How to file and pay your 2021 taxes online

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic took everyone, including the IRS, by surprise, and the filing deadline for federal tax payments was moved from the usual mid-April date to July 15th. In 2021, the due date was pushed back to May 17th, 2021. Right now, however, it looks like we’ll be back to the traditional mid-April due dates.

Actually, because the tax deadline can’t be the same day as an official holiday, most of us have until April 18th (April 15th is Emancipation Day in DC). If you live in Maine or Massachusetts, you actually have until April 19th because of Patriots’ Day. Need an extension? After you’ve applied for that extension, you have until October 17th.

However, the IRS has also made it known that the pandemic is still slowing...

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Fortnite’s latest virtual event is a simple — yet important — art gallery

Yesterday on my lunch break, I spent about 15 minutes wandering the halls of the Serpentine gallery, looking at the “New Fiction” exhibition from pop artist Brian Donnelly, better known by his alias Kaws. There were all kinds of statues of his iconic “Companion” character — you may recognize its Mickey Mouse-like visage from copious vinyl figures or as an awards statue for the MTV VMAs — along with some huge, colorful paintings. It was a pleasant way to soak in some culture — and it all took place inside Fortnite.

The Fortnite exhibition was essentially a virtual recreation of an IRL display at the real Serpentine in London, which is currently underway. Compared to other, similar virtual events, it’s pretty simple. It doesn’t have the...

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GM announces plans to make mobile power generators using hydrogen fuel cells

GM’s EMPOWER rapid charger can help retail fuel stations add more affordable DC fast-charging capabilities | GM

General Motors announced plans to manufacture mobile power generators using its Hydrotec-branded hydrogen fuel cells.

The aim is to replace polluting gas- and diesel-powered generators with zero-emission hydrogen-powered ones. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, so its appeal to an industry that’s trying to pivot away from dirty internal combustion engines is obvious. Some automakers are developing hydrogen-powered cars as a possible alternative to EVs that use lithium-ion batteries. With today’s announcement, GM is staking out a position that looks beyond the car and power generation.

GM

GM’s Mobile Power Generator can fast-charge EVs without having to expand the grid or install permanent...

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Is Microsoft building a gaming monopoly?

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Yesterday morning, Microsoft announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, publisher of games ranging from the Call of Duty series to Candy Crush Saga, for $68.7 billion. Microsoft says the move would make it the third-largest gaming company by revenue, following Tencent and Sony. The company, already a giant in the market, would gain even more leverage over how games are made and distributed. That’s assuming regulators approve it — something that’s not guaranteed amid a new push for scrutiny of potential tech monopolies.

After a damaging antitrust case in the 1990s, Microsoft has mostly escaped the more recent antitrust criticism directed at tech companies like Apple, Meta, and Amazon. But the company has been steadily building its...

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Verizon’s faster C-band 5G is live and off to a promising start

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amid an ongoing tussle with the FAA and airline industry, Verizon today flipped the switch on its mid-band 5G deployment, which uses spectrum that the company spent tens of billions of dollars to acquire in the C-band auction. The new, faster level of 5G connectivity will significantly augment Verizon’s “5G Ultra Wideband” network, which, until now, has relied solely on extremely-fast-but-very-hard-to-find millimeter wave spectrum.

Mid-band 5G overcomes many of the hurdles that have made mmW the brunt of jokes from competitors like T-Mobile: it’s actually available indoors, and coverage doesn’t vary as unpredictably from one street to the next. Customers with compatible phones should experience noticeably faster data speeds compared to...

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AT&T begins 5G C-band rollout in limited number of metro areas

AT&T is launching its expanded 5G service in eight metro areas. | Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

AT&T is lighting up its expanded 5G service in just eight metro areas in the US on Wednesday, including Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Chicago, Detroit, Jacksonville, Orlando, and South Florida (PDF). This comes after both AT&T and Verizon voluntarily limited the activation of C-band spectrum around airports after facing mounting pressure from airlines.

“Today’s introduction begins in limited parts of 8 metro areas across the U.S. It will expand rapidly as our thoughtful and efficient deployment ramps up throughout the year,” Chris Sambar, AT&T’s executive vice president of technology operations, explains in the post announcing the expansion. “With 17 C-Band-capable devices already available online and in our stores, you can start...

