The brewing fight to keep abortion info online

Illustration by William Joel

Yesterday, the Supreme Court voted to uphold a Mississippi abortion ban and overturn Roe v. Wade, ending abortion access in some states and triggering impending bans in others. The decision won’t end abortion in America, but in many places it will move the procedure underground and, based on recent history, online.

Understandably, abortion advocates have focused on surveillance issues in the immediate aftermath of the ruling, concerned about states using online records for criminal prosecutions. But there’s also a fight brewing over how and where advocates will be able to share abortion information online. If a procedure is illegal, then states could claim content enabling that procedure is illegal too — raising thorny questions for...

Continue reading…

Google’s Pixel 5 was the last of its kind

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

From time to time, I’ll grab a random device out of the Verge reviews closet and spend a week or two with it. It’s mostly out of random curiosity and for the sake of comparing “old” products against the latest and greatest. Most recently, I was drawn to Google’s Pixel 5. So I gave it a factory reset, updated the phone to Android 12, and have been using it as my daily driver for the past several days.

The experience has been fantastic. I’ve got very large hands — an iPhone 13 Pro Max doesn’t look out of place in them — and I prefer large screens, so I don’t think I could fully switch over to the Pixel 5. But it’s such a good “small” phone (by 2022 standards) that I’ve certainly been tempted. The Pixel 5 makes it easy to do anything I...

Continue reading…

Starlink RV review: the dawn of space internet to go

Stay connected while disconnecting

Continue reading…

Federal appeals court pauses FDA ban on Juul’s e-cigarettes

The company says it could suffer “irreparable harm” if it can’t sell its products while the court considers its case. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Juul can continue selling its e-cigarettes despite the Food and Drug Administration ordering a ban Thursday, according to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (via TechCrunch). In its order, the court says it’s issuing the temporary stay to give Juul time to file an emergency motion, which it can then consider along with a response from the FDA.

The FDA says the reason for the ban is that there’s “insufficient evidence to assess the potential toxicological risks of using the Juul products.” Juul had petitioned for clearance to sell its tobacco and menthol-flavored vape products, but the FDA turned down the application. The regulator notes that it’s only illegal to sell the Juul device and Juul pods, not to own or use...

Continue reading…

Snoop Dogg and Eminem’s Bored Ape music video is here to try and sell us on tokens

Image: Marshall B. Mathers III

The last couple of weeks have had a lot of bad news for some in the “web3” space, but you wouldn’t know it by looking at announcements in and around the recently-ended NFT.NYC and ApeFest 2022 events. The Bored Ape Yacht Club’s (BAYC) annual event in particular brought in musicians like The Roots, LCD Soundsystem, Haim, Lil Baby, Lil Wayne, and others to perform for its members. On the final day of the event, guests saw the premiere of this video from two of the celebrities who’ve purchased tokens, Eminem and Snoop Dogg.

The video is for a new song, From The D 2 The LBC, that isn’t the most memorable of collaborations and is mostly about smoking weed, but it constantly splices in images of the cartoon apes. Many BAYC members were...

Continue reading…

Here’s Google’s letter saying employees can relocate to states with abortion rights

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, Google’s chief people officer Fiona Cicconi sent a staff-wide email to employees on Friday informing them of Google’s response to the ruling. Among other things, the email states that Googlers that they can “apply for relocation without justification,” and that people in charge of the relocation process “will be aware of the situation” in assessing their requests.

The Supreme Court’s ruling does not make abortion illegal throughout the US — instead, it leaves the decision up to individual states. A number of states have immediately restricted abortion rights, including Louisiana, Missouri and Kentucky. Other states, including California, where Google is...

Continue reading…

T-Mobile is selling your app usage data to advertisers — here’s how to opt out

T-Mobile knows what apps you’re using. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

T-Mobile’s advertising business is offering a new way for marketers to pry into your app-using habits. Ad Exchanger reports that the un-carrier’s new program is called App Insights, and it’s now fully operational after spending a year in beta. The program allows third-party marketers to buy T-Mobile customer data and centers around a key piece of information that it has unique access to: what apps you use.

Customer data is anonymized, and it’s pooled together with others of similar interests and behaviors, so companies can’t buy a specific user’s app history. Still, it’s creepy. The company’s advertising segment touts this offering loud and clear on its website, with the phrase “Apps speak louder than words” splashed across the top of...

Continue reading…

Samsung’s monstrous 55-inch Odyssey Ark monitor could go on sale in August

We’re gonna need a bigger desk. | Image: Samsung

Samsung is getting ready to release its massive 55-inch curved Odyssey Ark monitor in August, according to a report from Korean outlet ETNews (via SamMobile). The monitor, which was announced in January at CES, has reportedly gone through a few certification programs that have to be done before it can go on sale.

