North Korea’s weapons program is also among crypto losers

Illustration by James Bareham / The Verge

One thing I have come to appreciate is that cryptocurrency isn’t really very good at its killer use case: crime. Today’s example comes from North Korea, where the regime’s war chest of stolen cryptocurrency is suddenly worth a lot less than it used to be.

Here’s an exceptionally funny sentence from Reuters:

Old, unlaundered North Korean crypto holdings monitored by the New York-based blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, which include funds stolen in 49 hacks from 2017 to 2021, have decreased in value from $170 million to $65 million since the beginning of the year, the company told Reuters.

That’s a 61 percent loss, overall, for those of you keeping track at home. The crypto from one 2021 heist has lost at least 80 percent of its...

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Pokémon Go developer Niantic cancels four projects and lays off more than 80 people

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge

Niantic, which has been trying to replicate the massive success of Pokémon Go with other mobile AR games, is laying off 8 percent of its workforce and canceling four projects, as reported by Bloomberg.

“We recently decided to stop production on some projects and reduce our workforce by about eight percent to focus on our key priorities,” Niantic VP of communications Jonny Thaw said in a statement to The Verge. “We are grateful for the contributions of those leaving Niantic and we are supporting them through this difficult transition.

“This means we can focus on our most important priorities, including Pokémon Go and a select set of new experiences, as well as the Lightship platform. This increased focus, as well our strong core...

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Netflix is bringing Cameron Diaz out of retirement for a new movie with Jamie Foxx

Image: Netflix

Cameron Diaz is set to star alongside Jamie Foxx in a new Netflix original film, officially ending Diaz’s retirement (which some of us at The Verge apparently never got the memo on). Foxx teased the new film, titled Back in Action, in a tweet containing an audio call between him, Diaz, and Tom Brady, whose retirement from football notably lasted a whole 40 days.

In a press release, Netflix doesn’t reveal much about the upcoming film other than that it’s an action-comedy directed, produced, and written by Seth Gordon, the director behind Horrible Bosses. Beau Bauman of Central Intelligence will serve as a producer, and Neighbors’ Brendan O’Brien is helping out with the script. Netflix says the premise of the film will remain “under wraps”...

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How to use Instagram to share with other social networks

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you’re an Instagram user, there’s a good chance it isn’t the only social network that you post to. The app makes it very easy to send your post to a few other social networks — including Facebook (which owns Instagram).

Here’s how you do it through the iPhone app (the Android app is very similar):

Connect your social networks

To share Instagram photos to other social networks, you’ll need to link those accounts.

• From the Instagram home screen, tap your profile icon, followed by the menu icon in the top right.
• Select Settings > Account > Sharing to other apps.
• Select the account you want to link and enter your login information. You can link a number of networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. (If you’re linking to...

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Nerf’s Gjallarhorn rocket launcher from Destiny is truly gigantic — preorders begin July 7th

Image: Bungie

If you were worried that the real-life foam firing version of the infamous Gjallarhorn rocket launcher from Destiny would be disappointingly kid-sized, you can put those fears to rest: Bungie has just revealed what the blaster actually looks like — and when fans can get it.

Preorders for the over 4-foot-long, 1:1 scale blaster will begin July 7th at 10AM PT / 1PM ET, and existing Gjallarhorn owners get dibs. If you’re looking to purchase the prop-grade Nerf LMTD blaster, you need to unlock it in-game in the Destiny 2 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack before July 7th at 9AM PT before you can join the “virtual waiting room” for your purchase. So, you’ve got just over a week. If there are any left, Bungie will put...

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The Xiaomi Mi 12S Ultra will use a huge 1-inch camera sensor co-developed with Sony

Xiaomi says it split the $15 million development cost of the new smartphone camera sensor with Sony. | Image: Xiaomi

Big-sensor cameras are a bit of a white whale for smartphone imaging engineers. Even the most capable smartphone cameras use relatively puny sensors, and efforts to bring bigger sensors to the mobile form factor have been impractical, niche, or never really materialized. Xiaomi appears to be the latest company to attempt to capture the elusive concept with its upcoming 12S Ultra flagship.

