Microsoft has accidentally released Windows 11 for unsupported PCs

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft released the final version of its next big Windows 11 update (22H2) to Release Preview testers on Tuesday, and accidentally made it available to PCs that aren’t officially supported. Oops.

Twitter and Reddit users (via WindowsLatest) were quick to spot the mistake, with hundreds of Windows Insiders able to upgrade their Windows 10 machines on older CPUs. Microsoft has strict minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11, leaving millions of PCs behind, so the mistake will once again highlight the company’s controversial upgrade policy.

Image: AceRimmer412 (Reddit)

An unsupported PC gets offered Windows 11.

Windows 11 officially requires Intel 8th Gen Coffee Lake or Zen 2 CPUs and up, with very few...

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iOS 16 lets you transfer an eSIM to a new iPhone over Bluetooth

Apple is adding an easy method to swap your eSIM to a new iPhone in the upcoming iOS 16 release. Twitter user Carson Waldrop has spotted (via MacRumors) that iOS 16 supports transferring eSIM cards from an existing iPhone to a new one using Bluetooth. The switch looks effortless, allowing you to easily transfer your phone number when you buy a new iPhone.

Currently in iOS if you purchase a new iPhone and you use an eSIM you have to contact your carrier to get the eSIM reissued. While some carriers make this effortless through QR codes in their mobile apps, others force you to go to a store to transfer an eSIM. Apple’s new eSIM swap support in iOS 16 looks like it will remove some of these headaches, but MacRumors points out that it’s...

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Google Maps now helps you find fresh air

Google integrates hyperlocal data from PurpleAir’s network of sensors. | Screengrab by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Google Maps on both iOS and Android has a new Air Quality layer that can be useful when planning your next hike or bike ride in good times, or to plan your escape from smog and smoke in bad.

The new layer displays an Air Quality Index (AQI) overlay directly onto the map grid using government data gathered from agencies like the EPA in the US to show how healthy the air is in general. Better yet, it also presents data collected from PurpleAir’s network of sensors to report hyperlocal conditions at the street level. Clicking on the AQI readings dotted around Google Maps provides more information on the health impact of the air quality, time and source of the last reading, and links to learn more.

PurpleAir’s relatively low-cost sensors...

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TikTok can now help stop your infinite scrolling

The app lets you “schedule a break” after a set period of time. | Image: TikTok

TikTok is adding a series of new features that are designed to stop you from disappearing inside its infinite feed of addictive short-form videos, the service has announced. A new tool will show a reminder after using the app for a prolonged, user-defined period of time, adding a new safeguard to existing daily limits. Teenage users (between the ages of 13 and 17) will be prompted to use the screen time limiting tool if they spend over 100 minutes in the app in a single day.

TikTok is also adding a new screen time dashboard that shows a summary of app usage. Statistics include the amount of time the app has been opened, a breakdown of daytime and nighttime usage, and an overall counter for the amount of time spent in the app daily.

...

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More DC fast charging, no app sign-ups under White House’s new EV charging rules

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

The Biden administration is revealing a new set of standards to help accelerate the installation of 500,000 electric vehicle chargers across the US by 2030.

The new standards give states guidelines on awarding contracts for EV charging projects, directing the companies who get them to build chargers that are convenient, affordable, and accessible to the broadest number of people. And they outline the types of projects that won’t receive federal money, including proprietary charging stations that can only be accessed by one company’s vehicles, like Tesla’s Supercharger network.

The new standards come as much of President Joe Biden’s climate change fighting agenda remains stalled in Congress. The president was able to secure $5 billion in...

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Meta reportedly shelves plans for dual-camera smartwatch

Images of the prototype device published by Bloomberg. | Image: Bloomberg

Meta has halted development of a smartwatch with two built-in cameras, Bloomberg reports. The device — codenamed “Milan” — had reportedly been planned for release in spring 2023 at a price of around $349. Technical issues, as well as general cost-cutting at Meta, are reportedly to blame for the cancellation. The existence of the watch had previously been reported by The Verge last year.

