Pinterest will let you use AR to preview furniture from Walmart, West Elm, and more

You may be used to trying out furniture in AR. | Image: Pinterest

Pinterest is adding a “Try On for Home Decor” feature to its app, letting you see furniture from stores like Crate & Barrel, CB2, Walmart, West Elm, and Wayfair in your house through the power of augmented reality. While it’s certainly not a new idea (Pinterest itself already has a similar feature in its app for cosmetics), it could make shopping in the app a little more enjoyable — and Pinterest seems very into shopping right now.

According to the company’s announcement post, you’ll be able to use its Lens camera to try out over 80,000 pieces of furniture from “shoppable Pins.” If you like what you see, you’ll be able to follow a link to the retailer’s website, where you can buy that new chaise or lamp that fits so well next to your...

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The voice of Joel from The Last of Us steps away from NFT project after outcry

Troy Baker will no longer be partnering with Voiceverse. | Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for ReedPOP

Troy Baker, a prominent voice actor perhaps best known for playing Joel in The Last of Us, is stepping away from an NFT partnership following significant outcry. In the early hours of January 14th, Baker announced on Twitter that he would be partnering with a company called Voiceverse, which creates “Voice NFTs” that each have a “unique AI-generated voice map,” but he now says he won’t continue the partnership.

In his original announcement, it seems Baker expected some backlash — perhaps he has seen some of the gaming community’s opposition to NFTs already, like what led to the removal of planned NFTs from the upcoming S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl. “You can hate,” part of Baker’s tweet read. “Or you can create. What’ll it be?”

O...

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China releases video of spacecraft orbiting Mars for Lunar New Year

Image: Screenshot from Tianwen-1 video on China Xianhu News

China’s first Mars orbiter, Tianwen-1, is showing off its journey around the Red Planet in a newly released selfie video ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year. The brief clip, released Monday by the China National Space Administration, shows a good portion of the spacecraft’s body, engines, and solar array zooming through space, with portions of Mars’ surface appearing in the background.

The Tianwen-1 orbiter has been circling Mars for nearly a year now. After launching from China in July of 2020, the vehicle inserted itself into the planet’s orbit in February of 2021. The spacecraft is China’s first mission to successfully reach the Red Planet’s orbit, making the nation one of just a handful of countries to explore Mars robotically....

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Leatherface refuses to be canceled in Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s first trailer

Netflix/Legendary

All Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Leatherface has really wanted deep down is to be unbothered by the outside world and left to his murderous hobbies. But the first trailer for Netflix and Legendary’s upcoming sequel makes clear that almost 50 years later, the iconic serial killer still knows no peace despite his attempts to go looking for it.

What the new _Texas Chainsaw Massacre_lacks in terms of having a unique title, it may make up for with its premise, which directly connects it to director Tobe Hooper’s original 1974 feature of a similar name. Though most everyone living near Harlow, Texas is familiar with the story of how Sally Hardesty (Olwen Fouéré) narrowly managed to escape Leatherface’s (Mark Burnham) clutches, Texas Chainsaw...

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The latest iPad Air is selling for its lowest price ever

Save $100 on the iPad Air | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The 2020 model of the iPad Air has been discounted to its lowest price ever. Normally, this slim tablet costs $599.99 but has been discounted to $499.99 in all colorways at Best Buy. The Verge’s Dieter Bohn praised its excellent screen and overall fast performance, calling it the “best tablet for most people” in his review. This model represents a top-to-bottom redesign over its previous iteration, bringing features like a USB-C charging port, which broadens its compatibility with accessories.

Our top pick for the best Chromebook you can get, the Acer Chromebook Spin 713, is currently on sale at Best Buy for $499.99, knocking $200 off the regular price of this amazing laptop. In our review from The Verge’s own Monica Chin, she gave...

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MLB The Show is making its Nintendo Switch debut on April 5th

_MLB The Show_made its debut on Xbox last year, and it’s now making its way to the Nintendo Switch. _MLB The Show 22_will be released on April 5th on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X / S. This is the first entry in the MLB The Show series for Nintendo’s Switch console, and it will include full cross-platform progression, cross-saves, and online multiplayer between PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch consoles.

