Apple Stores across NYC are only open if you’re picking up an online order

People walk outside the Apple Store on the Upper West Side on March 12th, 2021 in New York City. | Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images

As initially reported by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, all of New York City’s Apple Stores have joined the list of locations closing their doors to most customers amid a spike in the number of COVID-19 infections.

Image: Apple.com

Services at Apple Upper West Side

Last week, Apple closed seven stores in North America in a single day as positive tests among employees rose, and MacRumors points out that even before this announcement, the Apple website listed more than 20 locations that were closed today due to the effects of the pandemic.

For people in New York City, the stores are still accessible if you have an appointment to pick up an online order. All other services, like its Genius Bar tech support or shopping...

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Messy NFT drop angers infosec pioneers with unauthorized portraits

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

An unauthorized NFT drop celebrating infosec pioneers has collapsed into a mess of conflicting takedowns and piracy.

Released on Christmas Day by a group called “ItsBlockchain,” the “Cipher Punks” NFT package included portraits of 46 distinct figures, with ten copies of each token. Taken at their opening price, the full value of the drop was roughly $4,000. But almost immediately, the infosec community began to raise objections — including some from the portrait subjects themselves.

The portrait images misspelled several names — including EFF speech activist Jillian York and OpenPGP creator Jon Callas — and based at least one drawing on a copyright-protected photograph. More controversially, the list included some figures who have been...

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The Batman’s latest trailer introduces the Riddler as a FaceTime troll

Image by Warner Bros. Pictures

A new trailer for The Batman gives us a glimpse at Catwoman’s “thing” for stray cats and the Riddler’s affinity for FaceTime. What’s promised as an even grittier take on Batman stars Robert Pattinson as Batman, Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, and Paul Dano as the Riddler.

The two-and-a-half-minute teaser, appropriately titled “The Bat and the Cat,” highlights the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle, who don’t always appear to get along. In one scene, Batman is commenting on the — apparently concerning — number of cats Catwoman has in her home, and in the next, the duo is sparring in a low-lit office. The pair comes together by the end of the trailer, with both battling the same bad guys.

Image by Warner Bros....

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Motorola will try foldable phones again with a third-generation Razr

Not pictured: a beloved phone. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

Motorola is working on a new version of its Razr foldable smartphones, according to a Weibo post spotted by Android Police. The post is from Chen Jin, the general manager of the Lenovo Mobile Business Group in China (Lenovo is currently in charge of Motorola’s smartphone business), and describes how the company has been quietly working on a new addition to its lineup of foldable phones. It doesn’t have big shoes to fill — Motorola’s first two modern foldables were mediocre phones with hefty price tags.

We ran Jin’s post through a few translation sites, and while some parts didn’t make the jump to English, there are consistent details that show up in all the translations. The post mentions that the phone will have a better processor,...

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California is suing Walmart over alleged improper disposal of e-waste and other hazardous materials

Walmart store

Last week, the California attorney general and 12 state officials filed a lawsuit against Walmart, saying it allegedly illegally disposed of electronic and hazardous waste, compromising local landfills.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta alleges in a statement the company violated state environmental laws with their practices, and the waste included materials like lithium and alkaline batteries, insect killer sprays, aerosol cans, LED lightbulbs, and more.

State investigators conducted 58 inspections across 13 counties from 2015 to 2021 and said they found classified hazardous and medical waste in each store’s trash compactors, as well as customer information that should have been rendered indecipherable. The California DOJ...

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Zoom’s latest acquisition connects professional broadcast tools for large-scale events

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Zoom has acquired the Zoom-based broadcast tools created by the startup Liminal, along with two of the company's co-founders, the videoconferencing platform announced in a post on its blog. Liminal’s add-ons, ZoomOSC and ZoomISO, are built for creating professional virtual events, which Zoom will likely natively integrate into its software as part of the acquisition.

The acquisition will help “bridge” the gap between “emerging” and “traditional” forms of event control tools

As noted on Liminal’s site, ZoomOSC is designed to enhance professional meetings and events using the Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol, enabling you to integrate Zoom with third-party software, hardware controllers, and media servers. Meanwhile, ZoomISO allows you to...

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Final Fantasy XVI’s next big reveal won’t come until spring 2022 after six months of COVID-19 delays

Final Fantasy XVI is the latest game to be hit by COVID-related development delays, with the game’s producer Naoki Yoshida announcing in a letter posted to Twitter that work on the upcoming PlayStation 5 RPG has been set back by about six months. Furthermore, Yoshida announced that the next major reveal for the upcoming title — originally promised for sometime in 2021 — is now being pushed out to sometime in spring 2022.

