Unsettled

Marissa Leshnov

The Abdils decided Afghanistan was no longer safe after their 14-year-old son, Abdul-Azim, was kidnapped on his way home from school. For years, the Taliban abducted children for ransom or used them as leverage in negotiating with the Afghan police. As much as it pained them to abandon their son, Fazela and Hakeem Abdil had other children — two teenage daughters — to think about. They were faced with a difficult choice: stay in an increasingly dangerous Afghanistan or leave their home forever.

Up until then, things had been peaceful for the Abdils. “We had a well-arranged life. We had work, a house. Life was pretty comfortable,” Hakeem says. But conditions in Kabul had grown worse when many assumed they’d get better. In February 2020,...

Continue reading…

How to find the best deals during Amazon Prime Day

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Outside of Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Prime Day has become one of the biggest shopping events of the year. It’s a two-day stretch wherein Amazon Prime members will likely find some of the best prices yet on popular tech products like video games, gaming peripherals, laptops, 4K TVs, phones, PC accessories, and more. Amazon announced that Prime Day 2022 will happen Tuesday, July 12th, and last through Wednesday, July 13th. Though Prime Day may not be all that Amazon has in store for big 2022 sale events. It’s reportedly planning a second sale in the fall for Prime subscribers.

If you plan to shop for Prime Day deals on Amazon, you’ll need to sign up for Amazon Prime. However, not all of the best Prime Day 2022 deals will live on...

Continue reading…

Pro gaming tools are helping streamers get paid

Illustration by Jarett Sitter / The Verge

Software like Aim Lab and KovaaK’s are key parts of the esports ecosystem

Continue reading…

Snapchat adds paid subscription with more features for power users

Snapchat Plus will let subscribers customize the Snapchat icon. | Snap

Starting this week, Snap will begin offering an optional subscription called Snapchat Plus that unlocks exclusive and early access features.

Priced at $3.99 a month, the subscription is geared toward “the people who spend most of their time communicating with their closest friends on Snap,” the company’s SVP of Product, Jacob Andreou, tells The Verge. Dubbed Snapchat Plus, it’s Snap’s first real attempt at making money outside of advertising, though Andreou says there aren’t expectations for Plus to become a “material new revenue source.”

At least initially, Snapchat Plus is mostly a cosmetic upgrade. The most notable features include the ability to change the style of the app’s icon, see who rewatched a story, and pin one of your...

Continue reading…

The game makers who found careers as asset store creators

Illustration by Jarett Sitter / The Verge

Once a means of supplementing an income, making assets and tools can now be a full-time gig

Continue reading…

Millie Bobby Brown to star in Netflix sci-fi movie directed by the Russo brothers

Millie Bobby Brown at the Stranger Things season 4 premiere. | Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images

Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown will star in a new Netflix film from the Russo brothers, directors of Avengers: Endgame and Avengers: Infinity War. The Electric State is a retro-futuristic sci-fi movie that follows Brown, a robotic companion, and an “eccentric drifter” as she travels through the American West in search of her brother, Netflix said in its casting announcement.

Away from the involvement of Brown and the Russo brothers, the most interesting aspect of The Electric State is that it’s based on an illustrated book by Simon Stålenhag. Stålenhag is the artist behind some incredible retro futuristic illustrations, and his other books include Tales from the Loop, which Amazon recently adapted into a TV series of its own.

M...

Continue reading…

Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2 review: great sound with style

The audio brand’s new noise-canceling headphones can hang with the very best

Continue reading…

Hyundai gives first look at Ioniq 6 EV as market share surges

The Ioniq 6. | Image: Hyundai

Hyundai is offering an early look at its upcoming all-electric sedan, the Ioniq 6. It comes as Bloomberg reports that the company’s EV market share is quietly surging in Europe and the US, causing even Tesla’s Elon Musk to take notice.

If last year’s all-electric Ioniq 5 crossover SUV took inspiration from 70s designs, then Top Gear says that the6 draws inspiration from streamlined vehicles from the 20s and 30s like the Stout Scarab. If you liked the look of Hyundai’s Prophecy concept car from 2020, then the Ioniq 6 is the vehicle it’s morphed into.

