Watch a raptor gets clotheslined in Jurassic World: Dominion’s latest trailer

When Jurassic World: Dominion’s last trailer was released, my colleague Chaim Gartenberg boldly argued that he wasn’t at all scared by the prospect of a dino-infested future. “Humans have things like armies and weapons and walls and cities. We’ve grown pretty good at the whole “keeping animals away from us” strategy,” he wrote. “Sure, Jurassic Park posits that a raptor could open a door — but can it eat through concrete? Can it successfully use the weird electronic swipe card that I need to get into our office building?”

Dominion’s latest trailer doesn’t have an answer to these questions. But it does answer our burning follow-up about whether a raptor is clever enough to avoid being clotheslined after a quick bit of thinking by Bryce...

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Streamers say reported cuts to Twitch pay-outs won’t go down well

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Top Twitch streamers are voicing their anger about reported plans by the Amazon-owned platform to boost profits by cutting pay-outs in its partnerships program.

As reported by Bloomberg News, Twitch is considering a number of changes to increase the revenue it collects from its most popular streamers. These include encouraging streamers to run more ads; reducing revenue share for streamers from 70 percent to 50 percent (a favorable deal only available to some of the platform’s biggest draws); and introducing a new tier system allowing streamers to graduate through different revenue splits based on set metrics.

As a concession, Twitch could release partners from exclusivity clauses, letting them stream on rivals like YouTube and...

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Second country to adopt Bitcoin as national currency is the Central African Republic

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Central African Republic (CAR) has become the second-ever country to adopt Bitcoin as a national currency, following El Salvador’s adoption of the cryptocurrency last year.

CAR’s government says a bill to adopt Bitcoin was passed unanimously by the country’s parliament, reports Reuters and BBC News. (Though former CAR prime minister Martin Ziguele complained the bill was approved “by proclamation.”) The office of CAR president Faustin-Archange Touadera claimed the move would “improve the conditions of Central African citizens” and distinguish CAR as “of the world’s boldest and most visionary countries.”

However, geopolitical analysts and financial experts are confused by motivations for the move. CAR is a landlocked nation that is...

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The Mr. Coffee ‘brew now’ button is an escape from sleepiness

One simple, clicky button. | Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge

In the age of aesthetically pleasing morning routines, a cheap electric coffee maker can feel a bit dated — something to begrudgingly use at the office rather than a gadget that brings joy to your kitchen. And while I love the fancy coffee gadgets that require a manual, multi-step ritual, there’s one thing that makes me turn to a standard Mr. Coffee machine every morning: its dead-simple “brew now” button that instantly starts the process of getting caffeine into my body.

The single-button operation means I don’t have to navigate the complexities of brewing temps or ratios while I’m still half-asleep. I just press it, it lights up, and the machine gurgles to life, heating up water and pushing it up a tube onto the coffee grounds I’ve...

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Google Docs expands warnings about dodgy files and links

An example of the banner that previously appeared when you open a dodgy file from Google Drive. | Image: Google

Google’s office collaboration tools Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings will now show a warning banner when you open potentially malicious files from the web, the search giant has announced. This banner already appears when dodgy files are accessed from within Drive, as well as from suspicious links within separate Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings files. The broader rollout should help protect users in a wider range of situations.

Confusingly, Google’s January 20th announcement post said that the banner already appeared when opening Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drawings links. However, the company tells us this was a typo, and that it should instead say that the banner appears on “links from Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and...

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Epic asks court to stop Google from yanking Bandcamp off Play Store

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Epic Games has filed a motion for a preliminary injunction to stop Google from removing independent music storefront Bandcamp from the Android app store — which Google has apparently threatened to do because Bandcamp is using its own billing system instead of paying Google an app store fee.

Bandcamp, which Epic acquired in March, has used its own billing system on Android since 2015, and was able to do so because of rules exempting digital music from having to use Google’s billing system, according to a blog post from Bandcamp co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond. “However, Google is now modifying its rules to require Bandcamp (and other apps like it) to exclusively use Google Play Billing for payments for digital goods and services, and pay...

