Valve is doubling Steam Deck shipments, so you might get yours faster

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Valve is doubling the number of Steam Decks it ships to customers, the company announced Monday. “Production has picked up, and after today we’ll be shipping more than double the number of Steam Decks every week!” Valve said in a tweet from the official Steam Deck account. And in response to a question from my colleague Sean Hollister, Valve designer Lawrence Yang spelled out the change more clearly: “in previous weeks we were shipping x units / week to customers, starting this week we’ll be shipping 2x units / week.”

If you’ve been eagerly refreshing your inbox every Monday and Thursday for the chance to order your Steam Deck reservation, the increased production could be a sign that you might be able to buy your device sooner than you...

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Google’s Pixel 6 Pro is $120 off for today only

The larger Pixel 6 Pro has a 6.7-inch screen and additional rear telephoto camera. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales

Google’s top-tier flagship phone, the Pixel 6 Pro, is on sale for its lowest price yet. Woot is selling new unlocked Pixel 6 Pro phones for $779.99 for today only. You can choose from all three colors (including Sorta Sunny, the best one) until the end of the day or while supplies last. The only storage capacity on offer is the base 128GB amount, which is a fair amount, especially when you consider that total savings of $120 off the regular $899 asking price from Google and other retailers. We saw the Pixel 6 Pro previously drop by $100 for Father’s Day, but as the saying goes, the late dad gets the deal worm and saves... or something about bad jokes. Whatever, dad, it’s a good deal!

If you’ve been waiting on the Pixel 6 Pro, you’re in...

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Google Hangouts is shutting down in November

Image: Google

After sunsetting Google Hangouts for Workspace users in February, Google’s now beginning the process of migrating free, personal Hangouts users to Chat. In an announcement posted to its blog, Google says people who still use the Hangouts mobile app will see a prompt to move to Chat.

As for users who use Hangouts in Gmail on the web, Google says it won’t start prompting users to make the switch to Chat until July. Hangouts will remain usable on its desktop site until November, and Google says it will warn users “at least one month” in advance before it starts pointing the Hangouts site to Chat.

Image: Google

Confusingly, Google Chat isn’t the same thing as GChat (or Google Talk), which Google discontinued for good...

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The Supreme Court says it won’t consider rewriting defamation law... yet

The Supreme Court has turned down a request to revisit a decades-old libel ruling, despite a dissent from Justice Clarence Thomas. This morning, the court denied a petition to hear Coral Ridge Ministries Media v. Southern Poverty Law Center, in which an evangelical Christian ministry accused the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) of falsely designating it as an anti-LGBTQ hate group.

If it had overturned the ruling, the Supreme Court would have greatly increased the odds of public figures winning libel cases in the future. Instead, the decision delays (but likely won’t end) a long-running push to expand the scope of defamation law.

Coral Ridge Ministries Media v. SPLC hinges on the “actual malice” standard — a protection that means...

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Roku’s capable Streambars are down to their lowest prices

The Roku Streambar is a competent audio platform with built-in streaming services. | Image: Roku

Both the Roku Streambar and Streambar Pro soundbars are matching their lowest prices ever. The 14-inch Roku Streambar (perfect for smaller entertainment setups) usually sells for $129.99 but is on sale right now at Amazon and Best Buy for $99.99. The larger 32-inch Streambar Pro with more powerful sound is down to $149.99 from its usual $179.99 at both Amazon and Best Buy.

While these soundbars have some differences, each comes with the Roku OS baked in and 4K HDR playback, meaning they function as competent streaming devices, not just soundbars, and are an excellent way to consolidate devices in your living room. They certainly aren’t the largest or most powerful soundbars on the market, but considering that a Roku Streaming Stick...

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There’s a new Twitch viewer record, and it happened during a boxing stream

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitch’s concurrent viewership record has been broken again. Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos Garatea (who goes by “Ibai” on the platform) hit a peak of more than 3.3 million concurrent viewers during a boxing event he hosted over the weekend, according to Twitch (via Eurogamer), crushing the previous record of nearly 2.5 million held by Spanish streamer TheGrefg.

HISTORIA

Congrats to @IbaiLlanos on setting a new Twitch record with a peak of over 3.3M concurrent views during today’s boxing and entertainment event, La Velada del Año II. pic.twitter.com/5WUKrz0FkF

— Twitch (@Twitch) June 25, 2022

Ibai’s event, La Velada del Año II, featured other content creators competing in the ring as well as some musical performances. Content...

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Samsung’s Starbucks collab Galaxy Buds case is silly and pointless and I want one

Say this for Starbucks: its coffee may mostly just taste like burning, but its merch tends to be on point. The latest example, as spotted by 9to5Google, is a collaboration with Samsung (in South Korea only, unfortunately) that created branded cases for the Galaxy S22 lineup and the Galaxy Buds 2.

