Handmade monster babies and the people who love them

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge, Shutterstock

When Arend Smith first learned about the “reborn doll” community, he was an investment banker doing fantasy sculptures on the side; after teaching himself to work with Super Sculpey, oven-bake clay, and wire armatures, he quickly became hooked. Soon, his talent began to attract collectors interested in masks, statues, and garage kits. When a client asked him to make a vampire baby, Smith was drawn into a new subculture that would later influence his decision to pursue fantasy art full-time.

“I came up with a character that was loosely based on … Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is one of my favorite vampire designs ever — the bat form that [Dracula] takes in that movie,” Smith recalls of his first reborn doll. “The reborn community … was...

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Google opens beta for future Pixel feature drops

Last year’s Pixel 6 Pro and Pixel 6. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

If you’re interested in getting early access to Android features, then Google has a new beta program for Pixel owners. The search giant has just announced the release of the first beta for its upcoming Quarterly Platform Release (QPR), which are branded as Feature Drops when released to Pixel devices. 9to5Google reports that these features may end up being officially released as part of the Google Pixel’s June update.

According to a new page on Android’s developer site, the beta is available for Pixel devices going back to the Pixel 4. Unfortunately that doesn’t include the Pixel 3A, with 9to5Google noting that its support period is due to end in May.

You can sign up for the beta: here. Anyone on the 12L beta will be automatically...

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Kia EV6 review: a gold star electric vehicle

Photo by Roberto Baldwin for The Verge

Other automakers should be scared of Kia — very scared

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PlayStation 5 consoles are available at Target for store pick-up orders

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The frequency of new console restocks has been on the downturn but they are still trickling in. If you’re ok with paying a little more and getting a bundle you consistently have more opportunities, though the most sought-after option is a standalone console for its proper price and the most sought-after console still seems to be the PlayStation 5.

Target has another round of PS5 orders opening up this morning for the standard $499.99 disc drive-equipped PlayStation 5. The listing has once again gone live on Target’s website, which indicates that availability should be opening up about now. Target only does store pick-up orders through its website and mobile app for these consoles, so in addition to testing your reflexes on that Add to...

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Microsoft is adding tabs to File Explorer in Windows 11

Microsoft has started testing tabs in File Explorer on Windows 11. Rafael Rivera, one of the developers of the EarTrumpet Windows app, has discovered the new tabs support hidden inside Microsoft’s latest Windows 11 test build. This feature appears to be one of the secret additions Microsoft has started testing in Windows 11 recently.

The addition of tabs to File Explorer in Windows 11 allows for multiple folders to be open in one window. Microsoft first started testing tabs in Windows 10 apps, under a feature named Sets. This included support for tabs inside File Explorer and tabs in every Windows app, but Microsoft canceled the project and never shipped it to Windows 10 users.

File Explorer tabs are back! (Windows 11 22572, feature...

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Apple’s Studio Display should work with Windows — including the webcam

It probably shouldn’t be your first pick, but it’ll work in a pinch. | Image: Apple

Apple’s site says that its new 27-inch, 5K Studio Display is compatible with a wide range of Macs (and even some iPads), but the company has also told _The Verge_that it should also work fine when plugged into a Windows PC. There are a few caveats, of course, but if your PC is capable of outputting to it, the Studio Display should act like any normal monitor with a built-in webcam and speakers.

The webcam’s Windows compatibility has been a bit in question; Apple’s website states that “Studio Display camera features and firmware updates require connection to a Mac.” While that language is unclear, Apple spokesperson Alex Bender told The Verge that the Studio Display’s built-in 12 megapixel camera should work like a normal USB webcam when...

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Square Enix showed off lots of new games and none of them were Final Fantasy XVI

During Sony’s March State of Play presentation, Square Enix debuted two new games, showed off gameplay trailers for two more, and completely ignored the two games most people were looking forward to.

Ahead of its release on March 15th, Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin is getting its third and final demo. The unfathomably long-titled game (that has been shortened to an equally unwieldy SOPFFO) is an action RPG created in collaboration with Nioh developer Team Ninja. SOPFFO is a darker, bloodier re-imagining of the first Final Fantasy game from the perspective of the villain, Garland. The game’s grimdark, Chaos-obsessed protagonist and its use of Frank Sinatra’s 1969 hit “My Way_”_ has endeared SOPFFO to Final Fantasy diehards...

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Uber Eats brings bill splitting to deliveries

Uber Eats is getting a group order and bill splitting feature that should make it easier to ensure your friends and family members are picking up their share of the tab.

Instead of passing your phone around to everyone in the group so they can place their orders, you’ll now be able to start a group order from within the Uber Eats app. To do this, you’ll have to navigate to the restaurant you want to order from, hit the three dots in the top-right corner of the page, and then hit “group order.”