The cover athlete this year is Shohei Ohtani, who had an incredible 2021, hitting 46 home runs and 100 runs batted in. The Japanese baseball star is “the only obvious choice to grace the cover of MLB The Show 22,”says Ramone Russell, brand strategist at Sony’s San Diego studio, on the PlayStation...

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Sony is buying Bungie, the developer of Destiny and original creator of Halo

It’s another blockbuster gaming acquisition. | Image: Sony

Sony is buying Bungie, the developer of Destiny and the original creator of Halo, for $3.6 billion. The acquisition arrives shortly after Microsoft’s announcement that it intends to acquire Activision Blizzard in a deal worth $68.7 billion. Bungie will “continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games,” Bungie CEO Pete Parsons writes in a blog post.

“In SIE, we have found a partner who unconditionally supports us in all we are and who wants to accelerate our vision to create generation-spanning entertainment, all while preserving the creative independence that beats in Bungie’s heart,” Parsons writes. “Like us, SIE believes that game worlds are only the beginning of what our IPs can become. Together, we share a dream of...

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Meta adds 3D avatars to Instagram Stories, with updates for Messenger and Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg’s lifelike 3D avatar | Meta

Facebook parent company Meta is introducing 3D avatars to Instagram Stories and direct messages and updating the avatars in Facebook and Messenger, the company announced Monday. People in the US, Canada, and Mexico can appear as their virtual selves in stickers, feed posts, Facebook profile pictures, and more across Meta’s platforms, including its Quest VR platform. The new avatars will include new facial shapes and assistive devices like cochlear implants, hearing aids, and wheelchairs to be more inclusive of users with disabilities, Aigerim Shorman, Meta’s general manager for avatars and identity, wrote in a blog post.

“Since revealing our long-term vision of the metaverse at Connect 2021, we’ve continued building out this next...

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Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine gets full FDA approval

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Food and Drug Administration has granted full approval to the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, the company announced today. The Moderna vaccine joins the Pfizer / BioNTech shot as the second licensed vaccine against the coronavirus in the United States.

This is Moderna’s first FDA-approved product in the US. “This is a momentous milestone in Moderna’s history,” said Stéphane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna, in a statement.

FDA’s approval of this vaccine is a significant step in the fight against #COVID19, marking the 2nd vaccine approved to prevent COVID-19. Rest assured that it meets our high standards for safety, effectiveness & manufacturing quality required of any vaccine approved in the U.S. https://t.co/4d973XkIeA

— Dr....

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XKCD’s Randall Munroe announces What If? 2, with more scientific answers to life’s most absurd hypothetical questions

XKCD creator Randall Munroe has announced his latest science book: What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, which will delve into new out-of-the-box questions that Munroe attempts to answer with hard scientific facts and research.

_What If? 2_follows 2014’s original What If? book — which itself was borne out of an XKCD spinoff blog — that saw Munroe examine absurd questions (like whether you could build a jetpack that ran off downward-facing machine guns or if there’s enough paint to cover the entire surface of the earth) with rigorous scientific accuracy, accompanied by Munroe’s signature stick figure comics.

The new volume will continue in What If?’s absurd scientific footsteps, attempting to...

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XCKD’s Randall Munroe announces What If? 2, with more scientific answers to life’s most absurd hypothetical questions

XKCD creator Randall Munroe has announced his latest science book: What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions, which will delve into new out-of-the-box questions that Munroe attempts to answer with hard scientific facts and research.

_What If? 2_follows 2014’s original What If? book — which itself was borne out of an XKCD spinoff blog — that saw Munroe examine absurd questions (like whether you could build a jetpack that ran off downward-facing machine guns or if there’s enough paint to cover the entire surface of the earth) with rigorous scientific accuracy, accompanied by Munroe’s signature stick figure comics.

The new volume will continue in What If?’s absurd scientific footsteps, attempting to...

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The best budget laptop of 2022

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge

The best cheap laptops under $800 from HP, Lenovo, and more.