The South Korean automaker is focused on showing off the design of the Ioniq 6 rather than its technical specifications for now, so there are no firm details on its battery size or range....

Continue reading…

Brazil is also considering making USB-C chargers mandatory for iPhones

Photo by Mohssen Assanimoghaddam/picture alliance via Getty Images

Brazil’s telecoms regulator Anatel has launched a public consultation on a proposal to make USB-C chargers mandatory for all smartphones sold in the country.

It’s the latest example of lawmakers and regulators turning to USB-C as a common charging standard for phones. The EU passed a law on the matter earlier this month, making USB-C mandatory for a range of electronic gadgets (including smartphones) by the end of 2024, and in the US some Democrat politicians are pushing for similar legislation.

“Aware of the aforementioned movements in the international market, Anatel’s technical area evaluated the topic and presented a proposal with a similar approach for application in the Brazilian market,” said Anatel in a blog post (English...

Continue reading…

1Password now lets you securely share files and documents with just a link

1Password will now let you securely share files and documents with anyone using just a link. The password manager previously started supporting secure password sharing with links last year, and this feature is now being expanded to include documents and files that are stored in 1Password.

Sharing a document or file is as easy as sharing a password from 1Password, and the recipient doesn’t need to even use 1Password to access files. You can share a file with anyone through a link, and you can set an expiry date on the link or even restrict it so people have to verify their email address with a one-time code to view the file.

Image: 1Password

1Password users can share files, documents, passwords, or just sensitive...

Continue reading…

Tesla lays off nearly 200 Autopilot employees who help train the company’s AI

Tesla has laid off nearly 200 workers, most of them tasked with labeling data to help train the company’s Autopilot AI system. The layoffs — first reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by TechCrunch — are the latest job losses at Tesla after CEO Elon Musk told company execs that the firm needed to reduce its headcount by about 10 percent.

The layoffs centered on Tesla’s offices in San Mateo, California, where employees were working on the company’s driver-assistance feature Autopilot. Many of those affected were reportedly hourly workers tasked with labeling training data. Such work is essential for developing AI systems but often low-skilled and low-paid. In recent years, many companies have turned to cheaper sources of labor in...

Continue reading…

Gmail’s new look is about to appear for more people, even if they didn’t ask for it

The new Gmail UI sets buttons for Gmail, Chat, Spaces, and Meet on one rail. | Image: Google

Google started rolling out an updated user interface for Gmail in February that pulls Meet, Chat, and Spaces closer and applies more of its Material You styling effects. Starting today, it’s becoming opt-out instead of opt-in, so your account will switch over to the new view by default pretty soon.

It’s not a huge change, but as Google transitions through its current flavor-of-the-week messaging app and weaves its Workspace suite into a better competitor for Office, this puts more of a focus on the updated experiences.

Image: Google

The old Gmail menu, with Chat and Meet aligned below your Gmail inboxes and labels.

If you can’t tell what’s different here, the updated UI collects buttons for Mail, Meet, Spaces,...

Continue reading…

Are Hyper’s stackable USB-C chargers melting?

Image: Hyper

Did you buy one of Targus / Sanho / Hyper / HyperJuice’s nifty 100W or 65W USB-C chargers with stackable passthrough AC outlets that let you theoretically scale up to loads of powerful ports? I did — and today, I’m thinking twice about whether it belongs in my bedroom.

Yesterday, tipster Marc-Antoine Courteau brought it to our attention that some of these devices are failing and not always in a friendly “ports stop working” way. Numerous Kickstarter backers say their units are overheating to the degree they can melt their plastic housing. “I’m lucky I was sitting with it, smelled the melting plastic, and immediately took action,” wrote one backer named Scott.

So we asked Hyper’s PR team about it and were surprised by the company’s...

Continue reading…

Belkin’s MagSafe charging stand can now fast charge the Apple Watch Series 7

Belkin’s 3-in-1 BoostCharge Pro Charging Stand with MagSafe | Image: Belkin

Belkin’s back at it again with its funky multi-device charging stand, but this one now supports fast charging for the Apple Watch Series 7. The new BoostCharge Pro three-in-one charger offers 15W fast charging for your iPhone 12 or 13 and 5W charging for your AirPods or AirPods Pro.

