Spirit will continue to pursue a merger with Frontier instead of JetBlue

Spirit’s deal with Frontier will make the combined airline the fifth largest in the US. | Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Spirit Airline’s board of directors has rejected JetBlue’s bid to acquire the airline and will proceed with its existing merger agreement with Frontier, one of its ultra-low-cost competitors, Spirit announced in a press release. A deal with JetBlue has “a low probability of receiving antitrust clearance” and poses “an unacceptable level of closing risk” to its shareholders, Spirit notes.

After Frontier first announced its plans to buy Spirit in a cash and stock deal valued at $2.9 billion in February, JetBlue followed up with an all-cash offer of $3.6 billion last month. The airline even offered to throw in a $200 million breakup payout in case antitrust issues prevented the deal from going through. Despite all this, Spirit still...

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Nike restocks the hard-to-find Go FlyEase slip-on sneakers

Nike’s Go FlyEase sneakers feature a bistable hinge that allows you to put them on hands-free. | Image: Nike

Nike’s Go Flyease sneakers are back in stock. Normally, sneaker restocks are something you don’t expect anyone other than hypebeasts to get excited about, but it’s a bit different with Nike’s hands-free shoes. While praised for its accessible design, the $120 Go FlyEase has also been notoriously hard to find for the people who would benefit from them the most.

The Go FlyEase made a splash when it was first introduced thanks to its bistable hinge. The design allows the shoe to switch between an “open” and “closed” position, making it possible for someone to simply step into the shoe without having to use their hands. The issue was Nike didn’t handle the launch well. A combination of limited availability and hype led to resale sites...

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Peacock’s making a LeBron James biopic and a reimagining of John Woo’s The Killer

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In the latest phase of big plans for growth, Peacock’s collaborating with Universal Pictures to produce original movies from LeBron James, John Woo, and Will Packer.

Along with reclaiming some of NBC’s most valuable shows from other platforms and having the exclusive rights to stream NBCUniversal’s movies immediately after their theatrical releases, Peacock’s big plan also includes producing a number of original films. In a press release about its upcoming projects, Peacock president Kelly Campbell emphasized that the service sees itself as a place people come to looking specifically for films, and it’s moving to meet customers’ desires.

“We know people join Peacock to watch movies, so we are constantly adding more to serve fans,”...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s AirPods Pro wireless earbuds are a go-to pick that’s often on sale. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you know where to look, there are often some great discounts available on Apple’s popular — yet oftentimes expensive — AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods in October and unveiled its new lineup, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model drop from $159 to $129. What’s more, we’ve seen many retailers starting to heavily discount the second-gen AirPods as well as the more expensive AirPods Pro and Max, which offer noise cancellation and better sound quality than the standard model. We’ve even seen some significant discounts on the third-gen model that, despite lacking the “Pro” moniker, resembles the AirPods Pro more than the long-stemmed original model.

Here, we’ll run through the best deals...

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Go read this report on why Jony Ive quit Apple

Jony Ive | Image: Apple

When Apple announced the Apple Watch in 2014, it did so at De Anza in Cupertino, a few miles down the road from its then-headquarters on Infinite Loop. It’s sort of a sacred site for Apple, the place Steve Jobs debuted both the original Macintosh in 1984 and the iMac in 1998. And on the 30th anniversary of the Macintosh, for the first potentially game-changing product since the death of Steve Jobs, Apple — and Jony Ive, Apple’s chief designer and Jobs’ longtime collaborator — wanted to pull out all the stops.

Well, not all the stops, it turns out. And the fight over the event logistics and the $25 million price tag Ive asked for to pull it off was reportedly one of the moments that led Ive to eventually leave the company. That’s...

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Today I learned about the ‘secret’ Twitter DM inbox — here’s how to see it

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Today I learned about a secret cache of Twitter DMs that’s hidden behind a privacy setting. For some people, this means uncovering a trove of important messages that they’ve missed out on, but if you’re like me, the discovery of a “hidden” inbox wasn’t all that exciting. In either case, it’s still worth checking to see if you might have any messages Twitter blocked you from viewing.