Most smartwatches, including the Apple Watch, currently don’t feature any cameras at all, so Meta had hoped that the presence of not one but two cameras could have differentiated its wearable in a competitive market. The first would have been a 5-megapixel front-facing camera contained within a small display notch for use with video calls, while a...

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The Vivaldi browser launches a free built-in email client that integrates its Calendar and Feed Reader

A glimpse into the new Vivaldi Mail 1.0. | Image: Vivaldi

Vivaldi has launched its own free built-in email client, Mail 1.0, with Vivaldi's Calendar and Feed Reader integrated.

Mail 1.0 also grants users the option to add multiple email accounts, including Google and existing calendar services. As a result, users should be able to organize their emails and manage schedules, to-do lists, feeds, and more without leaving their browser.

The new email client is similar to Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, with messages that are searchable and organized into multiple folders or views. Yet Vivaldi also offers a few slightly more unique ways to customize and manage emails, calendars, and feeds.

Image: Vivaldi

There are toggle buttons you can turn on and off and a search bar at the...

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Watch the first trailer for the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. | Image: Netflix

With all of the drama surrounding Cyberpunk 2077’s initial launch, it would be easy to forget that there’s another exciting project on the way: an anime spinoff from famed studio Trigger. (That’s the same team behind projects like Promare, Little Witch Academia, and Kill la Kill.) The Netflix series was first announced back in 2020, and now we finally have the first trailer for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. It’s hard to tell precisely what is going on in the one-minute-long clip, but it sure looks incredible.

If you’re curious about the actual premise, here it is:

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners tells a standalone, 10-episode story about a street kid trying to survive in a technology- and body-modification-obsessed city of the future. Having everything...

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Entergalactic’s first trailer shows off a trippy musical ride

Entergalactic. | Image: Netflix

The first-look trailer for Entergalactic — a musical animated series from Kid Cudi and Black-ish creator Kenya Barris — is brief, but it’s bursting with style and life. The series follows a young artist named Jabari (voiced by Cudi) and has a slick visual style that’s almost like a cross between Arcane and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Netflix also revealed today that the series has quite the cast of voice actors. Joining Cudi are Jessica Williams, Timothée Chalamet, Ty Dolla $ign, Laura Harrier, Vanessa Hudgens, Christopher Abbott, 070 Shake, Jaden Smith, Keith David, Teyana Taylor, Arturo Castro, and Macaulay Culkin. And the description of Chalamet’s character, Jimmy, sounds absolutely perfect:

Jimmy is Jabari’s best friend and......

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Apple’s kind of a bank now

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple’s going to handle the lending for its new buy now, pay later (BNPL) service, and doesn’t plan on shifting that responsibility to a financial service, according to reports from Bloomberg and CNBC. The company’s subsidiary, Apple Financing LLC, is reportedly licensed to provide lending services and will remain separate from Apple’s main business.

Apple announced its BNPL service, Pay Later, at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on Monday. The service will let users make a purchase through Apple Pay, and then pay back that amount in four equal installments over the course of six weeks with no interest.

It’s the first time Apple will take on financial responsibilities

This isn’t Apple’s first foray into finances, but, as...

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Kojima Productions asked a reporter to delete a leak about its new game

Image: Kojima Productions

After Tom Henderson of tryhardguides.com published an article reporting the existence of a new Hideo Kojima game in development under the title Overdose, he says Kojima Productions made contact, requesting he take it down (via Kotaku). Henderson declined. In conversation with Kotaku, Henderson said that the request came with an offer to work with him when they can share more, presumably once the game is ready to be officially announced.

Henderson’s report goes on to highlight details of the leaked footage he received from the game that apparently features Death Stranding actress Margaret Qualley. Henderson describes Qualley, who played the bespectacled Mama in Death Stranding, running through a dark hallway with a flashlight. There’s a...

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Meta names new head of engineering as current leader steps aside

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Another executive change is hitting Meta after the recently announced departures of COO Sheryl Sandberg and head of AI Jerome Pesenti.