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Nvidia added a buggy Android 11 update to its Shield TV lineup

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

When Nvidia announced the rollout of the Shield Experience 9.0 (Android 11) update for its Android TV devices, we were impressed by the simple fact that it would include Shield TV models dating back to 2015 — but the buzz was short-lived as many owners are reporting major bugs on even the latest models.

As 9to5Google reports, people that ran the update on their Shield TVs lost access to their Plex media servers — a popular use case for the devices thanks to their powerful processor and a USB port that supports storage devices.

Well upgraded my shield to 9.0 wish I hadn't now not very happy!!! pic.twitter.com/WejE0v1ebk

— Justin Greatrix (@Hotwire147) January 14, 2022

Nvidia is taking action on the matter: it posted a support page...

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White House says 400 million free N95 masks will be available at US pharmacies

N95 face masks offer better protection against COVID than cloth ones, the CDC says | Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times

The US government will make 400 million N95 face masks available for free at pharmacies and health centers, sourcing them from the Strategic National Stockpile, the White House tweeted on Wednesday.

The announcement comes not long after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledged that the cloth masks worn by most people don’t provide as much prevention of coronavirus transmission as N95 masks or KN95 masks, the international equivalent. Some health experts have argued that the cloth masks are particularly ineffective against the highly contagious omicron variant of COVID-19 that has pushed infection rates higher in recent weeks.

N95 masks are made with several layers of material that have better filtration than...

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Horizon Forbidden West’s new story trailer brings back Aloy’s old friends

Horizon Forbidden West is almost here, and to celebrate, PlayStation released a new trailer. In the new story trailer, we get a better idea of the threats Aloy will face going into the west. The land is dying, affected by some kind of ruinous blight that only Aloy armed with her Focus has the power to stop. To do so, she’ll mount her trusty strider and head west, exploring the beautiful ruins of famous landmarks like the Golden Gate Bridge.

Aloy won’t be alone on her trip. Her old friends Erend and Varl will accompany her on her journey. Another old “friend,” Sylens, has also reappeared in the west and seems to be working for the Regalla, a tribe dedicated to war and conquest, giving them the means to command and control the machines.

...

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COVID-19: variants, vaccines, news and updates

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The virus isn’t going to go away

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With Activision, Microsoft is one gigantic step closer to game subscription dominance

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

This weekend, I noticed that my PS5 and Switch were literally collecting dust — and realized that’s because I’ve been playing my games almost exclusively on Xbox Game Pass instead. The service has an incredible wealth of titles; in just the past couple weeks, I’ve finished Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, unpacked boxes in Unpacking, tried and failed to get invested in Mass Effect Legendary Edition, watched my wife deliver mail in Lake, and am currently living out my Jedi dreams in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. I can check out new games almost as easy as hitting play on a Netflix show, too, thanks to the recently added ability to stream titles from the cloud.

But now that Microsoft is paying $68.7 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard —...

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Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series finally has a name

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power | Image: Prime Video

Amazon’s upcoming Lord of the Ringsseries finally has a name, and it’s a damned good one.

Set during Second Age, thousands of years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, the _Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power_will tell the story of how the titular rings of power were first forged and divvied up amongst Middle-earth’s races. The new series’ title — along with a forging-focused teaser video — allude to how the rings’ creation were both tied to the reemergence of a long-dormant evil in the world and to the subsequent hardships that the world’s men, elves, and dwarves would end up facing in the future.

In a press statement about the series and its title, co-showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay said that their desire was to come...

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Sony’s colorful DualSense controllers harmonize with my color palette

Also (unofficially) known as “the Cameron Faulkner collection”

I’m not usually the kind of person who’s easily persuaded by new colorways of controllers that I already own. But Sony’s new DualSense colors are a little different — or, they’re not, actually. I just found a reason to care about them. The three vibrant, wintery-hued controllers are _my_colors.

