Reply All co-hosts Alex Goldman and Emmanuel Dzotsi to leave show

Image: Reply All

Reply All co-hosts Alex Goldman and Emmanuel Dzotsi will be leaving the show next month, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge. It is unclear whether or in what form the show will continue.

Gimlet executives emailed staffers Wednesday morning saying “Alex and Emmanuel have both made the decision to explore opportunities outside of Gimlet, and we’ll have more info to share on the future of Reply All soon. … The decision to end this iteration of the show came from a desire of the host team to move on, and we hope that there is a future where a show about the internet that isn’t actually about the internet can be reborn in Gimlet’s library.”

Goldman and Dzotsi’s announcement is the latest blow for the embattled eight-year-old...

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The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro is a nice smartwatch many of us can’t buy

The Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro has a sophisticated design. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

Last year, as Google and Samsung were upending the Android smartwatch space, Huawei also announced it was launching the Huawei Watch 3 on a new proprietary operating system called HarmonyOS 2. It then followed that up with the Huawei Watch GT 3. So it’s not a huge surprise that Huawei is back again with the Huawei Watch GT 3 Pro.

Last year’s Watch 3 was a good attempt and reminded me a lot of Samsung’s Tizen smartwatches. And while I haven’t had the GT 3 Pro for very long, what I’ve seen so far continues that overall vibe. The GT 3 Pro comes in two versions: a titanium model and an all-ceramic model. The former features a 46.6mm case with a 1.4-inch OLED display while the latter is smaller at 42.9mm with a 1.3-inch display. Both also...

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HP’s new Omen and Victus gaming laptops seem like low-effort refreshes

The 2022 Omen 16 comes in white or black. | Image: HP

HP is announcing some very minor refreshes to its Omen 16 and Victus 15 gaming laptops. Like so many other models, the new Omen 16 ships with support for the latest Intel 12th Gen processors as well as the option to go with AMD’s Ryzen 6000 H-series CPUs. It also supports up to Nvidia’s RTX 3070 Ti with 150W of maximum graphics power, along with up to 32GB of DDR5 RAM and fast PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

In terms of dimensions, this year’s Omen 16 is identical to the 2021 model down to the millimeter in terms of thickness, width, depth, and height. One notable change, however, is that its trackpad is a little wider now. Sadly, this model still features a 16:9 aspect ratio display with a large chin near the chassis hinge. And, like last year’s Omen...

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Napster joins Limewire and Winamp by jumping on the web3 bandwagon

Photo by Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images

They say you can’t keep a good brand down. More accurately, you can’t stop it being opportunistically mined by business types for lingering name-recognition and nostalgia.

Case in point: the pioneering peer-to-peer music-sharing-and-piracy service Napster has been bought by a consortium of companies who plan to “bring the iconic music brand to web3.” What exactly that means isn’t clear, mostly because web3 itself is such a nebulous concept. However, other web3-focused music startups have let musicians release albums and singles as NFTs, so perhaps expect something similar in Napster’s reimagined future?

To dive down into the murky waters here, the lead players buying Napster are Hivemind, a “a crypto-focused investment firm dedicated...

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Google Messages users in India are reportedly drowning in ads

Indian users of Google Messages are facing a deluge of ads within Android’s default messaging app, 9to5Google reports. Users are reporting being sent multiple ads a day, even if they enable the app’s Spam Protection feature, and blocking and reporting the offending accounts doesn’t appear to prevent ads from different companies appearing. Many of the worst offenders appear to be ads for personal loans, gambling companies, and life insurance.

As 9to5Google notes, companies appear to be abusing an RCS feature designed to let businesses contact their customers with rich, interactive media. Example’s listed on Google’s site include sending customers QR-code tickets, or letting them make online orders. Instead, some accounts that Google...

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Vivo’s new flagship has a bigger, better in-display fingerprint sensor

Vivo has announced its latest flagship phone, the X80 Pro, and its most prominent new hardware feature is a larger in-display fingerprint sensor. The active area is far bigger than the small sensors found on most Android phones these days, meaning it’s easier to unlock the phone without looking at the screen to align your thumb.

