Ram aims to ‘steal’ some of Ford’s electric truck ‘thunder’ with 1500 EV tease

Ram teased its upcoming electric 1500 pickup truck, which is scheduled to go into production in fall 2022. The new electric truck is expected to be one of the first major long-range EVs to come out of Stellantis, the multinational conglomeration that formed last year when Fiat Chrysler merged with the French PSA Group.

The decision to tease the electric Ram 1500 is clearly a shot at Ford, which is set to begin customer deliveries of its hotly anticipated F-150 Lightning truck this week. “Time to steal some thunder,” the tweet from Ram reads — a clear allusion to Ford and its lightning-branded EV.

Time to steal some thunder.
Unleashing Fall 2022. https://t.co/epaaYdKHj9 pic.twitter.com/m4wB9AjYBp

— Ram Trucks (@RamTrucks) April 25,...

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The Amazon Labor Union beat a behemoth — can it keep winning?

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Today, workers at Amazon’s LDJ5 warehouse facility will vote on whether to organize with the Amazon Labor Union (ALU), the same union that pulled off a historic win at another Staten Island, New York, facility earlier this month. With ballots scheduled to be counted on May 2nd, the election will last just one week. After months of slow buildup, workers are just a week away from learning whether their site will unionize — assuming there aren’t any tiebreaker court fights of the kind that held up Bessemer’s second vote.

The ALU is riding high after the election at the JFK8 facility, and it’s fair to say momentum is on the side of the organizers. But the loss in the first Bessemer election is still fresh, and the stakes are high. The...

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Thief steals $1 million of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs with Instagram hack

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A hacker has stolen NFTs worth millions of dollars after compromising the official Instagram account for Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and using it to post a phishing link that transferred tokens out of users’ crypto wallets.

The hack was disclosed on Twitter by BAYC just before 10AM ET on Monday morning. “There is no mint going on today,” the Tweet read. “It looks like BAYC Instagram was hacked.”

There is no mint going on today. It looks like BAYC Instagram was hacked. Do not mint anything, click links, or link your wallet to anything.

— Bored Ape Yacht Club (@BoredApeYC) April 25, 2022

Another tweet from a user unaffiliated with the project claimed to show the image that had been posted from the BAYC account, promoting an “airdrop”...

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First private mission to the ISS splashes down off Florida coast

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon is loaded onto a recovery vessel | SpaceX/Axiom Space

The first crew of private astronauts to visit the International Space Station have successfully returned to Earth, splashing down off the coast of Florida soon after 1PM ET. Their return marks the end of a 15-day mission to the ISS, a trip that cost the crew a reported $55 million per ticket.

This mission, dubbed Ax-1, was the first human spaceflight mission for Axiom Space, a private aerospace company that plans to build commercial space stations in the future. Axiom contracted with SpaceX to send a crew of four to the International Space Station on SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, calling it a precursor mission to prepare for sending people to Axiom’s space stations in the future.

The Ax-1 crew’s visit to the space station was supposed to last...

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Apple Music and the iOS App Store are having problems

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you’re an Apple user, then you might be seeing some problems in the App Store or with Apple Music. Apple’s system status page lists issues affecting “all users” for both services noticed since 11:41AM ET without going into detail about what the problems are. In our tests, the App Store and Apple Music are both generally operational, but users have noticed problems for a few hours.

Posters on Reddit have seen problems with Apple Music missing lyric information, Dolby Atmos, and lossless audio from songs where it should have those features, while some report they’re unable to play music even if it’s downloaded to their local storage for offline listening. Some users said logging in and logging out fixed the missing lossless audio...

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Stripe test lets Twitter creators get paid in cryptocurrency

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Stripe is testing a way for users to receive their payouts in cryptocurrency, starting with “a select group of creators on Twitter.” Creators who earn money through monetization features on the platform can now get their earnings in USD Coin (USDC) — a “stablecoin” cryptocurrency tied to the US dollar.