As a holiday gift, I got my “colors done” alongside my wife. I didn’t ask for this gift, but it has yielded a couple of benefits already. I strive to wear winter colors that bring out my eyes, hide my blemishes, and generally make me look ready to take on the world (look out, world!). And now, I’m surrounded by these three DualSense controllers that make me feel like I’m getting the most out of my pricey color analysis and also make gaming on the...

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Snapchat to limit friend suggestions for teenagers to prevent contact with strangers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Snapchat is implementing a new safety feature that limits the friend suggestions teenagers see in the app (via 9to5Mac). Kids aged 13 to 17 years old will now only receive suggestions that have “a certain number of friends in common with that person” through Snapchat’s friend suggestion feature, called Quick Add.

It’s unclear just how many mutual friends a user will need to have in common with a teen in order to appear on their Quick Add list, but Snapchat says it will help ensure users actually know each other in real life. The platform also plans on adding new parental control tools, which it hinted at last year, offering “parents more insight into who their teens are talking to” while still letting teens have a sense of privacy.

An...

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Yellowjackets’ first season is a collective fever dream

Image: Showtime

At the very start of Yellowjackets, we meet Allie, a freshman who was meant to be on the plane when it crashed. “I’ll never forget the day I heard their plane had gone missing. I mean, that could have been me,” she says dramatically in a thick Jersey accent, cigarette and wine in hand. And yet, it wasn’t. This one throwaway line has stuck with me since the beginning of the show; the larger Yellowjackets discussion isn’t just about the parasocial adoption of others’ trauma, but the way we talk about the girls and the show and regress into a deliriously unhinged version of the ’90s that I didn’t even know I wanted, and it rules.

This essay contains spoilers for the first season of Yellowjackets.

When it comes to Yellowjackets theories,...

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A guide to Microsoft’s Xbox game studios empire

Microsoft Corp.

With the impending purchase of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion dollars, Microsoft is now the third-largest video game publisher in the world by revenue. It owns several of the biggest gaming franchises of all time, including Minecraft, The Elder Scrolls, and now Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Since the early 2000s, Microsoft has slowly but steadily expanded its holdings, adding to its stable of first-party developers. An explosion of acquisitions in the late teens combined with the purchase of Bethesda last year made Microsoft a many-armed behemoth in the gaming industry, surpassed only by Sony and Tencent. Here’s a breakdown of the studios and games Microsoft could own if the deal goes through.

pic.twitter.com/zldVsmhJ5M

—...

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AMD hides its claim that 4GB of VRAM is ‘not enough’ just as it launches a 4GB GPU

AMD claimed back in 2020 that 4GB of VRAM was “insufficient” for modern PC games and could result in error messages, warning limits, lower framerates, and even gameplay stutter or pop-in issues. Today, AMD is launching the $199 RX 6500 XT with... 4GB of VRAM, and the blog post featuring AMD’s original claims has mysteriously disappeared.

_KitGuru_reports that AMD has hidden the blog post today, as it was previously accessible yesterday, and a Google cached view version from January 16th has the post in full. “AMD is leading the industry at providing gamers with high VRAM graphics solutions across the entire product offering,” said Adit Bhutani, a Radeon marketing specialist for AMD, in the blog post from 2020. “Competitive products at a...

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FuboTV launches new FanView widgets alongside multi-view on Apple TV

Image: FuboTV

Live streaming app FuboTV is bringing its FanView widgets to Apple TV users, allowing them to view stats alongside single or multi-view match streams.

Multi-viewing, which allows sports fans to stream up to four live TV channels at once, was previously supported on Apple TV. But beginning today, users will be able to use the streaming service’s Multiview and FanView features on Apple TV all at once. FanView allows users to see stats and scores from games alongside their matches on the same screen.

With the feature support, Apple TV users will now be able to stream two games and two FanView widgets simultaneously, the company announced today. Mike Berkley, chief product officer at FuboTV, said in a statement that the addition will allow...

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A lone undersea internet cable connected Tonga to the world — a volcanic eruption broke it

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano(pictured here on January 6th) erupted on January 14th. | Photo by Maxar via Getty Images

The effects of a colossal volcanic eruption in the Pacific archipelago of Tonga are still being calculated, but one consequence is clear: Tonga has been cut off from the internet, after the lone undersea cable that connects the country to the rest of the web was damaged during the eruption.