One of the Buds 2 case options is a dark green case with a Starbucks logo. (Boring.) The other is a small white mug with a handle and fake latte art whose top swivels away to reveal your earbuds. (Less boring!) Thanks to the giant mermaid logo on the side, it won’t appeal to anyone other than the most diehard of Starbucks javaheads, and I suppose I should point out that I’ve never had a Starbucks barista draw a perfect foam leaf on top of my...

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Tesla reportedly doesn’t have enough desks after Musk threatens to fire remote employees

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

After Tesla CEO Elon Musk commanded remote employees to return to work or else lose their jobs, the company was reportedly ill-prepared to welcome back its workers. According to a report from The Information, employees arrived at Tesla’s Fremont, California facility only to find a lack of parking spots, no desk to sit at, and crappy Wi-Fi (where’s Starlink when you need it?).

Musk clearly didn’t think this one through.

Tesla’s headcount has doubled since 2019, The Information notes, now sitting at 99,210 people. Earlier this month, Musk cited excess hiring and a “super bad feeling” about the economy as reasons for a hiring freeze and company-wide layoffs that reportedly includes both salaried and hourly workers.

Salaried workers make up...

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Fall Guys update fixes party invites on PS5 and makes the Switch version less of an eyesore

Fall Guys has had some technical hurdles to overcome in its free-to-play debut. | Image: Mediatonic

After going free-to-play less than a week ago, Fall Guys is getting its first major update to fix several technical and visual issues across all platforms. Developer Mediatonic issued the update early this morning, which corrects some glaring issues — including that players using the PlayStation 5 version were not able to send or receive party invites from friends on other platforms like Xbox, PC, or Nintendo Switch. (Previously, they were told to mitigate the issue by redownloading the PS4 version of Fall Guys.)

In addition to overcoming that hurdle — a significant one for a game that’s best played with some bean buddies — the Nintendo Switch version’s update fixes buggy character animations. Now, other characters no longer look like...

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EcoFlow’s turnkey off-grid power system just needs sun

EcoFlow makes it easy — but not cheap — to get away from it all. | Photo: EcoFlow

The ability to move off-grid just got a little bit easier with these new modular and expandable Power Kits from EcoFlow. These all-in-one Power Kits are turnkey solutions that take the guesswork and complexity out of implementing a battery-based power system inside an adventure van or cabin in the woods. As such, it should take up less room and require less wiring to free up much-needed space for things like food, water, and mountain bikes.

Imagine it: take a plug-and-play power system like this and combine it with Starlink RV space internet and your company’s new flexible office policy to live and work from just about anywhere.

“The EcoFlow Power Kits are designed to make creating custom power solutions easier than ever,” said EcoFlow...

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VW’s ID Aero concept distinguishes itself by not being an SUV or truck

Volkswagen announced a stylish new electric sedan concept, the ID Aero, which it plans on putting into production in China in 2023. The EV’s aerodynamic shape and 16-foot length will help enable up to 385 miles of range based on Europe’s WLTP.

The ID Aero will be built on VW’s flexible MEB platform, which is also being used to power the automaker’s other electric models. The automaker also claims an ultra-low drag coefficient of 0.23, which puts it on par with other luxury electric German autos in its class, like the BMW i4 and Mercedes-Benz EQS.

Otherwise, there’s not much to distinguish the ID Aero from its competitors. There are full-width LED lightbars in the front and rear of the vehicle, which is a common feature among EVs...

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The archnemeses of war rugs

Rug collector, dealer, and owner of WarRug.com, Kevin Sudeith in his New York City home.

War rugs are a traditional Afghan art — how’d a guy in Brooklyn end up with their copyright?

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Google’s worst hardware flop was introduced 10 years ago today

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

The Nexus Q had a standout design, but everything else about it was a miss

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How to run PugetBench for After Effects

It’s not one of the prettier benchmarks to be sure.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been showing you how you can run some of the benchmarks that we run in our laptop reviews to see how well your PC stacks up to others on the market. Today, we’re looking at PugetBench for After Effects, created by the PC manufacturer Puget Systems, which will measure how well your computer can handle VFX and graphics work.

It’s important to note that this benchmark is still in beta. It is a bit more glitchy than some of the other Puget benchmarks (including the one for Photoshop, which we talked about earlier). If you’re running into problems, Puget Systems has a long list of troubleshooting steps to try. It’s doubly important that you don’t use the system (even bump the mouse) while PugetBench for After...

