Halo Infinite’s long-awaited campaign co-op mode is slated for August

Some of the new armor customization options in Halo Infinite’s second season. | Image: 343 Industries

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries is targeting a “late August” launch for the game’s long-awaited network co-op campaign mode, the game’s head of creative Joseph Staten says in a new Halo Waypoint blog post. As part of a new roadmap included in the post, Staten also shared that 343 is targeting an open beta for Halo Infinite’s Forge mode in September.

343 Industries announced months ahead of Halo Infinite’s December release that co-op and Forge mode wouldn’t be available at launch. The developer then said it was aiming to ship campaign co-op “with” season 2, and then pushed that target to “later” in season 2.

Split-screen campaign co-op, which lets you play the campaign with your friends on the same TV, is even further away. Based...

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Jack Dorsey is not a CEO, he’s the Block Head

This is Dorsey’s official image on Block’s “Leadership” website. | Image: Block

Jack Dorsey’s new title at Block is not CEO, but Block Head. No, this is not a very belated April Fools’ joke. The company filed an 8-K with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announcing the change — and of course, the new title came into effect on 4/20.

Despite the new title (which, in full, is “Block Head and Chairperson”), Dorsey’s job at Block, the company formerly known as Square, will ultimately remain the same: there will be “no changes in Mr. Dorsey’s roles and responsibilities, and he will continue to serve as principal executive officer of the Company.” Block’s bylaws also no longer require that the company to have an officer with the title of CEO and president, which seems to mean that anyone who succeeds Dorsey...

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Yup, it’s going to be called the Pixel Watch

Are we surprised it’ll be called the Pixel Watch? Nah. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

After years of speculation, we finally know what Google’s first in-house smartwatch will be called. Surprising absolutely no one, a new trademark filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reveals it is... Pixel Watch.

The filing (via 9to5 Google) is about as barebones as it gets. The description says the Pixel Watch name is “intended to cover the categories of smartwatches; cases adapted for holding smartwatches; wearable computers in the nature of smartwatches; smartwatch straps; smartwatch bands.” Further on in the filing, it’s noted that while the Pixel Watch name is not in current use, there is an intent to use it. Not to mention, Google recently changed its store to more prominently feature watches. Clearly, Google has...

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21 Raven Software QA employees will be allowed to have a union election

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twenty-one Raven Software QA employees have until May 20th to submit their ballots in a historic video game industry union vote. Today the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decreed that voting for the union would commence and that the voting unit would be composed of those 21 employees, against Activision Blizzard’s argument that the voting unit should be opened to all Raven employees.

In a statement to The Verge, Activision Blizzard spokesperson Rich George said:

While we respect the NLRB process, we are disappointed that a decision that could significantly impact the future of our entire studio will be made by fewer than 10% of our employees. We believe a direct relationship with team members is the best path to achieving...

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Twitter bans ‘misleading’ ads about climate change

Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Twitter levied a new ban today on “misleading” advertisements “that contradict the scientific consensus on climate change.”

“We believe that climate denialism shouldn’t be monetized on Twitter, and that misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” the company said in a blog post today.

“Misrepresentative ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis”

Its decisions about what’s legit content in regard to climate change will be guided by “authoritative sources,” it says, including the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC has published a couple of landmark reports on the crisis over the past few months that break down what...

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Florida Gov. DeSantis revokes Disney’s special tax status

Florida’s governor has signed a bill stripping Disney of its special tax status in the state | Photo by AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday signed a bill stripping the Walt Disney Company of its special tax status in the Orlando area. The move is widely viewed as retaliation against Disney for its criticism of the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, a position DeSantis took umbrage at.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek apologized last month to employees who protested what they viewed as a failure by the company to support its LGBTQ community. Disney then issued a press release that said its “goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that.”

DeSantis said Friday he was “just not comfortable having that type of...

