Apple is making it easier to distribute subscription podcasts

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Apple is making it easier for podcasters to get their subscription shows onto its platform. Creators on select podcast distribution platforms like Acast and Libsyn will soon be able to automatically upload their premium shows onto the Apple Podcasts app instead of having to publish it episode by episode through Apple’s platform.

Currently, those who offer subscription shows through the Apple Podcasters Program need to publish episodes through Apple Podcast Connect. The company says that its new Delegated Delivery system will allow creators to skip that extra step and publish shows on Apple directly from their host’s dashboard. In addition to Acast and Libsyn, the initial group of partner hosts includes Buzzsprout, Omny Studio, RSS.com,...

Continue reading…

Heartstopper’s Yasmin Finney is joining Doctor Who as ‘another Rose’

Yasmin Finney as Elle Argent in Netflix’s Heartstopper_._ | Image: Netflix

Doctor Who’s titular Time Lord will soon go through a regeneration that leaves them looking a lot more like Sex Education’s Ncuti Gatwa than Jodie Whittaker, but the forthcoming Doctor won’t be the only new face to look out for as the franchise celebrates its 60th anniversary. Heartstopper’s Yasmin Finney has been cast as a mysterious character she and showrunner Russell T. Davies are only referring to as “Rose.”

In a press release about Finney’s casting, Davies described life on Doctor Who as getting brighter and wilder and rhetorically pondered how there could ever be “another Rose,” referring presumably to Billie Piper’s character Rose Tyler.

“You’ll find out in 2023, but it’s an absolute joy to welcome Yasmin to the Doctor Who set,”...

Continue reading…

Over half of US properties face at least some wildfire risk

Among properties facing wildfire risk, annual likelihood of wildfire today. | Image: First Street Foundation

More than half of all homes, 56 percent, in the contiguous 48 states face at least some wildfire risk in the next few decades, according to a first-of-its-kind report published today by the nonprofit research organization First Street Foundation.

First Street gave each address in the continental US a rating between one to 10, with one representing close to no risk and 10 representing a 36 percent or more likelihood that a property could be caught up in a wildfire sometime during the next three decades. More than 20 million properties across the continental US are threatened by at least “moderate” wildfire risk. Those homes have up to a 6 percent chance of being in a blaze at some point over a 30-year timespan, the typical timeframe for...

Continue reading…

The MSI GS66 Stealth gaming laptop is cheaper than ever at Best Buy

The 15-inch MSI GS66 is the cheapest its ever been | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

The Verge Deals team is ready to lead you into the week with some excellent savings on a variety of awesome tech. Our inaugural deal of the week is the MSI GS66 Stealth gaming laptop, which is currently available at Best Buy for $1,299.99, the lowest price we’ve seen yet for this configuration that typically costs $1,499.99.

The MSI GS66 Stealth is a slim yet powerful 15.6-inch laptop that weighs a little under five pounds. This laptop is powered by an Intel Core i7-11800H CPU and an Nvidia RTX 3060 graphics card, both of which should provide enough power to make good use of the 1080p display’s 240Hz refresh rate.

16GB of RAM and a 1TB SSD round out the list of specs for this powerful laptop (here are the rest, in case you’re curious)....

Continue reading…

Terra’s crash has left some other stablecoins and protocols on shaky ground

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In the wake of the sudden collapse of TerraUSD, several other stablecoins’ values (whose values are supposedly pegged to the dollar) have started facing issues.

Deus Finance’s DEI coin is currently trading at around 66 cents and has been fluctuating since Sunday, reaching a low of around 52 cents early Monday morning.

Unlike other major stablecoins like USD Coin and Tether, which (allegedly) have actual dollars or assets backing them, DEI’s values are controlled by algorithms making trades. It’s not that there’s no collateral — as CoinTelegraph points out, there’s a DEUS token that you can use to get new DEI tokens and that you can receive if you redeemed DEI. Unlike with Terra, where the value of the corresponding coin crashed, the...

Continue reading…

The Boys’ first season 3 trailer has Homelander doing damage control

Antony Starr as Homelander. | Amazon

The superpowered humans of Amazon’s The Boysare a danger in and of themselves, but it’s Vought — the immensely powerful and unscrupulous megacorporation that secretly created them — that poses the largest threat to the world. This has been obvious since the series’ very first episode, and while it’s occasionally felt like the organization might be on the brink of getting its comeuppance, a new trailer for The Boys’ upcoming third season makes clear that Vought’s nowhere near giving up.

