Players tries to skewer esports with an awkward mix of humor and drama

A photo from Players_._ | Image: CBS Studios

The entire time I watched Players, a new Paramount Plus show about competitive League of Legends, I kept feeling like something was just a little off.

Players is a mockumentary about Fugitive Gaming, a fictional team that’s a member of the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), the North American wing of professional League of Legends esports. Much of the show revolves around the relationship between Creamcheese (Misha Brooks),a brash veteran who has been a star of the team since its founding, and Organizm (Da’Jour Jones), an inscrutable rookie who promises to be one of the best-ever players. (American Vandal creators Tony Yacenda and Dan Perrault are the minds behind Players.)

You may have watched a lot of sports stories...

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FuboTV now integrates gambling into live sporting events

Alex Castro/The Verge

FuboTV will soon let you place bets on live sports. Some users will get to make wagers using real cash, while everyone can participate in free contests.

Starting June 19th, all FuboTV users will be able to predict the outcome of live games. Before select games start, users will be able to choose which team they think will win. This will earn them points — not actual cash — that’ll give them a place on a leaderboard, letting them compete against friends and other FuboTV users. FuboTV calls this game Perfect Pick’ems and says it plans on launching other competitions in the future.

But users in Iowa and Arizona can place bets on winning teams for real cash. If a user thinks they chose the winning pick, they can scan a QR code that appears...

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Asus’ entry-level ROG Zephyrus G14 is the one to buy

It’s light on weight and light on price

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Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Google and others agree to new EU rules to fight disinformation

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Tech companies operating some of the world’s biggest online platforms — including Facebook-owner Meta, Microsoft, Google, Twitter, Twitch, and TikTok — have signed up to a new EU rulebook for tackling online disinformation.

These firms and others will have to make greater efforts to halt the spread of fake news and propaganda on their platforms, as well as share more granular data on their work with EU member states. Announcing its new “Code of Practice on disinformation,” the European Commission said that the guidelines had been shaped particularly by “lessons learnt from the COVID19 crisis and Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.”

The code has been shaped by COVID misinformation and Russian propaganda

“This new anti-disinformation...

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Camo update lets you overlay graphics and text when using your phone as a webcam

Camo, an app that lets you use an iOS, Android, or iPadOS device as a webcam for your computer, is introducing a new feature that could be very interesting for streamers and those who take every Zoom meeting very seriously. The app now includes the ability to create overlays and add them to your video stream, letting you include info such as your social media handles or name and pronouns anywhere your video appears.

Camo’s adding overlays at a very interesting time — Apple just announced a feature called Continuity Camera, which will also let you use your iPhone as a webcam for your Mac without having to install any extra software.

Reincubate, the company behind Camo, says that the feature is a part of Thursday’s 1.7 update. Using the...

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Tesla raises prices, again

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla has raised the prices of select Model 3, Model Y, Model X, and Model S vehicles, Electrek reports. The largest price increase affects the Model X Dual Motor All-Wheel Drive version, which saw a $6,000 increase from $114,990 to $120,990, while the Model S Dual Motor All-Wheel Drive configuration increased by $5,000 from $99,990 to $104,990. Tesla’s most affordable car, the Model 3, was spared from the most severe increases.

One version of the Model 3 is seeing an increase, however. The Long Range version of the Model 3 increased in price by $2,500 from $54,490 to $57,990. However the price of the most affordable Model 3 version sold online, the Rear-Wheel Drive model, is staying the same at $46,990. That was the price it rose to...

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This PC orchestra, built from 512 floppy disk drives, is wondrous to hear and behold

When I was a kid growing up in rural Yorkshire, one of the regular attractions at local fairs was a huge steam-powered organ: a baroque monstrosity of pipes, horns, and whistles that would parp out classical tunes to the delight of onlookers. I don’t know if steam organs are still a thing, but if they’ve been retired then I have the perfect replacement: the Floppotron — a mammoth “PC hardware orchestra” that plays music using only electric motors.

Like a fairground organ, the Floppotron is unwieldy, massive, musically unsubtle, and a complete joy to behold. It’s the work of Polish engineer Paweł Zadrożniak, who’s been building various iterations of the instrument since 2011. The first Floppotron consisted of just a pair of floppy drives p...

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Samsung Wallet is back to organize your ID, keys, and crypto

Samsung’s new Wallet will keep payment cards, car keys, and cryptocurrency accounts in one place. | Image: Samsung

First, there was Samsung Wallet. Then it became Samsung Pay. Now, because time is a flat circle, Samsung is bringing the Wallet app back — basically, bringing a lot of existing Samsung services into one app. And this time, there’s crypto!

The new Samsung Wallet is available today, and it will take the place of the current Pay and Pass apps, which currently handle payment cards and passwords, respectively. It also integrates with SmartThings to store certain digital home and car keys.