Details about this monitor are still scant. The company has said that it’ll have a 16:9 4K panel and that the stand will support pivot, tilt, and rotation. It also announced that it would come out in the second half of 2022 (which the reported August window falls squarely in). But let’s be honest, when you show up with a monitor that promises to physically tower over you while you’re using it, people will pay attention even if...

Continue reading…

Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a board game

Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is a competitive game for up to four players

Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a board game courtesy of a Kickstarter campaign. Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is a strange twist on the high-tech, low-life underbelly of the world brought to life by CD Projekt Red and Mike Pondsmith. The game is being published by CMON Games, which have put together board game adaptations of God of War and Bloodborne in addition to other existing IPs.

If the slang-ridden synopsis of the game provided on its Kickstarter page is any indicator, it’s clear that its creators have some serious reverence for the source material: “Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is a competitive game in which 1 to 4 players take on the role of ruthless gangs vying for control of the underground in the glittering hellhole...

Continue reading…

This site lets you listen to nature sounds from all over the world

Earth.fm homepage

For people who love discovering new sounds, there’s an intriguing new site that collects soundscapes from around the world.

The site, Earth.fm, bills itself as“Like Spotify, but for natural soundscapes.” You can listen to bird species in Malaysia or India or forest sounds in Ghana.The sounds are gathered from numerous contributors who have experience recording the natural world in places including Brazil, Spain, Norway, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The website features sounds from locations like national parks and the everglades.

Users can create their own specialized playlists of sounds available on Earth.fm, zipping from Brazil to Egypt in a matter of minutes.

You can compile a list of different...

Continue reading…

Bitcoin’s energy use drops following price plunge

Bitcoin mining units in Fort Stockton, Texas, on Friday, April 29th, 2022. | Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images

After taking a nosedive in June, the price of Bitcoin has stayed solow that it’s forcingthe blockchain’s massive electricity use to similarly dip. Over the past couple weeks, Bitcoin’s energy consumption has dropped by more than a third, according to estimates of annualized electricity use by digital currency economist Alex de Vries on his website digiconomist.net.

Bitcoin’s energy hunger, which has alarmed environmentalists and consumer advocates concerned about pollution and utility prices, comes from the process of mining new tokens. Bitcoin miners earn new tokens by validating transactions through an inherently energy-inefficient process, using specialized machines to solve complex puzzles. All that computing by all those machines...

Continue reading…

RIP Chris Evans’ iPhone 6S

Wait, but what did Evans take this picture with? | Image: Chris Evans

I think most of us here at The Verge can agree that if we were famous celebrities who acted in some of the highest-grossing films of all time, we would always be rocking the latest and greatest tech. That’s apparently not how Chris Evans, star of Lightyear and The Avengers, rolls — on June 23rd, 2022, he posted a message on Twitter and Instagram that he’s finally upgrading his phone: “RIP iPhone 6S,” he said. “We had a good run.”

In his posts, Evan says that he’ll miss the 2015 device’s home button — a photo he posted shows that he’s upgrading what appears to be an iPhone 13 Pro — but not the fact that it was a “nightly battle” trying to get the 6S to charge. (In the comments of Evan’s Instagram post, Hidden Figures and Onward actress...

Continue reading…

The best tech gifts for under $25

These sub-$25 items fall right in the “this is so handy!” bucket of gift-giving. | Image: Tile

Wanting to treat a friend or a loved one to some tech or a cool gadget while on a very lean budget can feel like an impossible task. Most of the everyday devices we use cost multiple hundreds of dollars, so what do you get when you just want a nice birthday or “just because” kind of gift but can’t break the bank? Sure, you can default to something basic like socks or a scarf, but that gets boring quick.

Here, we’ve assembled a bunch of cool tech ideas on a budget of just $25 that are worth your money. At a price this low, you can get some tech essentials, like a dual headphone stand for $21.99 or a quality USB-C charging cable for under $12. That may not sound very exciting at first, but when that cable is 10 feet long and sustains 100...

Continue reading…

The Mars Express spacecraft is finally getting a Windows 98 upgrade

The Mars Express. | Image: European Space Agency

Engineers at the European Space Agency (ESA) are getting ready for a Windows 98 upgrade on an orbiter circling Mars. The Mars Express spacecraft has been operating for more than 19 years, and the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) instrument onboard has been using software based on Windows 98. Thankfully for humanity and the Red Planet’s sake, the ESA isn’t upgrading to Windows ME.

The MARSIS instrument on ESA’s Mars Express was key to the discovery of a huge underground aquifer of liquid water on the Red Planet in 2018. This major new software upgrade “will allow it to see beneath the surfaces of Mars and its moon Phobos in more detail than ever before,” according to the ESA. The agency originally...