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Amazon warehouse manager pleads guilty to stealing $273K of computer parts

Amazon warehouse manager pleads guilty to stealing and reselling computer parts | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A Charlotte, North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud after stealing and reselling merchandise from an Amazon warehouse, the Department of Justice said in a news release. Between June 2020 and September 2021, Douglas Wright, Jr., an operations manager at Amazon’s Charlotte warehouse, allegedly stole products with a total value of more than $273,000, using his access to get computer parts like internal hard drives and processors, according to the DOJ. Wright said in court on Friday that he shipped the products to his home, then sold them to a computer wholesale company in California.

He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. A sentencing date has not been set.

Wright faces up to 20...

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Intel takes a bite out of Apple

Intel claimed at CES that its new Alder Lake mobile chips would be the fastest mobile chips ever made. We’ve finally gotten to try out the flagship in this line, the 14-core Core i9-12900HK, inside MSI’s GE76 Raider gaming laptop. And it turns out that Intel was right... with some caveats.

The GE76 Raider is a monster in both gaming and productivity workloads. It blew every 11th Gen gaming system I’ve ever tested out of the water. And it even beat Apple’s MacBooks in many of our benchmarks, but that comparison is a bit more... complicated.

Check out the video above to see the full results of our Alder Lake testing and our impressions of how it compares to the M1 Max. For even more benchmark results, in-depth performance analysis, and...

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This robot gripper is delicate enough to pick up an egg yolk without breaking it

The gripper is made from a specially cut kirigami sheet that folds up into a 3D enclosure. | Image: Hong et al, Nature Comm (2000)

Designing robots that can handle fragile items is a big challenge for engineers. For warehouses, robots have been developed that use soft rubber fingers to grab items like fruit, but what about targets that are even more delicate? Like, say, a raw egg yolk?

Well, researchers from North Carolina State University have demonstrated a new type of gripper that could one day help machines pick up even the most breakable items — including yolks. Inspired by the Japanese art of kirigami (like origami, but you fold and cut the paper), their gripper is made from flat sheets of material cut with parallel slits. When the ends of the sheet are pulled apart, the gripper forms itself into a 3D sphere that can be used to gently and precisely grab...

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Peloton’s latest gadget is a $90 heart rate monitor for your arm

Image: Peloton

It’s not a rower or the forthcoming Peloton Guide, but Peloton announced today that it’s releasing a new Bluetooth heart rate monitor. Unlike its existing chest strap, the Peloton Heart Rate Band is meant to be worn on a user’s forearm and features optical heart rate sensors.

The Heart Rate Band will be available in small and large sizes and will cost $90. That’s a little less than double the price of its existing chest strap, which retails for $49 on Peloton’s website. It’ll also sport five LED lights that indicate which heart rate zone you’re currently training in, battery level, and Bluetooth connectivity status. It also has a rechargeable battery that gets an estimated 10 hours on a single charge.

The device is meant to be an...

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Walmart launches new pro service to install your smart home tech

Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Walmart doesn’t want a lack of know-how to prevent its customers from buying smart home tech, TVs, and other devices that require installation or assembly. The retailer has announced a new partnership with in-home services provider Angi to help mount TVs, set up smart home devices, and complete other DIY projects around your home. Angi says over 150 “common home projects” will be available to order from nearly 4,000 Walmart stores, as well as Walmart’s website.

Prices range from $45 for a simple job like furniture assembly, rising to $79 to mount a TV. Some tasks like installing new floors will require custom quotes.

Google and Ring have similar installation partnerships

Angi says that the third most popular project it carried out in...

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Overtaxed

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Busy season is here — but some public accountants aren’t

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Microsoft still working on 3D emoji for Windows 11

Microsoft appears to still be working on true 3D emoji for Windows after first teasing it last year and then only shipping 2D versions in Windows 11. Nando Costa, a distinguished designer at Microsoft, revealed recently that the company is still working on making Windows 11’s emoji look more 3D.