From there, you can invite group members by selecting from your phone’s contacts; they’ll each receive an order link over text message (and will have to download the app if they haven’t already). Your guests can then choose and pay for the food...

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A whole bunch of classic Ninja Turtles games are getting a new collection

Some hard-to-find but fun-to-play classics are getting released in a brand-new bundle. At Sony’s State of Play event, Konami revealed a collection of retro Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games called The Cowabunga Collection. It brings together 13 games previously released in arcades and on consoles like the Game Boy, SNES, and Sega Genesis, including the side-scrolling beat ‘em up Turtles in Time and 2D fighter Tournament Fighters. The games have been updated with features like online play, button mapping, a rewind feature, and improved textures — you can get a look at the collection in the trailer above.

The collection doesn’t have a specific release date, but it’s slated to launch on both the PS4 and PS5 sometime this year. Elsewhere in...

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Capcom is making a game where it rains dinosaurs

Image: Capcom

Capcom just announced Exoprimal, a ridiculous-looking game featuring people in metal exosuits taking on hordes of dinosaurs. The game was revealed during Sony’s State of Play presentation. It’s set in a near future — 2043, according to a trailer — and apparently, we’ll have the technology at that time forecast “dinosaur outbreaks,” where a portal opens and sends down waves of dinosaurs that need to be dispatched. As one of my colleagues observed, it looks like a _Dynasty Warriors-_style game, except you’re in futuristic suits and fighting dinosaurs instead of people.

According to a PlayStation blog post, the game is focused around multiplayer co-op. “Always outnumbered by their foes, Exofighter teams will need to coordinate and select a...

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Returnal is getting co-op and a survival mode in a free ‘Ascension’ update

Returnal is getting cooperative multiplayer and a new survival mode (dubbed “The Tower of Sisyphus”) in its upcoming 3.0 “Ascension” update, developer Housemarque announced at Sony’s latest State of Play livestream.

The update marks the first significant addition of new content to the challenging sci-fi roguelike. A previous 2.0 update from last year focused instead of adding major quality of life additions, like the much-requested ability to suspend a run without losing your progress and a photo mode.

Co-op mode is online only, with no split-screen option available, which means that you’ll need internet and a PlayStation Plus subscription to team up with a friend to try and survive the murderous mysteries of Atropos. Players also won’t...

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Tinder users can now run in-app background checks

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tinder users in the US can now run background checks in-app to screen their matches for possible violent or harmful past behavior, the company said in a news release. The checks are via Tinder’s partnership with Garbo, a nonprofit that runs online background checks (via TechCrunch).

The searches will return results that Garbo says are “relevant to the user’s safety” and will exclude some information such as drug possession and loitering. The searches also won’t include personally identifiable information like addresses and phone numbers. According to Tinder, each user will have access to two free background check searches; after that, they’ll pay $2.50 plus a small processing fee per transaction that will directly fund Garbo’s...

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Peloton adds Apple Watch integration to all of its machines

The Apple Watch can now track workouts on any Peloton machine. | Image: Peloton

Peloton’s making it easier for Apple Watch users to close their rings. Today, the company announced a new Apple Watch integration for the original Bike, Bike Plus, and Tread.

According to a Peloton blog, the Peloton watch app will notify users any time they start a class on the Bike, Bike Plus, or Tread. It’ll also work for classes started on the app. Users can also choose to proactively start recording workouts. If enabled, the Apple Watch can also double as a heart rate monitor so you can view Peloton’s Strive Score feature. The Strive Score is a metric that tells users how much time they spend in a specific heart rate zone. It’ll also make it easier to log Peloton workouts in Apple’s Activity app.

The integration isn’t automatic,...

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Android 101: how to tweak your multitasking pane

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

As of Android 10, we’ve been able to choose different ways to access your multitasking pane — that handy flow of thumbnails that lets us view all our active apps, choose which one you want to use, and swipe off any you want to close — and to navigate your home screen. Until then, we mostly navigated Android screens using buttons at the bottom of the screen. Since then, we’ve been able to either swipe to navigate or opt to continue using those same buttons.

If you’ve got Android 10 or 11, you can choose from three methods: gesture navigation, two-button navigation, or three-button navigation. When Android 12 came around, two-button navigation disappeared, but you can still switch between gesture and three-button navigation. Here’s how...

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Roblox is hiring a PlayStation engineer

Roblox is a hugely popular game — nearly 50 million users play it every day, according to Roblox (the company) — and that’s in part because it’s free and available on many different platforms, including iOS, Android, PC, and Xbox. One very conspicuous absence from that list is PlayStation, but that could be changing sometime soon, as Roblox has posted a job listing for a “Senior Software Engineer, PlayStation Console.”

“As a Gaming Console Software Engineer, you’ll help build and support our game engine used by millions of users worldwide for the Sony PlayStation platform, and other leading gaming consoles on the market,” Roblox says in the listing (emphasis Roblox’s). The listing also says one of the job’s responsibilities is to...

