Microsoft to block Office VBA macros by default

Image by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is finally planning to block Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros by default in a variety of Office apps. The change will apply to Office files that are downloaded from the internet and include macros, so Office users will no longer be able to enable certain content with a simple click of a button.

“The default is more secure and is expected to keep more users safe including home users and information workers in managed organizations,” explains Kellie Eickmeyer, a principal PM at Microsoft.

Macros can be a security headache for IT admins

Hackers have been targeting Office documents with malicious macros for years, and while Office has long prompted users to click to enable macros running, this simple button could lead to...

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Ethereum Name Service fires director of operations over resurfaced tweet

Photo by Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Ethereum Name Service (ENS) fired its director of operations, Brantly Millegan, over derogatory comments he made about the LGBTQ community, according to CoinDesk. ENS founder Nick Johnson announced that True Names Limited, the nonprofit that backs the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), terminated Millegan’s contract.

ENS is the blockchain protocol that converts wallet addresses into custom domain names. It provides nearly 300,000 cryptocurrency users with an easy way to create a kind of web3 username, and is formatted “username.eth.” Its widespread use was part of why Millegan’s years-old comments, made in a tweet, caused an uproar. Severalmembersof the communityexpressed outrage about his comments and said they hope to keep...

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Sports streaming is busted — the Super Bowl likely won’t be any different

Super Bowl LVI will be played at SoFi Stadium in LA — but it’ll take crucial seconds for the livestream to reach fans who are watching over the internet instead of traditional broadcast methods. | Photo by Jevone Moore / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

There’s a lot that can go wrong for cord-cutters, particularly when it comes to live sports: buffering, crashing, login issues, you name it. It’s almost certain that the next big US sporting event, Super Bowl LVI, will face many of the same hiccups — and that’s especially true for anyone hoping to place bets on the big game.

As cord-cutting becomes more common in households, these problems have become entirely too frequent for anyone hoping to stream a live event. Take, for example, the recent 2020 Summer Olympics Games, where even_finding_ specific coveragewas needlessly complicated, and streaming didn’t work the way it was promised to.

That’s a big problem for interactivity in sports streaming and bet-placing exploding with wider...

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Yeedi’s affordable k650 robovac hits a new low price of $113.99

Image: Yeedi

Another week, another chance to kick it off with some savings. Let’s start with an exceptional value on some robot vacuums. Robovacs get very expensive very quickly, though there are some lower-cost options worth your time. Today, and today only, you can get the Yeedi k650 vacuum for just $113.99 on Amazon’s deal of the day when you click the on-page coupon for an added $20 discount. This sale knocks $66 off the price of this robot vacuum that tackles pet hair and syncs with Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa to slot into your smart home life. It features an extra-large 800-milliliter dustbin, which is helpful because, in the end, you have to empty it yourself.

If you prefer the convenience of a self-emptying robot vacuum, Yeedi’s Vac...

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Best gaming laptop in 2022: seven laptops to get your game on

The best gaming laptop is the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales/ The Verge

The best gaming laptop at every size and price

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Here’s why Twitter users in the UK can still be jailed for sending ‘grossly offensive’ tweets

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Blame out-of-date legislation and odd notions of public morality

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iOS 15.4 makes Shortcut automations way less annoying to use

Apple’s upcoming iOS 15.4 software update appears to have quietly added a massive quality of life change for its Shortcuts app: the ability to disable the incredibly annoying notifications for personal automations that users have set up on their devices, as spotted by Fjorden developer Florian Bürger on Twitter.

For those who don’t use Shortcuts regularly, the automations feature is one of the most useful and powerful tools that Apple gives its users access to. At its heart, it lets users set up basic “if / then” triggers for a variety of conditions on an iPhone, be it a specific time of day, arriving at a location, getting an email or text from a specific contact, joining a Wi-Fi network, tapping an NFC tag, opening an app, or when...

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The SEC subpoenas Tesla over one of Elon Musk’s tweets again

Photo by Patrick Pleul - Pool/Getty Images

The Securities and Exchange Commission issued a subpoena to Tesla over Elon Musk’s 2018 tweet about taking the company private, according to Bloomberg.

The news of the subpoena, which was issued November 16th, 2021, reignites a feud between Musk and the SEC that has been simmering for over four years. Musk sent the notorious tweet on August 7th, 2018, in which he claimed to have the funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share. (Tesla has been a publicly traded company since 2010.)