As you might already know, Twitter has a few privacy settings for DMs. To adjust them, hit the DM icon on Twitter and select the settings cog in the top-right corner of the screen. There are a couple of settings you would’ve needed to have enabled to create a secret inbox in the first place, however.

First, you needed to have the “Allow message requests from...

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Sony’s new QD-OLED and Mini LED TVs are just as expensive as you’d guess

Today, Sony announced the full pricing and availability details for its 2022 Bravia XR lineup of TVs. The range is led by the flagship 8K Mini LED series — this is Sony’s first year making Mini LED sets — but also includes 4K Mini LED, QD-OLED, and more traditional OLED and LCD sets.

Nobody expects giant-sized 8K televisions to sell for a reasonable price, and Sony’s Master Series Z95K Mini LED models come in at $6,999.99 for the 75-inch size and a penny shy of $10,000 for the 85-inch set. The Z95K series will be available to preorder this summer, but among Sony’s latest TVs, I don’t see many consumers giving them serious consideration.

Next up are Sony’s first QD-OLED TVs, which utilize new panels from Samsung Display. Samsung...

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The Verge’s 2022 Graduation Gift Guide

Illustration by Carolina Moscoso / The Verge

Congratulate your graduate with one of these great gifts

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Telegram ‘Premium’ subscription is showing up in beta builds of the app

Image: Telegram

Telegram appears to be testing another way for the super popular messaging app to start bringing in revenue. Beta testers for Telegram’s iOS app noticed something new in version 8.7.2, as first spotted by Android Police: a new set of stickers and reaction emoji that you can only unlock “by subscribing to Telegram Premium.”

Telegram Premium, of course, doesn’t exist yet. (And Telegram didn’t respond to The Verge’s request for comment.) But right now, users with access to Telegram’s TestFlight builds and its Test Server are able to send each other exploding-heart and flying-ghost reactions, a sticker in which that cute blobby yellow duck is just unbearably sad, and a few other new things. And it appears that, ultimately, even the...

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Apple’s latest iPad Mini is $100 off for the first time

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

There’s a veritable spoil of deals happening today, and I’m excited to share some of them with you. The most impressive (and unexpected) deal is on Apple’s 2021 iPad Mini, which received a design overhaul similar to the iPad Air. Normally $499.99 for the 64GB Wi-Fi version, you can get it for just $399.99 today at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target. That beats the best-ever price by nearly $50. Given that it’s such an aggressive, out-of-nowhere deal, this one might see some color options sell out quickly. And if you’re interested in more storage, the 256GB configuration is $100 off, too, costing $549.99 instead of $649.99.

The 2021 iPad Mini features an 8.3-inch display and is powered by the A15 Bionic chipset. One of the big advantages that...

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Square Enix is selling Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and its Western studios

Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Square Enix is selling off its three major Western game studios along with the associated video game properties — which includes big names like Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Thief. The studios and properties are set to be acquired by Embracer Group for an estimated $300 million; following regulatory approvals, the acquisition is set to be finalized between July and September of this year.

In total, Embracer is acquiring Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal, which amounts to “1,100 employees across three studios and eight global locations.” In terms of game properties, the company will be the steward of brands including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, and Legacy of Kain, “along with continued sales and operations of the...

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VRR monitors are becoming ubiquitous, now VESA’s certification wants to make them good

The Adaptive-Sync-capable Asus MG279Q. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

VESA, the computer display organization behind standards like the DisplayPort interface, has a new certification program that’s designed to help customers find better variable refresh rate monitors. Unlike its previous HDR certification program, which measured things like peak brightness, the new Adaptive-Sync Display Compliance Test Specification (or Adaptive-Sync Display CTS) is designed specifically for variable refresh rate displays, looking out for glitches like flicker and dropped frames.

Variable refresh rate (VRR) is a technology that allows a display to synchronize its refresh rate to the output of whatever device is plugged into it, reducing the appearance of visual artifacts, screen tearing, and frame pacing issues. When...