David Mortenson, the company’s top engineering leader responsible for its data centers and core infrastructure, is stepping down from his role, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge. Santosh Janardhan, one of his direct reports and a current VP of engineering, will assume the role later this month. A spokesperson for Meta, Jon Carvill, confirmed the change.

“I’m incredibly proud of everything we’ve achieved over the past two years I’ve been supporting Infra,” says Mortenson in the memo, adding that the company “survived the biggest capacity crunch in the company’s history (at least in the...

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The EU’s new universal charger policy claims to tackle e-waste — will it?

Charging cables for different mobile phone models. | Photo by Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty Images

Slashing e-waste was a major driver in European Union lawmakers’ proposal yesterday to mandate a universal charger for mobile phones and other devices. But there are still a lot of other factors that have to come together for the measure to make a meaningful difference in the world’s e-waste problem.

Piled together, unused and discarded chargers add up to about 11,000 metric tons of e-waste in Europe annually, according to the European Parliament. They’re hoping to shrink that pile by eliminating the need for different chargers for different devices — so in just a couple years, most new mobile phones will likely need to come with a USB-C charging port to be sold in the EU. Making the switch to USB-C will ultimately help consumers save...

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NASA’s new powerful space telescope gets hit by larger than expected micrometeoroid

NASA’s new powerful space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, got pelted by a larger than expected micrometeoroid at the end of May, causing some detectable damage to one of the spacecraft’s 18 primary mirror segments. The impact means that the mission team will have to correct for the distortion created by the strike, but NASA says that the telescope is “still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements.”

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, is the agency’s incredibly powerful next-generation space telescope, designed to look into the farthest reaches of the Universe and see back in time to the stars and galaxies that formed just after the Big Bang. It cost NASA nearly $10 billion to build and more than...

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The ugly economics behind Apple’s new Pay Later system

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple is getting into the “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) business with its new Pay Later service built into Apple Pay and Apple Wallet. While Apple bills the service as “designed with users’ financial health in mind,” BNPL is a practice that has come under scrutiny by government regulators as something that could potentially harm customers.

Apple’s Pay Later service, which has been in the works since at least last year, lets users make a purchase with Apple Pay and then pay it back in four equal installments over the course of six weeks. There’s no interest on these installments, but it remains unclear if Apple will charge a late fee, and if so, how much it will cost.

On the surface, BNPL services seem harmless, as some come with no...

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eBay’s new vault facilitates digital trading of your non-fungible physical items

A rendering of a high-tech facility representing eBay’s new 31,000-square-foot vault facility that stores collectables. | Image: eBay

Consider dusting off your attic shoeboxes filled with baseball cards; eBay might have a new home for some of them soon. The pioneering online marketplace site built a new 31,000-square-foot facility, called the eBay Vault, which is open now to house graded trading cards that are valued at over $750 and, in the future, physical collectibles of all kinds.

The launch of the eBay Vault comes hot on the heels of its Authenticity Guarantee push, where it expanded from validating sneakers over $100 to partnering with Professional Sports Authenticator (PSA) to grade trading cards valued at over $2,000. eBay is so far only accepting trading cards purchased on their site that are already graded by a list of reputable organizations like PSA and...

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What the EU’s new USB-C rules mean for the iPhone

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

This week, European Union lawmakers agreed on new proposals to force manufacturers of everything from smartphones and headphones to digital cameras and tablets to use the same universal charging port: USB Type-C. The plan is for the new rules to come into effect by fall 2024, after which these devices that charge using a wired cable will need to do so via a built-in USB-C port.

The single biggest impact of this legislation is likely to land on Apple’s iPhone. While the rest of the smartphone industry has gradually converged around USB-C as a single, standardized wired charging port, Apple has steadfastly stuck with Lightning, the proprietary connector it introduced with the iPhone 5 way back in 2012. The EU’s legislation could finally...

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BioWare QA team unanimously votes to form a union

Mass Effect Legendary Edition is just one of the games the contractors have worked on.