And, of course, the new Samsung Wallet integrates with the existing Samsung Blockchain Wallet app, so you can easily check the value of your cryptocurrency portfolio. Or maybe don’t. Samsung also plans to add some features it teased at its Unpacked event...

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Amazon Prime Day 2022 will take place on July 12th and 13th

Amazon has held the annual event for Prime members since 2015. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon’s annual shopping event, Amazon Prime Day, will officially kick off at 3AM ET on Tuesday, July 12th, and run through Wednesday, July 13th, the company announced today. We knew it was going to be July, thanks to a prior earnings call, but now Amazon Prime subscribers know when to set their clocks for.

This year’s Prime Day is a few weeks later than it occurred last year, but it’s maintaining its summer timing, as opposed to during the height of the pandemic in 2020 when Amazon delayed the event until October. And if you’re in the market for toys, tech, home goods, or pretty much anything else, it may be one of the best times to save money outside of the Black Friday / Cyber Monday holiday shopping season. It’s almost a guarantee...

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SwitchBot’s retrofit smart door lock installs in under a minute

SwitchBot’s new smart door lock takes a unique approach to unlocking your door. | Image: SwitchBot

SwitchBot, the company that makes tiny robotic fingers to press your switches for you, is branching further into the smart home. The new SwitchBot Lock ($99.99) sticks to your door and turns the thumb turn automatically to lock and unlock it. This is the simplest retrofit smart lock solution I’ve ever seen. SwitchBot says it can be installed in seconds since there’s no need to remove any part of your existing door lock. But it does look a bit odd.

The SwitchBot Lock will be available starting June 20th at Amazon and the SwitchBot store along with two compatible keypads — the SwitchBot KeyPad ($29.99) and the SwitchBot KeyPad Touch with a fingerprint reader ($59.99).

Image: SwitchBot

There are two versions of the...

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Here are some last-minute Father’s Day gifts that should arrive on time

The Sonos Roam, a small speaker with plenty of sound, is on sale for $143.20 at Best Buy. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Panicking because Father’s Day is just around the corner and you have yet to pick up your dad something special? Fret not because we’ve got your back. We did a bit of digging and found a variety of excellent gadgets Dad will love, all of which you can still order today and receive in time for Father’s Day. You don’t necessarily need to be an Amazon Prime member to receive some of these in time for the holiday either, nor do you need to pay extra for expedited shipping at places like Best Buy, Target, or Walmart.

Also, if you still can’t decide what to buy after looking through our list, be sure to check out our Father’s Day 2022 gift guide. And if you really can’t make up your mind and end up leaving things until the last minute, we’ve...

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Boring Company receives approval for expanding its tunnels to downtown Las Vegas

Image: The Boring Company

Elon Musk’s Boring Company has received unanimous approval to expand its system of tunnels beneath downtown Las Vegas. The expansion will add stops at landmarks like the Stratosphere and Fremont Street, letting customers hop aboard a Tesla and travel from one part of the city to the next.

The network of tunnels, called the Vegas Loop, is supposed to span 29 miles and have 51 stops when finished. But for now, only 1.7-mile tunnels are operational beneath the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), turning what would be a 25-minute walk across the convention center into a two-minute ride. The system uses human-controlled Model X and Y vehicles to transport passengers, despite Musk’s previous statements about using sleds to carry cars through...

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YouTube Music leapfrogs Spotify Wrapped with new seasonal recap playlists

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube is introducing new seasonal recaps of your top artists, songs, albums, and playlists to YouTube Music, starting first with the Spring Recap. YouTube rolled out a Spotify Wrapped-style annual recap at the end of last year, but now YouTube owner Google is taking the concept further with seasonal rundowns.

“Similar to the 2021 Recap, you’ll find your personalized content in the Spring Recap landing page on the YouTube Music app along with your personalized Spring Recap playlist,” YouTube product manager Ayshaw Khan wrote in a blog post. “Want to tell your friends about your favorite songs of the Spring? Easily share your Spring Recap playlist and stats by simply tapping the arrow at the bottom of your stats card.”

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The Kraken crypto exchange is hiring — as long as employees don’t call things racist

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

With the price of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and almost every other cryptocurrency tumbling dramatically, major crypto companies like Coinbase and Crypto.com have laid off hundreds of workers in the past few days alone. But one company is on a hiring spree — just not for employees who will call out racism, transphobia, or label other kinds of workplace behavior toxic.

The Kraken cryptocurrency exchange, ranked in the top five globally by trade volume, announced in a blog post Wednesday that it was hiring more than 500 new staff, as long as they fit with the company’s vision of a “crypto-first culture.” Another document linked in the post outlines the fundamentals of that culture divided into sub-sections that summarize a particular vision of...

