Disney Plus just experimented with its first livestream

Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Disney Plus is experimenting with live streams, dedicating its first to Academy Award nominations.

“We performed a test for live streaming capabilities on Disney+ in the U.S. with this morning’s Academy Award nominations,” the company told _The Verge_in a statement. “We are pleased with the results and will continue to test as part of our ongoing and iterative approach to deliver the best user experiences to consumers.”

This was Disney’s first live test and was accessible by all Disney Plus subscribers in the US, company spokesperson Kristie Adler told The Verge. The company did not have any further details to share about livestreaming in the future. The news of Disney’s first livestreaming event was previously reported by TechCrunch.

W...

Continue reading…

What on Earth is going on with Peloton?

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Things are a lot less rosy for Peloton these days. Once a pandemic darling, the connected fitness company has seen its stock price plunge in recent months. TV shows have turned its bike into a deadlypunchline, and there’s been no shortage of rumors speculating which company should buy Peloton to save it from impending doom.

Then today, Peloton kicked off its Q2 earnings call with a flurry of news: the company has a new CEO. It’s eliminating 2,800 jobs globally, scaling back marketing, and putting the kibosh on its North American manufacturing ambitions. Altogether, it’s a grim picture that raises questions about whether Peloton can find a way out of this mess.

As a fitness tech reviewer, Peloton’s business woes are bewildering because...

Continue reading…

How to delete your Instagram account

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

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

Go ahead and take a moment to make an obligatory “I’m deleting Instagram” post if you’d like. After that, you have two ways you can go about it.

Deleting Instagram using the iOS or Android App

The easiest way, of course, would be through the Instagram app on your phone, though currently, the option isn’t available for everyone. To check if it is, go to your profile, tap the hamburger menu in the top right, and select Settings. Then go to...

Continue reading…

TikTok is banning misgendering, deadnaming, and content promoting disordered eating

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

TikTok is updating its community guidelines and rolling out new features that the company says will support the well-being of its users. Some of the policy changes crack down on content the company has previously come under fire for, including videos that critics say glorify eating disorders and dangerous viral challenges.

The company announced today it would begin removing videos that promote disordered eating symptoms like short-term fasting and overexercising. Content promoting eating disorders is already banned on the platform, but news reports have repeatedlyshown users are exposed to videos featuring unhealthy eating habits. During an October congressional hearing, senators pressed TikTok representatives on further protecting...

Continue reading…

The Pixel 3 just got its last update

The Pixel 3 and 3 XL offered great cameras and improved displays. | Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

This month’s security update is the last for Google’s Pixel 3 and 3 XL, as noted by 9to5google. That’s actually one more update than the company promised — official support was only guaranteed through October last year. Yet with one last OS update to Android 12 and this final security patch, Google has finally retired the devices.

The Pixel 3 marked a high point in the Pixel series’ early evolution. Google righted the wrongs of the Pixel 2’s display problems and continued to impress with its camera capabilities. Funny-looking notch on the XL aside, they were great-looking devices that did their class-leading cameras real justice.

For a couple of generations after the 3, Google couldn’t quite keep the momentum going, as it missed on...

Continue reading…

A cringe rapper slash Forbes contributor allegedly found with billions in stolen Bitcoin

Heather Morgan, who was arrested along with her husband, performed under the name “Razzlekhan.” | Image: Razzlekhan

The Department of Justice has finally found almost all of the billions worth of Bitcoin stolen during the 2016 hack of cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex — in the hands of a published Forbes and Inc. writer and rapper, who calls herself the “Crocodile of Wall Street,” and her startup founder husband.

The DOJ says it seized about $3.6 billion worth of the cryptocurrency, allegedly held by Heather Morgan and her husband, Ilya Lichtenstein. The couple is accused of trying to cover their tracks by laundering the stolen funds through “a labyrinth of cryptocurrency transactions.” It’s the department’s “largest financial seizure ever,” according to a Tuesday press release.

The DOJ doesn’t explicitly say they stole the billions in cryptocurrency —...

Continue reading…

Sony will beta test ‘Hey PlayStation!’ voice commands for the PS5

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony announced that it will begin rolling out its second PS5 software beta on Wednesday, bringing changes including party chat updates, new UI settings, and a preview of a voice command feature.

According to Sony’s blog about the beta, your PS5 can listen for the “Hey PlayStation!” voice command to let you find and open games, apps, and settings as well as control playback during a show or a song. If you don’t want to use it, Sony says you can turn the feature off in settings. The voice command feature will be available first in English for beta users with accounts registered in the US and the UK.

