Here’s how the Google Pixel 6A compares to its biggest competitors

Image: Google

The Pixel 6A is the latest phone to join the competitive upper tier of midrange phones, also occupied by Samsung, Apple, and more. Google announced the new phone onstage at its I/O 2022 keynote, detailing just a few key things about it. First thing you should know: it isn’t coming out immediately. Unlike how many announcements take place as products are on their way to retailers, this one won’t be available to preorder until July 21st, 2022, with orders shipping the following week.

Unsurprisingly, this new (and smaller) 6.1-inch Pixel phone borrows many of the same design features from the pricier Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, with a raised camera section and a two-toned color scheme. The Pixel 6A is a big deal, as it’s the first Google...

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What happens to the foot soldiers of the meme trading revolution?

Graphics by Michele Doying / The Verge

Fintech is in its flop era, and it would be funny, except that it’s dragging real people down with it.

It’s true that stocks are down generally — the S&P 500 has fallen 10 percent in the last 30 days, the Nasdaq is down 14 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 6.5 percent. But fintech is, by comparison, down bad.

Coinbase dropped almost two-thirds in the last 30 days. Block, the Jack Dorsey-led company formerly known as Square, fell by 40 percent. PayPal shares dropped by a third. Robinhood has fallen less, shaving off more than a quarter of its value.

The meme stocks are down bad, too. GameStop fell more than 40 percent in the last month. AMC also lost more than 40 percent of its value. Bed, Bath and Beyond is worth...

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Samsung says Google Assistant will arrive on Galaxy Watch 4 this summer

Google Assistant is coming. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

After almost a year of waiting, we finally know when Google Assistant will arrive on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 lineup. Kind of. In a blog, Samsung executive vice president Patrick Chomet announced the long-awaited feature will arrive this summer. As for when this summer, it’s anybody’s guess.

Chomet writes that Google Assistant on Wear OS 3 will enable “faster and more natural voice interactions” as well as the ability to look up quick answers while on the go. He also noted that it would be possible to control Spotify with Google Assistant on the watch.

A big reason why Samsung opted to work with Google to create a unified Wear OS 3 platform was the Google Play Store. Samsung’s smartwatches had historically been a way for it to push its...

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OpenSea is adding NFT copy detection and verification features

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

OpenSea is rolling out features to “improve authenticity” on the digital marketplace, the company announced in a series of blog posts today. The updates include a new system to detect and remove copycat NFTs and an overhaul to the account verification process.

“Copymints” are tokens ripping off other NFTs and have proved to be a problem for platforms like OpenSea. Last year, the platform banned two collections that mimicked Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs by flipping them so the image is mirrored.And though the owner of an NFT is recorded on the blockchain, fakes are rampant. In February, OpenSea said that over 80 percent of items it removed for violations were created with its free minting tool.

OpenSea says it’s implementing a new two-part...

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Sonos announces entry-level Ray soundbar for $279, coming on June 7th

The Sonos Ray is smaller than the Beam and Arc.

Sonos this afternoon officially announced its Sonos Ray soundbar. Matching the specs and design that The Verge first reported last month, the company’s new entry-level soundbar will be priced at a slightly higher-than-initially-planned $279 when it goes on sale on June 7th. (Hey, maybe Sonos is feeling inflation just like the rest of us.)

The Ray is being positioned as ideal for first-time soundbar buyers who want to upgrade their TV’s lackluster built-in speakers. It’s capable of outputting Dolby Digital audio — there’s no Atmos — and connects to TVs via an optical cable. Sonos is leaving HDMI and eARC for its more expensive Beam and Arc products. Gamers should note that soundbars that rely on an optical connection can sometimes exhibit...

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Sonos confirms its own voice control service will launch on June 1st

Image: Sonos

Sonos will roll out its very own voice control assistant on June 1st in the United States. As The Verge reported earlier this month, Sonos Voice Control will be added to all of the company’s voice-enabled smart speakers through an upcoming software update. Once it arrives, owners of those devices will be able to start music playback, skip tracks, adjust volume, and send audio to other Sonos speakers in their home using “Hey Sonos” voice commands. Sonos Voice will expand to France later in 2022, but the company hasn’t announced rollout plans beyond those two initial countries.