Stripe is piloting the crypto payout option through the company’s payment processor, Stripe Connect, that customers can integrate into their online platform or marketplace. Crypto payouts will occur over the Polygon network, a blockchain tied to Ethereum that allows for faster and more efficient transactions. After receiving their funds, users can choose to store their earnings in Polygon or exchange it for another currency. While Stripe...

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Leaked Sony earbuds have a big ol’ vent

Perhaps for an improved transparency mode? | Image: SnoopyTech

It seems that Sony’s next flagship over-ear headphones aren’t the only ones that have leaked ahead of a public announcement, as official-looking images of a new set of Sony noise-canceling wireless earbuds have hit the web thanks to leaker SnoopyTech (via Android Police). According to SnoopyTech, the earbuds will be called the LinkBuds S, suggesting they could share some similarities to Sony’s LinkBuds released in February.

The original LinkBuds have a distinctive “open-style” design with an unconventional donut-like hole that’s intended to help you better hear your surroundings while you have the earbuds in. The LinkBuds S, in contrast, have a more traditional closed design like that of Sony’s WF-1000XM4s.

However, looking at the...

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Google Cloud Media CDN lets companies build on the network that keeps YouTube running

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Companies like Netflix, Disney, and HBO do battle over media streaming of movies and TV shows, but all of their services combined pale in comparison to YouTube, which says it delivers over a billion hours of video streams every single day. Now, Google Cloud is announcing general availability of its Media CDN, a network for media companies to use for their own streaming experiences. Competitors like Microsoft Azure, Amazon CloudFront, Fastly, and Cloudflare are already in the market, but none of them can point to the service so many people use every day to help sell their products.

As we noted two years ago, the world is streaming more video than ever, and things have not slowed down since. While we think a lot about the algorithms that...

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Research on COVID-detecting smartwatches still hasn’t panned out

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, smartwatch advocates and wearable tech companies thought the devices could help with illness detection. They wanted to flag people who might be sick with the disease using things like their heart rate and oxygen levels. The strategy could still be a reasonable way to track illness, but two years later, the promise hasn’t panned out — the research is still underdeveloped, according to a new review published last week in The Lancet.

The review looked at 12 research studies and 12 proposed study protocols published in 2020 and 2021 that tried to find patterns in the data collected by devices like the Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Whoop. Most of these studies focused on people who had already tested...

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Amazon’s latest Echo Dot is cheaper than ever at $27.99

The fourth-gen Echo Dot is a small, ponderous orb available in white, black, or blue. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

It’s time to kick off another week of deals, and what better way than with promos like a smart speaker hitting its lowest price yet and a new TV getting a nice discount? Amazon’s orb-like Echo Dot is one of the most affordable ways to smarten up your home, and it’s now cheaper than ever before. You can pick up the fourth-gen Echo Dot, which launched in 2020, for just $27.99 at Amazon or Best Buy in black, blue, or white. That price is $22 off its regular price and even beats the discounts we saw around the holidays.

While this little speaker is inexpensive and compact, it supports all the same Alexa voice commands as its pricier counterparts, like setting timers and controlling other devices in Amazon’s ecosystem of smart home devices....

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Starlink is coming to Hawaiian Airlines in a bid to try and fix in-flight Wi-Fi

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

SpaceX is starting to make deals with airlines to provide its Starlink satellite internet to sky travelers everywhere. It announced a deal on Monday with Hawaiian Airlines, and last week made a similar deal with charter carrier JSX. None of the involved parties shared the financial details of their deals, but both airlines did say they’re planning to offer the in-flight Wi-Fi for free, which is both a semi-miraculous fact and a sign of hope that free Wi-Fi is becoming the industry standard. Delta meanwhile, confirmed last week that it’s running “exploratory” Starlink tests.

In-flight Wi-Fi has been on the minds of Team Starlink for a while. Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX’s VP of Starlink and commercial sales, said last year that the company...

