Dark Souls’ PC servers will stay offline until after Elden Ring launches

Screenshot: Dark Souls 3

Dark Souls’ servers on PC will remain offline until after the February 25th release of Elden Ring, Bandai Namco and FromSoftware announced on Twitter. The game publisher and developer are also investigating the upcoming Elden Ring for the same issue that shut down Dark Souls: a remote code execution (RCE) exploit that could let bad actors infiltrate your system.

#DarkSoulspic.twitter.com/ZRhX9OcvQe

— Dark Souls (@DarkSoulsGame) February 9, 2022

“We want to thank the entire Dark Souls community and the players who have reached out to us directly to voice their concerns and offer solutions. Thanks to you, we have identified the cause and are working on fixing the issue,” Bandai Namco and FromSoftware said. “In addition, we have...

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Where to buy the Samsung Galaxy S22, S22 Plus, and S22 Ultra

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Samsung’s Galaxy S22, S22 Plus, and the S22 Ultra have been announced at the company’s Unpacked event. Each phone has a new design, with new components that put them ahead of 2021’s leading Android phones. As for the S22 Ultra, it absorbed the Galaxy Note’s coolest trick of having an S-Pen built-in. If you want to jump right into our hands-on coverage, you can check out our early impressions with the hardware right here or in the video below.

Though, there’s a chance that you’re already sold on the improvements and changes made to this year’s lineup. If that’s the case, I’m going to get right to it and tell you how to preorder the S22 phones so you can get them on launch day.

Order before 2/24 to get preorder bonuses

No matter where you...

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Bel-Air trades in The Fresh Prince’s Black joy for overwrought prestige

Peacock

The Fresh Prince of Peacock has arrived in Bel-Air

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Garmin’s Instinct 2 Solar claims to have ‘unlimited’ battery life

Garmin’s Instinct 2 watches come in two sizes, a smaller 40mm (left) and the standard 45mm. | Image: Garmin

Garmin’s back with yet another multisport smartwatch lineup. The Instinct 2 series is billed for “rugged individualists,” but this time there’s an interesting twist. The company says the solar models of the smartwatch can get unlimited battery life thanks to improvements in their solar technology.

Garmin has been tinkering around with solar charging for a while now. It introduced the feature with the Fenix 6 Series and later expanded it to other watches, including the original Instinct. When it launched the flagship Fenix 7 Series last month, Garmin noted it had vastly improved the solar charging tech. Now it’s bringing those advances to its mid-range Instinct 2 series.

That said, unlimited battery life is a bold claim — especially for...

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Robin Williams’ estate sues Pandora over comedy licenses

Photo by Dave Hogan/Getty Images

The estates of Robin Williams and George Carlin have filed lawsuits accusing Pandora of streaming the late comedians’ jokes without the proper licenses. The suits are joined by complaints from Andrew Dice Clay, Ron White, and Bill Engvall, who also allege they weren’t given “a fraction of a penny” for their work as a result of Pandora’s “willful” wrongdoing.

As explained by Puck, comedians are fighting for recognition of two copyrights on a comedic work: one for writing a joke and another for recording it. Companies have traditionally only purchased licenses for the recordings, not the jokes themselves. Puck points out that the argument streamers need both has never really been tested in court, so it’s not entirely clear if Pandora is in...

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The Book of Boba Fett is so busy it forgets to make Boba Fett interesting

Lucasfilm Ltd.

The final episode from The Book of Boba Fett has arrived, bringing a close to the increasingly crowded series. But the finale still can’t manage to corral the show’s various plot threads into a satisfying ending, despite some big action moments designed to delight fans.

Fett’s character has always been one full of potential: a morally ambiguous bounty hunter roaming the galaxy with a badass outfit and a cool-looking ship. Unfortunately, this week’s finale falls flat in a similar manner to the rest of the show. Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison) still feels strangely sidelined in the series that bears his name, defanged of his fearsome reputation into a more family-friendly hero. And the show leaves viewers with more questions than answers...

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In the first trailer for Alex Garland’s Men, an ex-wife guy follows

A24

Men,A24’s upcoming horror thriller from _Annihilation_director Alex Garland, tells the story of a woman attempting to put some literal and metaphorical distance between herself and a devastating loss by escaping to the English countryside only to find herself being followed by something or someone dead set on catching her. Men’s first trailer didn’t quite explain who the person tailing Harper (Jessie Buckley) is, but it more than seems like it may be her recently deceased ex-husband.

In contrast to its title, Men’s first trailer seemingly only features one man — a guy looking much worse for wear than any living, breathing person — silently chasing after Harper through the lush landscape she was hoping to be able to enjoy. After first...

