Govee’s DreamView G1 Pro gaming lights are discounted for the first time

The Govee DreamView G1 Pro Gaming Light is on sale for $20 off when you buy it direct from Govee. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Want to add some fun colors to your gaming space? Right now, Govee is offering its first discount on its new DreamView G1 Pro gaming lights. The camera-powered, dynamic LED kit typically retails for $179.99, but Govee is selling it for $159.99 for a limited time. These lights can match the colors displayed on your monitor while gaming, which can help create a fun and immersive experience. They also come with four preset game-match modes that deliver various effects, like a racing mode that matches fast-moving colors by splitting up the light bar into smaller color segments and moving pulsing waves of colors up and down.

While these lights are also relatively easy to install, just note you’ll have to mount Govee’s camera to the top of...

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SteelSeries brings its adjustable mechanical switches to compact keyboards

The Apex Pro Mini Wireless. | Image: SteelSeries

The SteelSeries Apex Pro Mini and Apex Pro Mini Wireless are a pair of new compact mechanical keyboards that come with adjustable switches, a feature that’s made SteelSeries’ previous full-size 2019 Apex Pro one of the most capable gaming keyboards around. The Pro Mini costs $179.99 (€219.99), while the Pro Mini Wireless costs $239.99 (€279.99).

Both keyboards use SteelSeries’ new OmniPoint 2.0 switches, which are an upgraded version of the OmniPoint switches used in the original Apex Pro. Unlike traditional mechanical switches, which use metal contacts to register a keypress, these linear OmniPoint switches use magnetic hall effect sensors, meaning they can sense exactly how far a switch has been pressed.

Image:...

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Slack added video to Huddles so you don’t have to spend your life in Zoom meetings

Slack is upgrading its Huddles feature with video chat, multi-user screen sharing, and a per-huddle chat thread. The company announced the updates at its Frontiers conference, which for Slack is both a chance to unveil new products and to share its thoughts about the future of work. With Huddles, Slack’s vision is simple: people need more, richer ways to chat, but they don’t need more meetings.

Huddles originally launched a year ago, and they’ve worked for Slack precisely because they don’t feel like meetings. The company always imagined the feature, which you can use to have a quick audio call inside Slack, as more akin to walking over to someone’s desk rather than sending them a calendar invite. They were audio-only; you couldn’t...

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Fitbit is categorizing sleep with cartoon animals

Image: Fitbit

Fitbit is launching a new Sleep Profile feature for premium members that will categorize users as one of six animal characters, the company announced today. Users are grouped based on 10 sleep metrics — five of which are new to Fitbit.

The research team wanted to give people more information about how they sleep, says Karla Gleichauf, the senior research scientist at Google who led the research for the feature. “We were also influenced by some fun things, like game design or the Harry Potter quizzes about what house you’re in,” she says. “People love to be categorized. So, we said, ‘I think this is just really fun’ — it’s another kind of identity to people.”

For example: Fitbit co-founder James Park is a dolphin, Gleichauf says. People...

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Google will let LGBTQ-plus merchants tag their businesses in Maps

What better time for this announcement than Pride Month? | Image: Google

Google is adding a label to Maps that lets people identify their business as being LGBTQ-plus-owned, joining Yelp, which has a similar label. While Google Maps has had labels like LGBTQ-friendly and Transgender Safe Space for years, the company says that the new business identity attribute will help people who choose to support diverse businesses and could help queer people find nearby communities.

Just like with Google’s other labels for Black-owned, Latino-owned, veteran-owned, and women-owned businesses, the LGBTQ-plus-owned label has to be added by the verified owner of the business profile. (It’s not like other Maps metadata, which can be added by community members.) The labels can show up throughout the Google Maps interface, and...

