Peloton teases new rower at Homecoming event

The Peloton rower’s handle. I was not kidding when I said they were teasing the machine. | Screenshot: Peloton

Peloton’s annual Homecoming event is for the fans. It’s where the fitness tech company teases new products, as well as drops new features and content. It’s also a chance for fans to take live classes taught by their favorite instructors and attend special panel discussions. This year, the big tease is that Peloton officially confirmed a connected rower is coming.

Peloton’s reveal is more of a teaser and official confirmation than anything else. We don’t know the specs or when it’ll launch — just that it’s “coming soon.” In terms of design, the rower itself appears to have a similar vibe to the Peloton Tread — sleek, with a minimalist profile and a display to watch classes on. Rumors about the rower have been floating around since 2018,...

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In Resurrection’s first trailer Rebecca Hall is steadily losing her mind

Of all the movies I watched at the Sundance Film Festival this year, the one that stuck with me the most is Resurrection. That’s mostly because of just how intense and unsettling the film is — and now you can get a taste of that via the first trailer.

Resurrection stars Rebecca Hall as a woman whose well-ordered life is upended after a former partner (Tim Roth) unexpectedly appears. In some ways, it’s a standard thriller, with pressure steadily mounting on Hall’s character until it’s almost too much to take. But what has stuck with me all this time is just how messed up the movie actually gets, particularly its horrifying finale. It’s the kind of thing that sticks with you long after the credits roll. It helps that Hall and Roth both...

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Twitter shares plummet as Musk raises new doubts about acquisition

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter shares plummeted Friday after new doubts about whether Elon Musk’s planned $44 billion acquisition of the platform would go through. The share price dropped more than 10 percent at market open, trading as much as 14 points below the nominal acquisition price of $54.20 a share.

The proximate cause of the drop was a series of confusing statements from Musk, who tweeted that the deal was “temporarily on hold” pending an investigation into the total number of bot accounts on the platform. Twitter had claimed in a filing that bots compose less than 5 percent of daily active users on the platform, although many believe the real figure is higher.

Musk later clarified that he was “still committed to the acquisition,” but uncertainty...

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Google’s AR translation glasses: it’s really not that simple

Of course it’s simulated. | Image: Google

At the end of its I/O presentation on Wednesday, Google pulled out a “one more thing”-type surprise. In a short video, Google showed off a pair of augmented reality glasses that have one purpose — displaying audible language translations right in front of your eyeballs. In the video, Google product manager Max Spear called the capability of this prototype “subtitles for the world,” and we see family members communicating for the first time.

Now hold on just a second. Like many people, we’ve used Google Translate before and largely think of it as a very impressive tool that happens to make a lot of embarrassing misfires. While we might trust it to get us directions to the bus, that’s nowhere near the same thing as trusting it to correctly...

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A Samsung.com ‘expert’ has been fired after speaking up about working for free

She had been contracted to sell phones on Samsung.com. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

On April 14th, The Verge published a story about how Samsung’s “Experts,” who answer customer chats at Samsung.com, were being pushed by both Samsung and staffing agency Ibbu to do some customer support for free. While we spoke to a dozen experts during our reporting, only one was willing to be named in the story: Jennifer Larson.

The day after our story was published, Larson received an email saying that she was being temporarily suspended and that she’d get an update in a week. Over four weeks later, Ibbu told her she’d been fired.

The email to Larson read, in part:

After reviewing your activity on the platform, Ibbu has determined that grounds exist to terminate you from the platform. While we value and encourage any feedback from...

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Elon Musk says Twitter deal ‘on hold’ after spam/fake account report

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Elon Musk says his deal to buy Twitter is “temporarily on hold” after the social network reported that false or spam accounts comprised less than 5 percent of its 226 million monetizable daily active users. The Tesla CEO, who offered to buy twitter for $44 billion, tweeted a link to a May 2nd Reuters report on Twitter’s filing, saying he wants to see the company’s calculations.

“Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted.

As of this writing, Twitter’s share price had plunged 19 percent on the news, while Tesla is up 5 percent.