A team of quality assurance (QA) contractors who work closely with BioWare, a studio owned by EA, has voted unanimously (16 to 0) to form a union. The workers are employed by the Edmonton, Canada-based branch of Keywords Studios, making them the country’s first union in the game industry.

Signs of unionization first emerged in April, with the contractors citing a requirement to return to work in the office — even when other full-time BioWare workers got the option to work from home — as one of the reasons behind their decision to organize. Keywords Studios has since reversed this policy and is giving all workers a hybrid work from home option. The workers also take issue with Keywords’ time off policy and pay, which reportedly starts at...

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Apple’s medication feature is a step in the right direction

Image: Apple

Apple isn’t inventing anything new with its medication tracking feature for iPhone and Apple Watch, which the company announced as part of watchOS 9 at WWDC 2022 this week. There are plenty of apps already on the market that give people alerts when they’re supposed to take their medications.

But trying to get people to take their drugs regularly is a major problem in healthcare, and around half of the people prescribed medications for chronic conditions don’t take them as instructed. That non-adherence costs the healthcare system hundreds of billions of dollars a year because people get sicker when they don’t take their meds properly. And even though the tool doesn’t have everything on experts’ wish lists for the ideal drug app, a tech...

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Someone turned Insteon’s lights back on

Insteon hubs are back online. | Image: Insteon

Last April, Smartlabs switched off its cloud servers, leaving users of its Insteon smart home system without app or voice control of their connected switches, plugs, thermostats, and other devices paired to its smart home hub. It happened overnight with no warning, and now, the same thing has happened in reverse: someone suddenly turned the switch back on.

As first reported by Stacey on IoT, numerous Insteon users across the country say that their hubs are up and working again today, with the Insteon app now functioning and voice control through services such as Amazon Alexa also working. Because Insteon devices used a proprietary wireless radio protocol, many Insteon users’ homes were able to continue running in some fashion. It was...

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Twitter will give Elon Musk ‘firehose’ data access to settle bot complaints

Photo by Michele Doying / The Verge

Twitter is preparing to grant Elon Musk unprecedented access to platform data in an effort to address his concerns about automated accounts, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. Citing a person familiar with the company’s thinking, the report says Twitter is preparing to give Musk access to the so-called “firehose” API that contains every tweet as it is posted.

In April, Musk legally committed to purchasing Twitter but has grown increasingly vocal about possible bot activity on the platform, in what some see as an effort to cancel or renegotiate the deal on more favorable terms.

“Mr. Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations”

In an SEC filing on Monday, the Tesla CEO accused Twitter of...

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Here’s your first look at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II

It’s no secret that Infinity Ward has been working on a sequel to 2019’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, and, now, the studio is finally unveiling its next blockbuster. It’s called Modern Warfare II, and it features both a single-player campaign that’s a direct sequel to the previous game as well as multiplayer including a new tactical co-op mode.

First, the campaign. Here’s how Infinity Ward describes the setup:

Modern Warfare ll picks up the action as the sequel to Modern Warfare (2019) as the newly formed Task Force 141 faces a massive global threat across a campaign of missions that push the boundaries of gameplay. The action takes players around the world as Task Force 141 works to neutralize a terrorist conspiracy and attack on the...

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Android 13 beta reaches platform stability two months earlier than Android 12

Android 13’s latest beta arrives today. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google announced Android 13’s third public beta today and says that it has reached platform stability. That’s an indicator that Google has locked in major updates, and from here until the final release, it’s all about putting on the finishing touches. It’s also reaching this milestone a full two months earlier than Android 12, which was a much more ambitious update that reached Android device owners with plenty of bugs intact.

Android 13’s first developer preview arrived in February, the first public beta came in April, and the second public beta came with a big I/O announcement in May. While Android 12 centered around introducing some major new customization options in the form of Material You, Android 13 is a smaller update that takes...

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Apple is coming for Garmin but it has a battery problem

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

At WWDC 2022, Apple announced it was adding a number of big fitness updates to watchOS 9. Most notably, that included a ton of new running metrics, as well as a new multisport mode for triathletes. As a runner and wearables reviewer, the presentation immediately made me think, “Holy guacamole, Apple is gunning for Garmin.”