According to a post on Weibo spotted by Android Authority, the phone will include a 1-inch-type sensor co-developed with Sony. That’s about 1.7 times more surface area than the 1/1.33-inch-type sensor in the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra’s main camera module. It’s also the same size sensor that’s in Sony’s $1300 Cyber-shot RX100 VII that’s more or less the...

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Electric vehicle companies have a serious quality problem

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

The chip shortage and supply chain crisis are doing more than just driving up vehicle prices — they’re also affecting quality.

JD Power published its Initial Quality Study for 2022 model-year cars this week, in which it found that new vehicle quality has declined 11 percent year over year, the steepest drop ever recorded by the group.

Electric vehicle manufacturers in particular are showing big drops in quality, with Polestar ranking dead last. Tesla, meanwhile, ranks seventh from the bottom, continuing its trend of shoddy manufacturing.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are difficult to understand

In this year’s survey, JD Power recorded 226 problems per 100 Tesla vehicles. Combining all non-Tesla EVs, the survey says that 240 problems...

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The best Fourth of July sales happening right now

Apple and other retailers are offering awesome promotions to kick off the summer. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Celebrate our nation’s birthday the Verge Deals way, by saving on some fun tech in time for the summer instead of, you know, doomscrolling about the state of everything. The Fourth of July holiday means different things to different people, but regardless, we’re about to take you on a journey to see all the best July Fourth deals on a variety of tech from across the internet.

Several retailers are celebrating the summer holiday by offering excellent discounts and promotions on their products. For instance, Belkin is offering a sitewide discount on its charging peripherals, and Apple is already offering a pair of promotions for anyone in the market for a new tablet or laptop. There’s a little something for everyone. It’s also worth noting...

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Google’s Switch to Android iPhone app now works with any Android 12 phone

Google’s Switch to Android app now supports all Android 12 phones. The free iOS app is designed to make it easy to switch to Android, transferring important data like your iPhone contacts and calendar entries. Google released the app earlier this year, but it was limited to its Pixel devices initially. Support for all Android 12 phones makes this a key app if you’re moving from an iPhone to a new Android device.

The Switch to Android app initiates a transfer process by displaying a QR code on the iPhone, which you then scan to start transferring photos, videos, contacts, and calendar events. Data can be transferred wirelessly instead of having to connect two phones with a cable, but the cable option is faster and better suited to...

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Construction begins on ‘Mammoth’ direct air capture plant

Climeworks announced the groundbreaking of its new Direct Air Capture plant in Iceland, called Mammoth. | Image: Climeworks

Swiss climate tech company Climeworks announced yesterday that it has broken ground on its biggest facility yet for capturing carbon dioxide from the air. The new Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant, named Mammoth, will significantly scale up the company’s operations in Hellisheiði, Iceland.

That’s where Climeworks built Orca, which was the largest DAC plant in the world when it came online last September. Orca can capture up to 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year, roughly equivalent to how much climate pollution 790 gas-guzzling passenger vehicles release annually. Mammoth, in comparison, can capture about nine times as much CO2 as Orca.

Mammoth, in comparison, can capture about nine times as much CO2

There are fewer than 20 such plants in...

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The fall of Roe v. Wade shows how little control patients have over medical records

Illustration by Ana Kova

The end of federal abortion rights quickly made a common, safe medical procedure illegal in many parts of the United States and turned routine medical data into something that can be used against people suspected of having an abortion.

Despite being highly sensitive, health data often isn’t as private as people might assume. There isn’t much preventing medical records from being weaponized against people seeking abortions in states where it is illegal. Even though medical records contain sensitive, personal information, most people don’t have much control over the information in them or how they are shared.

Medical privacy laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), don’t stop subpoenas or warrants for...

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Apple promises ‘white glove experiences’ for its most helpful community members

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple is rewarding the most active and helpful members of its support forums with its new Community Plus program (via iClarified). The invite-only program gives these “high-level” Support Community members access to exclusive perks and experiences.

Apple’s Support Community members can already earn points based on their activity, granting them access to rewards as they level up. This includes the ability to upload a custom avatar as well as participate in conference calls with the Apple Support Community team and even in-person meetups with other members. But the Community Plus program appears to take things a bit further. It applies to the “shining stars” of Apple support forums who provide the most detailed and helpful answers. Apple...