The Boys’ second season detailed how, in addition to secretly exposing children to chemicals that eventually gave rise to the world’s population of superpeople, Vought also knowingly brought on a deranged Nazi to join the Seven, its flagship team of...

Continue reading…

US prosecutors are going after crypto sanctions evasion

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The US Department of Justice is prosecuting the operator of a payment platform that flouted economic sanctions using cryptocurrency. As reported by The Washington Post, it’s possibly the first criminal prosecution of crypto-related sanctions evasion — underscoring both the technology’s potential for getting around financial blocks and its traceability by law enforcement.

District of Columbia Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui revealed the prosecution’s existence in an opinion on a still-sealed case, omitting the name of the payment platform as well as the “comprehensively sanctioned country” it dealt with. (There are five such countries: Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba, and Ukraine’s Crimea region.) The operator apparently used an exchange to...

Continue reading…

Jeff Bezos is not a poster

An action figure of Jeff Bezos captures the oddly plasticky, unreal nature of his tweets. | Photo by Andrew Liptak / The Verge

Friends, I’ve had alerts on for Jeff Bezos’ tweets for a while now, and after some consideration, I’m afraid I have to conclude that this man cannot post.

I am, in fact, finding it difficult to believe how bad he is at posting. It’s astonishing. If Elon Musk’s tweets are pure lizard-brain id, Bezos’ tweets are all superego — my guy probably workshops them, which is why they’re DOA, emotionally. Even something like this, which is (I think) supposed to be loose, absolutely fails by modern Twitter standards:

25 years ago yesterday, AMZN went public. As the Grateful Dead would say, “What a long, strange trip it’s been.”

It’s been far from smooth. Lots of risk-taking, lots of invention, lots of mistakes, so much we still have to do better. I...

Continue reading…

Silent Hill is reportedly coming back with multiple new games

Konami

Last week, leaked concept art revived fans’ hopes that a new Silent Hill game was in the works. Now, a VGC report is claiming that Konami is working on several entries in the survival horror series.

On May 12th, Twitter user AestheticGamer1 shared four images that were allegedly from a new entry in the Silent Hill series. Shortly after he tweeted the images, they were removed for copyright reasons, adding fuel to the speculation that they were indeed what he claimed them to be.

(1/2) Silent Hill leak. There's a lot I'm not sharing for now. This is from a relatively new source for me, but I have been given more than enough proof to believe them. I also will mention the names "Anita & Maya", "SMS Messages", & this is not the only SH...

Continue reading…

Fall Guys is going free-to-play and coming to Nintendo Switch and Xbox on June 21st

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout first released on PC and PS4 back in August of 2020. | Image: Mediatonic

The battle royale bean simulator Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is going free-to-play and finally coming to the Nintendo Switch and Xbox consoles on June 21st. The game, which first launched on PlayStation and PC, was initially set to be released on Switch and Xbox last summer, but it will finally be arriving on those platforms soon. A dedicated PS5 version of the game will be released on June 21st as well. Progression will be shared across platforms, and you’ll be able to make cross-platform parties.

Developer Mediatonic, which is now owned by Fortnite maker Epic Games, revealed the move to free-to-play, the new versions, and a whole host of updates on the way for Fall Guys in a video published Monday. These changes include an upcoming...

Continue reading…

iOS 15.5 arrives ahead of Apple’s annual developer conference

Last year’s iPhone 13 Mini and iPhone 13. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple has released iOS 15.5, the latest version of its iPhone operating system. It’s short on user-facing enhancements but could help appease regulators concerned with Apple’s dominant control over in-app purchases.

New iOS 15.5 features include a pair of buttons added to the Wallet app, which allows Apple Cash card users to quickly request or send money, as well as a new setting in the Apple Podcasts app that lets you place limits on the number of episodes stored in your phone. According to Apple’s release notes, the update also includes various bug fixes, including one that should improve the reliability of home automations triggered by people arriving and leaving.

The full release notes read:

iOS 15.5 includes the following...

Continue reading…

Twitter’s CEO and Elon Musk are beefing over bot counts

Photo Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is pushing back against Elon Musk’s concerns around spam and bots on the platform, saying that Musk’s suggestion to measure the problem by performing a random sampling of 100 accounts wouldn’t work. “Our actual internal estimates for the last four quarters were all well under 5 percent,” Agrawal wrote on Twitter today. His defense comes after Musk suddenly sprinkled some doubt on his $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter by tweeting that the deal was “temporarily on hold” over spam concerns.