Amazon Music, Apple Music, Pandora, Deezer, and Sonos Radio are the supported services at launch. Some will be disappointed by the absence of Spotify, but during a...

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Here’s when you can preorder Google’s new devices

Some of Google’s latest hardware announcements are coming in the summer, while others are further off. | Image: Google

Google just announced a batch of new Pixel products at its I/O 2022 keynote. Among them is a new midrange Pixel phone, the Pixel 6A; some new premium wireless earbuds, the Pixel Buds Pro; and Google’s first wearable, the Pixel Watch. This is a healthy amount of new tech to come out of the online developer conference, in addition to what’s coming soon for Android 13 and other Google services, but let’s not start camping out in lines at the Google Store and various Best Buy locations just yet.

In typical Google fashion, much of what it boasted onstage during I/O are things that are coming soon. If you missed the keynote, here’s where you can catch up on all the nitty-gritty details. But if you’re in the market for Google’s new phone, buds,...

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Senate confirms Bedoya to FTC, establishing Democratic majority

On Wednesday, the Senate voted to confirm privacy expert Alvaro Bedoya to the Federal Trade Commission. The confirmation secured a Democratic voting majority at the agency tasked by the Biden administration with investigating big tech companies like Facebook and Google over potential data privacy and competition violations.

Vice President Kamala Harris voted to break a 50-50 tie on the Senate floor to finalize Bedoya’s confirmation.

“The confirmation secured a Democratic voting majority at the agency”

Bedoya will replace former Commissioner Rohit Chopra who left the FTC last year to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Before his confirmation, Bedoya was a Georgetown law professor with a focus on privacy law, founding the...

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How do the new Google Pixel 6A’s specs stack up to the pricier Pixel 6 models?

The new Pixel 6A in its three color options: charcoal, chalk, and sage. | Image: Google

Google’s new Pixel 6A, announced at its I/O 2022 keynote, may seem like just another budget-focused A-series model, but the latest midrange Pixel is a little different than its forebears. In the past, the Pixel A-line opted for a cheaper, plastic build and slower processor to hit a lower price point. This time, the Pixel 6A uses the same Google Tensor processor that first debuted in the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, and yet it still undercuts its flagship brethren to sell at the same $449 price as the outgoing Pixel 5A when preorders go up on July 21st and it hits stores on July 28th.

So if you’re not giving up slower performance, what are you giving up? And why would anyone still spend more on a Pixel 6 or 6 Pro?

Image: Google ...

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Google shows off AR glasses that might make a case for augmented reality

Google wrapped up its I/O presentation with one big surprise: a look at its latest AR glasses. The key feature Google showed off was the ability to see languages translated right in front of your eyes, which seems to me like a very practical application for AR glasses. While a big part of Silicon Valley is heavily invested in making AR glasses a reality thus far no has suggested a truly “killer” app for AR that would let you overlook the wide variety of privacy concerns inherent with the tech. Live translating the spoken word would definitely be a killer feature.

The company didn’t share any details on when they might be available, and only demonstrated them in a recorded video that didn’t actually show the display, or how you would...

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Google’s biggest announcements at I/O 2022

The Pixel 6A is one of the many Pixel devices Google showed off today. | Image: Google

Google has wrapped up its two-hour-long I/O keynote, which was absolutely packed with news. We heard about AI, Android, and, of course, a plethora of Pixel hardware. Here are the biggest announcements we saw on Wednesday.

Image: Google

Google isn’t bumping the price of its A lineup.

The Pixel 6A features Google’s flagship chip but not its best camera

Google announced its new mid-tier phone, the Pixel 6A, which will cost $449 when it’s available for preorder on July 21st. The company seems to be flipping its usual script for this phone — previous A models have featured a camera comparable to the one found on Google’s flagship Pixels but had weaker processors. The 6A, though, has the Pixel 6’s Tensor chip and...

