Qualcomm’s new AR glasses are thinner and wireless

Qualcomm

Qualcomm is introducing a wireless version of its augmented reality Smart Viewer, a reference design that manufacturers could adapt into commercial headsets. The Wireless AR Smart Viewer updates Qualcomm’s earlier smart glasses design with a higher-powered chipset, plus a tethering system that uses Wi-Fi 6 / 6E and Bluetooth instead of a USB-C cable. That comes with the tradeoff of a potentially very short battery life — although Qualcomm says consumer-ready versions might be designed differently.

The new Smart Viewer was developed by Goertek. It’s currently available to a few manufacturing partners with plans to expand access in the coming months. Like its predecessor, it connects to a phone or computer and delivers mixed reality...

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Qualcomm announces Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, for when flagship isn’t flagship enough

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 set the stage for the biggest Android smartphones of 2022, including Samsung’s flagship Galaxy — but it’s about to be surpassed by a better “Plus” version that’ll no doubt appear in buy-it-for-the-bragging-rights gaming phones and luxury handsets. It’s called the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1, which just rolls off the tongue, and Qualcomm says it’ll offer 10 percent faster CPU performance, 10 percent faster GPU clocks, and — get this — use 15 percent less power for “nearly 1 hour” of extra gameplay or, say, 50 minutes of social media browsing.

Technically, Qualcomm says it’s achieved “up to 30 percent” better power efficiency from both the CPU and GPU, and 20 percent better AI performance per watt, but that...

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Canada bans Huawei equipment from 5G networks, orders removal by 2024

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Canada has banned the use of Huawei and fellow Chinese tech giant ZTE’s equipment in its 5G networks, its government has announced. In a statement, it cited national security concerns for the move, saying that the suppliers could be forced to comply with “extrajudicial directions from foreign governments” in ways that could “conflict with Canadian laws or would be detrimental to Canadian interests.”

Telcos will be prevented from procuring new 4G or 5G equipment from the companies by September this year, and must remove all ZTE- and Huawei-branded 5G equipment from their networks by June 28th, 2024. Equipment must also be removed from 4G networks by the end of 2027. “The Government is committed to maximizing the social and economic...

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LG’s flagship 4K ultra-short throw projector gets closer

The LG CineBeam HU915QE has an excellent excellent 0.19 throw ratio. | Image: LG

LG just took the wraps off a new flagship CineBeam ultra-short throw (UST) projector, model HU915QE. The 4K three-channel laser projector blasts a super bright 3,700 ANSI lumen image that measures 100 inches when placed just 9.8cm (3.9 inches) from a wall, thanks to an excellent 0.19 throw ratio.

Other UST projectors like the AWOL LTV-3500 require a distance of 24.9cm (9.8 inches) to achieve that same 100-inch diagonal picture size. And while that might not sound like a large span, it can easily exceed the width of common sideboards where the projector will live.

Better yet, you can place the new LG CineBeam 18.3cm (7.2 inches) from an Ambient Light Rejection (ALR) screen for a giant 120-inch picture with improved contrast (to make the...

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A wild Pokémon-themed Galaxy Buds case has appeared

The ball is designed for you to put the entire charging case in it. | Image: Samsung

Samsung has released a Pokémon-themed poké ball case for its Galaxy Buds true wireless earbuds in South Korea. It’s the perfect accessory for anyone who’d prefer their charging case to look dope as hell rather than to be able to easily fit in their pocket. Gizmodo reports that the case is a limited edition, and it also appears to be exclusive to South Korea where it costs 134,000 won (around $105).

Unlike a very similar wireless earbud charging case that Razer released in 2020, Samsung’s poké ball doesn’t appear to be charging its earbuds directly. Instead, the idea is that you put the regular charging case for your Galaxy Buds 2, Galaxy Buds Pro, or Galaxy Buds Live (aka the Galaxy Beans) inside the poké ball, where it’s presumably...

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Amazon hardware exec takes another swipe at Zuckerberg’s metaverse fantasy

“We wanna enhance the here and now.” | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg can’t catch a break — everyone just keeps saying that they don't want to live in the metaverse. This week, it’s Amazon’s head of devices David Limp, who said that he doesn’t want to live in a virtual world 24 / 7, or even a few hours a day.