Below is the relevant section of Twitter’s filing. It notes that its calculations about the number of...

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Starlink now available to ship immediately in 32 countries

Starlink’s coverage map as of May 2022. | Image: SpaceX

SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink is now available in 32 countries around the world, the company has announced. Impressively, Elon Musk’s space company says it’ll ship “immediately,” contrary to earlier issues that caused customers to wait months to receive their dishes.

Starlink shared a screenshot on Twitter showing the service’s availability map, which shows the service as “available” across most of Europe and North America, as well as parts of South America, Australia, and New Zealand. Much of the rest of the world, including the entire continent of Africa, is shown as “Coming Soon” with availability expected at various points in 2023.

Starlink is now available in 32 countries around the world. People ordering from...

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Broadway theater installs IR camera system to catch audience members trying to record nude scenes

“Take Me Out” Broadway Opening Night | Photo by Bruce Glikas/Getty Images

Earlier this week, someone posted cell phone videos of Tony-nominated actor Jesse L. Williams and co-star Michael Oberholtzer that were taken during a nude scene from the play they’re in, Take Me Out. Deadlinereports that Second Stage Theater, where the play is performed on Broadway, had taken steps to keep cellphones out of audience members’ hands during the play, requiring the use of Yondr pouches that are supposed lock cellphones away when someone is in a restricted area.

It’s unknown whether someone unlocked the pouch (there are many videos online claiming to show how to open the bags without the patented magnet designed to open and close them) or simply smuggled a device in.

pic.twitter.com/jqlPDhQS7k

— Second Stage Theater...

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Apple reportedly gives retail managers anti-union scripts

Managers have reportedly told employees that outside unions don’t know Apple or its culture. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple has been coaching retail store managers on how to try and talk employees out of unionizing, according to Vice. The report says the company has sent around a document full of talking points like “an outside union that doesn’t know Apple” or its culture, or “most union contracts give preference based on seniority.” The document also encourages store leaders to “touch base” with employees about potential union activity.

This comes at a time when there are union drives at several Apple retail stores — two have officially petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to hold union elections, and another is looking to do so. It’s been pretty clear that Apple would try to fight these efforts; the company hired anti-union lawyers, and at...

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Deathloop is the first game with AMD’s framerate boosting FSR 2.0, plus key accessibility options

In case you haven’t noticed, chipmakers are in the middle of an upscaling revolution. AMD, Intel, and Nvidia are all out to prove that algorithms can trump native rendering performance. Why spend precious GPU cycles on native 4K when you can actually get a sharper, more detailed image by upscaling smaller pictures instead?

It’s an argument that’s never quite convinced me, I’ll admit. But AMD’s new FidelityFX Super Resolution 2.0, arriving for the first time today in an update for Deathloop, may have the potential to change that on PC.The new game patch also includes some key accessibility options — more on that later.

PC Gamer now says FSR 2.0 “really looks better than native 4K,” and Hardware Unboxed has a phenomenal video showing off...

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Apple TV Plus’ The Essex Serpent is a slow, tense drama with lots of great sweaters

Tom Hiddleston in The Essex Serpent. | Image: Apple

How much you enjoy The Essex Serpent, an Apple TV Plus adaptation of Sarah Perry’s 2016 novel, might depend on how much you enjoy seeing Tom Hiddleston brooding in a misty field while wearing cozy wool sweaters. For a lot of people, that will probably be enough of a hook. (It was for me.) But thankfully, the six-episode series offers a lot more than great hair blowing in the wind — it’s a tense and heartfelt exploration of grief and belief and how much those two things can mess with you. The great sweaters are just a bonus.

The show primarily follows two characters. One is Cora Seaborne (Claire Danes), a recent widow and a budding natural history scholar who has quite the fixation with sea serpents. She spends her spare time researching...

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Meta even brings up the metaverse when rebranding its payment system

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta is continuing the Meta-fication of its brands by renaming Facebook Pay, its payment system available across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to Meta Pay. The change is set to happen “soon,” according to a blog post from Stephane Kasriel, Meta’s head of commerce and financial technologies, and is the latest indication that the company formerly known as Facebook is all in on the metaverse.