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Airbnb announces it won’t dock employees’ pay if they go remote

The company is making some changes. | Photo by Joan Cros/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Airbnb announced on Thursday that the “vast majority” of its employees will be allowed to work remotely, and won’t have to take a pay cut if they move away from the cities surrounding the company’s offices. Airbnb is implementing the change after it had “the most productive two-year period” in its history while working remotely, according to a Twitter thread from Brian Chesky, the company’s co-founder and CEO. It is worth noting, however, that it also laid off a quarter of its workforce during that time.

Airbnb is also making other remote work policy changes. According to its announcement post, employees will also be able “live and work in over 170 countries for up to 90 days a year in each location,” as long as they keep a permanent...

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WhatsApp seems to be working on multi-phone and tablet chatting

You’ve been able to link your account to multiple computers for a while. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

WhatsApp seems to be working on a feature that would let users chat with the same account on multiple phones, or on a phone and a tablet, according to a screen found in a beta version of the app by the site WABetaInfo. The screen gives instructions for registering the device you’re using as a “companion” by scanning a code with your main phone — though currently there doesn’t appear to be an actual code to scan.

A screen found in a previous beta showed that devices could be getting the ability to sync recent messages, even though they’re end-to-end encrypted. That screen, combined with the “Register Device as Companion” screen that instructs users on how to use WhatsApp on another device, adds up to compelling evidence that this feature...

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Valve says you shouldn’t fix the Steam Deck’s noisy fan this way

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The Steam Deck started shipping two months ago today, and it’s gotten quite a bit better since, but this week might be the best yet — because we’re finally addressing the single biggest issue with the $400 portable PC. Yes, I’m talking about the fan.

When the Deck launched, it shipped with an extremely noisy fan to cool its AMD Zen 2 and RDNA 2 silicon, and owners like me have been dealing with its volume and constant whine from day one. It ran constantly, even when I wasn’t doing anything with the system, and was always ramping up even in relatively lightweight games like Vampire Survivors.

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

My Steam Deck’s fan, from Delta Electronics.

Worse, it whines. Or at least some...

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Elon Musk’s plans for making money with Twitter reportedly include job cuts

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

As part of his pitch to raise funds to acquire Twitter, Elon Musk apparently “floated” the idea of cutting jobs at Twitter to improve its bottom line, according to a Bloomberg report. “While nothing is set in stone — and Musk himself had no access to Twitter’s non-public financials at the time — he specifically mentioned job cuts” during discussions with banks, the report says.

There are still a lot of uncertainties about what Twitter will look like under Musk’s ownership, assuming the $44 billion deal announced Monday goes through as expected. So far, the best indication of what he wants to do with the platform comes from his own words in a press release:

Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital...

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Snap CEO Evan Spiegel thinks the metaverse is ‘ambiguous and hypothetical’

CEO of Snap Inc. Evan Spiegel presents at the livestreamed Snap Partner Summit 2022 | Photo by Snap, Inc./Getty Images for Snap, Inc.

Snap isn’t the only social media company with smart glasses and an expanding hardware portfolio, but what’s separating its approach from Meta? While announcing Pixy, a $229 drone that takes off from your hand to capture selfies, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel spent some time explaining his decision to focus on experiences built for the real world instead of the virtual metaverse.

“The reason why we don’t use that word is because it’s pretty ambiguous and hypothetical,” he told The Guardian_. “_Just ask a room of people how to define it, and everyone’s definition is totally different.”

“Just ask a room of people how to define it, and everyone’s definition is totally different.”

Spiegel also told The Verge’s Alex Heath that companies making...

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Netflix is laying off staff from the fan site it just launched

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Netflix is laying off some Tudum editorial staff just months after launching the website that publishes news, interviews, and other fan content. Tudum falls under the company’s marketing division and includes people working on entertainment, news, lifestyle, and culture content.