The scanner has several advantages beyond just being physically larger. You can register each fingertip with a single press on the screen, instead of having to lift and press it several times as with conventional phones. It works very quickly, even if your hands or the screen is wet. The larger surface area also means you can set the phone up to require two simultaneous fingerprints for an extra layer of...

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Google’s finally straightening out its legacy free G-Suite mess

Free for people, not businesses. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Almost five months after Google announced that it was going to make G-Suite legacy free edition users start paying for their accounts, it seems to finally have a path in place that most people will be happy with. According to 9To5Google, there’s now a no-cost option that’ll let people keep using their G-Suite accounts for personal use, and signing up for it won’t involve a song and dance of joining a waitlist or transferring data between accounts.

In January, Google announced that free G-Suite users would have to start paying for Google Workspace if they wanted to keep their accounts, after around a decade of keeping the legacy free tier around. The company said that if users didn’t decide which paid Workspace tier they wanted by May...

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Netflix has been screening new shows and movies among subscribers before their release

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Netflix has been showing movies and TV shows ahead of their public release to small groups of subscribers in the US, according to a report from Variety. Subscribers who participate in the feedback panels will watch “several upcoming movies and series over the course of about six months,” Variety says, and after they finish watching a piece of content, they’re asked to fill out a survey. The company then takes that feedback into account for potential changes ahead of a film or show’s debut.

Netflix is well-known for testing many of its software features ahead of wider releases, like the Top 10 row and the “Play Something” shuffle feature, so it’s perhaps not too surprising that the company is also testing its content with small groups of...

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Disney Plus with ads will keep the breaks down to four minutes per hour

Image: Disney

When Disney Plus’ ad-supported plan goes live later this year, it will reportedly run ads for four minutes on movies or shows that last an hour or less, according to reports from Variety and The Wall Street Journal.

As Variety points out, this would make Disney offer fewer ads per hour than some of its competitors. NBC’s Peacock runs no more than five minutes of ads for every hour of content, while HBO Max shows four minutes of ads per hour. Disney Plus’ planned number of ads even beats the Disney-owned Hulu, which runs anywhere from nine to 12 ads in one hour.

As for the content of the ads themselves, the company is reportedly taking a cautious approach to maintain its family-friendly image. Disney isn’t just cutting out ads that may...

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She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s first trailer looks simply smashing

She-Hulk showing up at an event. | Disney

Though Bruce Banner’s been one of the most physically powerful people running around Marvel’s movies for years at this point, that’s all about to change this summer as his cousin Jennifer Walters makes her way to MCU in Disney Plus’ She-Hulk: Attorney At Law. While both Hulks make appearances in She-Hulk’s first trailer, the show’s clearly going to be Jennifer’s to own as she embarks on her own path to heroism.

She-Hulk: Attorney At Law’s first trailer introduces Jennifer at a tricky point in her already complicated life. Because the world’s filled with so many villains committing super crimes, Jennifer’s legal skills put her in high demand, but she isn’t quite certain that’s the kind of force for justice she wants to be. That soul...

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The defunct LG Wing is getting Verizon C-band, because 5G in this country is silly

The LG Wing is cleared for takeoff on Verizon’s newest 5G spectrum. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

Verizon announced this week that the LG Wing will be getting an update that will allow it to use Verizon’s newest 5G spectrum — over a year after LG left the smartphone business altogether. The LG Wing has been certified to use mid-band spectrum called C-band, an important piece of Verizon’s 5G network that delivers better-than-LTE speeds and wide-ranging signal. Verizon spokesperson George Koroneos says that the update started arriving on devices yesterday and will continue to be pushed out through the rest of the week.

That’s good news if you’re one of the few people who bought an LG Wing, and really a testament to LG for making good on its promise to keep providing some support for its devices. But why is a one-and-a-half-year-old...

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Netflix is laying off 150 employees, including dozens from its Tudum fansite

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Netflix is laying off around 150 employees and agency contractors following a disappointing earnings report, citing “slowing revenue growth,” as first reported by Variety.

A source familiar with the situation tells The Verge the layoffs include at least 26 staff members working on the company’s fan-focused Tudum website, which serves as a supplement to Netflix’s content. Prior to this recent round of layoffs, Netflix let go of around 25 marketing staff members, including close to a dozen who worked on Tudum. The 26 employees laid off today were informed of the move in a mass email.