“We’re focused on enhancing the payments experiences we already provide with Facebook Pay where we’re seeing good adoption,” Kasriel wrote. “And with this, an emphasis on quality in the countries that we are already in, rather than expanding to new countries right now.” People in businesses in 160 countries use Meta’s platforms to make...

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In the latest Halo episode, Master Chief does the Covenant

Microsoft / Alex Castro / The Verge

This week’s episode of Paramount Plus’ Halo TV show is incredible in the strictest definition of the term. I literally cannot believe what I have witnessed.

Spoilers for Halo follow

Are you still here?

Are you sitting down?

OK.

In the latest episode of Halo, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 fucks. He has sex with an undercover human Covenant spy after the two have bonded over their shared magical abilities surrounding the mysterious artifacts both the humans and Covenant have been after for most of the series. Apparently, the Master Chief is such a skilled lover that Makee, the Covenant spy, is all set to renounce her allegiance to humanity’s enemies. However, a series of misunderstandings and violent interactions with the UNSC leads...

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EcoFlow Wave answers the question ‘do I need air conditioning outside?’

EcoFlow Wave portable air conditioner | Image: EcoFlow

EcoFlow is taking a detour from its usual pursuit of making big-ass batteries to launch this portable air conditioner that would give campers, RV roamers, and everyone living the van life more incentive to own a few of the aforementioned batteries. The EcoFlow Wave is a portable air conditioner it’s building that claims to have “the world’s most powerful cooling and the longest run time.”

As you can see, based on the environment of the gentleman pictured above, the idea is that keeping cool isn’t just for places with permanent walls or, apparently, any walls at all.

Image: EcoFlow

The unit weighs 38.58 lbs by itself and 55.98 lbs with the 1,008Wh add-on battery attached. Unlike some earlier EcoFlow projects, this...

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Stablecoins are struggling to survive the crypto crash

Illustration by Alex Castro

It’s been a crushing few days for the Terra project, in a week that has been unforgiving for cryptocurrency as a whole.

Over the past few days, the TerraUSD (UST) stablecoin, which is meant to maintain a dollar peg, uncoupled dramatically from the $1 mark and dropped to a low of less than 30 cents on May 10th. In the latest update to the saga, the beleaguered project put its entire blockchain on halt for around two hours on Thursday, freezing user funds until the blockchain was unpaused.

The Terra blockchain was officially halted at a block height of 7603700.https://t.co/squ5MZ5VDK

Terra validators have decided to halt the Terra chain to prevent governance attacks following severe $LUNA inflation and a significantly reduced cost of...

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AT&T is about to get away with its bogus $1.99 ‘administrative fee’

Since 2013, AT&T has quietly bilked customers out of hundreds of millions of dollars with a bogus “administrative fee,” a fee it more than doubled to $1.99 a month in 2018. For a few years there, a California class-action lawsuit made it seem like AT&T might finally get taken to task. But this week, both sides told a judge they’d settle for just $14 million — meaning customers may get less than 10 percent of what they paid AT&T, while AT&T gets to keep on charging them.

According to the proposed settlement agreement in Vianu v. AT&T Mobility — which still needs to be approved by a judge — just about every AT&T Wireless postpaid customer in California since 2015 will be eligible for an estimated payment of between $15 and $29.

But again,...

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Honor Magic4 Pro review: hardware highs, software stumbles

This flagship has some neat ideas, but it’s lacking polish

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Roku bundles its Pro voice remote and Ultra streaming box without raising the price

Roku announced on Thursday that its Ultra streaming box will include its Voice Remote Pro, which upgrades the company’s standard remote by adding more buttons, always-on listening, and a rechargeable battery. Despite the fact that Roku is including a remote that costs $30 to purchase on its own, the Ultra will stay at its original $99.99 price point.

In its press release, the company says that the bundling will begin in “mid-May,” and its website already says that the Ultra comes with the Pro remote. When my colleague Chris Welch reviewed the remote last year, he liked that he had the option of giving voice commands to his Roku without having to press a button. And while he admired the fact that it no longer required AAs, it was a bit of...