Like many island nations, Tonga relies on just a single undersea cable, about the thickness of a garden hose and filled with fragile fiber-optic filaments, to get citizens online. But on Tuesday, the government of Tonga said “communications both international and domestic were severed due to damage sustained by the submarine cable.”

No internet has made it hard to get to detailed reports on the volcano’s damage

The government added that “limited...

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Philips Hue’s four-pack of white ambiance smart bulbs are half off

Philips Hue’s white smart bulbs have dropped to an all-time low. | Image: Signify

If you’re looking to light up your home with smart home tech for less, Philips Hue is selling an E26 starter kit containing four white ambiance smart bulbs and a Hue Bridge for just $59.99 instead of $119.99, which is an all-time low. These steep discounts come well after Philips Hue launched new 1,100 lumen smart bulbs, which means it’s likely offering this steep discount on the 800-lumen bulbs looped into this deal until they’re sold out for good.

These popular smart bulbs can be customized with adjustable smart timers, and they allow you to set different hues of white light, with a warmer color temperature to help you relax, or a brighter, cleaner color temp to help you focus. You can also pair the bulbs with your existing setup via...

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How to look your best on a video call

As we approach the two-year mark for this pandemic, it is very clear that everyone could use a refresher course in looking their best on camera. Nice lighting and perfectly decorated bookshelves were once the standard for video meetings, but now it seems as though my coworkers couldn’t care less about hiding their messy living rooms, bedrooms, and offices. And long gone are the days of flattering lighting.

As a _Verge_video director and host, let me assure you: your messy background and poor lighting is still wildly distracting. So let’s make it our New Year’s resolution to refresh our video chat setups: from knowing where to sit to get the best light and choosing the right microphone to just staying comfortable.

Here are my tips and...

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Netflix’s newest game is a Hearthstone-style card battler

Screenshot: Arcanium: Rise of Akhan

Netflix’s foray into the mobile gaming subscription market is showing no signs of slowing down. This week it added a pair of new titles to its service, a card-battling roguelike called Arcanium: Rise of Akhan, and a hidden object game called Krispee Street. Both are available to download on iOS or Android free of charge if you’re already subscribed to the streaming service.

_Arcanium_follows an increasingly familiar template for Netflix’s mobile game releases, in that it’s a pre-existing title added to the subscription service. The game originally launched in early access on Steam back in 2020, where it currently boasts “Mostly Positive” user reviews. Its Steam listing describes it as an “open-world, single-player strategy card adventure”...

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Samsung leaks new notched tablet on its own website

The image from Samsung’s website, showing the unannounced tablet. | Image: Samsung

A Samsung support page for, of all things, Bixby, may have just given us our first official look at the company’s upcoming flagship tablet. The picture, which was spotted by 91Mobiles, shows a familiar looking Samsung smartphone alongside a very unfamiliar looking tablet, complete with a display notch that Samsung savagely mocked when first introduced on the iPhone X. Reports suggest this new tablet will be called the Samsung Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, and it may be announced as early as next month.

The design shown in the image on Samsung’s site corresponds with unofficial renders of the tablet released last October, leaked images from December, and leaked details from WinFuture from this month. If these unofficial details are to be...

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Banjo-Kazooie returns to Nintendo hardware this week

Nintendo has announced the next game coming to its Switch Online service: Nintendo 64 platforming classic Banjo-Kazooie. The game is inextricably associated with the N64 — it’s a collect-a-thon with blurry cartoon graphics and cute animal characters — but this will actually mark the first time you’ll have been able to play it on Nintendo hardware since Microsoft bought original developer Rare in 2002.

Rare did release a couple of spin-off titles for the Game Boy Advance, but the last major Banjo-Kazooie game was 2008’s Nuts & Bolts for the Xbox 360. That game, as well as 360 ports of the original Banjo-Kazooie and sequel Banjo-Tooie, are also available on modern Xbox consoles through Game Pass and a compilation called Rare Replay.

B...