Limp expressed similar views when interviewed last month by the Financial Times, where he spent most of his time espousing his vision of ambient computing — the idea that the computer is everywhere — as he’s been keen to do over the last year and change.

While speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival, Limp was asked what he was thinking about the metaverse. He said that while he does believe that there’ll be “some form of place-shifting” in...

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Meta tells employees to stop discussing abortion at work

The Meta sign outside the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

A Meta executive told employees on Thursday that they are prohibited from talking about abortion on Workplace, an internal version of Facebook, citing “an increased risk” that the company is seen as a “hostile work environment.”

The policy, which Meta put in place in 2019 but hasn’t been reported until now, prohibits employees from discussing “opinions or debates about abortion being right or wrong, availability or rights of abortion, and political, religious, and humanitarian views on the topic,” according to a section of the company’s internal “Respectful Communication Policy” seen by The Verge. Some employees have called on management to do away with the policy in the aftermath of a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that would...

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SpaceX reportedly paid $250,000 to cover up Elon Musk’s sexual misconduct

Photo by PATRICK PLEUL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

SpaceX reportedly paid a flight attendant $250,000 to ensure she didn’t speak out or sue the company after Elon Musk allegedly exposed himself and propositioned her for sex, according to a report from Business Insider.

Content warning: The following story contains descriptions of sexual misconduct. If you need immediate support, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline by going to online.rainn.org or by calling 1-800-656-4673.

According to one of the flight attendant’s friends, the alleged victim worked as a crew member on a SpaceX corporate flight. During one of the flights, the attendant told her friend, Musk asked her for a full body massage in his room — reportedly, this was not unusual, and SpaceX had encouraged the...

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Google reports increased Black and Latinx representation in the US

Illustration by Alex Castro / Th

Google has released its annual diversity report, and the company says it made some positive progress over the past year. The company saw its “largest increases in representation of Black and Latinx Googlers in the US ever” at 20 percent and 8 percent respectively year over year, according to chief diversity officer Melonie Parker. Google also reported improved leadership representation of Black, Latinx and Native American employees by 27 percent, Parker says.

But some data shows there is still more work to be done. The company’s US workforce is 33.5 percent women and 66.5 percent men, numbers that are only slightly different than the 32.2 percent women and 67.8 percent men reported in 2021. And in its 2022 report, Google said 48.3...

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Boeing successfully launches Starliner spacecraft to orbit in do-over test flight

Boeing’s Starliner capsule launches on May 19, 2022 | NASA

Nearly two and a half years after its first launch didn’t go to plan, Boeing’s new passenger spacecraft, the CST-100 Starliner, successfully launched to space this afternoon, reaching the right orbit it needed to achieve to rendezvous with the International Space Station tomorrow evening. The successful launch marks the beginning of a crucial test flight for Starliner that will play out over the next week in space, one that will help demonstrate if the capsule is capable of carrying humans to space one day.

Starliner is a private spacecraft that Boeing developed in partnership with NASA, primarily to help transport the agency’s astronauts to and from the International Space Station in low Earth orbit. The capsule is one of two vehicles,...

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TikTok reportedly plans a ‘major push’ into gaming and games livestreamers could play with viewers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Reuters reports TikTok is testing games for the app in Vietnam ahead of a “major push” into the space. A company representative confirmed tests of HTML5 mini-games, saying, “We’re always looking at ways to enrich our platform and regularly test new features and integrations that bring value to our community.”

The outlet’s sources indicate the plan is for ad-supported games that draw from the library of its parent company, ByteDance, which could boost revenue and increase the amount of time people spend on the TikTok app — if that’s even possible.

Image: Zynga

Disco Loco 3D

TikTok has already tried at least one in-app mini-game, as it teamed up with Feeding America to make Garden of Good, a FarmVille-like...