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Borderlands 3 is finally getting crossplay support with PlayStation consoles

A screenshot from Borderlands 3_._ | Image: Gearbox Software

Gearbox Software added crossplay to Borderlands 3 last year, but Sony’s platforms didn’t support the feature at first. That will change soon, as the company announced at PAX East that full crossplay support — including with PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 — will be arriving sometime in the spring, GameSpot reports. When the feature is available, PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Stadia players will all be able to play the game with each other.

Sony has been resistant to enabling crossplay on some games in the past, originally blocking support for it in titles like Fortnite and Rocket League before eventually coming around. However, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, a Borderlands spinoff, launched in March with support for crossplay on all platforms, i...

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A Tesla vehicle using ‘Smart Summon’ appears to crash into a $3.5 million private jet

A video was posted on Reddit Thursday that appears to show a Tesla vehicle slowly crashing into a $3.5 million private jet after being “summoned” by its owner using the automaker’s automatic parking feature.

The Reddit user (who did not immediately respond to a request for comment) said the incident took place at an event sponsored by aircraft manufacturer Cirrus at Felts Field in Spokane, Washington.

Tesla meets $3.5 million private jet

The smartphone video appears to capture security camera footage of the Tesla slowly crashing into and then actually pushing the Cirrus Vision Jet across the tarmac. A spokesperson for Felts Field also did not respond to a request for comment.

Someone just crashed into a Vision Jet!!! from ...

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You can make Netflix forget

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Two months ago, my best friend stayed with me and watched all of Emily in Paris on my Netflix account. I have spent the time since flitting past worthless recommendation after worthless recommendation because, while I enjoy a frothy dramedy, my taste is different than hers and Netflix has failed to grasp that.

A “forget what you just saw” button on Netflix would fix this. But when you’re using the Netflix app on your phone, tablet, set-top box, TV, or even, if that’s a thing you do, your Facebook Portal, there is no button to forget what you have seen. There is just the ruin of your recommendations after a friend visits or your kid goes on a Cocomelon binge.

But, as this tweet pointed out, there is actually a Forget button. Well okay,...

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Sony’s next flagship headphones appear to have a sleek new design

Image: Sony (WH-1000XM4, left), TechnikNews (WH-1000XM5, right)

Sony’s WH-1000XM4 noise-canceling headphones have been one of the best options since they debuted in 2020, but it appears the company is gearing up to release the next generation. German tech news site TechnikNews has published some images and specs of the successor, seemingly called the WH-1000XM5 (via Gizmodo).

The first thing you might notice is a sleek new design, particularly a thinner headband. The 1000XM3s and 1000XM4s were almost identical, but Sony could change the way things look for the new 1000XM5s.

Instead of a shrouded arm that swivels, the arm is exposed, with a single contact point replacing the XM4’s larger folding hinge over the ear cups. That changes the design of the ear cups as well but suggests just a bit more of...

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Samsung getting rid of the rotating bezel would be a stupid, stupid, stupid idea

The rotating bezel on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3. | Dan Seifert / The Verge

While we’re likely months away from seeing Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 5 lineup, a disturbing report is making its way around the smartwatch rumor mill. According to a SamMobile report, Samsung is considering ditching the Classic model — and possibly the physical rotating bezel along with it.

To put it nicely, that is a stupid idea.

It is not hyperbole to say that the physical rotating bezel is one of the most beloved features on Samsung smartwatches. It goes back all the way to when its smartwatches were under the “Gear” moniker. The bezel at that time actually looked like a gear — teeth and all. It was a clever design aesthetically, but it was also functional. Being able to rotate the bezel to scroll through widgets, screens, and apps is...

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Beanstalk founders dismissed concerns about governance attacks before losing $182 million

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

On April 17th, the decentralized finance (DeFi) project Beanstalk Farms was exploited for $182 million after an attacker mounted a lightning-fast hostile takeover, buying a controlling stake of tokens and immediately voting to send themself all of the funds.

The incident sparked discussion around “governance attacks,” a way of manipulating blockchain projects that use decentralized governance structures by gaining enough voting rights to reshape the rules.