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The best early Amazon Prime Day deals you can get right now

The actual start of Prime Day is July 12th, and it will continue through the 13th. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon Prime Day is inching ever closer, and there’s already some momentum building with early deals. July 12th is slated as the start of the two-day sales event, but you can bet on some nice discounts popping up ahead of that date. We may see a slow crescendo of deals building up or the occasional deluge. It’s also likely other retailers will be looking to get into the mix, so keep on the lookout for sales from the likes of Walmart and Target, the latter of which already has a “Deal Days” event planned for the same time period. While Amazon is obviously the star of its own show, it also bears mentioning that Prime Day deals are exclusive to Prime members while competing sales from other retailers are open to all.

In the meantime, we’re...

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The best laptop deals you can get right now

The MacBook Air equipped with Apple’s M1 processor is the best laptop for most people and is often on sale. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

If you want a great laptop, you’re going to have to fork over a ton of money, right? Not necessarily. There are dozens of good laptops on the market at various price points. While it can feel overwhelming to find the right one for your needs (some are better suited for, say, college students, whereas others are ideal for gamers), that’s why we’ve come up with this list of some of the best laptop deals available right now.

In addition to the latest deals, we’ll share each discounted model’s best features (and downsides) to give you more clarity during your shopping journey. And if you need to do more research, you can also check out our guides to the best laptops on the market and the top cheap laptops as well.

Just remember that Prime...

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TweetDeck for Mac is going away, so it’s time to download Tweeten

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

TweetDeck for Mac will shut down in just two days on July 1st. I rely on the TweetDeck app for my job as a news writer here at The Verge — I live for my alerts about big news and like being able to scroll the infinity of my Twitter columns — and I was disappointed to hear TweetDeck was going away. But if you’re looking for a replacement, you should seriously check out Tweeten. I downloaded it up a day or two after Twitter announced TweetDeck was going away, and I haven’t looked back.

Tweeten is basically TweetDeck. Like Twitter’s official power user app, Tweeten lets you do things like tweet right from the client and make columns of all different kinds so that you can plug into the matrix. Seriously, just look at this Tweeten screenshot...

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Amazon’s Paper Girls series messes with the timeline in first trailer

Anjali Pinto/Prime Video

If a new season of Stranger Things wasn’t enough ‘80s-themed sci-fi for you, Amazon has decided to release the first trailer for its upcoming Paper Girls series. The teaser is incredibly short, but it shows off some of the time-traveling shenanigans that viewers can expect, along with a very pink color palette.

Paper Girls started life as a 30-issue comic from Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang that followed four newspaper delivery girls who get sucked into a long-running war between various time-traveling groups. It has lots of classic ‘80s adventure movie elements — like kids riding all over town on bikes — before getting going in its own direction to become extremely weird and interesting.

The series, meanwhile, stars Sofia Rosinsky,...

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See’s third and final season has its sight set on war in new trailer

Jason Momoa as Baba Voss in the third season of See. | Apple TV Plus

Just as sight is beginning to return to the world of Apple TV Plus’ See, the series is coming to an end with its upcoming third and final season.

Though Baba Voss (Jason Momoa) and Queen Maghra (Hera Hilmar) were able to triumph over Baba’s brother Edo (Dave Bautista) in See’s second season finale, the war between the Trivantians and the monarchy ended with an ideological divide threatening to upend the new balance of power. After years of operating as witch hunters — killers of people like Baba and Maghra’s twin daughter Haniwa (Nesta Cooper) and son Kofun (Archie Madekwe) born with the ability to see — many of those loyal to the throne balk at Maghra’s decision to eradicate the practice.

Though some of the Queen’s new Royal Guard see...

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Waymo, Aurora, Uber, and others urge California to lift its ban on heavy-duty self-driving trucks

California is at risk of losing its “competitive edge” if it doesn’t lift a ban on the operation of autonomous semitrailer trucks on public roads, a group of 35 industry leaders said in an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom.

