The Verge
GM’s electric delivery van just set a world record — with me riding shotgun
BrightDrop
258.85 miles in the jump seat of one of the world’s first all-electric delivery vans
The VergeThe VergeTwitter tries harder to promote third-party safety tools
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Twitter has launched a new limited experiment that will see it promote developers’ third-party safety tools natively on its service, TechCrunch reports. The test will initially focus on apps like Block Party, Bodyguard and Moderate, which can help block harassment and other toxic content on the platform.
With this experiment, select users will see these services promoted with a new prompt when they mute or block another account on Twitter. It highlights apps featured in Twitter Toolbox, a recently launched initiative that currently promotes third-party Twitter tools in an online hub. “The Twitter Toolbox offers more solutions to improve your experience on Twitter,” the prompt reads, before listing a selection of services.
The experiment...
The VergeTeenage Engineering’s latest audio device invites you to turn its knobs
A phone-sized field mixer. | Image: Teenage Engineering’s TX-6 overview video
Teenage Engineering, the company behind ultra-stylish synthesizers, speakers, and PC cases, has released a new audio gadget: it’s called the TX-6, and it’s a tiny (in size, not price) field mixer absolutely festooned with knobs. In addition to letting you mix together sound from six stereo inputs and output them to a computer, speaker, or both, in true Teenage Engineering fashion, the TX-6 can also act as a basic synthesizer, drum sequencer, and USB-C audio interface.
We gotta talk about those knobs first though. By default they act as controls for a three-band equalizer, letting you tweak the highs, mids, and lows for each input. But a peek at Teenage Engineering’s guide reveals the tons of other things you can do with them, from...
The VergeHBO and HBO Max added 13 million subscribers last year, as Netflix’s growth slowed
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Earlier this week Netflix reported quarterly earnings results that showed its subscriber numbers dropping for the first time in a decade, but not every streamer is experiencing that kind of pullback. Even though AT&T has offloaded HBO and the rest of WarnerMedia to their new home with Discovery, it still had one more set of subscriber numbers to reveal with its own earnings report Thursday morning.
The numbers showed HBO added nearly 13 million subscribers last year across both traditional HBO and HBO Max, including growth of three million in the last quarter. Now both services combine for 76.8 million subscribers worldwide, which is still dwarfed by Netflix’s 221.64 million subscribers and even the most recent Disney Plus count of 129.8...
The VergeObama’s plans to fight disinformation are better than most
Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
A former president of the United States has their pick of big problems to tackle once they leave office. Jimmy Carter worked on housing. Bill Clinton spent much of his time working to fight HIV and AIDS. Barack Obama, who has been out of office for six years, has so far led a fairly quiet post-presidency. But in recent weeks, he has begun drawing attention to an issue that advisers say has become increasingly important to him: disinformation, and the broader problems with our fractured information ecosystem.
In the months after President Donald Trump was dislodged from office, what could feel at times like an all-consuming focus on disinformation in the tech and political press began to fade into the background. The shift is...
The VergeValve upgrades its Steam Deck dock ahead of release, but we still don’t know how much it costs
A picture of Valve’s official dock. | Image: Valve
Valve has quietly updated the specs to its still-unreleased official dock for the Steam Deck handheld gaming PC, as reported by Review Geek. The Steam Deck tech specs page originally said the dock would have one USB-A 3.1 port, two USB-A 2.0 ports, and an Ethernet port for networking, but the page now says that all three USB-A ports will use the much faster 3.1 standard, and it now specifies that the Ethernet port will actually be a Gigabit Ethernet port.
According to the Wayback Machine, Valve’s Steam Deck tech specs page listed the original specs as of February 12th, and the accompanying diagram of the dock pointed to an “Ethernet” port for networking. But by February 22nd, the specs were updated to list the three USB-A 3.1 ports. And b...