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Samsung’s new tablets go bigger than ever

The Galaxy Tab S8 family now spans three sizes of tablets | Image: Samsung

Samsung thinks your tablet is too small. So the company is announcing the Galaxy Tab S8 Ultra, a slim tablet with a massive 14.6-inch screen. The $1,099.99 Tab S8 Ultra sits at the top of the Tab S8 line, which includes the more pedestrian-sized Tab S8 and Tab S8 Plus, successors to the Tab S7 models from 2020.

The Tab S8 Ultra takes the same approach that Samsung has used with its smartphones bearing the Ultra name. It’s bigger and more feature-packed than the other models in the lineup. Its 14.6-inch screen is an OLED panel with a 120Hz refresh rate and a 2,960 x 1,848 resolution. It has up to 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, two front-facing cameras, and Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon Gen 1 chip, the same processor that’s in the new S22...

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Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra is a Note by another name

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

It gains an on-board stylus, plus some incremental hardware and software upgrades

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Google Duo gets new co-watching and collaboration features on Galaxy S22

Watching a YouTube video with friends in Google Duo. | Image: Google

New live sharing features, including the ability to watch videos together and view the same online whiteboard, are coming to Google Duo on Samsung’s new Galaxy S22 devices and Tab S8 tablets. Google and Samsung announced the new features during the launch event for Samsung’s new flagship phones and tablets. As well as Galaxy smartphones, the feature is also coming to Pixel devices, according to Engadget.

Google says Duo’s live sharing feature works across many popular apps including Jamboard, the company’s collaborative whiteboard software that lets up to 50 people write and draw on the same surface. Other supported apps include YouTube for watching videos together, Google Maps, Samsung Notes, and Samsung Gallery. Non-Samsung and Google...

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Madden players can’t quit the game they hate

EA Sports’ Madden 22 in action. | Image: EA Sports

Andrew Belton makes a living playing Madden, a game he does not particularly like.

In his videos, he challenges “trash-talkers” who leave him insulting Instagram DMs, arguing, with colorful language, that they could kick his ass in the game. So Belton spends his time beating up on randos — and the occasional pro athlete — all while teasing and taunting them back for his YouTube audience. This is the part he does like: winning, especially when it’s against people who are so disrespectful. He goads them into risky passes and encourages them to go for it on fourth down when the sensible decision would be a punt.

Watching Belton’s channel, ABGotGame, the only thing he roasts more than his opponents? Madden itself. Common refrains: “This game...

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Samsung’s Galaxy S22 and S22 Plus put improved cameras and performance in a samey design

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Will iterative upgrades cure Samsung’s sales problem?

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Samsung phones will get an extra year of Android updates versus Google’s Pixel

The new Galaxy S22 phones will get four generations of Android OS upgrades. | Image: Samsung

Samsung announced today during its Galaxy Unpacked 2022 event that the new Galaxy S22 phones and other recent devices will get up to four generations of Android OS upgrades.

The company revealed the news in a press release today:

As part of our commitment to giving users the best possible mobile performance and experience, the entire Galaxy S22 series will be supported by up to four generations of Android OS upgrades. Now millions of Galaxy users can take advantage of the latest security, productivity and other exciting new features, for longer. Samsung will scale this effort across our product line-up to ensure you’re fully supported across your Galaxy ecosystem.

The promise of OS upgrades ensures you get more out of a device down the...

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Knitwear is slow, the knockoffs come fast

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole

Designers struggle with fast fashion copying their time-consuming creations

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Reselling gig work is TikTok’s newest side hustle

Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole

Service resellers find cheap labor on freelancer platforms like Fiverr, and flip services like graphic design or copywriting for profit

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Lawmakers call on feds to drop Clearview AI facial recognition contracts

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

A group of four progressive lawmakers — Sens. Markey (D-MA) and Merkley (D-OR) and Reps. Jayapal (D-WA) and Pressley (D-OH) — sent letters to several federal agencies on Wednesday calling for an end to their use of Clearview AI’s controversial facial recognition system.

The letter was sent to the Departments of Justice, Defense, Homeland Security, and the Interior. All four agencies were identified in an August 2021 report from the General Accounting Office as using Clearview for “domestic law enforcement” purposes.

“Clearview AI’s technology could eliminate public anonymity in the United States,” the letter reads, describing the system as “capable of fundamentally dismantling Americans’ expectation that they can move, assemble, or...