Image: Sony

Here are the settings for the upcoming voice commands feature.

Sony is also making some changes to...

Continue reading…

Even Twitter has forgotten about Fleets

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Remember Fleets, Twitter’s disappearing tweets feature that was shut down just eight and a half months after it launched for everyone? No? Well, Twitter is pretending it doesn’t either — at least according to a tweet from the official @Twitter account on Tuesday:

you ever think about Fleets?
same.

— Twitter (@Twitter) February 8, 2022

While @Twitter account is, in general, somewhat silly and works hard to feel like your Extremely Online friend (which makes sense to me because, well, it’s Twitter’s own account on the most Extremely Online platform out there), there’s actually a whole team behind it, according to an August Bloomberg report about who runs the account. So even though this is an admittedly funny tweet, it’s likely not as...

Continue reading…

How the World Wildlife Fund tried — and failed — to create an eco-friendly NFT

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Within a few days last week, the World Wildlife Fund hyped up and then quietly canceled plans to raise money for conservation efforts by minting its own NFTs. The UK chapter of WWF unleashed a firestorm on itself by releasing “Tokens for Nature depicting 13 endangered species. The tokens look like glass cubes encasing each animal: a giant panda, Javan rhino, and Galápagos penguin, to name a few. And they really pissed off other environmentalists.

“My initial response [to World Wildlife Fund’s NFTs] was they must be joking … They’re supposed to be all for sustainable innovations, and they’re getting involved with one of the least sustainable things on the planet,” says digital currency economist Alex de Vries, who has been outspoken about...

Continue reading…

Ferrari is Qualcomm’s latest partner to build smarter cars

Qualcomm has announced its latest automotive partner: none other than Ferrari, with whom it’ll be entering into a “strategic technology collaboration” that will (eventually) see Qualcomm’s automative technology make its way into future Ferrari cars.

As part of the deal, Ferarri plans to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Digital Chassis suite in the future, although there are frustratingly few specifics as to which Snapdragon technologies Ferrari plans to use or which vehicles they’ll be integrated into. The Snapdragon Digital Chassis branding serves as Qualcomm’s overarching brand for its automotive solutions, including Snapdragon Ride (for automated and assistive driver technologies), Snapdragon Cockpit (for in-car experiences and SoCs), and...

Continue reading…

Google’s latest Pixel 6 update breaks things, again

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Google can’t seem to catch a break with software updates for the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, the first phones that are powered by the company’s own Tensor chip. After having to pull an earlier update that caused a rash of bugs and connectivity issues for early buyers of the phones, Google tried to get back on track by taking its time with the January update. That seemed to go okay, and yesterday, the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro both received the February software release (with more bug fixes in tow) right alongside older models, and it looked like everything was getting back to normal.

Not quite.

Yet again, there are initial reports of problems with the February update that are specifically affecting the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro and leaving other Pixels...

Continue reading…

Following worker complaints, Apple will increase benefits for retail employees

The new benefits go into place in April. | Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Apple is increasing its time off benefits for full- and part-time retail employees, according to a new Bloomberg report and information separately shared by a source to The Verge.

The company will introduce the following new benefits starting April 4th, _Bloomberg_reports:

Doubling paid sick days for both full-time and part-time workers. The days can be used for mental health leave and taking family members to the doctor. This change will give full-time workers 12 paid sick days, instead of six.

Workers will receive more annual vacation days, beginning at three years of employment instead of five.

Part-time employees will now get as many as six paid vacation days for the first time. Another first: They’ll get paid parental leave. That...

Continue reading…

The Super Bowl won’t be lit: no cannabis ads allowed

No cannabis ads in the Super Bowl | Photo by Peerapon Boonyakiat/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

If a brand wants to reach — or offend — a large swath of Americans all at once, there are few better venues than a Super Bowl ad. There are plenty of brands advertising this year that wouldn’t have been allowed in the big game just a few years ago, such as hard liquor or sports betting apps. This year’s ad lineup even includes ads for cryptocurrencies, a product still far from the American mainstream despite what your laser-eyed Twitter followers may tell you.

But one so-called “lifestyle” product — cannabis — is once again shut out from the Super Bowl this year, even though it’s legal in a majority of US states, and public support for legal weed has never been higher. Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level in the US, however,...

Continue reading…

Google account hacks dropped by half after pushing two-step authentication by default

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Nudging users toward security works.

That’s the top-line finding four months into Google’s initiative to enroll users in two-factor authentication by default, detailed in a blog post to coincide with Safer Internet Day on February 8th.