A message from Final Fantasy XVI producer Naoki Yoshida. #FF16#FFXVIpic.twitter.com/qtfJUUp6LA

— FINAL FANTASY XVI (@finalfantasyxvi) December 27, 2021

It’s not too surprising that Final Fantasy XVI has been hit by delays. As the first flagship Final Fantasy game for a next-generation console, the development...

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XPG imagines a gaming mouse that can also store 1TB of games

“The Vault” is an appropriate name. | Image: XPG

XPG has announced the XPG Vault, a “concept” mouse that has a built-in SSD to let you carry around your mouse and storage in one package (via Engadget). While lots of gaming mice have some built-in storage to let you easily carry macros and preferences from computer to computer, and the concept of a mouse doubling as a flash drive has been around for over a decade, XPG is aiming a little higher. It’s promising “to make your gaming libraries conveniently portable,” right from your mouse.

There aren’t many details for the Vault in XPG’s press release, but XPG says the “current prototype can integrate up to 1TB of Solid State memory running at 985MB/s” and connects with USB-C. Given that it’s a wired mouse, that performance seems possible —...

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Spyware scandal rocks Polish government

Polish opposition leader Krzysztof Brejza | Photo by Mateusz Wlodarczyk/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Several members of political opposition groups in Poland have produced evidence that they were hacked by Pegasus spyware, raising alarming questions about the Polish government’s use of the software.

The most alarming case involved the leader of Poland’s Civic Platform party, Senator Krzysztof Brejza, whose phone was compromised a total of 33 times in the six months leading up to the 2019 election, as reported by the Associated Press. During the campaign, Polish state media published damaging text messages obtained from Brejza’s phone, leading to concerns that spyware had been used.

a threat to “the rules-based international order”

The compromises were discovered by Citizen Lab, a spyware research group based at the University of...

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Deck out your new Oculus Quest 2 with discounted accessories

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

During the Christmas holiday, it was easy to pick up on the theme on Twitter that _many_of you either bought or received an Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality headset. Well, in perfect timing, Oculus has discounted many of its official accessories for the Quest 2, which can help to protect your headset, as well as make it more comfortable to wear. We’ve seen promotions that discount these add-ons when you purchase a headset, but never by themselves, so that’s why they’re prominently featured today.

Best Buy has the best deal on the Elite Strap that replaces the fabric strap that comes with your Quest 2. It distributes the weight of the headset more evenly on your head, with adjusters on the top and rear of the Elite Strap. Normally $49, it’s...

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10 great games for your new gaming PC

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Armies, aliens, automobiles, the legendary mascot of the Xbox, and more

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This ambitious smart ring hopes to one day monitor chronic illnesses

The Movano Ring is a smart ring with medical ambitions | Image: Movano

The Oura Ring isn’t the only smart ring on the block anymore. For CES 2022, health tech company Movano is announcing the Movano Ring, a wearable that aims to help people affordably monitor chronic illnesses and better understand their data.

The Movano Ring will measure all the basic metrics, including heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), sleep, respiration, temperature, blood oxygen levels, steps, and calories burned. However, instead of a raw data dump, Movano says it’ll distill how your metrics relate to each other “take a more proactive approach to mitigating the risks of chronic disease.” For example, the Movano app might tell you how your exercise habits impact your sleeping patterns or HRV over time.

This isn’t surprising —...

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LG Display shows off a versatile lineup of transparent OLED screens at CES 2022

The OLED Shelf displaying a piece of art. | Photo by LG Display

LG Display has come up with more uses for transparent screens with its innovative new concepts that will be on display at CES 2022: the OLED Shelf, Shopping Managing Showcase, Show Window, and Smart Window. The company is not to be confused with LG Electronics, as LG Display simply creates concepts that other companies can adopt and introduce to the market.

Its OLED Shelf consists of two transparent OLED displays mounted on top of one another, and as its name implies, it can be placed atop a shelf. LG Display says it’s ideal for the living room, where it can display art or a TV show. Always on Display Mode ensures that the screen stays on all the time, so if there was a piece of art on display, that image will stay put just like an...