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Elon Musk privately raged at Saudi officials over his failed plan to take Tesla private

Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

Elon Musk raged at the head of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund for failing to back his bid to take Tesla private in 2018, complaining that he was being thrown “under the bus,” according to newly disclosed text messages.

“I am deeply offended,” Musk wrote to Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), on August 12, 2018. The texts were sent a few days after Musk shocked the financial world by tweeting that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share, adding “funding secured.”

The now infamous tweet triggered a lawsuit from Tesla shareholders, who claim that Musk lied about having the money required to delist Tesla from the stock exchange and take it private. As part of the...

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Meta is opening its first retail store next month

Meta

Meta is launching its first hardware retail store on its campus in Burlingame, California. The store, which opens May 9th, will let visitors try out and buy Meta’s Portal videophones and Quest virtual reality headsets. They’ll also be able to demo the Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses that debuted last year and get help ordering them online.

Meta’s store will include a demo area for Portal where users can test its video calling features with a store employee. There’s a space to test several Quest 2 demos, including Beat Saber, GOLF+, Real VR Fishing, and Supernatural, and visitors will take home a 30-second mixed reality clip showing them playing a game. They can also try on different styles of the Ray-Ban glasses, which capture and share...

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Xbox just had its best March sales performance in 11 years, bringing in more money than Switch or PS5

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

If you're trying to buy a new video game console in 2022, then you probably already know that they’re still in short supply. While the Nintendo Switch (including the new Switch OLED model) and Xbox Series S are generally available throughout the US, it’s a little harder to get something more powerful, and NPD data released today reflects that.

Between the Xbox Series S remaining in stock consistently and the increasingly obtainable Xbox Series X (try opening up your Best Buy app in the morning or checking local stores to find one — many have had them in stock lately), Microsoft’s consoles led in terms of hardware dollars for March 2022 and the entire first quarter in the US.

This is the most total Xbox units sold in March since 2011

U...

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GM teases ‘electrified’ version of the Chevy Corvette coming next year

The 2023 Chevy Corvette Z06 | Chevy

General Motors will release an “electrified” version of the Chevy Corvette next year, followed by a fully electric version of the iconic sports car soon after that, the automaker’s president Mark Reuss said on CNBCMonday.

Reuss wouldn’t confirm when the all-electric ‘Vette would make its debut, but did note that “this is coming very quick.” The automaker plans to continue selling gas-powered versions in the meantime.

“This is in addition to all the great performance that Chevrolet and Corvette have been known for many, many years with our internal combustion engine, so it’s an addition to [that],” Reuss said.

BREAKING: An electrified #Corvette will be available as early as next year and a fully electric version to follow. Stay...

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Elon Musk could buy Twitter today, per reports

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge

Stay up to date with the latest in the Musk-Twitter saga

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Diablo Immortal is launching on Android, iOS, and PC on June 2nd

Image: Blizzard

We already knew Blizzard is working on a new entry in the Diablo series that is designed for mobile devices. And today, timed to coincide with Activision Blizzard’s Q1 2022 earnings report, the company announced that Diablo Immortal will release on Android and iOS on June 2nd and, surprise, on PC too in open beta.

On June 2, Hell is everywhere.

iOS & Android
PC Open Beta

Pre-register: https://t.co/hKUMmROvQI pic.twitter.com/BoC4tDL7Kq

— Diablo Immortal (@DiabloImmortal) April 25, 2022

According to the developers, Diablo Immortal will have cross-play and cross progression with controller and keyboard support on PC.

Set after Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, Diablo Immortal, is a free-to-play MMORPG. The game will be online-only, and...

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Asus’ new portable monitor looks like it was ripped from a Duo laptop

The PA147CDV next to one of Asus’ laptops. | Image: Asus

The Asus ProArt Display PA147CDV is a 14-inch touchscreen that’s designed to act as a secondary display for creatives. With its small form-factor and ultrawide 32:9 aspect ratio it looks as though Asus has ripped the secondary display off one of its Duo laptops and turned it into an external monitor.