The streaming giant has confirmed to The Verge that most employees affected by the layoffs are located in the US. Netflix spokesperson Erika Masonhall issued...

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Apple slows return to office, will let employees stay remote and require masks in common spaces

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple is delaying moving forward on its hybrid return to work for office employees, saying in a memo seen by The Verge and (reported earlier by Bloomberg) that “we are extending the phase-in period of the pilot and maintaining two days a week in the office for the time being.” Employees who are in the current two-day-per-week pilot will have the option to once again work fully remote if they feel uncomfortable coming into the office,

In the memo, the company’s COVID-19 response team says that its updates are based on monitoring local info like test positivity and hospitalization rates. The memo also asks employees to go back to wearing masks when in common areas like meeting rooms, hallways, and elevators. The Bloomberg report added...

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As the Overwatch 2 beta ends, a new Overwatch remix event begins

Image: Blizzard

The Overwatch 2 beta is now over. If you were one of the lucky handful that were able to snag an invite, congratulations. If not, don’t worry. There will likely be more opportunities to try out Overwatch 2 in the future.

One of those opportunities could be revealed during an Overwatch 2 event slated for June 16th.

Coming through.

Save the date for an #Overwatch2 Event on June 16, where we will share our plan for the months ahead, including the next PVP Beta! pic.twitter.com/8k1NSnum11

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) May 17, 2022

Overwatch 2 game director Adam Keller thanked the beta participants and shared some thoughts about what it meant to the developers to see players’ reactions to the game, saying, “It can be scary putting...

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PS5 console covers will be available in three new galactic colors in June

The new covers are available for preorder now. | Image: Sony

The PlayStation 5 is getting three new console cover colors — starlight blue, galactic purple, and nova pink — on June 17th, but preorders are open on PlayStation Direct right now. All three colors are available in the US, UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

A vivid range of PS5 Console Covers in Starlight Blue, Galactic Purple, and Nova Pink will be available in select regions starting June 2022: https://t.co/u4yqM3VA2x pic.twitter.com/CKcn2bS2Su

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) May 17, 2022

Sony has been slowly releasing accessories to make its PS5 more customizable, starting with the custom console covers it announced last December. Despite previewing a full range of colors, it only released the black and red options...

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Noctua stuck its big brown desktop PC fans on an RTX 3080

Asus says the card is the quietest in its class. | Image: Asus

Asus has teamed up with renowned fan manufacturer Noctua once again to make a large brown and tan graphics card that should pump out frames while staying relatively quiet. The two companies’ last collaboration was an RTX 3070, but now they’ve announced a decidedly enthusiast tier card: an RTX 3080.

According to Noctua’s press release, the card features two 120mm fans and a custom heatsink, making it “the quietest air-cooled graphics card in its class.” Apart from the fancy cooling, it’s a relatively standard Asus graphics card with two BIOS profiles, a backplate, and 10GB of GDDR6X RAM. There are 3080s with 12GB of memory, but that doesn’t seem to be an option with the Noctua heatsink.

The card will go on sale “starting early June 2022,”...

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How the Buffalo shooting livestream went viral

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

When a gunman pulled into the parking lot at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday in a racist attack targeting a Black community, his camera was already rolling.

CNN reports that a livestream on Twitch recorded from the suspect’s point of view showed shoppers in the parking lot as the alleged shooter arrived, then followed him inside as he began a rampage that killed 10 people and injured three. Twitch, popular for gaming livestreams, removed the video and suspended the user “less than two minutes after the violence started,” according to Samantha Faught, the company’s head of communications for the Americas. Just 22 people saw the attack unfold in real time online, The Washington Post reports.

But millions saw the...

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Sony LinkBuds S rumored to be the ‘smallest and lightest’ ANC earbuds

The LinkBuds S in beige. | Image: WinFuture

Sony’s follow-up to the unconventional LinkBuds could be the lightest active noise cancellation (ANC) earbuds yet. According to WinFuture, the new earbuds — supposedly called the LinkBuds S — weigh just 4.8 grams each.