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Control is free for one day on the Epic Games Store

The Epic Games Store is offering Control for free as part of its 15 days of free games promotion — the game is only available for free until December 27th at 11AM. To get the game, simply log in to the Epic Games Store (or create an account), navigate to Control’s game page, and then hit “Get” to add the game to your library for free.

The Federal Bureau of Control has granted us authorization to disperse free copies of @ControlRemedy for one day only.

Claim yours while you can, Director. https://t.co/1bzgT8zKH0pic.twitter.com/ZkJp5yh9VX

— Epic Games Store (@EpicGames) December 26, 2021

Control was a freebie on the Epic Games Store this past June, so if you missed picking it up then, now you have another chance to grab it for free....

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Apple reportedly hires away Meta’s AR public relations head

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple has reportedly hired Andrea Schubert, Meta’s communications and public relations lead for its augmented reality (AR) products, according to Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman in his Power On newsletter. Schubert’s LinkedIn page indicates that she’s been working for Meta for nearly six years.

“Meta, with Oculus, has been the market leader in headsets, so such a hire makes sense as Apple nears its launch”

“Meta, with Oculus, has been the market leader in headsets, so such a hire makes sense as Apple nears its launch,” Gurman explains. On both Black Friday and Cyber Monday this year, Meta’s Oculus Quest 2 was one of the top-selling products. Not to mention that Meta’s Oculus app topped the App Store in the US on Christmas Day, and became...

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New trailers: The Northman, Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber, The Silent Sea, and more

Alexander Skarsgård is out for revenge in The Northman | Focus Features

Hello and welcome to the final trailers roundup for 2021, I hope you have enjoyed reading (and watching) these roundups as much as I have enjoyed writing them. There were a lot of really good streaming shows and movies this year despite the persistence of the coronavirus that disrupted so much of our lives. Among my personal favorites were Loki, Succession, Ted Lasso, The Beatles: Get Back, King Richard, and Y: The Last Man (pls someone pick up this show it was just getting started!).

This week’s list has Vikings, Hercule Poirot, and a look at the upcoming Showtime series about the early days of Uber.

The Northman

Director Robert Eggers (The Witch,The Lighthouse), said in an interview with EW that The Northman was “by far the hardest...

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Tesla owner blows up Model S instead of footing $22,600 repair bill

A Tesla Model S strapped with dynamite. | Screenshot from Pommijätkät via YouTube

When faced with a repair bill that costs half of what you paid for your car, do you go through with the expensive repair, bring it to the junkyard, or sell it for parts? Finnish Tesla owner Tuomas Katainen decided to do something a little more extreme — but arguably a lot more satisfying — when faced with such a situation: he watched his car go up in flames, as noted in a report from Gizmodo.

Katainen handed his 2013 Tesla Model S over to Pommijätkät, a group of explosion experts on YouTube who loves to make things go “boom,” after he was quoted $22,600 for a battery replacement. “Well when I bought that Tesla, the first 1,500km [932 miles] were nice,” Katainen recounted. “Then, error codes hit.” After Katainen brought his Tesla to a...

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10 great apps for your new 2021 iPhone

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

New phone, new start

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9 great Android apps for your new 2021 Android device

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

A privacy-minded roundup of apps, including a self-care penguin

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Nintendo Switch eShop is down for some on Christmas Day

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

As kids and adults alike flock to the Nintendo eShop, eager to spend the gift cards they found in their stockings, that excitement was quickly spoiled by an eShop error screen. The annual holiday surge has brought down the Nintendo Switch eShop for some yet again, according to a report from Kotaku.

We are aware that players are experiencing errors accessing Nintendo eShop, and are working to address the issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your understanding, and please see our Network Status page for the latest updates.https://t.co/KnM0g7z7jn

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) December 25, 2021

Nintendo sent out a tweet, noting that the company is “working to address the issue as soon as possible.” It also includes a link...

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Today I learned that the Death Star is the size of the Olympic Peninsula

Death Star for scale. | Image: Park My Spaceship

Park My Spaceship is the simple, extremely amusing app I didn’t know I needed. It allows you to superimpose to-scale images of notable spacecraft from sci-fi shows and movies over Google Maps. That’s it. It’s great. You can check to see if Serenity would fit in your backyard or if the Millennium Falcon could land in your neighborhood park. It’s been around since 2018, but I first encountered it this week when @CincinnatiPhil TILearned about it and shared his discoveries on Twitter.