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Everything you need to know about the bill that could blow up the app store

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Open App Markets Act, one of legislators’ latest attempts to limit big tech companies’ power — a big step toward opening up iOS and Android’s app stores. But the proposal has raised questions about moderation and security alongside praise from anti-monopoly watchdogs, mirroring a tech world debate about the perks and harms of walled gardens.

The bill is aimed at increasing competition in mobile computing, a field where plenty of people agree a few companies have too much power. But as a series of proposed amendments demonstrated, though, not everyone agrees where that power should stop.

What is the Open App Markets Act?

You can read the Open App Markets Act or S. 2710 for yourself —...

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Grindr limits visibility of Olympic athletes to protect their privacy

Photo by Anthony Wallace - Pool/Getty Images

LGBTQ dating app Grindr has limited the global visibility of users logging in from the Beijing Olympics Village in order to protect athletes from potential outing and harassment.

The app’s “Explore” function, which lets users browse profiles from any location worldwide, has been adjusted to exclude profiles logging in from the Olympic Village, reports Bloomberg News. Users in the Olympic Village will still be able to browse nearby profiles, but the new privacy setting should save athletes from international snooping and exposure.

In past Olympics, social media users have used the app’s Explore function to retrieve Grindr profiles from the event and share them online — a dangerous activity considering some athletes are from countries...

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Nothing adds Google Assistant and Siri support to its wireless earbuds

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Nothing has added voice assistant support to its Ear 1 earbuds, allowing you to summon either Google Assistant or Siri with a triple-tap, the company announced on Twitter. The addition comes as something of a surprise given Nothing originally told Android Central it had no plans to add voice assistant support to the Ear 1.

According to 9to5Google_,_the functionality is rolling out with firmware version 0.6700.1.86, and also supports Amazon’s Alexa in addition to both mobile OS’s native voice assistants. Unfortunately, it sounds like the feature is currently a little buggy, with 9to5Google reporting the earbuds sometimes fail to register that all-important third tap.

Alexa, play "Nothing Else Matters"

Yeah, it's time to say hey to Google...

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Is “realityOS” Apple’s newest operating system?

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple’s long-rumored virtual or augmented reality headset might not launch until 2023, but developers have spotted additional mentions of a new “realityOS” that could power it. First referenced as “rOS” in 2017 by Bloomberg News, realityOS was also spotted as part of some pre-release iOS 13 builds. _9to5Mac_reports that developers have now found references to realityOS in GitHub repos and in App Store upload logs.

“What is Apple’s realityOS doing in the App Store upload logs?” asks iOS developer Rens Verhoeven. Fellow developer Steve Troughton-Smith says a GitHub repo referencing realityOS confirms it “has its own OS & binaries... and has a realityOS simulator.” He also speculates this could simply be “a remnant of somebody’s pull request...

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EU outlines €43 billion plan to fix Europe’s chip shortage

Photo by Guo Junfeng/VCG via Getty Images

The European Union has outlined an ambitious new industrial policy that aims to make the bloc a significant player in the global semiconductor industry.

The European Chips Act, adopted this week by the EU Commission, bundles together €43 billion ($49 billion) in public and private funding for the sector, with an end-goal of doubling the EU’s share of global chip production from 9 percent to 20 percent by 2030.

For years, the EU has wanted to increase its leadership in the development and fabrication of semiconductor chips (it unveiled a similar funding package in 2013), but the global supply chain crisis triggered by the pandemic has sharpened the urgency of these plans.

“the global shortage of chips has really slowed down our...

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Alfa Romeo’s new SUV comes with an NFT for some reason

The Alfa Romeo Tonale. | Image: Alfa Romeo

The Alfa Romeo Tonale SUV is the “first car on the market” to come with an NFT digital certificate, that the Italian automaker says will increase the car’s residual value.

How? Well, that’s not exactly clear, but it involves recording information from the car’s electronic system to the blockchain as proof that a car has been properly serviced when it comes time to sell it.

“With the customer’s consent, the NFT will record vehicle data, generating a certificate that can be used to assure the car has been properly maintained,” Alfa Romeo’s press release says. “On the pre-owned car market, NFT certification represents an additional source of credibility for owners or dealers to count on.”

However, as CNBC notes, the data must be recorded...

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How to watch the Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2022 livestream

Samsung’s “Tiger in the City” 3D billboard in NYC promoting its Galaxy Unpacked event. The company teased that Tigers are “known for its powerful night vision and vivid colors” | Image: Samsung

Samsung is holding a Galaxy Unpacked event this Wednesday, February 9th, at 10AM ET / 7AM PT, where it is expected to reveal the latest flagship Galaxy S22 devices, which may include a proper replacement for the Galaxy Note series that we missed in 2021.