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Apple MacBook Pro 13 (2022) review: new chip, old threads

Apple has put a 2022 CPU in a 2016 computer

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First non-Samsung Wear OS 3 smartwatch to come from Montblanc

The Summit 3 in black, bicolor, and silver. | Image: Montblanc

Montblanc could be the first manufacturer outside of Samsung to release a smartwatch running Wear OS 3, the latest version of Google’s wrist-worn operating system. Like its previous smartwatches, the Summit 3 launches with an eye-watering price tag, and its focus is more on being a fashion accessory than pushing the boundaries of what a smartwatch is capable of. It’ll cost €1,250 (around $1,314 USD) when it goes on sale globally on July 15th.

Wear OS 3 is the most significant update to Google’s smartwatch operating system in years, but it’s only currently available on a pair of Samsung smartwatches: the Galaxy Watch 4 and the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic, which released last year. That means we’re yet to experience the software without...

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Ikea’s new virtual design tool deletes your furniture and replaces it with Ikea’s

Virtual furniture can be placed in an image of your room. | Image: Ikea

Ikea is launching a new virtual design tool today that can make it easier to imagine how its furniture might look in your home. Ikea Kreativ’s Scene Scanner feature lets you scan a room using Ikea’s iOS app, erase your existing furniture, and then place virtual furniture in its place. If you don’t want to scan your own home, there are also over 50 virtual showrooms to place furniture in. Naturally, the process is designed to encourage you to order this furniture for real after browsing the virtual versions.

After playing around with a pre-release version of the Ikea Kreativ Scene Scanner app developed by Ingka Group (Ikea’s largest store franchisee), I can say that the new experience is potentially very useful, even if it’s a little...

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Brooke Minters Joins The Verge as Editorial Director for Audio; Alex Cranz Becomes Official Co-host of The Vergecast

Brooke Minters

Brooke Minters has joined The Verge as editorial director for audio, overseeing its podcast operation, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel today announced. In her new role, Minters will develop The Verge’s audio slate, launching new shows and working to grow existing shows, which include The Vergecast and Decoder with Nilay Patel. Minters began her role on June 21st. The Verge’s managing editor Alex Cranz will officially join The Verge’s decade-old flagship podcast The Vergecast as co-host; the show will also expand to two episodes a week, with the new Wednesday episode hosted by Verge editor-at-large David Pierce.

“We started The Vergecast before launching The Verge itself, and our dedicated fans have always been a key part of The Verge’s...

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Nothing’s Phone 1 isn’t coming to the US

The back of the Nothing Phone 1. | Image: Nothing

Nothing has confirmed that its debut smartphone, the Phone 1, won’t be getting a widespread release in the US or Canada, PCMag reports. Instead, a “limited number” of the devices will be distributed to community investors in the country as part of a “closed beta,” Nothing said in a statement. It added that it hopes to launch a US-supported smartphone in the future.

“While we’d love to bring Phone 1 to the entire community around the world, we’re focusing on home markets, including the UK and Europe, where we have strong partnerships with leading local carriers,” the company told PCMag in a statement. “It takes a lot to launch a smartphone as you know, from ensuring the handset is supported by the country’s cellular technologies to...

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Twitter makes it easier for your profile page to advertise what you’re selling

Image: Twitter

Twitter is partnering with Shopify on an integration that will keep a seller’s Twitter profile page updated with direct links to the products they have for sale. Shopify users who install the new Twitter add-on can connect their Twitter account with Shopify and then start building out a store on Twitter with the platform’s Shop Module.

The new add-on automatically loads a merchant’s products from Shopify onto Twitter, which then appear in a carousel on the Twitter profile. Users can browse through or expand the carousel to view up to 50 products — selecting a product redirects users to the merchant’s website for purchase.

Image: Twitter

The integration with Shopify lets merchants sync products with Twitter.

S...

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Xbox Cloud Gaming is getting mouse and keyboard support and latency improvements

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is preparing to add mouse and keyboard support to its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service that streams Xbox games to TVs, PCs, mobile devices, and more. The software giant teased the addition earlier this year, and now it’s encouraging game developers to get ready for mouse and keyboard support and some big latency improvements on Xbox Cloud Gaming soon.