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Fortnite creators are making studios to build ambitious — and branded — worlds

Illustration by Jarett Sitter / The Verge

Last year, Fortnite developer Epic Games launched a big partnership with high fashion house Balenciaga. In addition to a collection of skins decked out in Balenciaga gear available to purchase, Epic also promoted a Balenciaga-themed zone players could visit. It looked like a virtual city square dropped into Fortnite, but at the heart was a recreation of a Balenciaga retail store.

It’s an impressive world, and feels almost like something plucked from the Fortnite battle royale island. But it was actually made by just three creators who are full-time Fortnite Creative experts that have formed their own company to build in-game worlds for brands.

“I don’t think my parents would ever think that would be a thing.”

“The fact that I can build...

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Meet the Viking merchants of the internet

Illustration by Jarett Sitter / The Verge

Traditional techniques meet the modern web

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Pixel 6A fingerprint sensor looks faster than Pixel 6 Pro in early test

Image: Google

Despite being a more affordable counterpart to last year’s flagship, it’s starting to look like the upcoming Pixel 6A might offer a key improvement over the Pixel 6 series: a faster fingerprint sensor. That’s according to Fazli Halim, a Malaysian YouTuber who appears to have gotten his hands on Google’s upcoming device a month ahead of its official launch on July 28th. We spotted the video via 9to5Google.

It’s potentially good news after the Pixel 6 series’ fingerprint sensors ended up being a surprising weak point for the devices, and were noticeably slower to authenticate than other phones. “The fingerprint scanner is the only biometric authentication available, and it’s just not very good,” Dan Seifert wrote in our review. A Google...

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Apple’s entry-level MacBook Pro M2 has slower SSD speeds than its M1 counterpart

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple’s new 13-inch MacBook Pro M2 base model appears to have slower SSD speeds than its M1 predecessor. MacRumors reports that YouTubers Max Tech and Created Tech have both tested the 256GB base M2 model and discovered the SSD’s read speeds are around 50 precent slower than the M1 MacBook Pro with 256GB of storage. Write speeds are reportedly around 30 percent slower.

Testing was completed using Blackmagic’s Disk Speed Test app, and Max Tech even disassembled the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro and found that Apple is only using a single NAND flash storage chip. The M1 MacBook Pro uses two 128GB NAND chips, and multiple chips can enable faster SSD speeds in parallel.

Other 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro models with larger SSD storage don’t appear to...

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Facebook’s video app may no longer work on Apple TV

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Facebook’s app for smart TVs, which lets users tune into various videos, shows, and livestreams on the platform, may no longer be available on Apple TV, as first reported by 9to5Mac. Some users say they’re no longer able to access the app after its most recent update.

In a thread on MacRumors, one user shares an image of the notice they received after attempting to open Facebook Watch on their Apple TV 4K: “The Facebook Watch TV app is no longer available, but you can still find lots of videos on Facebook at www.facebook.com/watch.” Several other users report having the same experience.

Facebook rolled out its Watch app on Apple TV in 2017 after first launching it on Samsung smart TVs. The app is also available on various other smart TVs...

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Valorant will start monitoring your voice chats starting July 13th

Image: Riot Games

Riot Games, the developer behind the free first-person shooter (FPS) Valorant, will start monitoring players’ voice communications on July 13th (via PCGamer). The game company says it’s to help train the language models that it will eventually use when evaluating player reports across all its games.

Riot initially announced this change in April 2021 after making an update to its privacy policy. The new terms give Riot permission to “record and potentially evaluate voice data when using Riot-owned voice comms channels” with the purpose of combatting hate speech and harassment over voice chat. Riot says it will analyze recordings when a player reports someone for abusive or offensive comments. In turn, this should help the company...

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Report: Apple is gearing up to launch a ‘flood’ of new devices starting this fall

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple’s poised to release a slew of new devices between this fall and the beginning of 2023, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. What Gurman describes as a “deluge” of products will reportedly include four iPhone 14 devices, a set of new iPads, three Apple Watches, several M2 / M3-upgraded Macs, a pair of refreshed AirPods Pro buds, a new HomePod, and a spec-boosted Apple TV model.

Let’s break down these predictions.

Although Apple announced two new Macs with its flagship M2 processor at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this month, Gurman expects to find the chip — and its variations — in several other devices. This includes an M2 Mac mini, M2 Pro Mac mini, M2 Pro / M2 Max 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros,...

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Apple’s mixed reality headset will reportedly come with an M2 chip

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple’s mixed reality headset has been shrouded in rumors for months now, and a new report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman indicates that it could come with Apple’s flagship M2 processor. According to Gurman, Apple’s most recent version of the device, which is reportedly capable of delivering augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences, includes a base M2 chip and 16GB of RAM.