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Pixel by Pixel: How Google is trying to focus and ship the future

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Making ambient computing happen is forcing Google to change how it does everything

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Google finally announces the Pixel Watch

The Pixel Watch will support turn-by-turn navigation on Google Maps | Image: Google

After weeks of rumors and leaked photos, Google finally confirmed that the Pixel Watch is real. Today’s announcement is more of a tease than a full reveal, however, with the watch arriving later this fall alongside the Pixel 7.

Given that the Pixel Watch is the worst-kept wearable secret of 2022, there wasn’t anything too surprising in terms of design. As suspected, the Pixel Watch has a circular, domed design and features a “tactile” crown and side button. It’s made of recycled stainless steel and has swappable proprietary bands. It’ll also run on an “improved” Wear OS 3 that features a “refreshed UI” with better navigation and smart notifications. You’ll also have the option to pick a cellular version of the device for standalone...

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Google’s Pixel team is making an Android tablet

One of the few glimpses so far of Google’s upcoming Android tablet. | Image: Google

Google is getting back in the tablet game. The company’s internal hardware division plans to release an Android-powered tablet in 2023, senior vice president of devices and services Rick Osterloh announced on Wednesday at its I/O developer conference. Osterloh was light on details, except to say it’ll run on the same Tensor processor inside Google’s latest Pixel phones and that he imagines it as a consumer-focused gadget focused on entertainment and consumption rather than work. (The Verge’s Dan Seifert, who briefly saw a picture during a product briefing ahead of I/O, immediately said “it looks like an old Samsung tablet.”) But Osterloh’s overall message is clear: Google cares about Android tablets. For real this time.

The announcement...

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Here’s an early look at the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro coming this fall

The Pixel 7 (with a pill-shaped camera cutout) and Pixel 7 Pro (with two camera cutouts). | Image: Google

Google couldn’t let its I/O keynote pass without teasing its next flagship phones: the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, arriving this fall. It’s a modest update of last year’s design that keeps the horizontal camera bar but tones it down a little with updated camera cutouts. The 7 and 7 Pro will include a next-gen Tensor chipset and ship with Android 13.

This year’s Pixel phones feature an updated version of the design introduced on the 6 and 6 Pro, hanging onto the prominent horizontal camera bump wrapping around the back. This time, the camera bar is made of aluminum that flows into the device’s side rails, rather than having a big black bar that cuts off at the edges like last year. The renders also suggest that Google will ditch the two-tone color...

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The Pixel 6A includes Google’s Tensor chipset and costs $449

The Pixel 6A follows the 6 and 6 Pro’s design cues. | Image: Google

Google is officially announcing the Pixel 6A, which embraces the company’s new design language and custom chipset but keeps the 5A’s $449 price tag. The announcement comes as Google kicks off its I/O developer conference, but if you’re itching to snag the new device, you’ll have to wait a little while longer since it won’t actually ship until July 28th. (Preorders will begin a week earlier, on July 21st.)

The 6A follows the pronounced design trend that the 6 and 6 Pro set when they arrived last year with a raised horizontal camera bump and a two-tone body. Following suit, the fingerprint sensor is under the screen rather than on the back panel. And there’s good news if you think the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are too big — the 6A comes with a...

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Google’s new Pixel Buds Pro come with noise cancellation and long battery life

Image: Google

Today, after several attempts at making wireless earbuds, Google is announcing its most premium product in the category yet: the $199 Pixel Buds Pro. Designed as a direct answer to Apple’s AirPods Pro, the Pixel Buds Pro offer active noise cancellation, a transparency mode, multipoint Bluetooth connectivity, and an IPX4 water resistance rating, among other features. They’ll be available to preorder alongside the also new Pixel 6A smartphone starting July 21st and in stores a week later on the 28th.

Both the earbuds and case closely resemble the 2020 Pixel Buds — the carrying case looks practically identical — and the Pro earbuds will come in black, blue, green, or red. Compared to the older buds, you’ll notice more microphone inlets...

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Google’s vision for Android 13 is to offer a little more of everything

From left to right: Android 13’s newly themed media controls, Material You app icons, and new Security & Privacy menu. | Image: Google

Google has outlined its vision for this year’s major Android update, which looks set to continue many of the customization and privacy initiatives that the search giant introduced with last year’s Android 12. Its customizable Material You color schemes will now be available as preset themes and are also expanding to cover third-party apps icons and the media player. There are also new security features, including a dedicated Privacy and Security menu.