According to Musk, the hold was put in place pending details to support the service’s estimate that less than 5 percent of its measured daily active users are bots or spam accounts. Specifically who needed to be convinced,...

Continue reading…

For All Mankind season 3 is set in the ’90s but seems focused on a very 2020s space race

Apple

People will tell you Severance or Ted Lasso are the best shows coming out of Apple TV Plus, and while they’ve certainly had excellent receptions and won a few rewards, they are not the best show on Apple TV Plus. That honor falls to For All Mankind, a science fiction alternate history from Battlestar Galactica creator Ron D. Moore.

I know this is controversial to say. Everyone loves Ted Lasso’s blend of optimism and humor. They adore what Severance has to say about our work-home life balance and are curious about the baby goat room. I get it. These shows captivate you, and the first few episodes of For All Mankind absolutely pale in comparison. But the back half of the first season of For All Mankind and the entire second season of the...

Continue reading…

This is the design of Sonos’ upcoming Sub Mini

A 3D product rendering of the upcoming Sonos Sub Mini, as created by The Verge_._ | Product render by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Sonos announced its most affordable soundbar to date last week. But some of the company’s loyal customers were disappointed by the lack of a less expensive subwoofer to go along with the new Sonos Ray. It felt like the perfect opportunity to announce a product that’s been rumored for months. The only subwoofer that Sonos currently sells is the $749 Sub, which costs more than both the Ray and Beam — so it’s hard to justify as an accessory at those terms.

But despite no announcement last week, The Verge can confirm that Sonos is coming closer to releasing a smaller, less costly subwoofer that will be able to wirelessly pair with the Sonos Ray, Beam, and Arc. Rumors about such a device popped up a few months ago after Sonos accidentally...

Continue reading…

Spotify experiments with musician NFT galleries

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Spotify is testing a way for artists to display their non-fungible token (NFT) collections, as first reported by Music Ally. The music streaming platform has rolled out the test for some users on Android in the US and currently includes NFT previews for artists like Steve Aoki and The Wombats.

“Spotify is running a test in which it will help a small group of artists promote their existing third-party NFT offerings via their artist profiles,” a Spotify spokesperson said in a statement to Music Ally. “We routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve artist and fan experiences. Some of those tests end up paving the way for a broader experience and others serve only as an important learning.” Spotify didn’t immediately respond...

Continue reading…

Peloton and NordicTrack owner iFit make peace over patent disputes

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

As Peloton gets its financial ducks in a row, it appears the company is easing up on its patent disputes. Today, Peloton and iFit — which owns rival NordicTrack — announced that they’ve settled all pending litigation and that “all pending actions between the companies will be dismissed.”

The announcement itself was brief, offering little detail. As part of the settlement, iFit has agreed to remove some on-demand leaderboard tech from its devices, while Peloton will license “certain iFit patents relating to remote control technology.” This is somewhat a reversal in attitude from where Peloton was roughly six months ago.

Back in November — just as Peloton’s stock woes were beginning to take hold — the company reportedly filed lawsuits...

Continue reading…

JetBlue launches hostile takeover of Spirit after its earlier acquisition was rejected

Staff Photo By Matt Stone/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald

JetBlue launched a hostile takeover of Spirit Airlines after its earlier acquisition offer was rejected. The New York-based airline said in a release that its tender offer for $30-per-share was “all-cash” and “fully financed.”

Earlier this month, Spirit’s board of directors rejected JetBlue’s $32-a-share bid to acquire the airline in favor of an existing merger agreement with Frontier, one of its ultra-low-cost competitors. The board cited antitrust issues and “an unacceptable level of closing risk” to its shareholders as its reasons for rejecting the JetBlue bid.

But JetBlue is still intent on acquiring Spirit, whether it wants to go ahead with the deal or not. The airline has said that absorbing Spirit would allow it to better...

Continue reading…

How to convert your Xbox Live subscription into Game Pass Ultimate

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass offer a lot of value if you want to play all kinds of games via subscription. The service normally costs $14.99 per month for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate (which covers both Xbox and PC) or $9.99 per month for PC Game Pass and includes AAA titles like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5 as well as rotations of major third-party games and indies.

If you want to try it out, there’s an introductory price that gives you one month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for $1. But before you redeem it, you should know that it’s possible to use the trial as a way to save a lot of money on Game Pass Ultimate for up to three years.

Activating the $1 trial can save you hundreds of dollars

Microsoft allows Xbox...