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Android 13 beta will test out-of-the-box support for most braille displays

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In the coming weeks, Google will begin beta testing a feature for Android 13 that makes it easier for users of braille displays to get up and running. Google announced in a blog post on Thursday that the next Android 13 beta will include “out-of-the-box support” for braille displays. Braille displays are used to create pin patterns to touch-read on-screen text and also type in braille. The display allows people with deafblindness to use smartphones and people who are blind to silently use mobile phones without screen readers or voice commands.

Braille display support was already available on Android with Google’s screen reader Talkback, but now you won’t have to install another app first to access the feature. Braille display users will...

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Steam Deck rivals OneXPlayer, Aya, and GPD are planning their revenge with AMD’s 6800U

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The Steam Deck just spent five weeks at number one on Valve’s top seller list — on top of the five weeks it spent at number two. As one of the most affordable gaming PCs ever made, the $400-plus machine has clearly captured the attention of those who’d been waiting for a Switch-like portable gaming PC. But what of the companies that were already making Switch-like portable gaming PCs? They now have their chance at revenge.

That’s because all of the Steam Deck’s chief rivals — GPD, Aya, and OneXPlayer — have now confirmed they’re building handhelds around AMD’s Ryzen 6000U chips. And the 6800U, with its integrated Radeon 680M graphics, reportedly has the potential to squash the semi-custom Aerith SoC at the heart of the Steam Deck.

...

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The Department of Energy to dole out $3.5 billion for carbon removal hubs

Intake fans on collector containers at the ‘Orca’ direct air capture and storage facility, operated by Climeworks AG, in Hellisheidi, Iceland, on Tuesday, Sept. 7, 2021. | Arnaldur Halldorsson/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Department of Energy (DOE) just launched a new $3.5 billion program to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it away. The program focuses on developing four “hubs” across the country focused on direct air capture, the technology that draws CO2 out of the air.

Each of the hubs is ultimately supposed to be able to capture and store at least a million metric tons of CO2. That’s a massive endeavor. Currently, all the direct air capture facilities in the world only have the capacity to capture about 0.01 million metric tons of CO2.

Today, the DOE filed a Notice of Intent — a kind of official “heads-up” — that says that they’ll be making a funding announcement related to those hubs “in the fourth quarter of Fiscal Year...

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F-150 Lightning owners can’t use their phones as keys until ‘late summer’

The feature is available on the Mach-E. | Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

Anyone lucky enough to get an F-150 Lightning in the next few months will find that one of the features they may have opted for is missing: the ability to unlock and control the electric truck using a phone. According to screenshots of Special Service Message notices and in-app messages posted to the Lightning Owners’ Forum, Ford will be rolling out support for its Phone as a Key system in “late summer 2022” via a software update instead of shipping it with the truck at launch.

Ford’s Phone as a Key system lets you use its FordPass app to unlock and start your vehicle, as well as control various things like the windows, lights, and front trunk. What makes the delay slightly puzzling is that this isn’t new tech from Ford — the company...

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A new Daredevil series is reportedly coming to Disney Plus

Charlie Cox as Daredevil in Netflix’s Daredevil series. | Image: Disney Plus

The Defender who first headlined Netflix’s partnership with Marvel is coming back in a new Disney Plus series.

Variety reports that Matt Corman (The Brave, Deck the Halls) and Chris Ord (The Enemy Within) have signed on to write a new Daredevil series that could delve into what Matt Murdock was up to in the time after Netflix’s Daredevil show came to an end in 2018. The news comes in the wake of Charlie Cox reprising his role as Daredevil in Spider-Man: No Way Home and all of Netflix’s Marvel shows migrating over to Disney Plus earlier this year. While there’s currently no word on whether this new series will directly address the events of the Netflix series, it stands to reason that it would given Vincent D’Onofrio’s reprisal of his...

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Netflix’s new ‘mystery box’ is like a kids-focused version of the shuffle button

What show is in the box? | Image: Netflix

Netflix is introducing a new “mystery box” feature that’s intended to help kids discover new shows. Basically, it sounds like a kids-themed take on Netflix’s “Play Something” button, and it seems to take inspiration from the very popular trend of unwrapping toys.

On “TVs around the world,” Netflix will add a sparkly icon with a question mark in the favorites row of a kid’s profile, according to a blog post about the feature. “Hover over the sparkly ‘mystery box’ to discover a title that is ‘new for you’! And voila, it’s showtime,” TJ Marston, Netflix’s director of product innovation for kids and family, said in the post.