Musk said on Twitter that he had “funding secured” to pull off the deal and buy out any shareholders who didn’t want to stick with the company. He published these tweets during the afternoon while trading was still happening, and the company’s stock price...

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This webcam is built different

If you’re looking to upgrade your current webcam or you’re buying your very first one, prepare to be overwhelmed by options. Webcams come in all shapes, sizes, and prices, but not many of them are worth your money. If you just want a few pointers to get better video quality than your average plug-and-play webcam can likely provide, we’ve got you covered.

In this video, we dig into exactly why the Opal C1 is a great webcam if you’re someone who values good video quality. What sets it apart from other webcams is its reliance on software and machine learning — not just hardware — to provide a good picture. It’s close to being the ideal gadget for those who can’t put down several hundreds (or thousands) of dollars on a high-end...

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Sifu’s toughest battle is with its own origins

Sloclap’s love letter to kung fu won’t be received by everyone

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Making It Work 2022

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole

In our third installment of Making It Work, The Verge takes a look at how creators and small businesses are dealing with familiar issues: imitations, copycats, and ripoffs. It’s an age-old challenge that has only gotten bigger as artists rely on online platforms to promote and distribute their work.

From fashion giants stealing from an independent designer to illustrators finding their work for sale on an unknown marketplace, here are the many ways creators are contending with a problem that keeps popping up in unexpected places.

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A renowned community of quilters is taking on copycats — and winning

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole

Online sales gave Gee’s Bend quilters control over their work

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Designers spend months making custom keycaps, then the counterfeits arrive

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole

Keycap clones are readily available, affordable, and shameless

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Microsoft starts testing secret Windows 11 features like wallpaper stickers and tablet mode

Microsoft appears to be working on several new Windows 11 features that the company has not yet publicly announced. References to stickers for desktop wallpapers, the ability to hide the taskbar for tablets, and a sustainability section in Settings have all been discovered in the latest test version of Windows 11. The new features have been uncovered just days after Microsoft announced it would test more experimental Windows 11 features.

The new customization feature to bring stickers to desktop wallpapers in Windows 11 has been shared by Windows enthusiast Albacore on Twitter. Screenshots show you’ll be able to pick stickers, commonly found in messaging apps, for a wallpaper and edit them from the desktop. Currently, widgets exist in...

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Exclusive GTA Online tracks from Dr. Dre now on Spotify and Apple Music

Image: Dr. Dre / Rockstar Games

Six Dr. Dre tracks that made their first appearance in GTA Online’s The Contract update from last year are now available on music streaming services including Apple Music and Spotify, Rockstar Games has announced. As well as Dre himself, the tracks include appearances from guest artists like Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Anderson .Paak, Busta Rhymes, Nipsey Hussle, and Ty Dolla $ign.

GTA is part of a growing list of games that have debuted new music. Guns n’ Roses premiered the song “Shackler’s Revenge” in Rock Band 2 in 2008, and Weezer included four unreleased songs from its Black Album in a custom map in Fortnite in 2019. But Dre’s collaboration with GTA Online was a little more interesting. The rapper actually appeared in the game itself,...

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The Galaxy S22 will use plastic from recycled fishing nets

Image: evleaks (Twitter)

The Galaxy S22 has leaked extensively, but there’s only so much you can tell from renders. For example, it turns out that Samsung has created a “new material” to use in the product — one made from the plastic in discarded fishing nets.

Samsung says it’ll soon “incorporate repurposed ocean-bound plastics” across its whole product lineup, and the first example will be the Galaxy devices introduced at the Unpacked event this Wednesday, February 9th. It’s not yet clear to what extent the material will be used or in which parts of the products; Samsung isn’t explicit about how it fits into any of the devices’ construction.

Citing a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations that says 640,000 tons of fishing nets...

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Spotify CEO Daniel Ek confirms the company removed dozens of Joe Rogan episodes after n-word video resurfaced

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek addressed staff in a late night memo addressing Joe Rogan’s use of the n-word and the mysterious removal of 70 podcast episodes earlier this week. The total number of deleted Joe Rogan Experience episodes is now 113, according to the website jremissing.com.

“Not only are some of Joe Rogan’s comments incredibly hurtful — I want to make clear that they do not represent the values of this company,” Ek writes in the memo, which The Verge obtained. “I know this situation leaves many of you feeling drained, frustrated and unheard.”