The VergeThis Earth Day, cut through the corporate climate hype
An activist from the Extinction Rebellion (XR) climate change group, wearing a mask depicting Jeff Bezos, takes part in a protest outside of Amazon’s headquarters in central London on November 26, 2021. | Photo by TOLGA AKMEN/AFP via Getty Images
A lot of companies talk green this time of year — here’s what to look for in their pledges
The VergeInstagram shuffles hashtag content in a new test that removes its ‘recent’ tab
Image: Instagram
A new test from Instagram could make it harder for you to see recent content in the app. Though you can now look up all sorts of recent Instagram posts centered around a particular hashtag, the test will only let you see the posts with the most likes or short videos called ‘Reels’ related to the hashtag. The company says this trial will mix “more recent and timely content” in the two groups, to see how people engage with it.
When they were first introduced on Instagram, hashtags could be a fun way to highlight photo trends, but now they are mainly a way for users to get more visibility, and hence, more clicks and likes. According to Instagram, the “top posts” tab shows popular posts, while the “recent” tab shows content in the order it...
The VergeThe best noise-canceling headphone deals
You can save $150 on the AirPods Max. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
With more people working from home than they used to, owning a good pair of noise-canceling headphones has become more appealing than ever. However, they can be expensive and difficult to shop for due to the range of available models, many of which cater to different lifestyles and priorities. Some are better suited for long-haul flights, for instance, while others are ideal for multitasking and marathon listening sessions.
That’s why we’ve curated this list of the best deals on noise-canceling headphones. Here, you’ll find sales on all kinds of on-ear and over-ear headphones, all of which are designed to eliminate outside noise but come with their own strengths and weaknesses. And if you want to do even more research before making a...
The VergeOnlyFans has ‘temporarily paused’ Russian creators’ accounts
Image: Alex Castro / The Verge
OnlyFans has “temporarily paused” Russian accounts and says it can no longer serve Russian creators. The company confirmed the change to Motherboard in a statement today.
The subscription-based platform popularized by sex workers had previously allowed Russian creators to stay and continue to get paid despite economic sanctions. In February, Rolling Stone reported that Russian OnlyFans creators briefly lost access to their accounts with little warning. Shortly after, OnlyFans said it had restored access and that “accounts will have full functionalities as long as we continue to have payment methods to support them.”
But, on Thursday, the company said it was taking steps to pause accounts receiving payments in Russia. In a statement to M...
The VergeYou can now queue to purchase a PS5 direct from Sony
Start lining up for the PlayStation 5 at Sony | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
A year and a half since its release, the PlayStation 5 is still extremely difficult to get your hands on. Sony has been one of the most reliable retailers when it comes to console restocks, though it usually reserves them for invite-only restocks that you have to register in advance for. This is one of the rare moments where Sony is opening up a public queue, so if you’re still in the market for this rare console, either the disc-based PS5 for $499 or the $399 PS5 Digital Edition, just go ahead and queue up via its direct store to try your luck.
You don’t have to refresh the landing page once you’ve arrived in the queue — just wait it out — but we do recommend that you keep your PlayStation Network account info at the ready, just in case...
The VergeA bug in Google Messages might be draining your battery
Image: Google
With all the apps that we tend to have running on our phones, it’s a constant worry as to whether the battery will be able to make it through the day — and that’s not helped when apps misfire and run power-draining features in the background. According to 9to5Google, a recent bug in Google’s Messages app on Android phones left the camera running in the background — a great way to both heat up your phone and run down your battery.
The Google Messages app allows you to easily take a photo directly from the app and attach it to a chat message. According to the article in 9to5Google, the camera app would occasionally keep running, even when you did not have it on screen. (This issue was also reported happening with a Pixel 6 Pro in a Reddit...
The VergeGoogle’s crackdown on third-party Android call recorders may finally be complete
But Google’s own app can still record calls. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Google is changing its Play Store policy to clamp down on a workaround that call recording apps were using, potentially closing the final loophole that allowed these apps to exist (via NLL-Apps on Reddit). On May 11th, a rule clarifying that “the Accessibility API is not designed and cannot be requested for remote call audio recording” will go into effect, making it so that apps won’t be able to record audio from a call.