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This monitor light is a slick way to bathe your gaming space in color

Govee’s camera-powered dynamic LED kit matches your games on the fly

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Ventje campers are built for the new hybrid workforce

Image: Ventje

Ventje is a car made for the work-from-anywhere types benefiting from the new hybrid and fully-remote workforce enabled by the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve seen one in person and the build quality is impressive. It’s a German engineered Swiss army knife of Dutch design — on wheels.

Ventje starts with a new or used VW Transporter van and uses CNC precision to convert the interior into a multi-purpose space to work, lounge, cook, eat, sleep, and play. And when the weather’s good, the interior can be transformed into outdoor seating. Lift the tailgate and the surprisingly large and functional indoor kitchen becomes equally useable from the outside with drawers that open both inwards and outwards, no conversion required.

The kitchen features...

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Apple Pay is anticompetitive, says EU in preliminary ruling

Apple Pay recently expanded to let merchants receive payments on their iPhone. | Image: Apple

Apple has been hit with an antitrust accusation by the European Union over its exclusion of rivals from its Apple Pay mobile payment system. The EU has sent Apple a formal “Statement of Objections” with the preliminary view that Apple has abused its dominant position in mobile wallets on iOS.

“The Commission takes issue with the decision by Apple to prevent mobile wallets app developers, from accessing the necessary hardware and software (‘NFC input’) on its devices, to the benefit of its own solution, Apple Pay,” reads the decision. “Today’s Statement of Objections takes issue only with the access to NFC input by third-party developers of mobile wallets for payments in stores.”

According to the EU, Apple’s exclusionary behavior “leads...

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Mental health apps have terrible privacy protections, report finds

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

As a category, mental health apps have worse privacy protections for users than most other types of apps, according to a new analysis from researchers at Mozilla. Prayer apps also had poor privacy standards, the team found.

“The vast majority of mental health and prayer apps are exceptionally creepy,” Jen Caltrider, the Mozilla *Privacy Not Included guide lead, said in a statement. “They track, share, and capitalize on users’ most intimate personal thoughts and feelings, like moods, mental state, and biometric data.”

In the latest iteration of the guide, the team analyzed 32 mental health and prayer apps. Of those apps, 29 were given a “privacy not included” warning label, indicating that the team had concerns about how the app managed...

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The Wikimedia Foundation has stopped accepting cryptocurrency donations

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the organization behind Wikipedia, has announced that it will no longer accept donations in cryptocurrency, as first reported by Web3 Is Going Just Great. In an update, the WMF says it “has decided to discontinue direct acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of donating.” It also says it will close its Bitpay account, preventing any future contributions in crypto.

After a lengthy discussion with almost 400 members of the WMF community, the majority voted to do away with crypto contributions 234 to 94. Some of the main arguments concerned the environmental implications of Bitcoin, the risk of scams, as well as the fact that the WMF gets such a low amount of donations in cryptocurrency compared to other...

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The Fisher-Price baby’s first gamepad has just been modded to play Elden Ring

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

I never thought I’d be writing about my baby’s Fisher-Price gamepad again, but here we go: a modder has turned the cheap tune-filled toy into a complete Xbox gamepad with everything you’d need to play Elden Ring. And incredibly, he did so without losing any of the Fisher-Price Game & Learn Controller’s built-in sound effects — meaning you can now pair your Malenia run with such classic kiddie hits as “1, 2, 3, 4, up goes your score!” and “Orange, purple, white and pink, green, red and blue, woohoo!”

here's the Fisher Price Xbox controller in action!

let me know what games you'd like to see me play with it

and thanks to @Wario64 for the off-hand joke that inspired me to make this happen pic.twitter.com/3OETvcsEsI

— Rudeism (@rudeism) May...

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Bored Ape Yacht Club creator’s metaverse mint rocks the Ethereum blockchain

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Yuga Labs, the web3 company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, disrupted the entire Ethereum blockchain as a flood of users rushed to purchase NFTs representing virtual plots of land in its upcoming metaverse project, Otherside. A total of 55,000 Otherdeeds sold at a flat price of 305 ApeCoin, or around $5,800 at the time of purchase (via CoinTelegraph), raising about $320 million in what was considered the “largest NFT mint in history.”