“Xbox has been supporting keyboard and mouse for a few years now, and we’re working on adding it to streaming for PC users,” explains Morgan Brown, a software engineer on Microsoft’s Xbox game streaming team. “But you can start adding it to your game right now and your console keyboard and mouse users will appreciate it. It will light up in streaming once we’ve finished adding...

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EcoFlow solar-tracking robot review: beep, blop, stop!

Maximum efficiency, major annoyance

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Google News gets more personal with desktop redesign

The new-look Google News makes local news and custom topics easier to find. | Image: Google

Google News has been given a fresh lick of paint for desktop users on its 20th birthday, with a redesign that gives more prominence to local news and personalized content.

Users can now more easily customize the topics they’re shown by hitting the blue “customize” button in the right hand column (it appears just below “Picks For You”). They can also add multiple locations to the “Local News” section by hitting the settings button to the right of the Local News header.

In practical terms, the biggest change is that various categories of news — like world, business, science, and health — have been moved from the left-hand side of the screen to a menu bar at the top. You can compare the before and after in the screenshots of the new...

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Twitter ready to launch long-form Notes feature in ‘the coming weeks’: report

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter is ready to launch a new long-form blogging feature named Twitter Notes in “the coming weeks,” according to a report from TechCrunch.

Leaks and reports of such a feature have been circulating for months. In May, app researcher Jane Manchun Wong shared screenshots of a feature named either Twitter Notes or Twitter Articles, that let users write formatted blog posts complete with pictures, links, and embedded tweets. More screenshots of the same tool were shared in April by another app researcher, Nima Owji, which showed options for users to share posts with their followers, or create standalone links for posts to share elsewhere on the web.

According to TechCrunch, the feature is currently called Notes, and is being given a...

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Amazon announces its first fully autonomous mobile warehouse robot

It’s called Proteus | Image: Amazon

Amazon has announced its “first fully autonomous mobile robot,” meant to move large carts throughout its warehouses. The robot is called Proteus, and Amazon says it can safely navigate around human employees, unlike some of its past robots that it kept separated in a caged area.

Amazon says Proteus robots have “advanced safety, perception, and navigation technology,” and a (strangely silent) video shows the robots shining a green light in front of themselves as they move around. When a human steps into the beam, the robot stops moving, then resumes after the person moves away.

The company has also announced several other robotic systems. One, called Cardinal, is a robotic arm that can lift and move packages weighing up to 50 pounds,...

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The best Chromebook deals you can get right now

Lenovo’s ThinkPad C13 Yoga Chromebook starts at $249, which is a $350 discount. | Photo by Monica Chin / The Verge

If you’re looking for an affordable laptop alternative, Chromebooks are a great option to consider. Yet there are several kinds on the market these days, and it can be overwhelming to pick the right for you and your needs. Some are better suited for basic work tasks, for example, while some of the higher-end models can even rival some of the best laptops you can buy. Moreover, just because one Chromebook has more features than the other doesn’t mean it’s the right one for you or the best value for your money.

That’s why we’ve curated this comprehensive list of the best Chromebook deals. Each varies in price and comes with its own strengths and weaknesses, but all of them come recommended for one reason or another. And if you’d like to do...

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Volvo’s commercial truck group is testing out hydrogen fuel cell semis

The Volvo FH Fuel Cell Electric semi at a hydrogen fuel station. | Image: Volvo

Volvo’s commercial trucking division is testing hydrogen fuel cell semi trucks in the hopes of getting ahead of the maturing technology. With fuel cells built by CellCentric, a joint venture between Volvo and Daimler Truck Automotive Group, Volvo claims its trucks are capable of 1,000 kilometers of range (about 621 miles) and can be refueled in under 15 minutes.