As XDA points out, Google has been playing whack-a-mole with call recording methods after it removed the official API with Android 6. In an email to The Verge, Google spokesperson Dan Jackson said the reason for the change is that call recording was an inappropriate use of the accessibility API. “Only services that are...
The VergeThe Florida Senate has voted to dismantle Disney’s special taxing district
Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
Following a 23–16 Wednesday vote, Florida’s Senate passed SB 4-C, a bill designed to dismantle any and all of the state’s special tax districts that were created before 1968. Though there are over 1,800 different special tax districts in the state, given the GOP’s ongoing fight with The Walt Disney Corporation, the new bill reads very much like retaliation against the megacorporation for recently denouncing Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
In a press conference earlier this week ahead of the Florida legislature’s special session, Governor Ron DeSantis urged his fellow Republicans to support a legislative move that would dissolve Florida’s special tax districts like the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the Disney-controlled governing...
The VergeAsus drops two OLED Zenbooks and a new logo
Asus has quietly announced two additions to its Zenbook line that are all about the screens. The new AMD-powered Zenbook 13 S joins a limited, but slowly growing lineup of 13-inch OLED laptops for folks seeking the benefits of OLED technology for a consumer-accessible price. But Asus isn’t leaving Intel behind — the company has also unveiled a new Zenbook Pro 15 Flip OLED convertible powered by 12th-Gen Core processors and Arc GPUs.
The Zenbook 13 S OLED doesn’t look too different from 13-inch Zenbooks we’ve seen before. It weighs 2.2 pounds and is just over half an inch thick. It’s available in some fun colors: Ponder Blue, Aqua Celadon, Refined White, and Vestige Beige. But the most interesting thing is that the word “Asus,” famously...
The VergeSony reportedly plans to put ads in PlayStation games
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Sony is reportedly working to bring advertisements to free-to-play PlayStation games, according to a report by Insider. The ads would appear in games and are meant to give game developers a way to monetize their work and encourage them to continue building free-to-play games.
The in-game ads are expected to launch by the end of the year and would appear in inconspicuous places within the game, like billboards_._ Players could also get rewards for watching advertisements, and the ads would be sold through a private marketplace, Insider reports. Sources told Insider that Sony hasn’t yet decided if it would take a portion of ad revenue but is considering having developers and publishers pay for consumer data.
Sony did not immediately respond...
The VergeRocket League is getting a battle royale mode
Psyonix
Carcinization describes the evolutionary process in which a crustacean will eventually and inevitably evolve into a crab. Battle royale-ification is this process happening in video games. Rocket League, the game with the simple-yet-elegant premise of “what if soccer was soc_car,_” will undergo battle royale-ification with its new game mode Knockout Bash.
Starting on April 27th, Knockout Bash will pit eight players in a free-for-all to be the last car driving. Knockout Bash will feature the hallmarks of a typical battle royale mode: perma-death (in this case, instead of infinite respawns, players get three KOs before a game over) and an encroaching danger zone with an ever-shrinking battle arena.
Rocket League will add new actions and...
The VergeExclusive: this is the new budget soundbar from Sonos
A 3D recreation of the upcoming Sonos soundbar. | Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge
Sonos is nearing the release of a new entry-level soundbar, and you’re looking at it. Codenamed “Fury” and officially known as model S36, the new device is yet another soundbar that will join the company’s lineup beneath the $449 Beam and flagship $899 Arc.
It appears that Sonos is no longer willing to cede the lower-cost soundbar market to Vizio and other competitors, as I can reveal that the new product is expected to sell for around $249. That’s substantially less expensive than any Sonos soundbar to date. It’s currently penciled in for release just a few weeks from now on June 7th.
I’ve seen genuine photos of the new soundbar, and The Verge has used them to create the 3D renders for this article. It’s not an exact match but more...