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The Pixel 6A loses the A-series’ best feature

The camera is no longer the centerpiece of Google’s phones: Tensor is. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

One of the coolest things about the Pixel A-series was that it was an inexpensive way to get the very same class-leading camera as the main Pixel models. It’s one of the reasons I bought a Pixel 3A years ago — that, and it was in stock at Best Buy with in-store pickup. It was also one of the top reasons why the Pixel A-series was our go-to recommendation for the best budget Android phone for years. Everything else about the phone — screen, processor, battery — was fine, but the camera was excellent.

That streak comes to an end in the Pixel 6A. Unlike the A-series phones that came before it, the 6A doesn’t include the same camera hardware as the Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro. There’s no headphone jack either, which stinks, too. But rather than a...

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Alan Wake Remastered is coming to Nintendo Switch this fall

The game first released last year on PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Games Store. | Image: Remedy Entertainment

Alan Wake Remastered is coming to Nintendo Switch this fall, developer Remedy Entertainment announced Thursday. The game was first released for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC (via the Epic Games Store) last year. The Switch version runs “natively on the hardware,” according to a press email sent to The Verge, unlike Remedy’s cloud-streamed Switch port of Control.

Remedy shared a few other Alan Wake series updates as well. When the studio announced Alan Wake 2 in December, Remedy creative director Sam Lake indicated we might hear more about the game this summer. But in a video published Thursday, he said we’re going to have to wait longer to see more of the game.

“Everything [with Alan Wake 2’s development] is going really well,” Lake said. “A...

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Dune: Part II has found its emperor in Christopher Walken

Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images

Denis Villeneuve’s first Dune filmis a sweeping epic that introduces a new take on Paul Atreides at the beginning of his path to becoming a legend, but the movie’s careful to keep a number of details and characters from Frank Herbert’s original novel shrouded in secret. It was obvious that Villeneuve was holding some things back to surprise audiences with in Legendary’s second Dune movie, and the latest bit of casting news suggests that the director knows what he’s doing.

Deadline reports that Christopher Walken has signed on to Dune: Part II to portray the Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV who is initially responsible for sending Paul Atreides’ father Leto to the planet Arrakis. In Herbert’s novel, House Harkonnen and the emperor are both...

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Coinbase experiencing major outage as crypto prices plummet

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge

Coinbase users are reporting difficulty withdrawing funds, heightening fears amid a widespread crash in cryptocurrency prices.

The company confirmed the issues in a tweet on Thursday. “We are aware that some customers are having issues trading and accessing accounts on Coinbase and Coinbase Pro,” the company said. “Your funds are safe, and we are actively working on the issue. We’ll provide an update here soon.”

Shortly afterward, the company indicated the situation might be resolving: “We’re seeing recovery after implementing a fix, but our teams are continuing to monitor the situation.”

We’re seeing recovery after implementing a fix, but our teams are continuing to monitor the situation. Rest assured, we have all hands on deck and...

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Dead Space remake gets January release date

Image: EA Motive

In a day filled with news of disappointing but not wholly unexpected postponements, it seems like theDead Space remake is coming along nicely enough for the developers to commit to a release date. Today, in a developer livestream, the team at EA’s Motive Studio announced the remake to 2008’s survival horror smash hit will launch January 27th while also showing off the work put into giving the game a fresh coat of bloody paint.

Though the livestream was plagued by several technical hiccups, it was primarily focused on the art of the Dead Space remake. The developer team outlined three pillars that underpin the game’s uniquely horrifying look and feel:

• Horror storytelling. Dead Space is, obviously, set in space but sci-fi isn’t in the...

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Hulu subscribers can score three months of PC Game Pass for free

Get three months of Xbox Game Pass for free by redeeming this offer through Hulu.