Continue reading…

Uber unveils new products for business travelers, wedding parties, and EVs

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Uber held its second annual product event today, at which the company announced new features for business travelers, group rides, and electric vehicles. The news comes as the company’s CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, is renewing his efforts to make Uber’s core ride-hailing product profitable through cost-cutting and a hiring slowdown.

Just because Uber is trying to rein in its costs doesn’t mean it will stop rolling out new features in its ongoing effort to win new customers (or retain its current customers) and expand into new fields. Since the pandemic, Uber has pivoted away from trying to be the “Amazon of transportation” and toward a more streamlined version of itself as a car service with a thriving delivery business.

In a blog post,...

Continue reading…

Pixar’s Elemental is releasing in June 2023

Image: Pixar Animation Studios

Pixar has provided the very first details of its upcoming feature Elemental — including a release date of June 16th, 2023. Directed by Peter Sohn (best known for The Good Dinosaur), the movie takes place in a city filled with beings tied to the various elements of fire, water, air, and land. It follows two characters named Ember and Wade, who, you might’ve guessed, are composed of seemingly opposite elements.

Here’s Sohn on the film:

“My parents emigrated from Korea in the early 1970s and built a bustling grocery store in the Bronx. We were among many families who ventured to a new land with hopes and dreams — all of us mixing into one big salad bowl of cultures, languages, and beautiful little neighborhoods. That’s what led me to E...

Continue reading…

Scientists create algae computer powered by photosynthesis

The colony of algae was enclosed in a unit the size of an AA battery. | Image: Paolo Bombelli / Creative Commons

Scientists have used algae to power a low-energy computer chip for six months.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge sealed a colony of cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue-green algae, inside a metal enclosure the size of an AA battery. The unit was then left on a windowsill, according to New Scientist, where the algae photosynthesized, generating a tiny current of electricity that powered an ARM Cortex-M0+ chip.

The system is only a proof of concept, but its creators hope algae-powered chips could be used in future Internet of Things devices. They say the advantage of using algae over traditional batteries or solar power is that it has a smaller environmental impact and could potentially provide continuous power.

“Our...

Continue reading…

Netflix’s Geeked Week ‘22 trailer reveals even more of The Sandman’s gods and monsters

Tom Sturridge as Dream in The Sandman_._ | Netflix

Following its initial launch last year, Netflix turned its Geeked Week showcase of upcoming movies and shows into an annual event. While we’re still a few weeks out from the 2022 exhibition, a new teaser trailer for the week of reveals and announcements definitely makes it seem like the wait’s going to be worth it.

Over the course of Geeked Week’s five days, Netflix is set to spotlight more than 60 different projects currently in development, including The Umbrella Academy’s third season, Stranger Things 4, Resident Evil, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.In addition to those series, the new trailer for Geeked Week features quite a few new glimpses of Netflix’s live-action adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman starring Tom Sturridge as Dream...

Continue reading…

Black Mirror’s coming back for a sixth series

Will Poulter as Colin Ritman. | Image: Netflix

No matter how much time passes between Black Mirror’s seasons, the series always manages to feel just as unsettlingly prescient as when it first began airing. It isn’t exactly surprising that Netflix is working on yet another installment of the tech-focused dystopian series, but it seems as if our next taste of Black Mirror’s going to be a little different than what we’ve seen before.

Variety reports that Netflix has greenlit Black Mirror and is currently in pre-production for its sixth series — the details for which are largely being kept quiet. Unlike the interactive Black Mirror: Bandersnatch and fifth series that came before it, Black Mirror’s anthological sixth series is reported to consist of more episodes and be more “cinematic in...

Continue reading…

Amazon will pay you for your grocery shopping data

Amazon has a new coupon clipping feature for its Alexa app’s shopping list. | Image: Amazon

While you may buy a lot of stuff on Amazon, most people don’t do their weekly grocery shopping with the retail giant (unless Whole Foods is your local store). Amazon is therefore missing a big chunk of your shopping habits, and now, it's offering an incentive for you to hand over that data: grocery coupons.

Alexa Shopping List Savings, which launched this month, is a new feature for the digital assistant that lets you clip coupons in the Alexa app for items you’ve added to your shopping list. The savings are added up, and the cashback is put on your digital Amazon gift card within a few days. The US-only service is now available to all customers and works exclusively with the Alexa app’s pre-installed shopping list.

S...