The PA147CDV was technically announced last September, but Asus is currently showing it off at the NAB 2022 show in Las Vegas and is announcing plans to release the monitor in Q2 2022 in North America at a price that’s yet to be announced.

With its support for Microsoft’s Pen Protocol 2.0, and a built in dial that’s designed to emulate the functionality of Microsoft’s Surface Dial, Asus is pitching the PA147CDV as an accessory for creatives...

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Workers at Nintendo’s third-party repair partner were reportedly overwhelmed with Joy-Con repairs

Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

Workers at Nintendo’s third-party repair facility reportedly faced a “very stressful” work environment caused by a deluge of Switches sent in for issues related to Joy-Con drift, according to a report from Kotaku. A former supervisor at the New York-based United Radio, the company that partners with Nintendo to repair broken devices, told Kotaku that the large volume of Joy-Con repairs resulted in a high turnover rate and “lots of” mistakes.

United Radio is its own company — Nintendo merely acts as the middleman, handling customer communications and leaving the repairing to United Radio, which serves Nintendo customers located in the eastern half of the US. The ubiquity of Joy-Con drift led to “easily thousands” of Joy-Cons that passed...

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Here are the nine photos of a ‘Pixel Watch’ — and one wacky story

Image: Android Central

Our first look at what seems to be the Google Pixel Watch comes under strange circumstances: someone supposedly found its prototype lying around at a restaurant and sent pictures of it to Android Central on the condition of anonymity. The images of the purported device match up with what we’ve seen from previously leaked renders, down to the circular watch face, rotating crown, and nearly bezel-less design.

As shown in the photos, a physical crown sits between two buttons on the side of the watch. If it’s anything like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, the two buttons could be used to turn the watch on or off, return to the home screen, or even as a shortcut to pull up recently used apps. Meanwhile, the small hole next to the crown could be a...

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GM reportedly stops providing battery pack replacements for the Chevy Spark EV

The Chevy Spark EV ran from 2013 to 2016. | Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

General Motors will reportedly no longer provide battery replacements for the all-electric version of the Chevy Spark, according to a report from EV-Resource (via InsideEVs). The Chevy Spark electric vehicle (EV) was first released in 2013, and GM continued to make new models until 2016.

A GM district executive confirmed to EV-Resource that the company is “no longer going to supply that [the Spark EV’s] battery.” GM’s inventory of Spark EV battery packs has reportedly run out as well, and the company doesn’t plan on making any more. The Verge reached out to GM with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

It’s unclear if GM will continue to honor the Spark EV’s battery pack warranty

With the oldest model of the Spark EV...

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Deebot X1 Omni review: the do-everything robot vacuum

This $1,550 robot can mop, vacuum, clean itself, and find you in your home

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Apple App Store appears to be widely removing outdated apps

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple may be cracking down on apps that no longer receive updates. In a screenshotted email sent to affected developers, titled “App Improvement Notice,” Apple warns it will remove apps from the App Store that haven’t been “updated in a significant amount of time” and gives developers just 30 days to update them.

“You can keep this app available for new users to discover and download from the App Store by submitting an update for review in 30 days,” Apple writes in the email. “If no update is submitted in 30 days, the app will be removed from sale.” While Apple will remove the outdated apps from the App Store, any previously downloaded apps will remain on users’ devices.

I feel sick. Apple just sent me an email saying they're removing...

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Ubisoft says its upcoming ‘team battle arena’ game won’t have NFTs

Ubisoft says “Project Q” isn’t the game’s official name. | Image: Ubisoft

Ubisoft announced its upcoming “team battle arena game,” with two major disclaimers: it’s not just a battle royale and there aren’t any NFTs. The game company shared the news on Twitter after leakers posted footage of the game, codenamed Project Q, online.