The letter is signed by a cross section of autonomous vehicle companies, delivery and logistics firms, and automakers, including Waymo, Aurora, TuSimple, Embark, UPS, Volvo, and Uber Freight. The group urges Newsom to revisit rules prohibiting heavy-duty self-driving trucks from public testing.

Vehicles that weigh more than 10,001 pounds are banned

California has permitted public testing of light-duty autonomous trucks since 2019. But vehicles that weigh more than 10,001 pounds — which include walk-in delivery...

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1Password will help you remember which ‘sign in with’ service you used

Image: 1Password

1Password is trying to solve the situation where you go to log on to a website and wonder something like “did I sign in with Google, Apple, or an actual email and password combo” or “which of my five Google accounts did I use for this?” The company has announced that its password manager will let you save which single sign-on (SSO) service you used on a site, so it can automatically log you in with that same account when you return. This feature comes as big companies are gearing up a campaign against passwords as a concept.

According to a blog post, the feature is currently available in the beta version of 1Password for the browser and currently supports logging in with Facebook, Google, and Apple. 1Password says it’ll add more...

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Vergecast: Asus ROG gaming guide, privacy risks in post-Roe USA, and the internet’s recommendation problem

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Every Wednesday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where editor-at-large David Pierce is joined by The Verge’s expert staffers in a deep exploration of how gadgets and software affect our lives.

On today’s episode, we have a variety of stories from across The Verge. At the top of the show, David and managing editor Alex Cranz chat with health technology reporter Nicole Wetsman and senior privacy and cybersecurity reporter Corin Faife about the privacy vulnerabilities for people seeking abortions in a post-Roe United States and how people can protect their information.

Later in the episode, David reports on why the internet is so bad at recommendations, with insights from executives at Yelp, Pocket, Pinterest,...

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The NuraTrue Pro are the first wireless earbuds to support aptX Lossless streaming

The NuraTrue Pro true wireless earbuds. | Image: Nura

The new Bluetooth streaming codec that promises to stream CD-quality audio without any loss of audio detail, aptX Lossless, is coming to its first pair of earbuds. The NuraTrue Pro true wireless earbuds are the work of Australian audio company Nura and are currently being funded on Kickstarter with early bird prices starting at $199 and a regular retail price of $329.

“These are the first earbuds to be announced with Snapdragon Sound and aptX Lossless. We’re excited to say that there will be many more Snapdragon Sound powered devices with support for aptX Lossless launching soon,” Qualcomm spokesperson Lauren Miller said in a statement. Snapdragon Sound is the name of Qualcomm’s overall audio platform, of which aptX Lossless is one...

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Nothing’s Phone 1 uses Qualcomm’s midrange Snapdragon 778G Plus processor

The Phone 1 shown off at a recent event | Image: Nothing

Nothing’s debut smartphone, the Phone 1, is powered by Qualcomm’s midrange Snapdragon 778G Plus processor, the company has confirmed to Input Mag. That means the phone is unlikely to have the raw performance of a device equipped with a flagship Qualcomm processor like the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1.

Nothing founder Carl Pei tells Input Mag that the company went with the lower-specced chip because it believes it offers a better mix of price, performance, heat output, and power consumption. Nothing also says the Plus variant of the 778G supports wireless and reverse wireless charging, features normally reserved for Qualcomm’s flagship chipsets. The Snapdragon 778G Plus also features a marginally faster CPU clock speed than the 778G before it....

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Samsung’s PS5-compatible 1TB 980 Pro M.2 SSD is down to $134.99 for GameStop Pro members

The PS5 offers easy installation of an add-on SSD to expand the 1TB it has built in. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

It’s the hump day before a holiday weekend, which means it officially feels like time is moving the slowest it possibly can. There is one solution to speed things up, though: get a fast SSD for your PC or PlayStation 5.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but hear me out. You don’t want to spend your precious hours waiting on slow load times for applications and games. Thankfully, the 1TB Samsung 980 Pro NVMe SSD with a heatsink will help you do just that, and it’s currently on sale for $169.99 at GameStop and Amazon. What’s more, if you’re a GameStop Pro member (which costs $14.99 per year), you get an additional discount that drops it down to $134.99 — which is the outright best price around. That extra “pro” sale is a savings of $95 off...