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Verizon’s cheapest unlimited plan will soon include some mobile hotspot data

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Verizon is tossing a nice upgrade to subscribers of its lower-cost 5G Start unlimited plan: beginning June 16th, the plan will include 5GB of premium mobile hotspot data at no extra cost. Right now, the plan doesn’t offer hotspot data at all, and it’s the only Verizon unlimited plan to not have it. Verizon spokesperson Ashley Colette tells The Verge it will be added automatically, meaning 5G Start subscribers shouldn’t have to make any changes on their end to use the data.

You can check out all of Verizon’s unlimited plans on the company’s website. 5G Start is the most affordable at $35 per line for four lines, but you have to also sign up for paper-free billing and auto pay to get that rate. (If you have just one line, the plan costs...

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Here’s what happens when Sonos won’t stop sending you speakers

Sonos speakers pile up inside a customer’s apartment.

A couple of days ago, The Verge reported on a strange glitch that caused Sonos to ship customers more items than what they ordered — and charge extra on top of that. While most customers received anywhere from two to six extra speakers, we were recently contacted by a customer who has had a much more extreme experience.

As a quick recap, all of this emerged after two users contacted The Verge about this issue earlier this week and pointed us to a Reddit thread with users who had the same (or similar) experiences of ordering one or two speakers and receiving several in return. In an email sent to customers (which you can read in full in our previous report linked above), Sonos attributed the problem to a system update resulting in “some...

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The Callisto Protocol’s director on his return to horror: ‘I don’t know what too scary is’

The Callisto Protocol. | Image: Striking Distance Studios

Glen Schofield talks about his next terror-filled sci-fi game

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Spotify will reduce hiring by 25 percent

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Spotify is reducing its new hiring by 25 percent as recession fears mount, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg. It is unclear which parts of the business will be most affected.

Spotify is far from the only tech company to reevaluate its staffing as the stock market tumbles. Twitter and Meta each announced some degree of hiring freeze last month, and Netflix made headlines in April for its layoffs, particularly at in-house fan site Tudum.

During Spotify’s investor presentation last week, CEO Daniel Ek emphasized the company’s growth not only in subscriptions but in verticals beyond music like podcasting and, soon, audiobooks. But chief financial officer Paul Vogel did hint at the event that staffing could be affected by...

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How to preorder the new 13-inch MacBook Pro

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro uses Apple's M2 CPU, and you can preorder it later this week. | Image: Apple

Perhaps one of the more unexpected announcements from Apple’s WWDC event last week was the unveiling of a new 13-inch MacBook Pro that will be equipped with Apple’s new M2 processor. While it was initially hinted by Apple that the new MacBook would become available in July, we now know that you can preorder the new laptop starting this Friday, June 17th, with deliveries and in-store availability beginning on June 24th.

Currently, you can only preorder configurations of the new 13-inch MacBook through the Apple storefront or through a small handful of authorized resellers that we’ll list on this page as more retailers make preorders available.

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro will be available in several configurations in either silver or...

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Don’t wait to install the June Windows update — it fixes a major security bug

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Microsoft has patched a Windows vulnerability that hackers are actively exploiting. If you own a system that uses Windows 7 and up, you’ll want to update your computer as soon as possible (via Bleeping Computer).

The security flaw, called Follina (CVE-2022-30190) by researchers, lets bad actors hijack users’ computers through programs like Microsoft Word. Security researchers have been aware of the threat since late May, but Microsoft reportedly dismissed their initial findings.

In an attack documented by security company Proofpoint, hackers associated with the Chinese government sent malicious Word documents to Tibetan recipients. When opened, these documents use the Follina exploit to take control of the Microsoft Support Diagnostic...

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Warren proposes sweeping ban on location and health data sales

Photo by Elizabeth Frantz-Pool/Getty Images

As the Supreme Court’s expected decision to overturn Roe v. Wade looms over Washington, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has announced sweeping legislation to ban the sale of location and health data.

Warren’s Health and Location Protection Act — cosponsored by a slate of Democratic senators, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) — would bar “data brokers from selling or transferring location data and health data.” There are few limitations, making the bill one of the most strident proposals aimed at regulating data sales.

“Data brokers profit from the location data of millions of people, posing serious risks to Americans everywhere by selling their most private information,” Warren said in a statement on Wednesday....

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Facebook is changing its algorithm to take on TikTok, leaked memo reveals

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

TikTok redefined the idea of a social media feed — can Facebook play catch-up before it’s too late?

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Sony’s new Bits update can turn boring game captures into works of art

Sony has released a cool update for its free Share Factory Studio photo and video editing app on PS5 that lets you easily overlay doodles, visual filters, and more onto your saved gameplay captures called Bits. This update is meant to make it easy for beginners to share a video that has some more personality and context. But it seems to go pretty deep, offering a range of customizable effects, including filters, text, sound effects, music, voiceover, doodles, and other visual effects like stickers and camera effects.