I set about placing ships around the greater Seattle area and found that the Millennium Falcon fits nicely in the fountain plaza in front of the Space Needle, which would look cool as hell. You can almost fit a Star Destroyer in Lake Union or park it on...

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8 great games for your new 2021 Xbox

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Many of these games play well on Series S, too

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8 great games for your new 2021 PlayStation 5

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

If you’re lucky enough to have one, that is

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The global version of Steam appears to be banned in China

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Steam Global seems to have been banned in China, according to a report from TheGamer. Only the Chinese version of Steam remains accessible in the country, which currently offers a limited library of just 103 games — a very small fraction of the over 110,000 games that Steam Global has at this time of writing.

Reliable Fortnite leaker and data miner Ricky Owens (aka iFireMonkey) first noticed the ban and tweeted out a screenshot of what appears to be Steam on a list of blocked websites in China. We tried to verify this for ourselves using Comparitech’s tool that checks whether a site is blocked in China. Upon entering “store.steampowered.com,” into the site, the tool indicates that Steam has been blocked in all parts of the country — as...

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10 great games for your new 2021 OLED Switch

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

The best games to play together or alone

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NASA’s revolutionary James Webb Space Telescope successfully launches to space

Image: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Early Christmas morning, NASA’s revolutionary new space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, successfully launched into space after taking off on top of a European Ariane 5 rocket from South America. The launch marks the beginning of one of the most anticipated NASA missions in decades, a program that promises to transform how we study the deepest depths of the Universe.

“From a tropical rainforest to the edge of time itself, James Webb begins a voyage back to the birth of the Universe,” Rob Navias, NASA’s announcer on the agency’s livestream, said at liftoff.

Though the initial trip to space may have been successful, there’s still a risky journey ahead for the James Webb Space Telescope, also known as JWST. Over the next month,...

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How to watch the launch of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope

After nearly two and a half decades of planning and work, NASA is finally set to launch its next-generation space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, this morning. The spacecraft will ride to space on top of a European Ariane 5 rocket, taking off out of Europe’s primary launch site in French Guiana, South America.

The launch is expected to last just 26 minutes to get JWST to space. Once it’s free of the rocket, JWST will then spend the next month traveling to its final destination roughly 1 million miles from Earth and slowly unfurling to reach its final form for probing the cosmos.

Here’s what you need to know to watch today’s launch.

How do I watch the launch?

NASA plans to livestream today’s launch on its dedicated channel,...

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CES 2022 loses Microsoft in Las Vegas over COVID fears

Microsoft is the latest company to drop a physical presence at CES, as the increased prevalence of COVID-19 spooks exhibitors. It joins a growing list of major companies ditching the world’s largest technology show.

“After reviewing the latest data on the rapidly evolving COVID environment, Microsoft has decided not to participate in-person at CES 2022,” a company spokesperson said in an e-mailed statement. (The spokesperson declined to give their name because that’s how Microsoft prefers to announce event status changes.) Instead, the company will have a digital presence for both the Microsoft Partner Innovation Experience and Automotive Press Kit.

Microsoft was a featured exhibitor at the technology conference, and is now the latest to...

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Apple must let dating apps offer alternate in-app payment options, says Dutch regulator

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple must allow dating app developers to offer non-Apple payment systems for in-app purchases or face a hefty fine, according to a detailed ruling released today from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM). The regulator has been investigating the company’s App Store practices since 2019, but Reuters reports that it decided to focus on dating apps after receiving a complaint from Match Group, owners of dating services like Tinder, Match.com, and OkCupid.

This decision doesn’t apply to other app categories, like games or productivity apps, in the country.

“Some app providers are dependent on Apple’s App Store, and Apple takes advantage of that dependency,” writes Martijn Snoep, chairman of the board of ACM. “Apple has...

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An app gave crucial seconds of warning before a major California earthquake

Photo by Yichuan Cao/NurPhoto via Getty Images

An early-alert system designed to give people crucial seconds of warning before earthquakes lived up to its promise on Monday. It buzzed through a half a million phones ahead of a 6.2 magnitude earthquake that hit northwest California — the largest quake since the system, called ShakeAlert, rolled out across the entire state, The Guardian reported.

ShakeAlert pulls information from the United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) sensor network. If data from those sensors says there will be major shaking in an area, people living there get alerts through the MyShake app (if they’ve downloaded it), or through the wireless emergency alerts system on their phones. Alerts also go out to Android users through a partnership between Google, USGS,...

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