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The internet is a constant recommendations machine — but it needs you to make it work

There’s more content than ever out there — and it’s harder than ever to know what to watch. | Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Why can’t the internet tell you what to read, watch, and eat? Because you’re complicated

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Atari is getting a massive historical game collection for its 50th anniversary

Atari is 50 years old, and to celebrate, the company has partnered with the retro game experts at Digital Eclipse on a new anniversary collection that covers five decades of gaming history. It has the somewhat unwieldy title Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration, but it also sounds much more involved than a typical classic game bundle. Atari 50 will feature more than 90 games — including six new titles “inspired by the classics” — from consoles like the 2600, Jaguar, and Lynx, along with archival photos, images, and even interviews.

If the name Digital Eclipse sounds familiar, it’s probably because the studio has made a name for itself with thoughtful, well-executed classic game collections like the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary...

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SiriusXM’s radio app is now available on Comcast X1 boxes and smart TVs

The SiriusXM app. | Image: Comcast

Comcast subscribers can now access the SiriusXM app from their Xfinity Flex streaming device and XClass TV as well as through the Xfinity X1 hub for live TV. You can call up the app by saying “SiriusXM” to your voice remote or by searching for it within your device’s list of apps.

Although Comcast gives users free access to the NBC Peacock app on X1 and Flex devices, you’ll either need to sign up for a paid SiriusXM subscription or use your existing one to use the app. SiriusXM is offering new subscribers a free three-month trial for its most expensive Streaming Platinum tier, but after that, you’ll have to pay the $10.99 / month price.

The Platinum tier includes over 425 channels, with 330 for ad-free music, two exclusive Howard Stern...

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Blizzard acquires studio behind fantasy battle royale Spellbreak

Image: Proletariat

Blizzard Entertainment has acquired its first studio in more than 15 years. In a report from VentureBeat, the company has acquired the Boston-based studio Proletariat. As a result, Proletariat’s Spellbreak, a battle royale in which you fling spells at your enemies instead of bullets, will shut down.

“After more than four years of elemental magic and spell combinations, we’ve made the decision to end development of Spellbreak,” the company wrote on its website. “The servers will be shut down as of early 2023.”

Proletariat was founded in 2012 and launched its first game, World Zombination, on mobile in 2015. In addition to developing traditional games, Proletariat also worked on creating Twitch-integrated games that allowed viewers to...

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Chad Wolf, the illegal secretary

Kirstjen Nielsen’s tenure as the head of the Department of Homeland Security was perhaps best known for the family separation policy at the border. The recordings of crying toddlers, the children wrapped in silver foil blankets, the detention conditions likened to “cages” — this was her legacy. Nielsen was reviled by almost everyone from the center and leftwards. Ironically, President Trump himself disliked her, in part for not being tough enough on immigration, and would eventually force her out.

Nielsen would be the last legal secretary of homeland security in the Trump administration. What would follow would be a chaotic parade involving governance by tweet, a thicket of laws and regulations, incorrectly amended paperwork, and a...

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Homeland: a special series from The Verge

When former President George W. Bush outlined his national strategy for homeland security, the pitch was simple: America was under attack by a “terrorist threat,” and the country needed to protect itself from an enemy that “takes many forms, has many places to hide, and is often invisible.”

It was in direct response to the 9/11 attack, and yet, the specifics of that terrorist threat were surprisingly vague. The imprecision could be read as paranoia. Or, more insidiously, you could see it as a way to broaden the definition of enemy to include any and all foreigners. Suddenly, immigrants were a threat to the “homeland.” And anyone else who would voice a dissenting opinion was a danger to national security. Rereading the strategic...

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How the TSA created two classes of travelers

I’m old enough to remember what it was like to fly before 9/11 — there were no TSA lines, there was no PreCheck, and there certainly wasn’t any requirement to take off your shoes. In fact, there wasn’t any TSA at all.

But 9/11 radically changed the way we move through an airport. The formation of the new Department of Homeland Security and the new Transportation Security Administration led to much more rigorous and invasive security measures for travelers trying to catch their flight.

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA, and I think it’s safe to say that nobody enjoys waiting in the airport security line. And in the post-9/11 world, things like PreCheck are the great innovation of the...

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