This deviates from supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s previous prediction that Apple’s headset will have one processor with the capabilities of an M1 chip and an additional lower-end processor dedicated to handling data from the device’s sensors. While Gurman doesn’t mention the purported secondary chip in this report, a multiple chip setup has also...

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This 13-year-old voice recorder captured my entire professional career

Check out that wear and tear. | Image: Andrew Webster

Back in November 2009, I was getting ready to attend the Montreal International Games Summit, and I panicked — it was my first major event as a member of the press, and I had no way to record an interview. This was a problem because I was scheduled to talk with Yoichi Wada, then president of Square Enix, along with several other notable industry people. So I rushed to Radio Shack and picked the cheapest voice recorder I could find, a little grey rectangle made by RCA that was locked up in a glass display case. I have no idea what model it is, but it went on to follow me through my entire professional career to date — now, nearly 13 years later, it’s finally being retired.

I hung on to that gadget for one main reason: I trusted it. The...

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Spotify secretly launched a show with this controversial duo — it’s already a hit

Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Spritz Society

Spotify has a brand new original topping its podcast chart, but it would probably prefer if you didn’t know about it.

Last week, Spotify launched a new pop culture show, Breaking Bread, on Spotify Live. Breaking Bread’s recordings now rank at number 11 on Spotify’s top podcast chart after holding the number two spot for most of the week, putting it just behind Joe Rogan. The show’s popularity — and the reason the company might be staying quiet about its new hit — is due to its two hosts: Jackie Oshry Weinreb and Claudia Oshry (aka Instagram’s girlwithnojob), who come with a huge built-in audience. While the sisters have delivered their massive fanbase to the app, they have a controversial history that could be problematic for Spotify at...

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Samsung M8 Smart Monitor review: the good enough of both worlds

It isn’t a fantastic TV or monitor, but it’s a good compromise for people who want both in the same package

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My journey to drain the M2 MacBook Pro’s battery

It took a while.

My review of the M2 MacBook Pro went up last Wednesday. But as soon as I got my hands on the device on the prior Thursday, it was clear that running down the battery — one of the most important things a laptop reviewer needs to do — was going to be a Whole Thing.

Reader, I tried. I would use the device all evening and leave it running all night, but it would still have plenty of charge left in the morning, and I’d have to plug it in for testing, abandon it to film, or give it to our video and photo teams for shooting before I could fully drain it down. I did not have a long enough interrupted span of time to continuously use the device. That’s how absurdly long this laptop lasts.

But, with the written review and the video review both...

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Google says attackers worked with ISPs to deploy Hermit spyware on Android and iOS

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A sophisticated spyware campaign is getting the help of internet service providers (ISPs) to trick users into downloading malicious apps, according to research published by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) (via TechCrunch). This corroborates earlier findings from security research group Lookout, which has linked the spyware, dubbed Hermit, to Italian spyware vendor RCS Labs.

Lookout says RCS Labs is in the same line of work as NSO Group — the infamous surveillance-for-hire company behind the Pegasus spyware — and peddles commercial spyware to various government agencies. Researchers at Lookout believe Hermit has already been deployed by the government of Kazakhstan and Italian authorities. In line with these findings, Google has...

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Apple Music’s student plan is getting more expensive in the US, UK, and Canada

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple Music has raised the subscription price of its student plan in the US, UK, and Canada, as first reported by 9to5Mac (via TechCrunch). While it’s increasing the price from $4.99 to $5.99 / month in the US and Canada, student users in the UK can expect a similar jump from £4.99 to £5.99 / month.

Apple hasn’t acknowledged the changes yet, but the new pricing information is currently available on Apple Music’s webpage. Students subscribed to Apple Music have also started seeing the price increase on their iPhones and iPads’ subscription pages. It’s unclear when exactly Apple implemented these changes, but, as 9to5Mac points out, it was likely rolled out sometime between June 21st and the 23rd — an archived Apple Music webpage shows the...

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Intel delays ceremony for Ohio factory over lack of government funding

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Intel is postponing the groundbreaking ceremony for its planned chip-making facilities in Ohio because the US government hasn’t yet provided it with funding, the company confirmed to The Verge (via The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal). The ceremony, which was originally set to take place on July 22nd, has been delayed indefinitely in a likely bid to push the US government towards passing the CHIPS Act.

Intel announced its $20 billion plan to build two semiconductor plants in New Albany, Ohio earlier this year, noting that its expansion to potentially include up to eight plants will “depend heavily on funding from the CHIPS Act.” The CHIPS Act reserves $52 billion in funding for semiconductor companies, including Intel, to...

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The best instant cameras you can buy right now

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

We found the best cameras for your budget and needs

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