Once you save your creation to your console’s storage, you can upload it to Twitter or YouTube straight from the PS5. Or, if you have the PlayStation app on your phone or tablet, these Bits can show up in the Game Captures...

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The best entertainment of 2022

Stranger Things 4. | Image: Netflix

We all know the feeling: you sit down in front of the TV, exhausted after a long day, only to become absolutely paralyzed by choice. There’s so much to watch and play that settling on one single thing to do can be a challenge. So we’re here to make your evenings a little less stressful. Throughout 2022 this page will be regularly updated with all of our favorite entertainment experiences — everything from the latest hit on Netflix to that open-world game people can’t stop talking about — to make those moments of choice that much easier. If you see a show, game, or movie in this collection, know that it’s an experience we fully recommend.

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The Umbrella Academy’s excellent third season is an apocalyptic transition of power

Image: Netflix

The Umbrella Academy’s third season is its best yet

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Neon White turns you into a demon-hunting speedrunner

Neon White. | Image: Annapurna Interactive

Neon White had me straining my neck with every seemingly out of reach jump — and I couldn’t get enough. Developed by Angel Matrix, a small team led by Donut County designer Ben Esposito, Neon White combines thrilling parkour action, a late ‘90s Quake-style aesthetic, and a bonkers story that’s kind of like if The Purge were set in the afterlife. It’s like speedrunning your way through heaven while making detours to learn more about angels and demons. It’s a seemingly odd combo, but it works very, very well.

The premise of Neon White is actually somewhat straightforward at its core. Every so often, for a span of 10 days, God invites some of the denizens of hell up to heaven so they can help eradicate the demon population. Whoever racks up...

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The company behind PUBG shows off its ‘hyper-realistic’ virtual human

Image: Krafton

Krafton is best-known for games like PUBG and the upcoming Callisto Protocol — but today, it’s showing off something very different. The company is teasing a “virtual human” named Ana, which it says will “help establish” its Web3 ecosystem. The character was built using Unreal Engine — which itself has a tool specifically for realistic digital people — along with what Krafton describes as “hyperrealism, rigging, and deep learning.”

It’s not clear exactly how Ana will fit into the loosely defined vision of a metaverse or Web3, though Krafton has flirted with NFTs and the blockchain in the past. In the meantime, it sounds like its realistic virtual human will instead attempt to become something of a celebrity. “We expect her to attract the...

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Elden Ring and many other games are buy two, get one free at Amazon and Target

Elden Ring_’s Abductor Virgins are slightly less painful when you save money on the game._ | Image: Bandai Namco

The week is nearly half over, but the deals are already vast. If you have time this summer to sink your teeth into some meaty video games or tabletop games, we’ve got just the right discount for you to check out. Amazon and Target are both running a buy two, get one free sale from now until Saturday, June 18th. It’s another mix and match-style promotion, where you buy two video games, board games, movies, or even some toys and get a third of equal or lesser value for free.

The current promo is a great opportunity to stock up on some excellent games that came out this year, like Elden Ring or the recently released Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and you can even throw in a modern classic you might have missed, like Sekiro: Shadows Die...

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Peloton rival Tonal is adding a New York studio to win the fitness content race

Tonal’s equipment sells for roughly $3,000 but also requires a $49 monthly membership. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

While hardware is a big part of connected fitness, so are the classes. The highly produced sessions led by engaging instructors can make — or break — a product, especially if there isn’t enough of a library to justify a device’s subscription. On that front, Tonal announced today that it’s opening a New York studio to expand its live class offerings and adding five new coaches to its lineup.

Tonal is one of the major players in the connected fitness industry with a valuation of roughly $1.6 billion. Its $3,000 strength training system is backed by several professional athletes, including Maria Sharapova, Mike Tyson, and Drew Brees. But when The Verge initially reviewed the device in 2020, the classes were underwhelming. There was no live...

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Nreal is adding Steam streaming to its AR glasses

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Chinese augmented reality company Nreal is launching a Steam beta on its Nreal Light and Nreal Air AR glasses, letting users stream games from a PC to a virtual big screen. The company says its beta will go live at the end of June, coinciding loosely with a June 27th hackathon designed to attract AR developers with $100,000 in cash prizes. The move could expand Nreal’s software ecosystem and offer more to do in a pair of surprisingly good — but still limited — early AR glasses.

Nreal suggests the Steam beta could be finicky, admitting in a press release that it “requires a bit of setup effort and is not optimized for all Steam games.” It will join the option to stream Xbox Cloud Gaming titles through Nreal’s Nebula platform as well as a...

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