Just as Apple claims its special magnetic fast-charging cable can charge your Series 7 Watch from 0 to 80 percent in 45 minutes, Belkin says its device can do the same. While the charging stand is compatible with all older Watch models, too, fast charging is only available for the Series 7 (because it’s the only one that has the feature).

Image: Belkin

The charger looks kinda weird without any devices on it.

Design-wise, there...

Continue reading…

Montblanc Summit 3 will be the first Wear OS 3 smartwatch for iOS

The Montblanc Summit 3 will be the first Wear OS 3 watch to run on iOS. | Image: Montblanc

The forthcoming Montblanc Summit 3 will not only run Wear OS 3, but it’ll be the first smartwatch on the new unified platform to support iOS — sort of.

The news — initially reported by Wareable — was confirmed to The Verge by Qualcomm spokesperson Lauren Miller. The Summit 3 isn’t the first smartwatch to be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 4100 Plus platform, but it is the first to launch with Wear OS 3 already installed. The fact that it also supports iOS is a significant departure from other confirmed Wear OS 3 watches. The Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 lineup and the forthcoming Google Pixel Watch, for example, are exclusive to Android users.

Older Wear OS 2 and Samsung Tizen-powered smartwatches, while never incredibly popular with...

Continue reading…

Pinterest has a new CEO, who has one job: to build the internet’s shopping mall

Pinterest has a new CEO — and likely a new sense of urgency. | Image: Pinterest

Ben Silbermann is stepping down as Pinterest’s CEO, the company announced on Tuesday. He’ll be replaced by Bill Ready, who has spent the last couple of years as head of Commerce, Payments & Next Billion Users at Google. Silbermann isn’t leaving the company, though: he’ll be Pinterest’s executive chairman, following in the path of a number of tech CEOs who have recently gone from the daily trenches of running their company to a relatively more relaxed seat in the boardroom.

“Bill’s actually going to be a better CEO than I am for this next chapter,” Silbermann told The Wall Street Journal as part of his announcement. There’s only one way to read that: the time for the product dreamer founder is out. Pinterest’s next job is to make money. A...

Continue reading…

Sonic Frontiers developer says it isn’t an open-world game

Image: Sega

When Sonic Frontiers debuted the first little bits of gameplay, fans immediately drew comparisons to Breath of the Wild. It wasn’t hard to do. We were shown Sonic racing through realistic, natural-looking environments, exploring great stone artifacts that dotted the landscape. There was no timer, no counter ticking up the number of rings acquired, just Sonic and a seemingly open world.

And while Sonic Frontiers’ creative officer Takashi Iizuka understood why, to some fans, the game looks like Sega’s late-hour attempt to replicate BOTW’s success, it’s actually nothing like that. “We’re starting a design perspective that is totally different from what other open-world games are,” Iizuka said to me through a translator at Summer Game Fest...

Continue reading…

Android 13’s Easter egg is a delightful kaleidoscope of emoji

Emoji as far as the eye can see.

In the midst of an otherwise unremarkable new build of Android’s 13 developer beta, 9to5Google uncovered something fun: our annual Android Easter egg. This year’s hidden feature builds on the colorful splash screen from Android 12, this time filling it with emoji. Like, a lot of emoji.

The way it functions in the current beta version (13.3) is much like last year — start the Easter egg by going to Settings > About phone > Android version, then tap the Android version three times rapidly. This reveals an analog clock widget; move the hands to 1 o’clock (that’s 13:00 in military time — get it?), and you’ll see a colorful array of spots pop up representing Material You’s customizable color theming.

Here’s where it differs from last year:...

Continue reading…

Sony’s InZone gaming monitors and headsets are for more than just PS5 gamers

Sony is attempting to reach out to more than just PS5 gamers with its new InZone brand of gaming monitors and headsets. I got my hands on them in the video embedded above if you’d rather see or hear me talk about these gadgets.