The VergeHere is Lego’s ultimate version of Luke Skywalker’s X-34 Star Wars Landspeeder
Slowly but surely, Lego is supersizing all the most iconic vehicles you’ve ever seen in brick form — like the Back to the Future DeLorean, the Space Shuttle, and, of course, its Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series, including the legendary 7,541-piece UCS Millennium Falcon and 6,785-piece UCS AT-AT Walker. Today, Luke’s scuffed-up X-34 Landspeeder is getting the treatment in time for Star Wars Day (“May the Fourth”), and the $199, 1,890-piece set certainly looks the part.
GIF by Sean Hollister / The Verge, video by Lego
Below you’ll find the biggest images we could nab so you can zoom in and see the details for yourself — including a lovingly detailed, exclusive C-3PO minifig that’s got a proper half-silver,...
The VergeFAA will revoke YouTuber’s pilot license after plane crash video
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has demanded that YouTuber Trevor Jacob turn over his pilot license after he posted a video called “I Crashed My Plane,” of a crash that the agency suggests was staged, as reported by The New York Times. In the video (which you can watch here), Jacob’s plane appears to have an engine malfunction, and he jumps out of it while wearing a parachute. In a letter, the regulator told Jacob that he “demonstrated a lack of care, judgment and responsibility by choosing to jump out of an aircraft” and said that Jacob “operated this flight to purposefully cause [the plane] to crash.”
Jacob posted the video in December, and it already has more than 1.7 million views. Like several members of the flying...
The VergeApple Fitness Plus users can learn BTS choreography starting next week
Fitness Plus users will be able to learn BTS choreography in the service starting next week. | Image: Apple
When Apple Fitness Plus launched in 2020, it was not only a way to showcase the new Dance activity on the Apple Watch but also a subtle way to integrate other services like Apple Music. The fitness service has since added Artist Spotlight series with celebrated musicians, so it’s no surprise Apple is mashing all this together with Dance workouts based on mega-popular K-pop band BTS.
The BTS collaboration is part of a content package for International Dance Day on April 29. Starting next week, workouts will be led by Fitness Plus trainer Ben Allen and feature choreography straight from BTS’ music videos. Some of the songs featured include hits like “Butter (feat. Megan Thee Stallion),” “Dynamite,” “Boy With Luv (feat. Halsey),” “DNA,”...
The VergeThe PlayStation 5 is back at Best Buy for store pickup orders
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
If you’re still in the market for a PlayStation 5, Best Buy just opened up another restock of the disc-based PS5 for $499.99. This restock is live now and is available to everyone, not just TotalTech subscribers, and is still likely to sell out extremely fast.
As always, to better your chances at grabbing one of these consoles, make sure to log into your Best Buy account in another browser tab while you wait in line, and make sure all your personal info, including billing and shipping addresses, are up to date. Once you’ve done that, it's simply a matter of waiting in line and playing the waiting game. Once you’ve hit the “Add to Cart” button you are placed in the queue, so there's no need to refresh the page. Just be prepared to verify...
The VergeMeta COO Sheryl Sandberg accused of squashing reporting about then-boyfriend Bobby Kotick
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Meta Platforms, used her influence to bury two stories about her then-boyfriend, Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, according to a bombshell report from The Wall Street Journal.
The WSJ reports that, in 2016 and again in 2019, Sandberg contacted MailOnline, the online imprint of the U.K.’s Daily Mail tabloid, in an attempt to stop the outlet from reporting about a restraining order filed against Kotick by his ex-girlfriend. On both occasions, the story did not run. Now, Facebook is investigating the issue to see if Sandberg potentially violated company policy.
According to sources in the WSJ report, Kotick said that Sandberg threatened the Mail in 2016, stating that any article published...
The VergeCNN Plus is shutting down only a month after it launched
CNN Plus, the news network’s dedicated streaming service, is shutting down before even turning a month old. Chris Licht, the new CEO of CNN, delivered the news to his new team at an all-hands meeting on Thursday, and the service will shut down entirely on April 30th.