In the wake of the attack, chat logs and video evidence show that the founders were warned about the risk of exactly this kind of attack, but they dismissed community members’ concerns.

The Beanstalk exploit was made possible by another DeFi mechanism known as a “flash loan,” which...

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Why we can’t record mobile phone calls — and why we should be able to

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Several years ago, I had to deal with a situation that may be familiar to a lot of people: I was slammed with a series of high medical bills that had been denied by the insurance company. The doctor was in network, but according to the insurance company, his bills were coded wrong. Or wait, his facilities weren’t in network or… well, you get the idea. It took over a year and many phone calls to iron out the issue — and I wouldn’t have gotten through it had I not been able to record each phone call I made with the insurance company and the various medical facilities involved.

Today, it would be nearly impossible.

Federal law in the US says that you can legally record a phone conversation, but only if you are taking part in that...

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Amazon’s budget-friendly Smart Thermostat is on sale for its best price yet

Amazon’s Smart Thermostat is down to just $47.99 today at Amazon. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

It’s Earth Day, so in honor of the occasion, we’re starting today’s roundup with an excellent deal on Amazon’s eco-friendly Smart Thermostat. Smart thermostats such as Amazon’s can reduce and, in some cases, track your energy consumption. And they’re also a great buy for bargain hunters given that they can lower your monthly energy bill.

In honor of the holiday today, some retailers are discounting an array of smart thermostats, including Amazon’s budget-friendly option. Right now, you can buy the Smart Thermostat for $47.99 instead of $59.99 at Amazon, Best Buy, and Kohl’s, which is its lowest price to date. Plus, depending on where you live, you may be eligible for a rebate of up to $50 from your local energy provider.

Despite its...

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Twitter is testing a CC button for captions on videos

Twitter is testing a CC button for closed captions on videos. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter said on Friday it’s testing a new “CC” button to turn captions on and off on videos with captions available. The feature is rolling out to some users on iOS and will be coming “soon” to Android, the company says.

As shown in a video tweeted by Twitter’s Support account, the button appears in the upper-right corner of a video attached to a tweet.

Video captions or no captions, it’s now easier to choose for some of you on iOS, and soon on Android.

On videos that have captions available, we’re testing the option to turn captions off/on with a new “CC” button. pic.twitter.com/Q2Q2Wmr78U

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) April 22, 2022

As its board considers a takeover bid by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Twitter has been rolling out a...

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Sony aims for June 13th US launch for revamped PlayStation Plus

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Sony is aiming to launch its revamped PlayStation Plus tiers in the Americas on June 13th, the company announced Friday. Sony is targeting a launch date first in markets in Asia (with the exception of Japan) on May 23rd, followed by a Japan launch on June 1st, an Americas launch on June 13th, and a Europe launch on June 22nd.

Sony first announced the new tiers in March, with the premium options offering perks like access to a collection of games to download or stream and the ability to play classic PlayStation, PS2, PS3, and PSP games. (Unfortunately, if you want to play the retro games, you’ll have to pay for the most expensive tier.) At the time of the original announcement, Sony had said that the tiers would be available first in the...

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How to choose which Apple Watch to buy

Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Now that Apple has several models, there’s more to consider

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Apple Cash virtual debit cards may be switching from Discover to Visa

Apple Cash debit cards may be switching from Discover to Visa. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple Cash, formerly known as Apple Pay Cash, may be transitioning from the Discover payments network to Visa, a new report from MacRumors suggests. Visa has a much larger global network than Discover, which might account for the move.

Since its launch in 2017, Apple Pay Cash had a partnership with Green Dot Bank on Discover’s network, but in recent days, users have noticed that Apple Cash virtual cards now have a Visa logo on them. Apple Cash virtual cards live in users’ Apple Pay mobile wallets, and let them send peer-to-peer payments via iMessage. They function like virtual debit cards, and can be linked to a bank account or other debit card. Apple Card customers’ cash back earnings can be paid to Apple Cash accounts as well.