Made for PC but with specs to take full advantage of the PS5, along with Xbox Series X, the $899 InZone M9 is the flagship product of the bunch. It’s a 27-inch 4K IPS gaming monitor built to match the aesthetic of the PS5 while having basically every imaginable spec that gamers may universally want, sans OLED panel, of course. It has a 144Hz refresh rate (that’s not so common to find with a 4K screen), a 1ms response time, variable refresh rate (VRR, both for consoles and with G-Sync compatibility for Nvidia...

Continue reading…

Amazon limits Plan B purchases after demand spike

Photo by: Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Amazon is limiting customers to three units of emergency contraceptive pills a week in response to a spike in demand after the Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights, the company told CNBC.

Other retailers are also limiting purchases of drugs like Plan B and Aftera — CVS and Rite Aid are likewise limiting customers to three pills per customer. The companies say there is enough supply of the drugs but that they’re trying to keep them on the shelves consistently. The drugs, often called the morning-after pill, can prevent pregnancy if taken after unprotected sex.

On the Amazon website, users can only select up to a quantity of three for Plan B. But as of publication, the website shows an option to select up to 30 units of My Choice,...

Continue reading…

Crypto exchange CoinFlex says ‘Bitcoin Jesus’ Roger Ver owes $47 million

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

One of the difficulties of cryptocurrency is figuring out who to believe. Case in point: the conflict between Mark Lamb, CEO of CoinFlex, and Roger “Bitcoin Jesus” Ver, an early Bitcoin investor. Lamb says Ver owes his company $47 million and is the reason the company froze customer withdrawals last week. Ver denies this and says that, in fact, CoinFlex owes him money.

Well, things have gotten worse

CoinFlex, an exchange, froze withdrawals on June 27th, saying that it would restart withdrawals on June 30th with one condition: CoinFlex needs to sell tokens related to a debt owed by a “certain high net worth individual.” (The company did not initially name Ver.)

Eleven days ago, we pointed out a few crypto firms with problems that could...

Continue reading…

Apple says iPads will keep working as home hubs in iPadOS 16, but there’s a catch

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Text discovered in iOS 16 beta code indicated that Apple plans to drop iPad home hub support in the new update, but it turns out that’s not quite the full story. According to the company, the iPad isn’t losing support for what it can already do, but it won’t get an important upgrade that will be available later.

“iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 will continue to support iPad as a home hub with no loss in functionality,” Apple spokesperson Catherine Franklin said in a statement to The Verge. While that seems promising on its face, there is a big asterisk. Apple is planning to introduce a new architecture to the new Home app in iPadOS 16, and the iPad won’t be supported as a home hub with that architecture.

Here’s Franklin’s full statement: “Alongside...

Continue reading…

SpaceX asks Starlink customers for support in wireless battle with Dish

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

SpaceX emailed Starlink customers today asking for help in its battle against Dish Network over radio frequencies for its Starlink internet-from-space effort. Some Starlink customers received an email urging them to contact the Federal Communications Commission and members of Congress in order to support SpaceX in the ongoing dispute.

“Today we ask for your support in ending a lobbying campaign that threatens to make Starlink unusable for you and the vast majority of our American customers,” the email reads in bold.

“Today we ask for your support in ending a lobbying campaign that threatens to make Starlink unusable”

Currently, SpaceX and Dish are squabbling over a range of radio frequencies known as the 12GHz band. SpaceX uses these...

Continue reading…

Microsoft Edge Collections go full-on Pinterest with inspiration feed and sharing

You can now hover over an image to save it to your Collection. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft Edge is building what seems like a mini version of Pinterest inside its browser. Its Collections window will soon start displaying a feed of recommended content based on the topics you’ve saved.

As someone who has used Edge since the browser first came out, I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that I never really knew much about Collections (until now, at least). So if you’re anything like me, here’s a quick rundown. Collections lets you save and organize webpages, text snippets, and images you find on the web. You can make a collection for, say, recipes to house links to all your favorite meals or even one for graphic design that contains inspirational images for your future work. The new inspiration feed will serve up content...

Continue reading…

Sony has another PlayStation 5 restock you can queue up for right now

Sony is at it yet again with repeat restocks. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Yesterday was a pleasant surprise on the PlayStation 5 console restock front. Sony opened up a public queue for PS5 consoles, and unlike many times before, it stayed open and viable for much longer than usual. Now, there’s another one happening right now, and you can queue up without an invite.