Most of the 10-person Tudum culture and trends team was let go, according to one person with knowledge of the situation. They said the staff was given no prior warning of the layoffs, and other workers found out their colleagues were laid off via Twitter. Many of the writers were experienced journalists that Netflix lured from other outlets, the person says. The person also claims news of layoffs on other teams is forthcoming. If you have knowledge of additional...

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Amazon’s growth continues to slow after surging in pandemic

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon made a boatload of money during the first quarter of 2022. But investors, having grown used to Amazon’s rocket-like trajectory during the pandemic, haven’t quite adapted to the fact that it’s no longer accelerating quite so fast.

Despite notching $116.4 billion in sales from January through March of this year — up nearly 8 billion year over year — Amazon’s stock took a dive in after-hours trading, falling by about 10 percent before stabilizing a bit higher.

The problem wasn’t that Amazon had underperformed in Q1, but that Amazon projected a slower Q2 than analysts had hoped for. Analysts wanted to see Amazon projecting $125.5 billion in sales, according to CNBC, but instead, the company only expects sales to come in from $116...

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Yuji Naka says Square Enix doesn’t ‘value games’ after Balan Wonderworld mess

Square Enix

In a candid Twitter thread, celebrated video game developer Yuji Naka revealed details about a lawsuit he filed against Square Enix and his struggle to make the ambitious but ultimately atrocious Balan Wonderworlda better game.

In the thread, written in Japanese and translated by The Verge, Naka wrote that he was removed as the producer of Balan Wonderworld six months before its release and that he sued Square Enix shortly thereafter.

“Improving a game until the very end is what being a game creator is, and it’s strange to make it impossible to do that,” Naka wrote. “I asked my lawyer to try to negotiate even just commenting on the production until the end, but I filed suit because I was refused.”

“Improving a game until the very end...

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Apple reports best March quarter ever with new records for iPhone and Mac

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Even as it deals with continued supply constraints and consumers wary of inflation, Apple today reported the best March quarter in its history. The company tallied $97.3 billion in revenue in Q2, up 9 percent over the year-ago quarter. That amounted to a profit of $25 billion, with earnings per share of $1.52.

Apple set March quarter revenue records for its iPhone, Mac, and Wearables / Home / Accessories divisions. But the second quarter saw a slowdown in iPad sales, which were down slightly year over year. Apple’s various services grew to a new high of 825 million subscribers, up 165 million from the total a year ago.

The increase in iPhone revenue comes even after Apple noted that the year-ago Q2 saw very strong iPhone demand due to...

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Researchers find Amazon uses Alexa voice data to target you with ads

A report finds evidence that Amazon and third parties use voice data from Alexa-enabled devices to serve targeted ads. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

A report released last week contends that Amazon uses voice data from its Echo devices to serve targeted ads on its own platforms and the web. The report, produced by researchers affiliated with the University of Washington, UC Davis, UC Irvine, and Northeastern University, said the ways Amazon does this is inconsistent with its privacy policies.

Titled, “Your Echos are Heard: Tracking, Profiling, and Ad Targeting in the Amazon Smart Speaker Ecosystem,” the report concludes that Amazon and third parties (including advertising and tracking services) collect data from your interactions with Alexa through Echo smart speakers and share it with as many as 41 advertising partners. That data is then used to “infer user interests” and “serve...

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How to migrate your games from the Bethesda game launcher

The Bethesda game launcher is no more. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Bethesda.net game launcher is giving up the ghost as of May 11th, so Bethesda is allowing anyone who has purchased games on their exclusive platform to migrate their purchases to Steam. The launcher and your library will remain accessible after May 11th, but Bethesda has recommended that users begin the process as soon as possible.

In the process of migrating your games, Bethesda has noted that your entire game library and wallet will be accompanied by all of your saved games — meaning that you shouldn’t have to worry about losing your 500-plus-hour playthrough of Fallout 76. However, we’d recommend backing up those files wherever applicable before you start the process.

Bethesda.net logins will still be a thing, however, and your...