Volvo Trucks has been “developing this technology for some years now,” said company president Roger Alm in a statement this week. Hydrogen fuel cells will be suitable for long-distance hauling and could work in countries with limited battery charging infrastructure, Alm said. The company started building battery-electric trucks in 2018, but they still aren’t widely in service in...

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Meta settles with US government over ad targeting-enabled housing discrimination

The company was accused of letting advertisers exclude protected groups from their campaigns. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The US government and Facebook parent company Meta have agreed on a settlement to clear up a lawsuit that accused the company of facilitating housing discrimination by letting advertisers specify that ads not be shown to people belonging to specific protected groups, according to a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ). You can read the full agreement below.

The government first brought a case against Meta for algorithmic housing discrimination in 2019, though accusations about the company’s practices go back years before that. The company took some steps to address the issue, but clearly, they weren’t enough for the feds. The department says this was its first case dealing with algorithmic violations of the Fair Housing...

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Fortnite is testing a clever way to help you find teammates

The new social tags might make it easier to find a good group. | Image: Epic Games

Fortnite can be an absolute blast to play with your friends, but being matched up with random players is more hit-and-miss. In some of the randomized groups I’ve been in, coordinating any sort of effective strategy can be a challenging endeavor, particularly if some team members want to rush into battle while others would prefer to play it slow. To help you find better squadmates, Fortnite developer Epic Games is testing new social tags for profiles that let you indicate how you like to play and can be used to match you up with other like-minded players.

According to a blog post, tags will include things like your favorite game modes and whether you want to use a mic or not. If you have added at least one social tag, you’ll be able to...

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The Obamas head to Audible

Well, now we know where the Obamas are heading after their split with Spotify. I had a whole fancy intro before getting the news, but this is about as hot as Hot Pod gets, so let’s get into it.

Obamas take their podcasts to Audible after leaving Spotify

Amazon’s Audible and the Obamas’ production company Higher Ground announced a multi-year first-look deal on Tuesday, ending the speculation of where the former first couple would take their podcasts after their deal with Spotify ends in several months.

It’s a big get for Audible, which is better known for audiobooks than podcasts even as it ramps up the development deals. It is also a curious choice for the Obamas, who were reported to be frustrated by the limitations that came with...

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Daycare monitoring apps are ‘dangerously insecure,’ report finds

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Popular daycare and childcare communications apps are “dangerously insecure,” according to newly published research, exposing children and parents to the risk of data breaches with lax security settings and permissive or outright misleading privacy policies.

The details come from a new report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which published the results of a months-long research project on Tuesday.

The research, conducted Alexis Hancock, EFF’s director of engineering for the Certbot project, found that popular apps like Brightwheel, HiMama, and Tadpoles lacked two-factor authentication (2FA), meaning that any malicious actor who was able to obtain a user’s password could log in remotely. Further analysis of application code...

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Toyota will recycle electric vehicle batteries with Tesla co-founder’s project

The efforts are currently focused on old Priuses | Photo by Toyota/Getty Images

Toyota is partnering with Redwood Materials, a battery recycling company helmed by Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, to collect and recycle vehicle batteries. The plan is to take old, worn-out batteries and either refurbish them or break them down so their materials can be used to create new batteries.

Redwood specifically plans on producing materials for anodes and cathodes — two major components of a battery cell. The company’s ultimate goal is to create a “closed-loop supply chain for electric vehicles,” meaning that it takes batteries from old EVs and turns them into batteries for new cars.

Decades-old Priuses could end up at Redwood’s facility in Nevada

While Toyota is currently launching its first long-range battery-electric vehicle,...

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Paramount Plus plans 150 international originals by 2025

Image: Paramount

Paramount “plans to commission” 150 international originals for its Paramount Plus streaming service by 2025, according to a press release. The company revealed details about seven of the originals on Tuesday, including content from Germany, Italy, France, and Mexico.