Continue reading…

Games Done Quick’s summer marathon kicks off Sunday, and there’s a lot to look forward to

It looks like another week of jaw-dropping runs. | Image: Games Done Quick

Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ), the annual weeklong summer speedrunning marathon for charity, kicks off on Sunday, and the schedule is chock full of potentially jaw-dropping runs.

The very first event? A Shadow of the Colossus randomized boss rush that will somehow be completed in 47 minutes. On Monday, there’s a The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (Switch version) race that’s estimated to take just under two hours. If you’ve been meaning to check out the indie hit Tunic, one runner plans to blast through the game in 40 minutes. The final day of the marathon, July 2nd, is packed with hit after hit, with an Elden Ring run set to conclude the show.

You can peruse the full SGDQ 2022 schedule right here. The first run starts on Sunday,...

Continue reading…

Elon Musk’s Twitter chaos is consuming SpaceX too

Image: SpaceX

It’s always fun to check in with SpaceX, Elon Musk’s least dysfunctional company — oh wait, what’s this? The workers at SpaceX are upset?

Last week, as first reported by The Verge, a group of SpaceX workers wrote a letter to Musk about his tweets. “Elon’s behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks,” the letter states. “As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX — every Tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company. It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values.”

The plan was to hand-deliver signatures of...

Continue reading…

Save 25 percent on the Thermacell mosquito repellent system

The Liv system from Thermacell is like a force field for mosquitoes. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

The mercury is rising, which means most of us are spending more time outside. So, our deals post today is all about tech that lets you bring the luxury of your living room to the great outdoors — or just to the backyard. For instance, if you’re sick of mosquitoes ruining your otherwise leisurely time in your backyard, Thermacell is currently discounting its Liv Smart Mosquito Repellent System by 25 percent; just use the code FREEDOM25 at checkout.

The base model of the Liv system comes with three repeller stations priced at $699.00 (around $525 with the coupon) and can accommodate up to 945 square feet. The innocuous repeller stations can be controlled with Alexa or Google Assistant and can also be programmed using your phone to operate...

Continue reading…

Vergecast: M2 Macbook Pro review, Solana’s crypto phone, and this week’s tech news

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, editor-at-large David Pierce, and managing editor Alex Cranz discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.

On today’s episode, Nilay and Alex chat with Verge senior reviewer Monica Chin about her review of Apple’s 13-inch Macbook Pro with the M2 chip. Though the chassis is still the same as the previous model, the changes that come with the new M2 processor are significant. Apple has yet to release their redesigned M2 Macbook Air, so should you wait before buying the Pro? Monica shares her thoughts.

For the rest of the show, we change up the crew. Alex and David lead the...

Continue reading…

The Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade

Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images

Today, the Supreme Court effectively overturned the right to a legal abortion established by Roe v. Wade in 1973. In a 6-3 ruling, the court voted to reverse a lower court’s decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, upholding a Mississippi law that banned abortion procedures after 15 weeks of gestation. More significantly, the ruling removed any constitutional restriction on laws banning abortion procedures.

Authored by Justice Alito, the majority decision is direct about the implications of the ruling. “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion,” it reads. “Roe and Casey are overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

“The...

Continue reading…

Cadillac’s ‘ultra-luxury’ Celestiq EV will reportedly cost around $300,000

We haven’t seen the 2024 Cadillac Celestiq yet, but a report from The Wall Street Journal says that while the flagship Ultium-powered electric sedan will be more than just a show car, it will have about equal amounts of vapor and vehicle. Based on people familiar with the matter, the paper reports fewer than 500 built each year and a price starting at around $300,000.

Production is apparently on track to begin in late 2023, featuring a massive pillar-to-pillar touchscreen that will outdo the 33-inch one seen in Cadillac’s Lyriq based on both its size and pixel density. Otherwise, we know the Celestiq is bringing all-wheel drive, four-wheel steering, and a full-glass roof that allows each passenger to set their own level of...

Continue reading…

The NHL is getting into NFTs, because that’s just what sports leagues do now

Pretty soon, you’ll be able to own digital collectibles of your favorite hockey moments. | Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

Hockey-loving HODLers, rejoice: the NHL is launching an NFT program. The league is partnering with Sweet to build a marketplace of digital collectibles including everything from iconic moments in hockey history to “3D interactive trophy rooms where users can display their collections.” The league made the announcement during NFT.NYC (and also during the Stanley Cup Finals) but plans to launch the marketplace before next season.

Sweet is a much smaller platform than OpenSea or SuperRare, but it’s among the more user-friendly of NFT marketplaces, allowing users to buy stuff with crypto or just with a credit card. It already has a lot of sports content, too, including collectibles from a number of Formula 1 and NBA teams.

The only...