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Amazon Prime Day 2022 will take place in July

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon Prime Day, the company’s annual shopping holiday that targets subscribers to its premium shipping / entertainment package, will take place in July this year. The manufactured holiday for discount shopping has moved around a bit after Amazon delayed it to October for 2020 and then moved it back up to June for 2021.

Amazon announced the information in its Q1 2022 earnings report and hasn’t shared any other details about what to expect or the exact dates.

This year, Prime Day will take place in July in more than 20 countries. During Amazon’s annual shopping event, Prime members will be able to save on products from national brands and small businesses across every category.

What we do know is that, outside of Black Friday and Cyber...

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DJI insisted drone-tracking AeroScope signals were encrypted — now it admits they aren’t

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Last month, Ukraine Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov accused DJI of helping Russia to kill Ukrainian civilians in an unusual way — by allowing Russia to freely use a drone-tracking system called DJI AeroScope to target the exact location of Ukrainian drone pilots and, allegedly, kill them with mortar strikes and missiles.

So we wrote an in-depth explainer on what DJI AeroScope actually is, how it works, what it was designed for, and what, if anything, DJI could actually do to prevent people from getting killed using its tech. But a hacker pointed out that DJI wasn’t being truthful with us on at least one point — and the company is now admitting it. The AeroScope signals broadcast by every modern DJI drone aren’t actually encrypted,...

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Samsung Galaxy A53 5G review: a good deal gets better

An excellent midrange feature set at the right price

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GM denies reports about Spark EV battery replacements, blames supply disruption

Despite supply problems, it seems the Spark EV shall endure. | Photo by Kevork Djansezian / Getty Images

General Motors has denied reports that it’s no longer providing battery replacements for the all-electric version of the Chevy Spark, according to Kevin Kelly, a spokesperson for the company. Kelly told The Verge in an email that the company is “currently experiencing a temporary disruption in the supply of new Spark EV packs,” but that it “remains committed to providing replacement packs to Spark EV owners who need them in the future.”

Last week, a report from EV-Resource cited an anonymous GM district executive as saying that the company was “no longer going to supply [the Spark EV’s] battery.” While GM has denied that’s the case, EV-Resource’s report also says that the company ran out of battery packs, which squares with Kelly’s...

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The EU, US, and 32 other countries just announced a ‘Declaration for the Future of the Internet’

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The United States, all European Union member states, and 32 non-EU countries have announced a “Declaration for the Future of the Internet” that lays out priorities for an “open, free, global, interoperable, reliable, and secure” internet. It highlights goals like affordability, net neutrality, and removing illegal content without curtailing free expression — although it offers few specifics for achieving them.

The three-page declaration, also summarized by the White House and the European Commission, offers a broad vision of the net as well as a mix of more specific issues for its 61 signatories. “We are united by a belief in the potential of digital technologies to promote connectivity, democracy, peace, the rule of law, sustainable...

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene throws support behind Section 230 repeal bill

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Standing beside a poster-sized printout of her suspended Twitter account, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced a new bill on Thursday to abolish Section 230 — the hotly debated law that protects tech companies from liability over what users post on their platforms.

Titled the 21st Century FREE Speech Act, Greene’s measure serves as the House companion to a Senate version of the bill introduced by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) last year. The bill would repeal Section 230 and replace it with language requiring “reasonable, non-discriminatory access to online communications platforms” by classifying them as “common carriers.”

Greene’s announcement comes days after Elon Musk won a bid to take Twitter private at $54.20 a share, with Musk...

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Startup Trail is Oregon Trail for tech policy wonks

Image: Startup Trail

My startup went public, and it only took me about 25 minutes to pull it off. I don’t remember what the company does, though I don’t think it really matters? I own 16 percent of the place, but after I made some rash decisions about a legal fight and opted to set up a local office in India, the company basically doesn’t have any cash left on hand. Users love us, though! So the future’s bright for... whatever our name is. It doesn’t matter. In a minute, I’ll start over and try something else.