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PlayStation is suspending all hardware and software shipments in Russia

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony Interactive Entertainment, the arm of Sony that manages its popular PlayStation console, is halting all software and hardware shipments in Russia because of the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) joins the global community in calling for peace in Ukraine,” SIE spokesperson Joe Taraborrelli said in a statement shared with The Verge. “We have suspended all software and hardware shipments, the launch of Gran Turismo 7, and operations of the PlayStation Store in Russia.” Taraborrelli added that Sony has announced a $2 million donation to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the NGO Save the Children to support those affected by the invasion.

SIE follows companies including Activision...

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Twitter is testing changes to make image descriptions easier to access

The features being tested make it obvious if alt text is available. | Image: Twitter

Twitter has announced that it’s testing new accessibility features to make alt text descriptions significantly more useful and prominent for everyone on the platform. With the change, images that have descriptions will be given a badge that says “alt,” and clicking on that badge will show the description. The change has been a long time coming, but that’s not necessarily a surprise — Twitter didn’t have a dedicated accessibility team until 2020.

According to Twitter, around 3 percent of users will get to try out the new features for a month, and it’ll roll out globally at the beginning of April. Until then, it seems like most people still won’t have access to alt text descriptions unless they’re using a screen reader or are willing to...

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AMD acknowledges TPM bug causing stuttering issues

AMD has acknowledged a stuttering issue on Ryzen systems caused by its firmware trusted platform module (fTPM), as reported by TechPowerUp (via Windows Central). A permanent fix, which will come as a BIOS update, isn’t expected until May.

A form of TPM 2.0 is required to run Windows 11 (although some users have still found a way around this requirement). It’s used to generate a cryptographic key to boot your device, helping protect it from hackers who might try to tamper with the sensitive information stored on your computer. While fTPM is embedded in your system’s firmware, a dTPM, or discrete trusted platform module, is a physical chip installed on your motherboard that serves the same function.

AMD’s workaround is switching to...

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Captain Pike rides more horses than starships in the first Star Trek: Strange New World trailer

Paramount has debuted the first trailer for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, the latest Star Trek series that’s centered on the USS Enterprise (the first time that a show has returned full-time to the iconic ship since Star Trek: Enterprise ended in 2005.

Strange New Worlds is technically both a spinoff and a prequel, picking up with the crew of the USS Enterprise after their appearance in Star Trek: Discovery’s second season, making it also a prequel to Star Trek: The Original Series (given that the show is set about a decade before Kirk takes over as captain).

As such, the crew of the Enterprise is a mix of familiar and new names for fans. The ship is helmed by Captain Pike (Anson Mount), with Rebecca Romijn as Una Chin-Riley, his first...

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Disney CEO called the governor of Florida to oppose ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Disney CEO Bob Chapek addressed criticism over the company’s handling of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill today, saying he called the state’s governor to express “concern” with the bill and pledged millions to charity in response to its passing. Chapek said that the company’s initial response, “no matter how well-intended, didn’t quite get the job done, but we’re committed to support the community going forward.”

Disney recently came under fire for its refusal to openly condemn the “Don’t Say Gay” bill — which bans primary school teachers from “discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity” — despite operating a booming business empire in the state. In an internal memo to staff sent Monday, Chapek had written that “corporate...

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5G’s false start is over and the iPhone SE proves it

Screenshot by Nick Statt / The Verge

When I rejoined The Verge in 2018, my first big assignment looked like an absolute peach — fly to the gorgeous Hawaiian island of Maui, sip cool drinks on the sand (The Verge paid for my trip; we don’t accept junkets), and become one of the first journalists to experience blazing 5G speeds at a Qualcomm event. Instead, I found myself exposing a lie. The first real-world 5G test turned out to be a dud, the speeds misleading at best, covering up the fact Verizon and AT&T’s millimeter-wave (mmWave) 5G wasn’t ready.

For the next three years, Verizon and AT&T successfully employed a fake-it-till-you-make-it strategy, enlisting politicians to help them “win” 5G as if it were some kind of “race.” Their fastest 5G networks ran on a chunk of...

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Tesla insists Autopilot and Full Self-Driving are safe, but US senators aren’t buying it

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving features are safe, the company insists in a letter to two top Senate Democrats. Like, really safe. Safer than human driving. Unfortunately, the senators aren’t really buying it.

“Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD Capability features enhance the ability of our cusotmes [sic] to drive safer than the average driver in the U.S.,” Rohan Patel, senior director of public policy at Tesla, writes in a March 4th letter to US Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Ed Markey (D-MA). (The letter was first reported by Reuters.)

Tesla is responding to the senators’ letter to the company’s CEO Elon Musk last month raising “significant concerns” about Autopilot and FSD. Blumenthal and Markey have also called on federal...