Netflix has steadily been investing in the version of its service for kids with things like a profile redesign, the T...

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Skullcandy’s new Mod earbuds offer cheap multipoint Bluetooth support

Skullcandy’s new Mod earbuds are some of the cheapest to include multipoint Bluetooth connectivity. | Image: Skullcandy

Skullcandy is continuing its trend of inexpensive, feature-rich earbuds with its latest offering, the Mod earbuds. All of the standard fare is present here with IP55 weatherproofing and USB-C charging. The Mods also manage to pack in multipoint Bluetooth connectivity, which, as the name might suggest, lets you connect and listen to multiple devices at the same time. This isn’t a new feature to earbuds in general, but when those earbuds only cost $60, it's definitely worthy of attention.

You can have them in any color as long as it’s black.

Wireless earbuds have become the standard for answering calls, jamming out, or accessing voice assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, which is why it's so common to...

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Sony shows off God of War Ragnarok’s accessibility features

Santa Monica Studio

In celebration of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Santa Monica Studio is showing off a bunch of the new accessibility features for God of War Ragnarok, including a new audio descriptive version of the game’s announcement trailer.

All of the accessibility options from God of War have been brought forward, and new features have been added to Ragnarok, resulting in over 60 adjustable settings. A selection of the features described includes auto sprint, subtitle / caption size and color, as well as a high contrast mode that’ll make characters more visible against backgrounds. There’s also a neat feature that’ll sound audio cues whenever an interactable object is nearby. In God of War, there were several times when it was not obvious...

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How to check which version of Chrome OS you’re running

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

I once picked up a Chromebook that hadn’t been used for a while in order to try out what was then a relatively new Chrome OS feature: virtual desktops. But when I hit the key that was supposed to bring those desktops up on my screen, I didn’t see anything. I did some checking around, and I found that the feature was expected to be available as of version 77 of Chrome OS — several iterations after the version I was running.

While Chromebooks pretty much run on their own, and you can usually ignore which version of the operating system your device is running, you may want to have that information available just in case you do need it. All you have to do is follow these steps:

• Click on the clock in the lower right corner of your screen.
• S...

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Apple’s board of directors reportedly tried out its upcoming AR / VR headset

It may not come in time for WWDC, though. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple showed a mixed reality headset capable of both augmented and virtual reality to its board of directors last week and has engineers hard at work on an operating system for the device, according to a report from Bloomberg. The story notes that while this doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see a headset announced at WWDC next month, it may indicate that an announcement is drawing closer.

Bloomberg says there’s historical precedent for the board seeing devices shortly before an announcement. Apple’s board reportedly got an early demo of Siri in 2011.

It also makes sense that Apple wouldn’t want to go all in on software development until the hardware is close to completion, so it knows what features and software to build. To that point, B...

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Pebble founder: it’s your ‘last chance’ to make a small Android phone happen

Eric Migicovsky’s dream: an iPhone Mini but with Android. | Image: Eric Migicovsky

Eric Migicovsky, who founded and helmed the Pebble smartwatch company and who’s working on a chat app that will bring iMessage to Android, has a new quest: getting someone, anyone, to make an Android phone you can actually use in one hand. He wants to, as he put it in an interview with The Verge, “unionize” a community of small phone lovers to get sway with phone manufacturers and suppliers.

To do that, he’s built a site — smallandroidphone.com — that explains his dream phone. Basically, he wants a flagship that’s the size and shape of the iPhone Mini but running stock Android. The site argues that small phones are good, actually, and it asks like-minded people to essentially sign a petition. Migicovsky says he’s looking for 50,000 or...

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Epic’s Mega Sale offers a 25 percent off coupon and four weeks of free games

The latest video game sales event for Epic substitutes a flat discount for 25 percent off. | Image: Epic Games

Epic is starting up another sales promotion for PC games available through its Epic Games Store. The Epic Mega Sale runs from today until June 16th at 11AM ET / 8AM PT and encompasses an unlimited-use 25 percent off digital coupon. This coupon stacks on top of ongoing sale prices, though you can’t use it on titles priced below $14.99. Epic is also releasing four free mystery games each Thursday during the promotional period, the first of which is Borderlands 3.