I’ve spent too much of my day today playing Startup Trail, a new browser game made by the tech policy website Techdirt and Engine, a DC-based startup trade group. The two organizations created the game, as Techdirt’s Mike Masnick puts it, to give...

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A dog’s breed doesn’t determine much about its behavior

This is Igloo! His birthday was yesterday, and he is very patient and kind. | Alex Cranz

Elinor Karlsson has never owned a dog. But ever since she was a graduate student, she’s been studying dog genetics. (They’re good models for studying genetic diseases in humans.) Part of that work involved collecting genetic and behavioral data on thousands of dogs. And all that data meant the research team could ask a question Karlsson had been wondering for years: does a dog’s breed really say anything about how that dog acts?

“Everybody was assuming that breed was predictive of behavior in dogs,” said Karlsson, now thedirector of the Vertebrate Genomics Group at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, during a press briefing. “And that had never really been asked particularly well. And we could actually do that.”

The answer they...

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Schitt’s Creek is moving from Netflix to Hulu come October

Image: Pop TV

Schitt’s Creek, the extremely GIF-ed comedy series, will be moving homes from Netflix to Hulu on October 3rd. Hulu announced its acquisition of the show’s US streaming rights on Thursday, saying that it will become the only place you can stream all six seasons of the show later this year.

The show currently lives on Netflix, so it’s hard to see this as anything other than Disney (which owns Hulu) swiping away a show that’s been incredibly popular on a rival streaming service. Netflix has had a lot of bad news recently, and while losing Schitt’s Creek isn’t on the same level as the company’s subscriber numbers dropping for the first time in a decade, it’s not a great sign, either. The streaming service has struggled to hang onto other...

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Google’s ad-tracking overhaul continues with first developer preview of Privacy Sandbox on Android

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Last year, Apple added App Tracking Transparency to iOS, and the shift in the flow of data from mobile users was enough to unsettle even Facebook. Now, Google, which relies on targeted advertising for its business model, is preparing its own multi-year adjustment to mobile ad tracking and privacy.

Starting today, app developers can get their first look at the new system, as the first developer preview of Privacy Sandbox on Android rolls out, following the path of similar tests in Google’s Chrome browser on the desktop.

This new plan is supposed to replace Android’s existing advertising ID, which is a user-resettable ID for each device with a Privacy Sandbox of “new, more private advertising solutions.” Like Apple’s approach, it claims...

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Disney Dreamlight Valley looks like Animal Crossing with a Kingdom Hearts twist

Gameloft / Disney

Make way for Disney Dreamlight Valley, a new Disney-inspired life-sim that feels as if Disney adults got their hands on the Animal Crossing source code. In combination with yesterday’s formal announcement, I had the opportunity to participate in a hands-off demo to see a bit of the vision the developers at Gameloft have for the game. It’ll be difficult to resist the allure of talking about a brand new Disney game entirely in Disney song lyrics, but I’ll do my best to rein in that impulse.

Hey! Clear the way in the old Bazaar. Hey you, let us through, it’s a brand-new star. Oh, come be the first on your block to meet its eye

In addition to being a life-sim game, Disney Dreamlight Valley is a Disney adult’s ultimate isekai fantasy. In it,...

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Sonos joins Matter but hasn’t committed to supporting the new standard

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A huge reason behind Sonos’ success is the company’s adaptability. Whenever a new audio streaming service comes along — and as the industry evolves and pushes new formats like lossless and Dolby Atmos spatial audio — Sonos is always right there trying to support what’s new. For voice assistants, Sonos offers both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant on its smart speakers. And the company also widely supports Apple’s AirPlay 2 across its current product lineup. That’s all on top of the whole-home audio platform that Sonos has built its brand on.

But to stay so nimble and adaptable, Sonos constantly needs to be looking forward and have some sense of what’s coming down the technology pike. To help with that, Sonos recently (and very quietly)...

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Crypto is winning and Bitcoin diehards are furious about it

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

As cryptocurrency thrives, Bitcoiners seethe

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