Apple...

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Stubby SD cards are back

This is the JetDrive Lite 330 looks like popped out. | Image: Transcend

SD card slots have returned to the MacBook Pro in their 2021 iteration, which means it was only a matter of time before we started seeing MacBook-tailored SD cards hit shelves again. Today, in gadgets we’ve seen before but recent events have elevated in relevance, Transcend has announced a new 1TB SD card for MacBooks: the JetDrive Lite 330.

The idea is that you can pop this device into a MacBook Pro’s SD slot and it blends right in. It’s the right color so that it doesn’t disrupt the overall look, and it’s the right size so that it won’t add any additional bulk.

The video below is pretty convincing:

The device is currently listed for $249.99 on Amazon. So let’s do some quick math: Upgrading a MacBook Pro model from 1TB to 2TB of...

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Twitter is reportedly working on a vibe check feature

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is reportedly working on a feature that allows users to set a status, codenamed “Vibe.” The possible feature was first spotted by Jane Manchun Wong, a researcher and reverse engineer with a track record of spoiling upcoming app updates.

Screenshots shared by Wong show a “Set a status” field above the tweet composer box. A dropdown list has five pre-set vibes, none of which sound that fun, including “shopping grocery” and “driving highway.” It’s unclear if statuses will be limited to presets or if users will be able to add custom updates beyond what Twitter creates.

Twitter is working on “Set a status” in Tweet Composer, codenamed “Vibe”

You can think of it as something similar to Instagram Threads app’s Status p...

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Vergecast: Netflix losing subscribers, CNN Plus shutting down, and Sonos’ new soundbar

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel discusses the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.

We’ve got some big news for The Vergecast today. David Pierce has returned to The Verge as editor-at-large and now rejoins The Vergecast to host the show with Nilay each week. We’ve got a lot of plans ahead for growing the show with David, so stay tuned for that.

On today’s episode, David, Nilay, and Verge managing editor Alex Cranz discuss some change-ups in the streaming world this week: Netflix has lost subscribers for the first time in over a decade after contending with more rival services than ever before, and streaming service...

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You can now buy a Framework mainboard and turn it into the weird computer of your dreams

Image: Framework

When the Framework Laptop launched, it had all the potential in the world to be both a great laptop and a repairable, upgradeable one. But — and there’s always a but — it was only ever going to work if the ecosystem worked. Framework needed to build a market around the laptop, so it can be bigger than one company’s feature ideas and release cycles. And more immediately, it needed to prove that it was invested in the idea itself, that Framework wouldn’t just move on to newer and shinier things that break from its upgrade path.

On the larger ecosystem front, Framework’s success is still very much to be determined. But its own intentions don’t seem to have wavered. This week, Framework announced that the Framework Laptop’s mainboard — which...

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CERN’s particle accelerator starts up after a three-year hiatus

The Large Hadron Collider restarted after three years of upgrades. | CERN

Two beams of protons zipped around the Large Hadron Collider on Friday, marking the return of the world’s largest particle accelerator after over three years on hiatus. The European Organisation for Nuclear Research, or CERN, spent the past three years doing maintenance workand making major upgrades to the system. Now, the group is preparing to start on a four-year stretch of data collection scientists hope will reveal new secrets of the universe.

“It is going to be two to three times better, in terms of the ability for our experiment to detect, collect and analyze data,” Marcella Bona, a particle physicist from Queen Mary University of London, told BBC.

This summer will mark the start of the third run of the LHC, referred to as Run 3....

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What you’re seeing in Google’s Earth Day Doodle

Glacier retreat in Greenland. | Image: Google

This Earth Day, Google is dedicating its Doodle to how badly we’re messing up our beloved planet. It’s actually kind of a cool Doodle. Four different GIFs show time lapses of dramatic changes driven by climate change.

From Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, you’ll see footage of bright corals losing their color under the stress of warmer waters. Corals are living creatures that get their color from algae in their tissues with which they have a symbiotic relationship. Under stress, including rising ocean temperatures, corals lose that algae in a depressing phenomenon called “bleaching.”

