve even gathered retailer-specific deals from the likes of Amazon, Walmart, and Target. The Verge has its own deals going on, in a way, with exclusives offered below, along with our very own giveaway. It’s certainly the season of tech deals, and kicking off today’s sales are discounts on the hottest laptops that just hit the market.

When Apple announced its new MacBook Pro laptops, its own site broke under the weight of people placing orders. But not only can you get one now, you can save a little off the total. The 14-inch MacBook Pro is up to $100 off at B&H Photo. You can get a 1...

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Xbox Cloud Gaming is starting to roll out to Xbox consoles

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Microsoft is beginning to roll out the ability to play games via Xbox Cloud Gaming on Xbox One or Xbox Series X / S consoles, Microsoft announced Wednesday. The feature requires a Game Pass Ultimate subscription and will be available in 25 regions “with Brazil coming soon,” according to Microsoft. But you might not have access to the feature right away, as Microsoft says it will roll out first “with our November release to a subset of Xbox gamers” and to everyone in supported markets “over the coming weeks.”

Cloud gaming on Xbox consoles could have a number of useful applications. You can use it to try or demo games available on Game Pass without having to fully download them. If a friend sends you a multiplayer invite for a game you...

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