He goes on to say Spotify spoke with Rogan and his team about “some of the content in his show, including his history of using some racially insensitive language.” Following these chats “and...

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Sifu’s early access release is causing issues for some players on PlayStation

Sifu was released today for anyone who preordered the deluxe edition of the kung-fu action-adventure, but those who bought it on PlayStation experienced some trouble downloading it (via TheGamer). While PlayStation says it has since resolved the issue, it looks like there are still some players having problems accessing the game.

The PlayStation teams have told us the early access issue is now resolved, and the game can now be downloaded! Again, we're very sorry to all players who were hoping to play earlier today, we'll have an exclusive gift for all Deluxe edition holders to share with you soon !

— SifuGame (@SifuGame) February 6, 2022

As a potential solution, Sloclap (the developers behind Sifu), suggests restarting your console...

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Oppo’s next flagship phone leaks in full

Image by WinFuture

After getting a glimpse at Oppo’s upcoming flagship phone in January (which is said to be called the Find X5 Pro), a new leak from WinFuture gives us a pretty solid picture of what to expect, both in terms of design and technical specifications.

As mentioned by the previous leak, WinFuture indicates the Find X5 Pro comes with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor. Alongside the top-of-the-line CPU could be a Qualcomm Adreno 730 graphics chip, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of internal storage. The device is also rumored to have a 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 3216 x 1440px and a refresh rate of 120Hz. _WinFuture_also found that the phone may come with a 5,000mAH battery pack, in addition to having 80W fast-charging capabilities.

...

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Twitter’s direct DM test is a terrible idea

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is exploring a new way to send DMs on iOS, and it involves letting users slide into your inbox through a link on your tweets, bypassing the DM button on your profile. The platform says this will make it easier to “start a conversation” from your timeline — but you can probably see how this can go very, very wrong.

Please don’t do this.

One extra step of having to go to someone’s profile to send a DM cuts back on harassment.

This is almost never about “starting a conversation,” when people are sending unsolicited DMs.

At least give us a safety feature to not allow this on our tweets.

— Eliza Orlins (@elizaorlins) February 4, 2022

As public defender Eliza Orlins points out, offering a shortcut to your DMs could make users even...

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Verizon’s phone contracts are all three years now

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you’re looking to buy a new phone at Verizon, you now only have two options: buy the device outright, or pay monthly installments for three years. As reported by Droid Life (via Android Police), Verizon appears to have gotten rid of its 24- and 30-month contracts for all devices — including phones, hot spots, and smartwatches — and has instead extended it to 36 months.

Unless you can pay off the entire device, you’re locked into the three-year plan

Verizon’s payment program FAQ page explains that there isn’t any interest attached to the 36-month plan, and you can choose to pay off the phone in full whenever you want. What you can’t do, however, is pay more than your set monthly installment — so unless you can pay off the entire...

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Florida men revealed to be behind Bored Apes

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The makers behind the Bored Apes Yacht Club (BAYC) are no longer a mystery — a BuzzFeed News report reveals them as Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow, two men from Florida. Solano is a 32-year-old writer and editor behind the pseudonym Gargamel, while the 35-year-old Aronow goes by Gordon Goner.

Got doxxed against my will. Oh well.

Web2 me vs. Web3 me pic.twitter.com/uLkpsJ5LvN

— GordonGoner.eth (@GordonGoner) February 5, 2022

After BuzzFeed’s article was posted, the two later responded to the situation with the “Web2 me vs. Web3 me” meme on Twitter, in which you essentially compare a photo of yourself in the real world with an NFT or avatar that’s supposed to represent you in the metaverse. Both Aronow and Solano compare pictures of...

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Chrome is changing its logo for the first time in eight years

The new Chrome logo side-by-side with previous variations. | Image by Elvin Hu via Twitter

Chrome is changing its logo for the first time since 2014, and if you squint really hard, you might actually be able to see what’s different. Elvin Hu, a designer for Google Chrome, offers a first look at the logo’s redesign in a thread on Twitter, as well as some of the thinking behind the ever-so-subtle changes.

Some of you might have noticed a new icon in Chrome’s Canary update today. Yes! we’re refreshing Chrome’s brand icons for the first time in 8 years. The new icons will start to appear across your devices soon. pic.twitter.com/aaaRRzFLI1

— Elvin (@elvin_not_11) February 4, 2022

Instead of incorporating shadows on the borders between each color, essentially “raising” them off the screen, the red, yellow, and green are...