GIF: Google / The Ocean Agency

Great Barrier Reef coral bleaching on Lizard Island, Australia. The images were taken each month from...

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Splatoon 3 is coming to the Switch in September

Those squid kids finally have a release date. Nintendo has announced that Splatoon 3 will hit the Nintendo Switch on September 9th. The colorful shooter was previously pegged to launch sometime this summer.

Like past entries in the series, Splatoon 3 is a four-on-four shooter that’s like a cross between paintball and Call of Duty where teams of humanoid creatures called Inklings and Octolings compete to paint a battlefield a particular color. The lack of violence and vibrant tone have helped differentiate the series from the glut of other competitive shooters. The new entry will introduce the typical new weapons and stages along with an improved co-op experience and what looks to be a much more in-depth single-player campaign.

With the...

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Nintendo brings Sonic Spinball and other Genesis classics to Switch Online

Nintendo

You can’t keep a good Sonic game down. As Sonic fans flail about, overjoyed that Sonic Origins will be launching soon, some fans expressed dismay that the franchise’s blue-headed stepchild Sonic Spinball seems to have been forgotten in all these anniversary bundles and rereleases yet again. Nintendo heard those cries of injustice and is adding the “what if Sonic was a pinball?” game to the Sega Genesis library in the Switch Online Expansion Pack.

3 classic SEGA Genesis games have just been made available for #NintendoSwitchOnline + Expansion Pack members!

- Space Harrier II
- Shining Force II
- Sonic The Hedgehog Spinball pic.twitter.com/uhD21PEChk

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) April 22, 2022

Released in 1993 on the Sega...

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Elon Musk has money to buy Twitter — now what?

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

A fart button?

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How to change the default apps on your Android phone

Changing your default Android web browser or texting app is as easy as changing your wallpaper. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales

Android provides you with countless ways to customize your phone, from the color and shape of your app icons to your preferred method of system navigation. That customizability extends to your default app for common tasks like making calls and texting. Maybe you’d prefer to use a web browser with more privacy features or swap Google Assistant out for Alexa. You’re free to download the app of your choice and set it as the default — it just takes a few steps.

For reference, these are the types of apps to which you can assign new defaults:

• Web browser
• Caller ID and spam blocker
• Digital assistant
• Home app (aka launcher)
• Phone
• SMS (chat)

These are the steps I followed to change the default SMS app on the TCL 30 V 5G phone running Android...

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They’ve leaked terabytes of Russian emails, but who’s reading?

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Photography by Mikhail Svetlov / Getty Images

The city of Blagoveshchensk sits in the far east of Russia, some 3,500 miles from Moscow and further still from Kyiv. Across a river, the Chinese city of Heihe sprawls to the south, joined by the first Sino-Russian road bridge; beside the bridge, there’s little about the city to make the news.

But the public affairs of the city are now laid bare for anyone willing to look in the form of 150GB of emails from the Blagoveshchensk City Administration published online by the transparency collective Distributed Denial of Secrets — just one of many data sets leaked to the organization since the invasion of Ukraine began.

As the war in Ukraine approaches the 60-day mark, leaks from the country have been coming at an unprecedented rate. On April...

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Watching TV from behind the wheel of a self-driving car to be allowed under UK law

An example infotainment screen in the (not currently self-driving) Tesla Model 3. | Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

Drivers in the UK will effectively be allowed to watch TV while behind the wheel of a self-driving car, under new rules announced by the country’s Department for Transport. Although drivers are currently restricted from viewing “non-driving related content” on a “television-receiving apparatus,” this rule would be waived under specific circumstances once the proposals come into force. The new rules are set to be introduced into the UK’s Highway Code over the summer, according to BBC News.

The ability to watch TV comes with some restrictions. A car will need to be driving itself at the time, and the driver must be ready to take back control of the vehicle if required. Importantly, drivers will only be allowed to view content “through the...

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