The direction isn’t likely to come as much of a surprise to anyone who’s kept up with Android 13’s early betas. But today’s announcements, made to coincide with the search giant’s annual Google I/O developer conference, sees the company lay out it overarching vision for this year’s major...

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Google thinks the time is right to bring back Wallet

Image: Google

Google has announced that it’s bringing back the Wallet app as a place to manage payment cards, gift cards, rewards cards, passes, and more. Wallet used to be a standalone app before it was folded into Google Pay. Now, the company is making it a separate app again, saying that consumers and companies alike are pushing for digital cards.

Wallet will be the app you use to store and manage your debit and credit cards on Android. (You’ll be able to use it across Google’s ecosystem in apps like Google Pay and on the web via Chrome Autocomplete). But Google wants it to be much more than just a way to store credit and rewards cards. The company is also pitching Wallet as the place to keep your transit cards, proof of vaccination, tickets to...

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Google pitches for user trust with expanded privacy controls

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

For Google, a company that built its reputation on organizing the world’s information, the latest sales pitch to users is that it will try to do more with less of it.

At its I/O 2022 developer conference on May 11th, the tech giant announced a range of privacy measures that it says will help users retain more control over how their data is used by Google applications and displayed to the world through search.

One new change introduced at the conference is the My Ad Center interface: a hub that will let users customize the types of ads they see by selecting from a range of topics they are interested in or opt to see fewer ads on a given topic.

Screenshot of the My Ad Center interface, via Google.

Google says that My...

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Here are the best tablet deals right now

Microsoft is currently discounting a bundle containing the Surface Pro 8 and Surface Pro keyboard to $1,099.99. | Image by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Tablets exist in a space between phones and laptops that is becoming increasingly muddled. As phones become more powerful and gain larger displays, laptops continue to get lighter. Tablet manufacturers haven’t been resting on their laurels, though. Many of the more recent tablets we’ve seen are looking to bridge the gap in terms of performance and, in select cases, handle some tasks more efficiently than both phones and laptops.

The tablet spectrum is varied, too. Inexpensive models like the Amazon Fire HD 10 make for excellent media streaming devices, while those in Microsoft’s versatile Surface lineup can easily serve as ad-hoc laptops when paired with an optional folio-style keyboard. Then there’s the ubiquitous iPad, a slate that has...

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Google’s trying to fix your crappy webcam with great AI

Image: Google

There’s a good chance you’ve spent much of the last two-plus years sitting at home, cycling through endless days of virtual meetings staring into your laptop’s webcam and talking into your built-in mic. This means you’ve spent much of the last two-plus years appearing to everyone else like a mushy pile of poorly lit pixels, sounding like you’re shouting from inside a tin can. It’s not your fault: your laptop’s webcam just sucks. And so does its mic. But Google thinks it can fix them both with AI.

Google announced on Wednesday at its annual I/O developer conference that its Workspace team has been working on a couple of AI-powered ways to improve your virtual meetings. The most impressive is Portrait Restore, which Google says can...

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Google is using a new way to measure skin tones to make search results more inclusive

Google is partnering with a Harvard professor to promote a new scale for measuring skin tones with the hope of fixing problems of bias and diversity in the company’s products.

The tech giant is working with Ellis Monk, an assistant professor of sociology at Harvard and the creator of the Monk Skin Tone scale, or MST. The MST scale is designed to replace outdated skin tone scales that are biased towards lighter skin. When these older scales are used by tech companies to categorize skin color, it can lead to products that perform worse for people with darker coloring, says Monk.

“Unless we have an adequate measure of differences in skin tone, we can’t really integrate that into products to make sure they’re more inclusive,” Monk tells The...

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Google is beta testing its AI future

The Test Kitchen is one of Google’s new AI experiments. | Image: Google

After mistakes and challenges, the company is moving a little slower with AI language models

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Google says its new image search features are like ‘Ctrl-F for the world around you’

“Near me” lets you search for pictures of objects locally. | Image: Google

At Google I/O, Google senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan announced new enhancements for its Lens Multisearch tool, which lets you conduct a search with just an image and a couple of words.