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Joe Rogan releases apology video after clips of N-word use and a racist story go viral

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge

Just after Spotify removed around 70 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast without offering an explanation, Rogan posted a video on Instagram apologizing for saying the N-word on his show in the past (via New York Times). In his apology, Rogan specifically addresses a clip compilation, which was shared by singer India Arie, that shows Rogan saying the N-word repeatedly during podcast episodes over several years.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joe Rogan (@joerogan)

“I know that to most people, there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that now,” Rogan says. “Instead of saying the N-word, I would just say the...

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Fujifilm is working on a fix for an issue that could make some files inaccessible on macOS

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Fujifilm says it’s working on a patch to fix an incompatibility issue preventing the owners of certain X series and GFX series cameras from accessing some of their files on macOS, as stated in a notice on Fujifilm’s site. According to the post, the issue only occurs when users have over 4,000 files written in-camera to a single folder on their SDXC card and then try to access these files using an internal or external card reader connected to their Mac.

The issue has been around since at least May 2021

Although Fujifilm says the problem occurs when “more than 4,000” files are stored in a single folder on the memory card, the exact amount seems to be 4,096, as indicated by userreports that reach as far back as at least May 2021. In each...

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SanDisk’s 400GB microSD card for Switch is just $40

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

For the few who don’t already know, every variety of Nintendo’s popular Switch console can get a storage upgrade by installing a microSD card. And while you’re most likely to stumble upon deals for microSD cards with 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB of storage, there’s a must-see deal happening at Amazon on the SanDisk 400GB variant. Normally $69.99 (but usually between $45 and $50), you can snag one now for just $39.99. It’s just a couple dollars shy of the best-ever price.

If you’ve arrived at the opportunity to get a microSD card, I think you should get the biggest one that you can afford, as you’ll have more space for games, screenshots, and game saves well into the future. Games for the Nintendo Switch range from just a few gigabytes to in the...

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Drop Mythic Journey review: a sturdy keyboard that can’t quite justify its price

A solid keyboard, but not quite $349 solid

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FBI used geofence warrant in Seattle after BLM protest attack, new documents show

Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images

Federal investigators served Google with a geofence warrant as part of an investigation into an attempted arson against a police union headquarters in Seattle during protests of the shooting of Jacob Blake, as shown by documents unsealed today in federal court.

The attempted arson took place on August 24th, 2020, one day after police officers shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, leaving him paralyzed. Amidst broader protests in Seattle and across the country, two people threw Molotov cocktails at the rear entrance of the headquarters of the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG).

While the building sustained little damage, the attack spurred widespread national interest: Seattle police initially posted a $1,000 reward for information,...

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Episodes of Joe Rogan’s show are disappearing from Spotify

There’s a lot going on at the music streaming service. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Around 70 episodes of Joe Rogan’s podcast mysteriously disappeared from Spotify on Friday, as spotted by JREMissing.com, a web tool that tracks missing episodes. The show (and Spotify’s relationship to it) have faced heavy criticism over the past few weeks, but there’s no clear connection between that and the missing episodes, nor is there any immediately apparent link between the episodes that were removed.

For anyone who’s taken the sanity-preserving step of muting the phrase “Joe Rogan” on Twitter, here’s a brief recap of what’s been going on: Spotify, which has been the exclusive home of The Joe Rogan Experience since the streaming giant reportedly paid $100 million for the pleasure in 2020, has taken a lot of heat from people...

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Amazon named as possible Peloton buyer in a suspiciously well-timed rumor

Image: Peloton

Peloton’s no-good-very-bad downfall from its pandemic peak — losing over $20 billion in value since November and becoming a dangerous subplot in prime time TV — has attracted speculation that the connected fitness company is a target to be acquired, but by whom? A Friday evening report from the Wall Street Journal tosses out Amazon as one of the “potential suitors” that may be considering a deal — just as markets closed for the weekend and only a few days before Peloton issues its Q2 2022 earnings report on February 8th. Just the suggestion caused a spike in Peloton’s stock price, sending it up 20–30 percent in after-hours trading.

Peloton’s yo-yoing fortunes over the last two years have been well documented, but combine the...

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