Otherdeeds are minted in BAYC’s native ApeCoin, but still require Ethereum for gas fees. A gas fee is the cost associated with a transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. Fees typically increase as the network gets more congested, as it becomes more work to process a transaction.

Such a large volume of...

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Amazon ends its PTO policy for workers with COVID-19

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon will no longer grant up to seven days of paid time off (PTO) for workers sick with COVID-19, the company announced in an internal memo obtained by The Verge (via CNBC). Starting Monday, Amazon will offer up to five days of unpaid, excused leave, with the option for workers to use the paid sick time they’ve accrued.

Amazon initially offered 14 days of PTO at the start of the pandemic, but later shaved one week off this policy in line with the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) updated guidance. The company now says workers with “confirmed” COVID-19 cases can submit a request for paid time off per its “standard sick leave policy,” regardless of vaccination status. It will also stop giving workers excused time off when waiting for...

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Razer co-founder and gaming mouse inventor Robert Krakoff has passed away

Image: Razer

Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff, the co-founder and former president of gaming hardware company Razer, passed away last week at the age of 81. Maybe you’ve never heard Krakoff’s name, but it’s possible you’ve been impacted by his far-reaching legacy.

In 1999, Krakoff was behind the first-ever gaming mouse: the Razer Boomslang. Not only was it the foundation of Razer’s now-massive lineup of gaming mice, it arguably jumpstarted the entire gaming peripheral industry. Below, you can see Krakoff himself in an ad promoting the Razer Boomslang mouse in 2002 — alongside professional gamer Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, who signed a historic sponsorship deal with Razer long before the word “esports” entered the lexicon.

Origin stories can be...

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Razer co-founder and gaming mouse pioneer Robert Krakoff has died

Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff | Image: Razer

Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff, the co-founder and former president of gaming hardware company Razer, died last week at the age of 81. Maybe you’ve never heard Krakoff’s name, but it’s possible you’ve been impacted by his far-reaching legacy.

In 1999, Krakoff was behind the first-ever gaming mouse: the Razer Boomslang. Not only was it the foundation of Razer’s now-massive lineup of gaming mice, it arguably jumpstarted the entire gaming peripheral industry. Below, you can see Krakoff himself in an ad promoting the Razer Boomslang mouse in 2002 — alongside professional gamer Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, who signed a historic sponsorship deal with Razer long before the word “esports” entered the lexicon.

Origin stories can be complicated, and...

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Uber and Lyft extend legal fee coverage to drivers sued under Oklahoma’s forthcoming abortion law

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Uber and Lyft have both pledged to cover legal fees in case their drivers are sued under Oklahoma’s restrictive abortion bill, according to a report from CNBC. While the bill has not yet been signed into law, Republican Governor Kevin Stitt is expected to approve it within the next few days.

On Friday, Oklahoma’s House passed the Heartbeat Act (SB 1503), a law that bans abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy — much earlier than many women become aware that they’re pregnant — and now awaits Governor Stitt’s signature. Like a similar anti-abortion law recently passed in Texas, Oklahoma’s bill also gives individuals the right to sue someone who “aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion.” This includes the clinic that...

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Baidu and Pony.ai become first robotaxi services to operate without safety drivers in Beijing

Image: Baidu

Baidu and Pony.ai have been given permission to operate their autonomous vehicles without safety drivers in Beijing, a first for robotaxi services in China (via CNBC). Although both companies now no longer need a staff member in the driver’s seat, they’ll still need a supervisor present somewhere in the vehicle.

Baidu and Pony.ai can’t operate throughout the entire city of Beijing just yet — they’re limited to a 60 square kilometer (23.1 square mile) area in Yizhuang, Beijing, the home of about 300,000 residents. While Baidu can deploy just 10 autonomous vehicles in the area, CNBC says Pony.ai can only operate four. Both companies have plans to expand the number of vehicles on the road (with Baidu shooting for 30), but it’s unclear how...

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Telegram now lets users send cryptocurrency through TON blockchain spinoff

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Telegram now lets users send Toncoin, the cryptocurrency built off of Telegram’s abandoned blockchain effort, directly from chats within the messaging app (via Protocol). In a post on Twitter, TON (The Open Network), announced that Telegram now supports Toncoin transactions with no fees attached.