Continue reading…

How to use Raycast and how it compares to Spotlight and Alfred

A launcher and search bar for power users. | Image: Raycast

Most Mac users find Spotlight, Apple’s built-in tool for searching through apps and files, to suit their needs just fine. But power users who want to have near total control over their computer (as well as access to shortcuts and tools) have often looked for other alternatives. Lately, an app called Raycast has been gaining attention as one of those options, competing with one of the community’s long-standing favorites, Alfred.

After trying out Raycast for a few weeks, I’ve found it to be extremely useful. Here are some tips if you want to try it out for yourself.

Getting started

When you first open Raycast after downloading it from the company’s website, it’ll walk you through a brief overview, which prompts you to assign it a keyboard...

Continue reading…

Money Heist: Korea serves up a promising, lively crossover

Yoo Ji-tae in Money Heist: Korea_._ | Image: Jung Jaegu / Netflix

Part 1 offers more questions than answers

Continue reading…

Polestar goes public amid uncertainty around EV stocks

Polestar is the latest electric vehicle company to go public, listing its stock on the Nasdaq exchange Friday after successfully merging with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. The company plans on using the $850 million in fresh capital to fund its three-year plan to make several new electric models and become profitable.

The Swedish company, which is a joint venture between Volvo and its parent company Geely, is going public amid broader uncertainty around EV stocks. Several EV startups have gone the SPAC route to becoming publicly traded only to see their stock price tank after early stumbles.

Polestar is slightly different, having been selling and delivering its Polestar 2 electric fastback sedan to customers in the...

Continue reading…

Searching for the dankest iPod knockoffs of the mid-2000s

Photo Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge; Photos by DankPods

DankPods has turned finding old MP3 players into a hit YouTube show

Continue reading…

Toyota bZ4X electric SUV review: mediocre at best

The bZ4X’s gobbledygook name is the least of its problems.

Toyota’s first all-electric crossover could have been so much more

Continue reading…

Young writers, send us your pitches

Photo by Mitchell Clark / The Verge

Hey — remember last year when we published a bunch of essays and called it Next Gen? Well, we’re doing it again.

In early August, The Verge will be running another special issue focused on young people and technology — and if you’re a young or unpublished writer, then we want you to be a part of it.

In particular, we want to hear about the piece of tech that’s meant the most to you: it could be an online community, a little-known tool, or a particular piece of media that’s been a positive presence in your life. To be clear, we’re looking for stuff you like, but the tech itself is just a starting point. We want to hear what it means to you and why. Be creative; surprise us!

To give you an idea of what we’re looking for, here are the four...

Continue reading…

Legendary designer Yu Suzuki returns with a wild arcade shooter

There’s a lot going on in Air Twister. The arcade-style shooter from legendary designer Yu Suzuki is out today on Apple Arcade, and it pushes players through a strange fantasy world full of armored birds, flying squids, skeletal dragons, floating cities, and evil clocks. For Suzuki, who is best known for his work at Sega on games like Space Harrier, Shenmue, and Virtua Fighter, it was a chance to build a fantasy universe full of things he loved. “It’s an amalgamation of all of the different things that I would like to see in a fantasy world,” he tells The Verge.

Air Twister is a classic rail shooter — think Space Harrier or Panzer Dragoon — where players take on the role of a sci-fi princess fighting to save her home world. It has 12...

Continue reading…

Netflix confirms an ad-supported tier is really, actually happening

Sarandos onstage at the Cannes Lions advertising festival. | Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images for Cannes Lions

Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos has confirmed that the company plans to introduce an ad-supported tier to its streaming service in an interview at the Cannes Lions advertising festival, reports The Hollywood Reporter. The New York Times reported last month that the company is aiming to roll out the new tier by the end of 2022.

“We’ve left a big customer segment off the table, which is people who say: ‘Hey, Netflix is too expensive for me and I don’t mind advertising,’” Sarandos said. “We [are] adding an ad tier; we’re not adding ads to Netflix as you know it today. We’re adding an ad tier for folks who say, ‘Hey, I want a lower price and I’ll watch ads.’”

The streaming service has been widely expected to launch an ad-supported subscription...

Continue reading…

Microsoft prepares to forget about Windows 8.1 with end of support notifications

Photo by Paul Faith/PA Images via Getty Images

Microsoft is preparing to send reminders to Windows 8.1 users that support will end on January 10th 2023. The software giant will start sending notifications to existing Windows 8.1 devices next month, as a first reminder leading up to the January 2023 support cutoff.

The notifications will be similar to ones Microsoft has used in the past to remind Windows 7 users about end of support dates. Microsoft originally sunset Windows 8 support in 2016, but the Windows 8.1 update will cease support fully in January 2023. Microsoft will not be offering an Extended Security Update (ESU) program for Windows 8.1, so businesses won’t be able to pay for additional security patches and will have to upgrade or accept the risk of running software...

Continue reading…