Right now, smartwatches fall into one of two categories. First, you have full-featured flagship watches. These are the ones with not-so-great battery life, but the most advanced tech. They can call emergency services if you’re injured, have built-in voice assistants, control your smart home, have third-party apps, enable advanced health features like EKGs, and support cellular connectivity. The Apple watch obviously...

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Twitter is testing shopping reminders for upcoming product drops

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is testing a new shopping feature for previewing upcoming product releases. The feature, called Product Drops, allows brands to tease items before they go on sale, and customers can sign up to be reminded prior to the release through in-app notifications.

The company shared how reminders would work in a blog post today. When brands set up product drops, shoppers can sign up for alerts by clicking a “remind me” button. Product drop tweets act like other posts on Twitter and can be liked, retweeted, bookmarked, and shared. Users who opt in to get reminders will get a notification 15 minutes before the time of the release and at the set time of the drop. When it’s time to purchase and users click the notification, they’ll be...

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The best Nintendo Switch cases you can buy

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

The best ways to carry around a Switch in style

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GM offers more glimpses of the electric Cadillac Celestiq show car

General Motors released some more images of the Cadillac Celestiq show car, and as you can see, we’re still only getting the bare minimum here.

The Celestiq, which is expected to be the next all-electric luxury vehicle from Cadillac, “represents the purest expression of Cadillac design, technology and performance,” the automaker says. And here’s a picture of a door hinge to prove it!

GM first showed off the Celestiq to a handful of reporters at its EV Day event in early 2020, but it has yet to publicly release any images of the full vehicle. The ultra-luxury sedan is meant to serve as a companion to the Cadillac Lyriq, which just entered into production earlier this year.

Both vehicles will be built on...

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Apple’s tvOS looks destined for a slow year after little WWDC attention

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

More than six years after Apple’s Eddy Cue proclaimed that “the future of TV is apps,” Apple’s 2022 WWDC keynote came and went with barely any mention of tvOS — the software that runs on its Apple TV hardware. That quote from Cue came alongside the introduction of the Apple TV’s App Store back in 2015. But the dearth of WWDC news on tvOS suggests the platform isn’t exactly one of Apple’s top priorities at the moment.

tvOS has continued to steadily evolve in recent years, and the Apple TV 4K remains perhaps the best all-around option on the market. The user experience is intuitive, app performance is consistent and stable, and Apple doesn’t shove ads in your face like Roku and Amazon. And the Apple TV app has actually gotten fairly good...

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PayPal gets its full New York BitLicense, and now lets users transfer crypto to external wallets

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

PayPal has been granted a full BitLicense from the New York Department of Financial Services, the company announced in a press release. This makes PayPal the first company to trade in a conditional BitLicense for the real thing.

New York introduced its BitLicense in 2015 as a way to regulate businesses that provide customers with the ability to buy and sell cryptocurrency in the state. However, some crypto advocates criticized the policy, stating it could potentially make it harder for businesses to get involved in crypto. In 2020, New York launched a proposed conditional BitLicense in response, a supposedly more streamlined process for obtaining the documentation.

“The conditional license is now a proven framework for licensure”

C...

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Samsung’s latest Family Hub update turns your smart fridge into a TV

An update to Samsung’s Family Hub smart fridge brings an art mode and live TV through the Samsung TV Plus streaming service. | Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Samsung is releasing a new update for its Family Hub refrigerators that brings Samsung TV Plus — the tech giant’s free, ad-supported live TV service — to its fridges with a tablet built-in.

At its second annual Bespoke Home event on Tuesday, the company said the update (which was first announced last year) will arrive this July, with the live TV option only available in the U.S. and Korea. Currently, users of Samsung’s smart fridge can watch television on the fridge’s built-in touchscreen by mirroring a Samsung TV to the fridge or content from a Samsung smartphone. But without one of those devices, your fridge just had to be boring.

I have attempted to watch TV on a Family Hub and it’s not a great experience — it can only use a small...

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