TON included a short video showing how crypto transactions work on the platform. To get started, you’ll have to add Telegram’s Wallet bot to your attachment menu, which allows you to “purchase cryptocurrency by bank card, exchange, and transfer to other wallets.”

You can now send #Toncoin directly within Telegram chats!

It’s a new way to send Toncoin without transaction fees to any Telegram user. With this service, you’ll no longer need to...

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The latest Pixel Watch spec rumors show Google’s trying to make a flagship

The Pixel Watch puck is in the middle. | Photo: tagtech414 (Reddit)

It sounds like Google’s upcoming Pixel Watch will be a flagship set to compete with Samsung’s latest Galaxy Watches and the Apple Watch, according to new specs leaked by 9to5Google. According to 9to5’s report, you’ll be able to get a cellular version of the wearable, and it will have a 300 milliamp-hour (mAh) battery.

It wasn’t necessarily a given that there would be a cellular option for the Pixel Watch. Some lower-end smartwatches, and even some high-end fitness-focused models, are reliant on your phone for connectivity. If the rumor is accurate and there is a cellular Pixel Watch model, it reinforces the idea that Google’s probably not trying to make its watch a smaller or cheaper alternative — it wants that mass-market appeal.

As...

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Save $20 off a new Nintendo Switch at Woot

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Let’s end April with a barrage of great deals, shall we? For a limited time (Saturday only, and until stock sells out), Woot is offering solid discounts on both the standard Nintendo Switch (the non-OLED version) and the smaller, cheaper Switch Lite, and if you make your purchase through the Woot app (iOS, Android — just open the following Woot links on your phone and they will redirect), you’ll get up to $20 off. Not too shabby! Really, any price drop whatsoever on Nintendo hardware is rare, so jump on this if you’ve been considering the investment.

Starting with the Switch, it normally costs $299.99, but Woot’s discount knocks $10 off, costing you $289.99. Buying it through the app is where the real discount happens, taking a little...

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This chart might explain why CNN Plus shut down early

Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Now that CNN has made the decision to shut down its new streaming baby CNN Plus less than a month after it went live, you might be wondering what went wrong. A report from Axios has a chart that shows the streaming service was far from reaching its projected year-end viewership goal, and would have burned through $400 million in 2022 alone to try to get there.

CNN projected that the service would have two million subscribers by the end of the year, but around two weeks later, they found they’d only managed to attract 150,000 people. At first, this doesn’t sound too bad, but considering services like Disney Plus had 10 million subscribers in its first day — and that Quibi, which was similarly shut down early in life, saw 910,000 people...

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Apple to developers: if we deleted your old app, it deserved it

It’s also clarifying its criteria for removing apps. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Recently, several developers complained about how Apple threatened to remove their apps from the App Store because they hadn’t been updated in a “significant amount of time.” Now, the company has responded — by issuing a press release effectively saying that nobody was downloading the apps anyways.

The notice, released on Friday evening, reads in part:

As part of the App Store Improvements process, developers of apps that have not been updated within the last three years and fail to meet a minimal download threshold — meaning the app has not been downloaded at all or extremely few times during a rolling 12 month period — receive an email notifying them that their app has been identified for possible removal from the App Store.

We’ve...

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Sony clamps down on PlayStation Now subscription stacking to protect its upcoming Premium service

Sony’s PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now services are converging in June. | Image: Sony

Sony has updated its PlayStation Plus FAQ page (tucked away at the bottom here) and is clamping down further on loopholes that gave users early discounts on its upcoming PlayStation Plus Premium service. It’s also pausing the activation of PlayStation Plus and Now vouchers for current subscribers until after its new service rolls out in June, and there’s even an official conversion chart showing the value of those vouchers for its upcoming three services; PlayStation Plus Essentials, Extra, and Premium.

After Sony announced its plan to restructure PlayStation Plus into a new three-tiered service to further compete with Microsoft’s and Nintendo’s services, things were slightly vague about how the conversion to the new tiers will work....

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