Licht congratulated the CNN Plus team in a memo to staff announcing the shutdown and said that the decision “is not a reflection of the quality of the talent and content at CNN+, some of which will migrate to CNN’s programming or some of the company’s other networks.” The decision, he said, was about broader strategy. “In a complex streaming market, consumers want simplicity and an all-in service, which provides a better experience and more value than stand-alone offerings.”...
The VergeCheck out NASA’s latest footage of a solar eclipse on Mars
Watching the latest footage of a solar eclipse on Mars gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “out of this world.”
Earlier this month, NASA’s Perseverance rover spotted one of Mars’ moons, Phobos, passing across the Sun. The 40-second eclipse was captured by the rover’s Mastcam-Z camera system. It is a partial solar eclipse because of the moon’s size. While Phobos is the larger of Mars’ two moons, it is still extremely small, measuring 17 x 14 x 11 miles in diameter. Its small size means that there can never be a total eclipse on Mars. No matter what, parts of the sun will always peek out from behind the shadows of Mars’ moons.
This is not the first solar eclipse spotted from Mars. Other rovers have captured eclipses from the planet’s...
The VergeCalifornia net neutrality law to remain intact after appeals court says it won’t reconsider earlier decision
California’s net neutrality law remains intact | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
A federal appeals court has denied a request for a rehearing on its January decision that upholds California’s net neutrality law. The 2018 law, widely considered the strongest in the US, was signed into law a year after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) repealed the Open Internet Order. That order had established stringent net neutrality rules that prohibited internet service providers from throttling or blocking legal websites and apps, and banned ISPs from prioritizing paid content.
California’s law, which finally took effect last year, also prohibits throttling and speed lanes. Wireless trade associations including the NCTA, the CTIA, and ISPs including Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T sued to block California’s law from taking...
The VergePixar’s Lightyear is going to be about traveling through time as well as space
Pixar/Disney
Pixar and Disney’s upcoming Lightyearfeature has already thrown people with the idea of it being an origin story about the “real” space ranger Toy Story’s Buzz Lightyear is apparently based on. That aspect of the feature immediately raised questions about whether Toy Story’s been set in some sort futuristic universe this whole time without acknowledging it, or if the studios were dancing around Lightyear actually being an in-universe movie about Buzz.
Lightyear’s latest trailer doesn’t clarify if either of those situations are the case, but it does lay out the broad strokes of the movie’s plot and reveal yet another interesting twist to its story. In the new trailer, Buzz (Chris Evans) along with his earthbound partner Alisha Hawthorne...
The VergeApple’s newest iPad Air is $50 off in both storage configurations and all colorways
Apple’s latest iPad Air for 2022 in blue. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Apple’s latest iPad Air may be a somewhat incremental upgrade over the last-gen model, but it’s the most affordable way to get a device with the acclaimed M1 processor. Today, you can get one of these tablets with that excellent CPU for a bit less, as the 2022 iPad Air is $50 off at Best Buy. This deal encompasses both storage sizes for the Wi-Fi model and all available colors. That means the $599 64GB configuration is $549.99 and the 256GB model drops from $749 to $699.99. We saw a slightly steeper $70 discount at the beginning of this month, but that was limited to the 256GB version.
The iPad Air looks a lot like the version that came out in 2020, but, in addition to its M1 guts, there’s now a Center Stage-compatible front-facing...
The VergeRazer’s Leviathan V2 is a great-sounding soundbar trapped on PC
Full of improvements, but with fewer ports
The VergeGo read this STAT investigation into the risk of elder abuse in psychedelic therapy
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Older adults who turn to psychedelic therapies to treat psychiatric conditions like depression and PTSD are uniquely vulnerable to financial abuse, according to a STAT investigation. The substances could make people feel more emotionally connected with care providers who deliver the drugs, making them susceptible to manipulation by bad actors.
The story highlights a lawsuit brought against psychedelic therapist Vicky Dulai alleging that she took more than $4 million from Holocaust survivor George Sarlo, who had turned to psychedelics to treat depression and trauma. Dulai and Sarlo met in 2002, and according to the lawsuit, she gradually took over as his personal assistant and caregiver. She had access to his bank accounts and personal...