And while the LinkBuds released earlier this year are slightly lighter, weighing in at only 4 grams per bud, the new LinkBuds S come with ANC while the LinkBuds do not. Other ANC earbuds, like the AirPods Pro (5.4 grams each), Beats Studio Buds (5.1 grams each), and Galaxy Buds Live (5.6 grams) are still all heavier than the rumored LinkBuds S.

Image: WinFuture

The LinkBuds S could come with adaptive sound control.

In addition to ANC, WinFuture expects the LinkBuds S to have high-resolution...

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Elon Musk’s latest stunt: calling on the SEC to investigate Twitter’s user numbers

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

So does Elon Musk want to buy Twitter or not? This morning, the company’s prospective new owner insisted (in a tweet, of course) that the $44 billion deal he’d agreed to “cannot move forward” until he sees the proof he’s looking for about its active user numbers.

With needling current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and texting former CEO Jack Dorsey having failed to hit the spot, Musk — seemingly jokingly — pulled in another recurring character from his 24 / 7 revolving circus by tweeting to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, asking them to investigate.

Image: Twitter

In case you’ve forgotten, the folks at the SEC are the “bastards” that Musk has previously accused of infringing upon his rights to free speech,...

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Robinhood developing non-custodial crypto wallet launching later this year

Image: Robinhood

A little over a month after Robinhood publicly released its first crypto wallet, the company has announced it’s working on a second. The new wallet will be non-custodial, giving users sole custody over the private keys necessary to control their money on the blockchain. That means users won’t be dependent on Robinhood if the system fails but will also risk losing their funds entirely if they misplace the private key.

Robinhood says the new wallet will be offered as a standalone app but hopes that it will “feature the same simple and accessible design” as its main service. The wallet will offer the ability to store and trade cryptocurrencies, including many not available through the main Robinhood app with “no network fees” and will...

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Google will start distributing a security-vetted collection of open-source software libraries

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google announced a new initiative Tuesday aimed at securing the open-source software supply chain by curating and distributing a security-vetted collection of open-source packages to Google Cloud customers.

The new service, branded Assured Open Source Software, was introduced in a blog post from the company. In the post, Andy Chang, group product manager for security and privacy at Google Cloud, pointed to some of the challenges of securing open-source software and stressed Google’s commitment to open source.

“There has been an increasing awareness in the developer community, enterprises, and governments of software supply chain risks,” Chang wrote, citing last year’s major log4j vulnerability as an example. “Google continues to be one...

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How to run the FPS Benchmark for CS:GO

Unlike many of the games we use to test gaming laptops here at The Verge, such as Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Red Dead Redemption 2, CS:GO doesn’t have a built-in benchmark. But not to worry — there are third-party benchmarks you can run to see what kind of frame rates your device puts up on this first-person shooter. The one we commonly use, the FPS Benchmark by Ulletical, is free and easy to install.

Here’s how to run Ulletical’s FPS Benchmark for CS:GO:

• Search for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in the Steam store and download it. (It’s free.)
• Click on the title in your Steam library.
• Select Workshop.

If you don’t see a Workshop option, click the dots on the far right.

• Search for FPS Benchmark.
• Hover over...

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Stargazing in the UK is the best it’s been in over a decade

A portrait of Orion and the northern winter Milky Way on a February night in 2020. | Photo by: Alan Dyer/VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Now is the best time to stargaze in the UK since 2011, according to the results of a new citizen science survey led by the countryside charity CPRE. Light pollution in the UK has dropped to its lowest levels since CPRE began its annual study more than a decade ago.

Light pollution peaked in 2020 (before the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing) and then dipped last year as workplaces shuttered during the pandemic. Since then, CPRE says light pollution has continued to drop as more people continue to work from home and soaring energy prices in Europe push households to cut down on lighting costs.

Each year, CPRE enlists the help of citizen scientists for a “Star Count.” This year, more than 2,500 participants counted the number of stars...

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Microsoft’s Adaptive Controller was a success for the modding community

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

For Ben Heck, it started as a kindness. He was an engineer who made cool things and a veteran reached out to see if he could make him an Xbox controller that would let him play video games with one hand. Twenty years later, he’s still making controllers for people with limb differences. But he’s not the only one.