In October 2021, the company announced plans to turn on two-factor authentication by default for 150 million Google users who were not currently using the service and to require 2 million YouTube creators to use it. In the latest post, Google says it observed a 50 percent decrease in accounts being compromised among that test user group.

The strategy shows the power of a tech giant like Google to provide security by default and fits into a years-long project to move users toward a more robust security...

Continue reading…

Peloton fired 2,800 employees and gave them free Peloton memberships

Peloton laid off 2,800 people on February 8th. | Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images

As Peloton announced it was firing 2,800 people Tuesday morning, its outgoing CEO outlined in a memo the “meaningful” severance package those who are losing their jobs will receive, and great news: it includes a complimentary Peloton membership for the next year. Because really, getting a shoutout from an instructor or showing up on the leaderboard during that brutal HIIT class provided by your former employer is sure to take the sting out of losing your job.

The memo from John Foley (who is losing the CEO job but will stay on as executive chairman) said Peloton saw “unprecedented demand” during the pandemic, but the company’s “post-COVID demand picture looks different than anticipated,” so it is slashing thousands of jobs (which r...

Continue reading…

Chrome’s new tool should let you revisit your old Google rabbit holes

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google Chrome is rolling out Journeys, a feature that lets you revisit your old browsing sessions based on the subject matter you were searching for. If you type a word in the address bar that’s related to some convoluted rabbit hole you’ve been down in the past, you’ll see a “Resume your research” option that links you to the related sites you’ve visited before.

Image by Google

Journeys clumps together related searches from past browsing sessions.

So far, it sounds like it could be a much more viable solution than digging through your search history for that one site you kind of remember visiting three weeks ago. If you were knee-deep in research about axolotls, you should see all the related pages you...

Continue reading…

Spotify’s CEO mistakes company growth for a mission statement

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

This story originally ran in Hot Pod, The Verge’s preeminent audio industry newsletter. You can subscribeherefor more scoops, analysis, and reporting.

Let’s pick up with the news last week that Spotify hosted an internal town hall during which CEO Daniel Ek addressed his staff around the world. I obtained the audio from that meeting, and you can read the transcript in full here. (Over the weekend, there was also a second twist in the Rogan story involving a viral video of the comedian using the n-word many times. You can read all about that here and Spotify’s response here. And then my take here. Links, we got ‘em.)

Today, though, I want to focus on Ek’s message to his employees, some of whom have concerns about Spotify’s choice to...

Continue reading…

The best laptop you can buy in 2022

Image: William Joel/The Verge

The best laptops for you, from ultraportables to high-powered editing machines

Continue reading…

Apple’s Tap to Pay feature lets newer iPhones accept contactless payments

It’s always a flower shop - Nilay Patel | Image: Apple

Apple just announced plans to roll out Tap to Pay on iPhone, allowing businesses to use mobile devices as a payment terminal for contactless payments. A Bloombergreport from 2020 noted Apple’s acquisition of a startup, Mobeewave, focused on building this technology, and a rumor from the same outlet in January revealed it was getting close to a rollout. Now, Apple has confirmed the feature, which will take payments from “contactless credit and debit cards, and other digital wallets.”

What does this mean for Square and its dongles?

Tap to Pay on iPhone isn’t ready for you to use today but will arrive first in an upcoming iOS beta, enabling the feature on iPhone XS and later models. There are older iPhones with NFC, but at least for now,...

Continue reading…

CalDigit’s new TS4 Thunderbolt 4 Dock has the most ports ever

CalDigit makes the biggest, best Thunderbolt docks around, and it’s finally getting on the Thunderbolt 4 train with its new TS4 dock — a $359.95 dock that offers a whopping 18 total ports to handle any accessory you can throw at it, along with 98W of passthrough power for keeping your laptop charged.

Let’s just jump right into the most important thing here: the ports, which CalDigit boasts are “the most featured on any Thunderbolt dock ever.” Thunderbolt 4 support is the big headliner here, but the TS4 should work with Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 3, USB4, and USB-C devices, so it’ll be handy even if you have an older device, too.

While the company’s old flagship TS3 Plus dock only had two Thunderbolt ports (one for connecting to your...

Continue reading…

Lightyear’s new trailer introduces Buzz’s crew and a creepy cat

Image: Pixar

Pixar provided a fresh look at its Buzz Lightyear origin story with a trailer that introduces the rest of the cast — including a robot cat. Lightyear is a sci-fi action movie about the character Buzz Lightyear, not the toy, this time voiced by Chris Evans. The new trailer features some of his space ranger compatriots — voiced by Keke Palmer, Dale Soules, and Taika Waititi — along with Sox, a creepy robotic feline played by Peter Sohn.