If you’ve seen or participated in previous sales events on the Epic Games Store, this may feel very familiar. A notable departure from those deals is that the coupon now offers a 25 percent discount, where it had previously provided a flat $10 off. With that change, this new Mega...

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OnePlus Nord Buds review: very affordable, perfectly capable

These budget earbuds don’t disappoint for their under $40 price

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The Verge’s 2022 Graduation Gift Guide

Illustration by Carolina Moscoso / The Verge

Congratulate your graduate with one of these great gifts

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Justice Department pledges not to charge security researchers with hacking crimes

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The US Department of Justice says it won’t subject “good-faith security research” to charges under anti-hacking laws, acknowledging long-standing concerns around the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). Prosecutors must also avoid charging people for simply violating a website’s terms of service — including minor rule-breaking like embellishing a dating profile — or using a work-related computer for personal tasks.

The new DOJ policy attempts to allay fears about the CFAA’s broad and ambiguous scope following a 2021 Supreme Court ruling that encouraged reading the law more narrowly. The ruling warned that government prosecutors’ earlier interpretation risked criminalizing a “breathtaking amount of commonplace computer activity,” laying...

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Marvel Snap is a speedy digital card game from former Hearthstone developers

Second Dinner

Hot off the heels of Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness comes a new game from Marvel Entertainment that offers the same flavor of throwing everybody from everywhere in a big ole pot, shaking, and seeing what kind of shenanigans come out.

Marvel Snap is a new collectible card game that its creators claim has some of the fastest gameplay in the CCG space. According to the announcement video, matches only last about three minutes, and players take their turns simultaneously so there’s no waiting for your opponent to just finally figure out they have lethal and kill you already.

Marvel Snap matches seem to be based around arranging cards under one of three areas on the board in order to take control of them. The player who takes...

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Twitter will hide tweets that share false info during a crisis

Illustration by Alex Castro

On Thursday, Twitter announced a new policy for dealing with misinformation during a period of crisis, establishing new standards for gating or blocking the promotion of certain tweets if they are seen as spreading misinformation.

“Content moderation is more than just leaving up or taking down content,” explained Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, in a blog post detailing the new policy, “and we’ve expanded the range of actions we may take to ensure they’re proportionate to the severity of the potential harm.”

The new policy puts particular scrutiny on false reporting of events, false allegations involving weapons or use of force, or broader misinformation regarding atrocities or international response.

Hoax tweets and...

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The Umbrella Academy’s on a field trip to another reality in first season 3 trailer

Cazzie David as Jayme, Justin H. Min as Ben Hargreeves, Christopher, and Jake Epstein as Alphonso. | Netflix

The Umbrella Academy’s second season followed the Hargreeves siblings into the not too distant past where they narrowly managed to prevent a doomsday scenario that would have turned the future into yet another apocalypse. Though the siblings believed they’d put everything right enough as they returned to their own time, The Umbrella Academy’s first season 3 trailer illustrates just how wrong they were.

It’s unclear what about the Hargreeves’ actions in the past led to their timelines splitting and made it possible for them to travel into an alternate, unfamiliar reality where the Umbrella Academy was never founded by their adoptive father Sir Reginald (Colm Feore). Rather than the Umbrella Academy of their youths, Luther (Tom Hopper),...

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Save $20 on several Pokémon games for Nintendo Switch

If you’re a Pokémon fan, loading up on some of the more recent titles for the Nintendo Switch doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Sadly, Pokémon Legends Arceus isn’t looped into this $20 off deal (although it is $10 off at Amazon), but these other games should help you get your gotta-catch-em-all fix for less. Best Buy and Amazon are each discounting Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl (the remakes of Diamond and Pearl, originally released for the Nintendo DS in 2006) for $39.99 each.

The biggest upgrade to these games is the full 3D treatment, though it plays a lot like those original titles. For people who don’t like to grind XP to level up each pokémon individually, you may be happy to know that these remakes have EXP share,...

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