The virtual event will not only go out to viewers as a livestreamed video but will also be broadcast as a metaverse experience using the Decentraland platform. The experience is called Samsung 837X and is based on the company’s real-world flagship exhibition center located on 837 Washington Street in New York City. Samsung is leaning into metaverse experiences, as it held its first Samsung 837X metaverse event last month for CES, in addition to separate interactive experiences using the Z...

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Welcome to Waabi World, the ‘ultimate simulator’ for autonomous vehicles

Raquel Urtasun, the former chief scientist at Uber’s Advanced Technologies Group, promised an “AI-centric approach” to autonomous vehicles when she founded her own company last year, Waabi. Now, she’s ready to deliver on that promise with the announcement of the company’s first product: a virtual world in which to test its autonomous vehicles called “Waabi World.”

Urtasun says she doesn’t want to rely on a large fleet of vehicles driving millions of miles on public roads and gathering data in service of training AI systems to drive better and safer than humans. That’s expensive, time-consuming, and ultimately doesn’t capture the seemingly endless number of edge cases that could confuse a self-driving vehicle. Urtasun claims that...

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A geomagnetic storm may have effectively destroyed 40 SpaceX Starlink satellites

Photo by MARIANA SUAREZ/AFP via Getty Images

Elon Musk’s satellite internet service Starlink just got dealt an expensive blow — the company’s currently estimating that 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites it launched on February 3rd will be destroyed because of a geomagnetic storm.

The storm caused “up to 50 percent higher drag than during previous launches,” keeping the deployed satellites from reaching their proper orbit around the Earth. And while Starlink tried to fly them “edge-on (like a sheet of paper)” to reduce that drag, it now looks like as many as 40 of them will burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere instead of reaching their destinations.

SpaceX recently crossed the 2,000 satellite launch milestone, and has plans to launch 12,000 if not a great many more — so losing 40 of...

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Peloton’s lead hardware engineer is leaving the company too

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Peloton’s vice president of hardware engineering, Sam Bowen, and its commercial operations executive, Rob Barker, are leaving the company, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Bowen led the development of the company’s bikes, treadmill, heart-rate monitor, as well the not-yet-released Guide device, while Barker previously served as the CEO of Precor, a company bought by Peloton that provides workout bikes to gyms and hotels. In a note on LinkedIn announcing his departure, Barker said, “After 27 years in various roles at Precor, Amer Sports and Peloton, I am moving from being a full-time executive at one company to a fitness industry small entrepreneur and advisor. I will continue to focus where my passion and heart lies: the fitness...

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The best phone to buy right now

William Joel / The Verge

Buying a new phone can be a chore, but we’ve done the work for you

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The best smartphone you can buy for under $500

Best budget phones of 2021: iiPhone SE (2020), Pixel 5A, OnePlus Nord N200 5G, TCL 20S, Moto G Pure, Samsung Galaxy A52 5G. | The Verge

You can get a great smartphone at this price, whether you want an iPhone, a 90Hz screen, or 5G support

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Twitter finally agrees that 1x is not the only speed for watching a video

You’ll be able to watch videos faster or slower than normal. | Image: Twitter

Twitter is testing video playback speed options on Android and the web, the company announced Tuesday. Finally! I am one of those sickos that cranks up the playback speed on every YouTube video and podcast to 1.5x or 2x speed, and I’ve been waiting for years for the ability to do so on Twitter.

For those that are in the test, it appears that you’ll see a little gear when watching a video that you can click or tap on to access the different speed options. Based on Twitter’s announcement tweet, it looks like you can watch a video at as slow as 0.25x speed or as fast as 2x.

In 2x, 1x, 0.5x…now testing more options in playback speed for videos.

Some of you on Android and web will have different sets of playback speeds to choose from so...

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Apple says a ‘small portion’ of iPhones recorded interactions with Siri even if you opted out

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple’s release of iOS 15.4 beta 2 fixes a bug that may have recorded interactions with Siri on some devices, regardless of whether you opted out, according to a report from ZDNet. The bug, which was first introduced in iOS 15, automatically enabled the Improve Siri & Dictation setting that gives Apple permission to record, store, and review your conversations with Siri.

“We stopped reviewing and are deleting audio received from all affected devices”

Apple told ZDNet that it has since deleted any recordings collected in connection with the bug. After discovering the bug, the company reportedly turned off the feature for “many” users when it released iOS 15.2, but fully fixed the bug in the second beta of iOS 15.4. As ZDNet points out,...

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