There’s no guarantee that this one will be as easy to get into as yesterday’s, but if you have not bought a PS5 direct from Sony before, it’s worth a try. Once you get through the wait time, you should be offered up a few different options for PS5 consoles, including the regular disc-equipped system for $499, the Digital Edition for $399 (though that one seems to usually sell out the fastest), and bundle versions with Horizon Forbidden West for...

Continue reading…

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are ready to get even freakier in season 3 trailer

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. | HBO Max

Rather than marrying Kite Man (hell yeah) in the season 2 finale of HBO Max’s animated Harley Quinn series, Poison Ivy came to her senses, ditched her fiancé, and finally admitted to Harley that the romantic feelings between them were mutual. After driving off into the sunset with one another, Harley and Ivy are back in the first trailer for Harley Quinn’s upcoming third season and ready to share their love with the world.

Though Harley (Kaley Cuoco) and Ivy (Lake Bell) were able to escape from Kite Man’s botched wedding unscathed, at least some of Gotham’s other villains who were in attendance were captured, like Clayface (Alan Tudyk) and King Shark (Ron Funches). The new trailer finds Harley and Ivy still basking in the glow of being...

Continue reading…

Facebook and Instagram will remove posts offering abortion pills

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook and Instagram are removing posts from users that offer help accessing abortion pills, saying they violate a policy around pharmaceuticals.

Following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade on Friday_,_ social media users have shared posts offering to mail abortion pills to people whose access to abortion has been stripped away or will be soon.

But users are finding their offers quickly removed or restricted, as reported by Motherboard and the Associated Press. A test Facebook post by an AP reporter offering to mail abortion pills was removed within one minute. A test by a Verge reporter yielded similar results, with a post offering abortion pills being flagged within two minutes.

The sale, gifting, and transfer of...

Continue reading…

Facebook Groups are being revamped to look like Discord

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Facebook Groups are about to get some big changes, and if you’ve used Discord, the new approach should seem pretty darn familiar. Meta is testing a new left-aligned sidebar and channels list for Groups, and the changes are giving me some serious Discord vibes. Meta is even evoking Discord with a purple accent color.

Central to the changes is a new sidebar that lists your groups with rounded square icons. Like with Discord and Slack, you’ll be able to pin groups so that they show up first on the list. Individual groups will have a new menu that seems lifted right from Discord. The menu organizes things like channels, Messenger conversations, and events one after another.

Image: Meta

Stop me if you’ve seen...

Continue reading…

Waymo’s self-driving trucks will deliver home goods for Wayfair

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Waymo will deliver home goods for Wayfair using its fleet of autonomous semi-trailer trucks, the company announced Tuesday.

The deliveries will take place as part of a pilot that’s being conducted by Waymo and JB Hunt Transport Services to test out self-driving trucks along certain shipping routes in Texas. One of JB Hunt’s customers is furniture and home goods giant Wayfair, which will begin sending out deliveries using Waymo’s fleet for a six-week test this July and August.

a six-week test this July and August

The deliveries will take place in Texas, with Waymo’s Class 8 autonomous truck hauling goods along Interstate 45 between facilities in Houston and Dallas, which was the route used by Waymo and JB Hunt during the original pilot...

Continue reading…

The Ghostbusters: Afterlife sequel is set for release in December 2023

Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) in Columbia Pictures’ Ghostbusters: Afterlife | Image: CTMG, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Pandemic delays caused a wider-than-expected gap between our first peek at Ghostbusters: Afterlifeand when it actually came to theaters, but Sony is setting up a tighter schedule for the follow-up. After director Jason Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan confirmed the sequel earlier this month, Sony has added it to the schedule with a planned theatrical release date of December 20th, 2023.

When Ghostbusters: Afterlife eventually reached theaters in December 2021, it eventually grossed $200 million worldwide, so a sequel isn’t a big surprise, and the Ghostbuster universe is also expanding with a new animated series for Netflix that Reitman and Kenan are producing.

As scheduled, that release date sets it up squarely against a pair of heavy...

Continue reading…