Now, the entire premise of Lightyear is a little confusing, and in a statement, director Angus MacLane tried to clear things up. “In Toy Story there seemed to be this incredible backstory to him being a Space Ranger that’s only touched upon, and I always wanted to explore that world further,” he explains....

Continue reading…

NASA picks Lockheed Martin to build rocket that can launch samples of dirt off of Mars

An artistic rendering of what the MAV could look like launching from Mars | Image: NASA

NASA has picked space and defense contractor Lockheed Martin to build a small rocket capable of lifting off from the surface of Mars carrying samples of the Red Planet’s rocks and other materials. The decision is a big step in a long journey to eventually bring pristine pieces of Mars back to Earth so that scientists can study them in greater detail. If successful, Lockheed Martin’s rocket could become the first to launch from another planet.

The rocket that Lockheed Martin is charged with building is known as the “Mars Ascent Vehicle,” or the MAV. It’s a key part of NASA’s plan to retrieve samples of Martian dirt that are currently being gathered by the space agency’s Mars rover, Perseverance. Last year, NASA successfully landed...

Continue reading…

Oversight Board tells Meta to crack down on Facebook address doxxing

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In an opinion issued on Tuesday, the Oversight Board called on Facebook and Instagram to place tighter restrictions on sharing the addresses of private homes, intended as a protection against doxxing and targeted harassment.

The opinion comes in response to a request issued by Meta (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram) in April 2021. Currently, Facebook prohibits the sharing of private information broadly but makes a general exception for information that is “publicly available” — defined as having been published in five separate news outlets.

The board recommends crafting a tighter policy specifically for information on private residences. It urges removing the exception for publicly available information and creating a...

Continue reading…

Uber’s app will beep until you buckle your seatbelt

Photo by: Lindsey Nicholson/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Uber has no qualms about annoying its customers to pressure them to do something. The latest example is a new feature that will emit a series of chimes until passengers buckle their seatbelts.

Previously, Uber drivers would rely on signage to encourage passengers to secure their seatbelts. (Google “Uber seatbelt sign,” and you’ll see plenty of examples.) Now the company wants to cut out the middle man and just use a beeping noise to get the job done.

It’s a fairly simple approach: the driver’s app will issue a series of beeps, while the rider’s app will send push notifications reminding them to buckle up. Most vehicles in the US have seatbelt reminders built-in, but that does not typically cover rear-seat passengers. The app...

Continue reading…

Oscars 2022: Dune DUne DUNE dUNE DuuuuunE

Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides. | Warner Bros.

Looking at the nominations for this year’s Academy Awards, one might say that Timothée Chalamet saw this coming.

With Jane Campion’s _The Power of the Dog_being nominated for 12 Oscars and Dennis Villeneuve’s _Dune_snagging noms for 10, this year’s Academy Awards are shaping up to be an interesting battle between quiet, intimate prestige and big studio spectacle. Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast and Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story are both up for seven statues each, and while there are certainly some odd-on favorites in each category, there are also some genuine wildcards in the mix, like Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman’s performances in _Being the Ricardos,_that are an important reminder of how the Academy can and will surprise you in ways you...

Continue reading…

The best streaming device deals for Super Bowl LVI

Save on Roku, Amazon Fire, Apple TV 4K, and other streaming devices for Super Bowl LVI. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

An annual February tradition is once again fast approaching. We want to be sure you’re prepared and help you spend your money wisely. Is it Valentine’s Day, you ask? No, but we’ve got you covered there, too. It’s the day before that, the Super Bowl — also known as the “big game” if you’re an American or an advertiser legally barred from using the trademarked term. Whether you’re into the actual game of football and rooting for the Los Angeles Rams or Cincinnati Bengals — or you’re just there for the commercials, snacks, and halftime show — you want to ensure the stream you’re watching looks good.

The Super Bowl may not be broadcast natively in 4K, but you want to have a streaming device that stacks up to whatever performance your TV is...

Continue reading…

News with a Capital B: CEO Lauren Williams on why we need news for and by Black people

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

How a Black news startup was born from a racial justice reckoning

Continue reading…

The road to instant groceries is paved with broken bones

Animation by Alex Castro

India’s instant delivery apps are pushing drivers into accidents

Continue reading…

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen leans into what Bungie does best

One of Destiny’s biggest seasons is about to begin

Continue reading…

Samsung Unpacked 2022: all the news and rumors about the Galaxy S22 and Tab S8

Image: Samsung

The company promises to ‘break the rules’ at its February 9th event

Continue reading…