With this major investment, Paramount is likely aiming to see the kind of traction other platforms have gotten from their own international originals. Netflix’s Squid Game is perhaps the most successful, becoming the streaming service’s biggest-ever series at launch, but its French thriller Lupin has been a hit as well. If you’re an Apple TV Plus subscriber, I’d highly recommend Pachinko, a drama about a Korean immigrant family that Apple recently renewed for a second...

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The best budget laptop of 2022

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge

The best cheap laptops under $800 from HP, Lenovo, and more.

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Dress rehearsal for NASA’s deep-space rocket cut short by mere seconds

NASA’s Space Launch System on its launchpad at KSC | Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge

After three previous aborted attempts, NASA successfully fueled its new massive deep-space rocket, the Space Launch System, for the first time on Monday — completing a critical milestone ahead of the vehicle’s first flight. However, there was a shadow over the achievement. The fueling was part of an elaborate dress rehearsal that ended 20 seconds earlier than NASA had planned, and it’s unclear if the agency got all the data and practice it needed to proceed with the rocket’s debut launch.

The Space Launch System, or SLS, is a key piece of NASA’s flagship Artemis program — an elaborate effort to send the first woman and the first person of color to the surface of the Moon. But first, SLS needs to actually fly, and before that can happen, N...

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How to change your Instagram username

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Some social platforms limit the number of times you can change your username, while others don’t let you do it at all. Instagram is a username free-for-all; you can alter your Instagram handle whenever you want, as many times as you want — within certain limits.

There’s a difference between your username and your display name. The display name is on your profile below your avatar. It doesn’t need to be unique to you, and it can contain emoji and special characters. (And yes, it can also be changed — up to two times within 14 days.)

Your username, on the other hand, appears at the top of your profile and at the end of your profile’s URL. It needs to be unique to you. It’s also subject to more restrictions: it can’t be longer than 30...

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Tesla accused of violating federal law over ‘mass layoffs’ at Gigafactory

Photo by Sean O’Kane / The Verge

Two former Tesla employees have filed a lawsuit claiming the company violated federal law for failing to provide 60 days’ notice for a mass layoff.

The lawsuit, which was filed on Sunday, follows the news that Tesla plans on laying off hourly workers, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk initially stated that the hourly workers were likely to be unaffected by the layoffs.

The lawsuit was filed by John Lynch and Daxton Hartsfield, both of whom worked at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada, when the layoffs began in early June. The two former employees allege they were among “more than 500” Gigafactory employees who were terminated.

The two former employees allege they were among “more than 500” Gigafactory employees who were terminated

According...

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Amazon names new retail CEO

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon has named a new CEO of its retail arm just weeks after the previous CEO announced he would be resigning. Doug Herrington, a 17-year company vet, is set to become CEO of Amazon’s worldwide stores business, Amazon leader Andy Jassy announced in an email posted to the company’s website.

Herrington has a lot of experience in Amazon’s consumer business, as noted in Jassy’s email; Herrington “joined the company in 2005 to build out our Consumables business, launched AmazonFresh in 2007, and in 2015, took on leading all of our North American Consumer business,” Jassy wrote.

But he’ll have a tough road ahead, as Amazon’s growth has slowed after surging during the pandemic, and according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, Jassy has...

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Microsoft to retire controversial facial recognition tool that claims to identify emotion

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is phasing out public access to a number of AI-powered facial analysis tools — including one that claims to identify a subject’s emotion from videos and pictures.

Such “emotion recognition” tools have been criticized by experts. They say not only do facial expressions that are thought to be universal differ across different populations but that it is unscientific to equate external displays of emotion with internal feelings.

“Companies can say whatever they want, but the data are clear,” Lisa Feldman Barrett, a professor of psychology at Northeastern University who conducted a review into the subject of AI-powered emotion recognition, told The Verge in 2019. “They can detect a scowl, but that’s not the same thing as detecting...

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