It's getting increasingly difficult to recommend Microsoft’s Game Pass subscription to anyone without also sounding like an absolute shill. The latest promotion to offer an accessible introduction to this awesome service comes courtesy of Hulu. Current Hulu subscribers will be able to get a free three-month subscription to PC Game Pass and can redeem this offer through July 23rd. Note that this promotion is valid only for PC Game Pass, not Game Pass Ultimate, and may only be redeemed by new Game Pass subscribers.

Normally, PC Game Pass costs $9.99 a month, but there’s no obligation to continue your subscription after the promotional period expires, so this is a great chance to try out not just AAA titles but also maybe some indie hits...

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This is the memo Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal sent about firing execs and a hiring freeze

Photo Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

On Thursday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced a number of big shakeups within the company in an email to staff, including firing consumer product leader Kayvon Beykpour and head of revenue product Bruce Falck. The company is pausing most hiring and pulling back on spending in most areas, though it’s not currently planning any layoffs.

It’s a strange, uneasy moment inside Twitter, as the company prepares for Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition to close later this fall. It’s not entirely clear why Agrawal made these changes now, though, or how they relate to Musk’s acquisition. Twitter’s new head of product is Jay Sullivan, an ex-Facebook director who joined in November. The company is now beginning its search for a new head of revenue...

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Behind the expert testimony in the ‘Fitbit murder’ trial

The murder trial leaned on data from a Fitbit One.

This week, a Connecticut jury convicted Richard Dabate of murder in the killing of his wife, Connie Dabate, after a five-week-long trial that hinged — in part — on data from her Fitbit. Richard said a man dressed in camouflage broke into their home in 2015 and shot Connie. But Connie wore a Fitbit, and data from the device showed movement for around an hour after Richard said the break-in happened.

To make the case that the Fitbit data helped show Richard killed Connie, prosecutors called on Keith Diaz, an exercise physiologist and professor at Columbia University Medical Center. Diaz has done studies validating the accuracy of Fitbits and testified about their precision.

Diaz often testifies as an expert witness in criminal trials. He...

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Twitter CEO pushes out top execs, freezes hiring

He was asked to leave after seven years with the company. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is shaking up its top leadership. The first move came as consumer product leader Kayvon Beykpour announced on Twitter that current CEO Parag Agrawal “asked me to leave after letting me know that he wants to take the team in a different direction.”

Bruce Falck, the general manager of revenue and head of product for its business side, confirmed in a (now deleted) tweet that he was also fired by Agrawal.

Now Jay Sullivan, who we spoke to in March about Twitter’s plans to add 100 million daily users, will take over as both the head of product and interim head of revenue. These moves are occurring at the same time Elon Musk moves forward with his $44 billion purchase of Twitter, although he hasn’t taken ownership of the company yet.

...

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Sony announces WH-1000XM5 headphones with new design and even better noise cancellation

It doesn’t come as a surprise after recent leaks, but today, Sony announced its latest flagship noise-canceling headphones, the WH-1000XM5. They cost $399.99, an increase from the prior 1000XM4s, and will go on sale May 20th.

Sony says it has cranked up its already-fantastic noise cancellation to new highs by adding a second processor to the new headphones. The improvements are most noticeable in “mid- to high-frequency noise,” according to the company’s press release. That includes things like everyday city street noise and human voices.

The 1000XM5s have a design that’s quite different from their recent predecessors. Sony has gone for a sleeker look, switching to a stem-style slider and moving the microphones (there are now eight of...

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Sony WH-1000XM5 review: new design, new sound, new price

Sony’s latest noise-canceling headphones have a fresh look and iterative improvements

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Google updates Android Auto to better fit all the different sized touchscreens in cars today

Android Auto is getting another refresh, this time with a focus on the evolving nature of vehicle touchscreens.

Google says the new split-screen display will be standard for all Android Auto users, allowing them to access key features like navigation, media player, and messages — all from one screen. Previously, the split-screen display was only available to owners of certain vehicles. Now, it will be the default user experience for all Android Auto customers.

“We used to have a different screen mode that was available in a very limited amount of cars,” said Ron Lopez, lead product manager at Android Auto. “Now this is available no matter what type of display you have, what size, what form factor, and it’s a really, really exciting...

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