On Friday, Costa authored a blog post on Microsoft’s new direction for its emoji system, detailing the company’s push towards 3D after a 2020 hackathon. Responding to a tweet from someone wanting 3D emoji in Windows 11, Costa says “We’re working on that,” with a grinning face with sweat emoji. We still don’t know when 3D emoji will appear in Windows 11, but at least Microsoft is still working on bringing its original vision to life.

...

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Chord’s Mojo 2 is a pricey gadget aimed at improving the sound of wired headphones

The Mojo 2 can plug into devices like tablets to improve their sound. | Image: Chord

British audio manufacturer Chord has announced a successor to the excellent Mojo, a battery-powered accessory that aims to improve the sound of your wired headphones or speakers when paired with your phone, laptop, tablet, or other digital media source. New features for the Mojo 2 include a USB-C input, better battery life, and new tone controls that effectively work like an equalizer to customize the sound it puts out.

The Mojo 2 retails for $725 (£449), which is hardly affordable by any measure. However, if it’s as good as its predecessor, then this might be a price worth paying to accompany a pair of suitably premium wired headphones or speakers. It’s available globally starting today.

The Mojo 2, like the original Mojo, is...

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Grindr reportedly disappears from app stores in China

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

LGBTQ dating app Grindr has been removed from the Apple App Store in China, and is also unavailable on popular Android app marketplaces, Bloomberg reports. The app reportedly disappeared from the iOS App Store on January 27th, although it’s unclear when it was removed from the country’s popular Android app stores — which are operated by local companies like Huawei and Tencent in the absence of the Google Play Store.

The apparent removals follow the Chinese government’s announcement last week that it would be cracking down on illegal content, pornography, and “ill-natured” activities online, Bloomberg previously reported. The tightening of restrictions comes ahead of China hosting the Winter Olympics in Beijing, which are due to kick off...

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Joe Rogan defends podcast and apologizes to Spotify for backlash

Photo by Louis Grasse/PxImages/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Joe Rogan has issued a response to the ongoing controversy that has seen artists including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell removing their music from Spotify because of not wanting to share a platform with his popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. In a nearly ten-minute video uploaded to Instagram, Rogan defends his decision to book contentious guests, apologizes to Spotify for the backlash, and details how the podcast may change in the future.

“These podcasts are very strange because they’re just conversations,” Rogan says. “And oftentimes I have no idea what I’m going to talk about until I sit down and talk to people. And that’s why some of my ideas are not that prepared or fleshed out because I’m literally having them in real time,...

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Apple adds unlisted apps to its App Store

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple will now let developers distribute unlisted apps through the App Store that only users with a direct link can access (via MacRumors). While unlisted apps aren’t discoverable by the general public through search results, App Store categories, charts, or recommendations, they’re available to administrators via the Apple Business Manager or Apple School Manager.

Unlisted apps are ideal for “limited audiences”

Apple notes that unlisted apps are ideal for “limited audiences,” such as guests at a special event, members of an organization, research study participants, or a specific group of employees. To make an app unlisted and obtain a link, developers will first need to submit a request to Apple.

Apps that have only been approved for...

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Spotify finally responds to Joe Rogan controversy with a plan to label podcasts that discuss COVID-19

Spotify will now add COVID-19 content advisories to podcast episodes that discuss COVID-19 following criticism of the platform’s handling of the controversial content in the Joe Rogan Experience. The advisory will lead to Spotify’s COVID-19 hub, which contains credible and up-to-date information about the pandemic.

To increase transparency around its treatment of the issue, Spotify is making its COVID-19 content policy and general platform rules publicly available on its site. Spotify says anyone who breaks the rules may have the content in question removed, with repeat offenders potentially having their accounts suspended or banned. The Vergeobtained this policy ahead of the platform’s public release, and an internal memo revealed that...

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Live-action Halo TV show release date revealed in new teaser

Screenshot via Halo on Paramount Plus

A new teaser for Paramount Plus’ live-action Halo series reveals the long-awaited show’s release date: March 24th, 2022 (via IGN). At around the 52-second mark, you can hear the announcer state the fast-approaching release date.