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NASA’s human Moon lander program finally gets full funding in new budget bill

Photo by Jonathan Newton / The Washington Post via Getty Images

If Congress’ sweeping new spending bill is signed, it would finally provide full funding to some major NASA projects that have been underfunded over the last few years. Notably, NASA’s program to develop a new human lunar lander would be fully funded as the president’s budget requested, as will a program to develop new commercial space stations in low Earth orbit.

Overall, NASA would receive $24.041 billion for 2022 in this new bill, which will fund the US government for fiscal year 2022.NASA’s portion is roughly $800 million less than the $24.8 billion that President Joe Biden’s budget request called for in May of 2021. However, NASA would still see a slight bump from its total funding for fiscal year 2021, which sat at $23.27 billion.

...

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The Batman is getting an HBO Max spinoff about the Penguin

Colin Farrell in The Batman. | Image: Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Comics

Now that The Batman is out in theaters, the new take on Gotham is set to expand to HBO Max. The network announced today that a spinoff about the Penguin is coming in the form of a limited series. Not much else is known about the show, but it will see Colin Farrell reprise his role as the iconic villain. It will be executive produced by The Batman director Matt Reeves, along with Farrell, Dylan Clark, and Lauren LeFranc, who will also serve as showrunner.

“Colin exploded off the screen as the Penguin in The Batman, and having the chance to thoroughly explore the inner life of that character on HBO Max is an absolute thrill,” Reeves said in a statement. “Dylan and I are so excited to work with Lauren in continuing Oz’s story as he grabs...

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Amazon’s block on Russia suspends shipments, Prime Video streaming, and New World MMO purchases

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon is suspending shipments to Russia and Belarus due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the company announced in a blog post (via Bloomberg). It’s also barring access to Amazon Prime Video in Russia.

Amazon’s suspending shipments to Russia and Belarus

“Given the ongoing situation in Russia and Ukraine, we’ve taken additional actions in the region,” Amazon says in the post. “We’ve suspended shipment of retail products to customers based in Russia and Belarus.”

Amazon is also halting any new orders of the open-world MMO New World, the only game title it sells in Russia. A slew of other game companies, like EA Games, CD Projekt Red, Take-Two, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard, and Epic Games, have suspended sales in the country as well. On...

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Clipchamp is Microsoft’s new video editing app for Windows 11

If you’ve been waiting for Microsoft to resurrect Windows Movie Maker, Clipchamp might be the next best thing. After acquiring Clipchamp last year, Microsoft is now bundling the app into Windows 11. It’s a browser-based app that supports trimming, splitting, transitions, and even has a screen recorder feature.

Clipchamp includes a timeline, just like pro apps like Adobe Premiere Pro, and uses a combination of templates and a library of filters, transitions, stock media, and styles to let people create videos with multi-track audio support and user-friendly editing. Microsoft has integrated in an Azure-powered text-to-speech generator for creators to use voiceovers in 70 languages, and OneDrive is also integrated for cloud storage of...

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The first teaser for Obi-Wan Kenobi teases the ultimate Star Wars rematch

The first teaser for the upcoming Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi series on Disney Plus has arrived, giving a first look at Ewan McGregor’s return as the exiled Jedi.

Obi-Wan Kenobi will pick up with its eponymous hero ten years after the events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith— which saw the Jedi Master take refuge on the desolate planet of Tatooine, both to hide from the Empire’s regime and to keep an eye on the infant Luke Skywalker.

But with Hayden Christensen set to reprise his role as a vengeful Darth Vader — aka, Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan’s former apprentice, who was last left beaten and burning in lava by his former friend — it sounds Obi-Wan’s time on Tatooine between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope will be anything but...

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Apple’s new strategy is to give — not tell — users what they want

The new Mac Studio. | Image: Apple

There was a time not long ago when it seemed like Apple spent more time telling its customers what they wanted rather than just giving it to them.

Convenient features like SD card slots, HDMI ports, and a traditional laptop keyboard were unceremoniously booted from MacBooks in favor of USB-C and a disastrous butterfly keyboard paired with a divisive OLED touch bar. Apple’s professionally focused Mac Pro was given a space-efficient cylindrical redesign that failed at the basic task of keeping power-hungry components (like those a professional user might actually need) cool.

But with yesterday’s announcements, which include the powerful and port-rich Mac Studio and a new monitor that costs a fraction of the price of Apple’s previous...

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A tech executive is privately funding hundreds of soldiers to fight for Ukraine

Photo Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Photograph from Anthony Capone

‘At this point, I’ve probably spent a couple hundred thousand’

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2024 Volkswagen ID Buzz electric microbus revealed: less flower, more power

Photo by Amanda Lopez for The Verge

VW resurrects its iconic microbus for an electric era

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