“This is not a Battle Royale,” Ubisoft said in a series of tweets. “The game will feature a variety of PvP modes with one single goal in mind: FUN! We don’t have plans to add NFTs to this game, you can find out more by registering and taking part in the upcoming tests!”

So, we heard you heard...

‍Introducing codename “Project Q”, a team battle arena letting players truly own the experience! The game is in early development and we will keep testing, so for now all you can do is...

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Lapsus$ hackers breached T-Mobile’s systems and stole its source code

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Lapsus$ hacking group stole T-Mobile’s source code in a series of breaches that took place in March, as first reported by Krebs on Security. T-Mobile confirmed the attack in a statement to The Verge, and says the “systems accessed contained no customer or government information or other similarly sensitive information.”

In copies of private messages obtained by Krebs, the Lapsus$ hacking group discussed targeting T-Mobile in the week prior to the arrest of seven of its teenage members. After purchasing employees’ credentials online, the members could use the company’s internal tools — like Atlas, T-Mobile’s customer management system — to perform SIM swaps. This type of attack involves hijacking a target’s mobile phone by...

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Instagram is testing a way to make Reels using formats from other posts

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram’s testing out a new feature, called Templates, that will let creators make Reels by borrowing formats from other videos on the platform, according to a report from Insider (via TechCrunch). The feature appears somewhat similar to TikTok’s own templates tool, which allows creators to drop their own content into a premade sequence.

Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi spotted an early version of Templates in January, while marketing manager and influencer Josephine Hill has already gotten to experience the feature. In a screenshot posted by Hill in March, it looks like users can swap their own clips into preset frames, as well as add their own audio. This could save users from using third-party templates from sites like Canva, or...

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Save on several Meta Quest 2 VR games this weekend only

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Meta held its 2022 games showcase this past week, lifting the curtain on several new virtual reality games in the works for the Quest 2 headset. We’ve got a roundup of the titles that we’re most excited about right here. In celebration of the event, Meta has slashed prices on several VR games that see discounts only on a few occasions each year. So, whether you just bought a Quest 2, or you just want to fill out your library a little more, check out these deals.

I’ve highlighted a few deals that I think are particularly good:

• The Walking Dead: Saints and Sinners is $31.99 (usually $39.99)
• Real VR Fishing is $14.99 (usually $19.99)
• The Room VR: A Dark Matter is $23.99 (usually $29.99)
• In Death: Unchained is $23.99 (also usually...

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TCL 30 V 5G review: even on a budget, you can do better

A good screen and the right 5G bands, but not much else going for it

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Google, Meta, and others will have to explain their algorithms under new EU legislation

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The EU has agreed on another ambitious piece of legislation to police the online world.

Early Saturday morning after hours of negotiations, the bloc agreed on the broad terms of the Digital Services Act, or DSA, which will force tech companies to take greater responsibility for content that appears on their platforms. New obligations include removing illegal content and goods more quickly, explaining to users and researchers how their algorithms work, and taking stricter action on the spread of misinformation. Companies face fines of up to six percent of their annual turnover for non-compliance.

“The DSA will upgrade the ground-rules for all online services in the EU,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a...

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Anker’s pint-sized 100W USB-C charger is now shipping, but it’s already sold out on Amazon

Image: Anker

At CES 2022, Anker announced an addition to its Nano II USB-C charger lineup with this more powerful version sporting two USB-C ports capable of outputting up to 100W, plus an old school USB-A charging port. Now the $79 Anker Nano II 100W (also known as the Anker 736 charger) has popped up for sale on Amazon (via MacRumors), although it is already showing sold-out.

The Nano II chargers use the company’s second-generation version of gallium nitride-based components that replace older charger’s silicon components to pump out more power in a smaller package with less heat. According to Anker, the Nano II 100W is 34 percent smaller than Apple’s 96W charger, with similar capabilities plus two extra ports that help you reduce the number of...

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