We’re just getting started. Watch the #HaloTheSeries Official Trailer today during halftime at the AFC Championship Game on @CBS and @ParamountPlus.

pic.twitter.com/dER2sgbLkI

— Halo on Paramount+ (@HaloTheSeries) January 30, 2022

The one-minute video teases a longer trailer set to debut during tonight’s AFC championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Cincinnati Bengals — it flashes between clips of the live-action series and both teams on the field. The upcoming trailer will air during the game...

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Brené Brown says she won’t release new episodes of her Spotify-exclusive podcasts ‘until further notice’

Brené Brown is the host of popular podcasts Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. | Photo by Rick Kern / WireImage

Popular podcast host and author Brené Brown says she’s not going to release any new podcast episodes “until further notice” and didn’t offer a specific reason why. Brown’s pause on her podcasts comes shortly after both Neil Young and Joni Mitchell pulled their music off Spotify in protest of Joe Rogan’s controversial podcast series.

Brown signed a multi-year deal with Spotify in 2020, and is the host of Spotify exclusive podcasts Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead. “I will not be releasing any podcasts until further notice,” Brown wrote on Twitter. “To our #UnlockingUs and #DaretoLead communities, I’m sorry and I’ll let you know if and when that changes.”

I will not be releasing any podcasts until further notice. To our #UnlockingUs and #...

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AT&T adds $45 / month unlimited prepaid plan with 5G that you can only get at Walmart

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

AT&T has a new Unlimited Max prepaid plan with 5G, and it’s available at Walmart for $45 / month. The plan comes with unlimited 5G data, unlimited talk and text, 100GB of cloud storage, HD streaming, and 10GB of available data when using your phone as a mobile hot spot.

AT&T’s lowest-priced unlimited 5G plan available outside of Walmart (which doesn’t even come with HD streaming) will cost you $65 / month. While the Walmart-only Unlimited Max plan does allow for HD streaming, it streams in standard definition by default. You can stream in HD by turning off Stream Saver (a mode that plays video in 480p to save data) on AT&T’s prepaid site, or by calling 611. For comparison, several standard prepaid unlimited 5G plans, like Metro by...

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FCC announces $1.2 billion fund for broadband deployment in rural areas

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced over $1.2 billion in funding through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to expand broadband service across 32 states. The FCC calls this “the largest funding round to date,” and notes 23 broadband companies will provide service to more than one million new areas.

In addition, the FCC also introduced the Rural Broadband Accountability Plan, which will double the number of audits and verifications performed this year in comparison to 2021. It will also require the FCC to make the results of verifications, audits as well as speed and latency tests public on the Universal Service Administration Company’s (USAC) website.

The new Rural Broadband Accountability Plan will streamline our...

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T-Mobile will reportedly fire corporate employees who aren’t fully vaccinated by April 2nd

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

T-Mobile will fire corporate employees who aren’t fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by April 2nd, according to an internal email viewed by Bloomberg. T-Mobile’s head of human resources, Deeanne King, reportedly says employees who’ve only received one dose as of February 21st will be put on unpaid leave.

There will be “limited” exceptions for certain employees

“T-Mobile’s badge-controlled offices continue to be accessible only to those who are vaccinated against COVID-19,” T-Mobile said in a statement to The Verge, referencing the digital pass system the company uses to keep track of employees’ vaccination status. “We have shared with employees that we are requiring office workers to be fully vaccinated by April 2.” The mobile carrier...

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The IRS is reportedly looking for ID.me alternatives amid privacy concerns

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) are reportedly looking for alternatives to the controversial facial recognition software ID.me, according to a report by Bloomberg. As Bloomberg notes, the agencies didn’t cite a reason for the possible change, and also didn’t mention any privacy concerns about the service.

The IRS can’t establish its own software due to a “lack of funding”

“The IRS is consistently looking for ways to make the filing process more secure,” Treasury Department spokesperson Alexandra LaManna said in a statement to Bloomberg. “We believe in the importance of protecting the privacy of taxpayers, while also ensuring criminals are not able to gain access to taxpayer accounts.” LaManna also told B...

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