A new mode, called “near me,” will let users take a photo of an object and then find results locally. As Raghavan explained, you’ll be able to take a photo of a dish and then search for restaurants that serve that specific food. Google will then display a list of relevant restaurants near you. To make this feature happen, Google scans relevant photos from websites, as well as those posted by reviewers, and then matches them to the one you uploaded. Near me will be available in English later this year, and will expand to more languages “over...

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Google will let you talk to Assistant on the Nest Hub Max just by looking at the screen

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

The Nest Hub Max’s latest updates let you use Google Assistant without having to say “Hey Google” ahead of every request.

One of the ways that’ll work is with a new feature Google calls “Look and Talk.” Once it’s turned on, you’ll be able to look at the Nest Hub Max’s display and ask a question, no “Hey Google” prompt required. The feature could be a handy way to save some time when you’re already looking at a Nest Hub Max’s screen — I could see it being a useful way to ask for recipes.

Look and Talk is an opt-in feature, and you’ll need to have both Google’s Face Match and Voice Match technologies turned on to use it, according to a blog post from Sissie Hsiao, Google’s vice president of Assistant. Audio and video from the Look and...

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Roku adds Discovery Plus to its roster of premium subscription options

The dream of a central hub to manage your streaming services is getting closer. | Image: Roku

Roku users are now able to subscribe to Discovery Plus through the Roku Channel’s Premium Subscriptions feature, the company announced on Tuesday. The streaming service has been available to watch on Roku from day one, but now there’s an option to manage your subscription to it from Roku’s hub.

When you subscribe, you can choose either the ad-free version of Discovery Plus, or the ad-supported tier. Like with the standalone subscription (as in, the one not done through the Roku Channel), there’s a week-long free trial.

Some of the Roku Channel’s premium offerings.

This is the first time Roku’s offering a premium subscription with an ad-supported tier. While the difference for Discovery Plus is only a few bucks ($4.99...

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Meta withdraws request for Oversight Board’s advice on Russia-Ukraine war content policy

Meta CEO and cofounder Mark Zuckerberg.

Meta rescinded a request to have its own Oversight Board weigh in on content moderation policy related to the Russia-Ukraine war, citing “ongoing safety and security concerns.” It’s the first time Meta has withdrawn such a request, setting a precedent that could hurt its working relationship with the board.

“Meta has informed the Oversight Board that the company would be withdrawing an earlier request for policy guidance concerning content moderation issues related to Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine,” said a statement signed by the board, which is funded by Meta but not staffed by its employees. “While the Board understands these concerns, we believe the request raises important issues and are disappointed by the company’s decision to...

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‘Let me solo her’ defeats 1,000th Malenia in heroic fashion

Bandai Namco / Klein Tsuboi

The tale of “Let me solo her” has reached an epic milestone — 1,000 Malenias defeated. The Elden Ring folk hero live streamed the event, dispatching the thousandth Goddess of Rot in manner that demands it be recounted to the masses.

The tale of “Let me solo her” began last month, when whispers of a strange warrior started making the rounds on Reddit. Players, stymied by a boss considered one of the hardest in FromSoftware history, would call for help, summoning a pot-helmeted, semi-nude warrior who would dispatch Malenia with relative ease. After that, “Let me solo her” would return to his world with a cheerful wave to await the next summons from a Tarnished in trouble. And from there, the legend was born.

“I chose Malenia to help...

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Apex Legends Mobile launches May 17th

Image: EA

Several years after we first heard that EA and Respawn Entertainment would bring their battle royale shooter to mobile platforms, there’s a global release date for Apex Legends Mobile, which will launch for Android and iOS on May 17th. Beta testing for the game started over a year ago and has slowly expanded to include more players worldwide, but now its limited regional launch period is over. If you’re wondering what devices it will run on, this FAQ from the beta has more information.

EA isn’t ready to share more details, but beta testers have been able to experience a game that looks fairly close to the experience players get on PCs and consoles. In an earlier trailer provided for the regional launch, you can see how the game has...

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