In the two decades since Heck started modding Xbox controllers for accessibility purposes, a community of controller modders have sprung up. The challenge of making hardware accessible is that everyone has a different need, and often times those needs can be at odds with one another. One person may need a super sensitive joystick while another might need a joystick that responds to the most intense of inputs. Modding a...

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The Pentagon has 400 reports of strange aerial phenomena — but nothing suggests aliens

The House Intelligence Counterterrorism, Counterintelligence, and Counterproliferation Subcommittee’ hearing on UAPs. | Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

The Pentagon’s new task force for tracking unidentified aerial phenomena (or UAPs) has collected roughly 400 reports, an official told Congress in an open hearing on Tuesday.

The comments came from Scott Bray, the deputy director of US naval intelligence, who testified today as an expert witness in a hearing about UAPs hosted by a subcommittee of the House Intelligence Committee. The hearing marked the first time Congress has held a public hearing on UAPs, also known as UFOs, in more than 50 years.

Bray attributed the increase in sightings to a number of factors, including the growing popularity of quadcopters and drones, updates in sensor technologies, increasing aerial clutter like mylar balloons, and a perceived decrease in stigma...

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Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is the sound of Disney laughing at its own meta humor

The modern day Chip and Dale. | Disney

The film stars John Mulaney and Andy Samberg

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Skiff Mail is taking on Gmail by betting on privacy — and crypto

Skiff Mail is a new, privacy-focused alternative to Gmail. | Image: Skiff

Skiff has spent the last couple of years developing a privacy-focused, collaborative document editing platform that you could most succinctly describe as “encrypted Google Docs.” Now, it’s coming for Gmail. The company is launching an email service called Skiff Mail that aims to be, well, encrypted Gmail — and eventually much more than that.

Ultimately, Skiff co-founder and CEO Andrew Milich says Skiff wants to build a complete workspace, something as sweeping and broad as Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. But the only way to do that is to solve email, which is, in so many ways, the core of both platforms. “It’s the most private corpus of our lives, you know?” Milich says. In an effort to keep people’s most important information safe —...

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Marvel’s Echo series is coming to Disney Plus in 2023

Alaqua Cox as Echo. | Image: Marvel Studios / Chuck Zlotnick

After making her debut in last year’s Hawkeye series, Maya Lopez / Echo will get her own show starting in 2023. The series was originally announced last year as part of a huge slate of Marvel series coming to Disney Plus — other titles include Agatha: House of Harkness and Ironheart — and today Marvel confirmed the show will be hitting the streaming service next year, though there’s no specific timeframe just yet. The company also revealed the first image of Alaqua Cox returning for the titular role and, well, she looks pretty much the same as in Hawkeye.

According to Marvel, Echo will be an origin story, which will follow the character — who appeared as a deaf gang leader in Hawkeye — as “she must face her past, reconnect with her...

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Apple accused of union busting in new labor board filing

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple retail employees in Atlanta are accusing the company of violating the National Labor Relations Act by holding captive audience meetings to counter an ongoing union drive at the site. The Communications Workers of America, which is working to organize the store, filed an unfair labor practice reporting the activity earlier today.

Workers at the Cumberland Mall Apple store filed for a union election in April. They say that while they love the company, they want to have a bigger say in their compensation, benefits, and store health protocols.

The Cumberland store is one of three retail locations where workers have launched official union drives. Many more are in the process of organizing.

Apple hasn’t said publicly whether or not it...

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Apple helps you download fewer podcasts

Confession: I have stopped automatic downloads on Apple Podcasts because I am reckless with my data and have absolutely let podcast downloads eat my phone on more than one occasion. I love having back episodes of Stuff You Missed in History Class for the subway as much as the next guy, but I also need to be able to save and send my husband I Think You Should Leave GIFs at will (♫ it’s the little things you do together ♫). Anyway, point being, Apple’s new update that lets users limit downloads to five episodes at a time feels like it was tailor-made for me.

Also on tap today, Spotify experiments with NFTs, highlights from the Podcast Upfronts, and how the podcast outgrew its namesake.

Apple is making it easier to distribute subscription...

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