Continue reading…

Sony’s new PlayStation Plus subscriptions launch June 13th, and here’s the list of games

Image: Sony

Sony has confirmed the launch date and other details for the three new PlayStation Plus tiers it’s launching, which will be available in the US starting on June 13th. The new PlayStation Plus options look a lot like Xbox Game Pass, which gives players access to a collection of games that rotates periodically and gives new owners a cheaper way to access a library of quality gaming titles right out of the gate.

It has also released a full list of PS5 and PS4 games to come “in the launch timeframe,” with big names like Spider-Man, The Last of Us Part II, and God of War, as well as its lineup of classic games (included below).

One difference will remain, however: Sony has said that unlike Microsoft with Halo Infinite, Gears 5, and Forza...

Continue reading…

The Google Pixel Watch needs a good chip, but which?

Is turn-by-turn navigation on Google Maps going to work if the Pixel Watch’s chip blows? | Image: Google

Earlier this week, Google confirmed what we’ve suspected for a long time: the Google Pixel Watch is coming later this fall. And while we learned some details, the reveal was more of a teaser than a full-blown announcement. Some of that was to be expected, and of course, the next few months will be full of speculation about what the final form of the Pixel Watch will be. But one thing Google has to get right is the chip inside.

It’s clear, from the Pixel Watch’s design to the company’s massive undertaking in retooling Wear OS, that Google is trying to make an Android flagship smartwatch that can give the Apple Watch a run for its money. The thing is, Wear OS’s sluggish evolution wasn’t all on Google. For a number of years, Wear OS was...

Continue reading…

Ecobee Premium thermostat leaks with built-in Siri and Alexa support

The alleged Premium model. | Image: Canadian Tire

Smart home company Ecobee appears ready to release two new smart thermostats — the Ecobee Enhanced and the Ecobee Premium — ZatzNotFunny reports. The Enhanced model has appeared in a post on Reddit, while the Premium has leaked via a retail listing from Canadian Tire. Between them, they look set to overhaul Ecobee’s existing lineup of thermostats consisting of 2016’s Ecobee3 Lite and 2019’s Ecobee SmartThermostat with voice control.

The Ecobee Premium appears set to replace the flagship $250 SmartThermostat. It still has a built-in microphone with support for voice assistants like Alexa and Siri, ZatzNotFunny reports, but new for this model is air quality monitoring. One product photo shows the Ecobee app recommending a window be opened...

Continue reading…

Google and Samsung join forces to make it easier to sync fitness data between apps

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google and Samsung have partnered to create Health Connect, a platform and API (application programming interface) that gives developers a toolset to sync users’ health data between Android apps and devices. This should make it easier for users to keep track of their health and fitness data across several different platforms.

Once a user opts in, developers can compile their health data in an encrypted hub that’s located on a user’s device. Google says users will get full control over what kind of data they share and what apps they share it with. If more than one app is collecting the same type of data, such as steps taken, users can choose to share that data with one app over the others. Health Connect supports over 50 data types in a...

Continue reading…

David Tennant and Catherine Tate to return for Doctor Who’s 60th anniversary

Tennant and Tate will star in an upcoming 2023 special. | Image: BBC

David Tennant and Catherine Tate will return to Doctor Who in celebration of the long-running show’s 60th anniversary, the BBC has announced (via Gizmodo). The pair are currently filming scenes that are set to air in 2023.

Tennant starred as Doctor Who’s Tenth Doctor from 2005 to 2010, while Tate played The Doctor’s companion, Donna Noble. The fan-favorite Doctor has made a reappearance in the past, with the BBC bringing back Tennant and Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) for Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary special in 2013, called “The Day of the Doctor.” But now, Tennant is set to make yet another return a whole decade later.

They're back! David Tennant and Catherine Tate return to Doctor Who ❤️❤️➕ #DoctorWho

Read more here ➡️ h...

Continue reading…

Boost Mobile will let you lower your phone bill by playing games and watching ads

Photo by Gloria Sin / The Verge

Boost Mobile will now let you pay part of your phone bill with “blockchain-backed” Boostcoins earned through watching ads and playing games (via CNET). In a press release, the carrier says you can get BoostCoins by downloading the new BoostOne app, and then interacting with the games, ads, and Boost Mobile’s partners from within the app.

But don’t get too excited just yet — one Boostcoin equals just one cent. In other words, you’ll likely have to dedicate a lot of time to the app if you want to see any significant savings. As pointed out by CNET, watching an ad lasting several seconds will earn you two Boostcoins. There’s also a Wheel of Fortune-style Spin & Win game that rewards players with anywhere from five cents to $5 in a single...

Continue reading…