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Looks like FedEx won’t be adding lasers to its airplanes

Photo by BENOIT DOPPAGNE/BELGA/AFP via Getty Images

It looks like the FAA may have made a whoopsie. Remember when the US aviation authority suggested that FedEx might possibly potentially maybe be able to stick a laser onto its cargo planes to knock missiles out of the sky? Yeah, no: “further internal study is necessary,” the FAA told Reuters on Tuesday, adding that the proposal “is not moving forward at this time.”

Before you say that of course the FAA wasn’t going to let a private company mount a frickin’ laser beam (sorry, old reference) to their airplanes, you should know that we’re not exactly talking about the kind of high-energysolid state lasers that can literally blast things till they catch fire and explode — though the US military has certainly tested those sorts of lasers...

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Apple and Google split with startups over antitrust bill

Photo by Elizabeth Frantz-Pool / Getty Images

As the Senate Judiciary Committee inches towards passing legislation that could loosen Big Tech’s grasp on consumers, Big Tech is expectedly outraged. Both Apple and Google have written letters publicly opposing new pieces of legislation, while a coalition of smaller tech companies has voiced their support.

The outcry comes in response to two pieces of proposed legislation: The American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which prevents Big Tech from favoring their services over others, and the Open App Markets Act, which aims to promote competition on app stores.

Apple’s senior director of government affairs, Tim Powderly, penned a letter, viewed by Bloomberg, to Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-IL), Antitrust Subcommittee...

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The US has a new plan to confront its ‘wildfire crisis’

US President Joe Biden speaks with a fire victim as he tours a neighborhood destroyed by the Marshall Fire in Louisville, Colorado, January 7, 2022. - Authorities say the fast moving wildfire destroyed more than 1,000 homes | Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Federal authorities have a new plan to protect communities across the western US from increasingly explosive infernos by fighting fire with fire. In a shift from old-school firefighting strategies that attempted to stamp out naturally occurring blazes, the USDA and Forest Service will focus on thinning out forests to minimize “mega fires.”

The agencies released a 10-year strategy today that includes removing trees and using “controlled burns” to reduce the amount of vegetation that feeds flames. The plan is to treat up to 20 million more acres of national forest land than is currently managed, plus work with partners to employ the tactics on an additional 30 million acres on other federal, state, tribal, and private lands. All in all,...

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Emirates, Air India, and others cancel flights due to AT&T and Verizon’s 5G rollout

Photo by Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Emirates, Air India, ANA, and Japan Airlines have all announced they’re canceling some flights to the US due to this week’s rollout of C-band 5G over concerns it could potentially interfere with some instruments. This comes as cell carriers, federal agencies, airlines, and airplane manufacturers struggle to reach an agreement on policies regarding how the rollout should be handled.

Emirates’ announcement is one of the clearest about what’s being canceled. The airline says that it’s “suspending flights to the following US destinations from 19 January 2022 until further notice,” listing Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Miami, Newark, Orlando, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Emirates says it’s “working closely with aircraft...

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Microsoft addresses last week’s buggy Windows Updates that broke VPNs and rebooted servers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft released an out-of-band (OOB) update yesterday to fix some Windows issues caused by last week’s monthly patching cycle on Patch Tuesday.

The January 2022 updates that shipped last week included security patches and a fix for Japanese text appearance issues in Windows 11 (KB5009566) and Windows 10 (KB5009543) — along with a secret payload of issues, including unexpected restarting of Domain Controllers and VPN connections using L2TP failing.

One of the major issues that came up during the week for IT admins included finding that Windows Server 2012 became stuck in a boot loop, while other versions suffered broken Windows VPN clients, and some hard drives appeared as RAW format (and unusable). Many IT Admins were forced to roll...

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White House warns ‘small percentage’ of people can’t order its rapid COVID-19 tests

Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Nearly a month after President Joe Biden first announced that Americans would be able to order rapid at-home COVID-19 tests for free from the government, the administration’s website finally went live on Tuesday. But hours after the site’s launch, users struggled to place orders to homes or apartment buildings where other tenants may have already placed an order.

The extent of the problem is still unclear as of publication, but White House spokesperson Kevin Munoz said, “It’s a really small percentage and USPS will be sending our statement on this shortly.”

Users trying to order tests to multiple-family homes and apartments seem to be experiencing this issue the most. Once a user enters their information into the form, they’re prompted...

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