Finding the limits of Dish’s new 5G network

A Project Genesis-specific Samsung Galaxy S22 | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Dish is trying something no one’s succeeded at for a very long time: build a new nationwide cell network from the ground up. The 5G service, called Project Genesis, finally went live in “over 120 cities” two weeks ago, and my colleague and I immediately signed up to test it out.

From the start, we had some big questions: how fast will this new network be? Would we even be able to find Dish service? And did the company launch Genesis before it was ready just to meet its contractual obligations with the government and avoid tens of millions of dollars in fines?

Given how buggy the sign-up process was, I didn’t have high hopes when I unboxed my Project Genesis-specific Samsung Galaxy S22. But after a week of testing it in Spokane,...

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TikTok assures Republicans it’s working to protect US data security

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

After years of mounting pressure, TikTok provided US lawmakers with more details into how it limits Chinese access to American data in a new letter dated Thursday.

In a letter addressed to nine of the app’s most prominent Republican critics, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew detailed how the company planned to separate American user data from ByteDance, TikTok’s Chinese parent company. Chew also explained TikTok’s plan to house American user data on Oracle servers, a plan first reported by BuzzFeed News last month.

“We’re proud to be able to serve a global community of more than a billion people who use TikTok to creatively express themselves and be entertained,” Chew wrote in the letter first reported by The New York Times. “We know we are among...

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Powerful keyword warrants face new challenge in deadly arson case

Kristen Radtke / The Verge

A case being brought in the Colorado district court of Denver County is challenging the constitutionality of a controversial keyword search warrant and potentially curbing a law enforcement practice that has implications for the criminalization of abortion.

A reverse keyword search warrant is a surveillance technique that lets police start with a search term of interest and identify users who have searched it within a particular period. In concrete terms, that could mean identifying all the users who search for a specific name or address — or in a scenario that has caused anxiety recently, everyone who searches for “abortion drugs.” Proponents of the technique say they’re an important tool for identifying criminals, but civil liberties...

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PayPal is ending fee-free Friends & Family payments for business accounts

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

PayPal is putting new limits on a feature in its payment system that allows people to receive money without paying extra fees, the company recently announced. Starting July 28th, only personal PayPal accounts will be able to get funds via Friends & Family, a transaction method intended for trusted recipients.

There are two ways of sending money on PayPal: Friends & Family and Goods & Services. F&F is intended for paying your friend back for dinner, for example, or giving your kid some birthday money — you know who’s receiving the funds and what you’re paying them for. There’s typically no fee involved, but it also drops protections for issues that might come up, like refunds or scams.

G&S is intended for purchases, and money sent this...

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Vergecast: EVs are a mess, Starlink is confusing, and WFH monitors are here

Image: Hyundai

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, David, and Alex chat with Verge transportation editor Andrew Hawkins about a strangely busy week for EV news — from Tesla laying off 200 Autopilot employees to the first look at Hyundai’s new Ioniq 6. Then, the crew tries to answer why both startups and veteran car makers alike struggle to build a reliable EV.

Of course, we couldn’t talk about EVs without letting Nilay give his latest thoughts about electric trucks, but dear listener, you’ll have to...

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Eero’s flagship Pro 6E mesh router is down to a new low price ahead of Prime Day

Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

This Friday, our deals deliver some Wi-Fi gains. If you’re in the market for a fast mesh Wi-Fi router or an upgrade to your existing one, then you’ve got some discounted options from Eero right now. Amazon-owned Eero is running a pre-Prime Day sale that drops its latest and greatest models to their lowest prices until July 11th for Prime members. Will these early Prime Day deals pale in comparison to the discounts when Prime Day actually lands on the 12th and 13th? We’ll find out together soon enough, but these deals are too good not to share withyou now.

Let’s start with the highest-end model. The Pro 6E is the newest router from Eero, and it supports the wider 6GHz band to achieve faster speeds in supported devices. It also claims to...

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Steve Jobs awarded posthumous Medal of Freedom by President Biden

Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Steve Jobs, the co-founder and former CEO of Apple, has been awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden, the White House announced Friday. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest US honor that can be given to a civilian, and it’s presented to “individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors,” the White House said in a statement.

Jobs founded Apple in April 1976, and it’s since become one of the biggest companies in the world. He helped launch many tech products that have gone on to become cultural touchstones, including the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone. He died on...

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COVID-19 variant boosters won’t need new clinical trials for clearance, FDA says

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers won’t need to conduct new clinical trials as they develop booster shots targeting the most recent variants of the virus, a Food and Drug Administration official told Reuters. The agency will use clinical trials of variant-specific boosters developed earlier in the pandemic, manufacturing data, and animal studies to evaluate the shots.

The omicron variant of the virus has developed into multiple lineages. Right now, the BA.4 and BA.5 variants are the most widespread in the United States. The FDA said Thursday that the next set of booster shots should be against those versions of the virus. But pharmaceutical companies have been testing shots targeting BA.1, an earlier omicron lineage. Early data from M...

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Uber rides are getting safer, but the roads are deadlier than ever

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Uber trips are getting safer, with the company reporting far fewer sexual assaults in 2019 and 2020 as compared to previous years. But the number of traffic deaths during Uber rides is rising, reflecting the increasingly dangerous conditions on US roads.

Uber said 3,824 sexual assaults occurred during trips in 2019 and 2020, a 38 percent drop from the 2017–2018 report, which logged 5,981 assaults. The decrease could be related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in an 80 percent drop in Uber’s ride-hailing business during 2020. Still, Uber says the vast majority of trips, 99.9 percent, occur without a safety incident.

Uber says that 20 people were killed in physical assaults in 2019 and 2020

Uber says that 20 people were killed in...

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Gboard’s split keyboard beta makes it easier to type on foldable phones

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

Google’s Gboard keyboard app for Android is throwing a bone to people who use foldable phones (or at least, for now, to beta users of the app) with a split keyboard mode. Its aim is to make it less awkward and a little more ergonomic to type on the large, expanded screens of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 or a Microsoft Surface Duo 2.

The split keyboard mode cuts the keyboard in half, putting all of the keys near the two sides of the foldable phone, much closer to where your thumbs may be naturally resting while you hold the device. And while Samsung’s keyboard app already offers this feature to Z Fold phones, some Android users prefer Gboard’s typing experience and auto-correct implementation.

Android Central was first to pick up on the...

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Apple CarPlay will let you pay for gas from your driver’s seat

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

During its WWDC event a few weeks ago, Apple announced iOS 16, highlighting a “next-generation” CarPlay experience that automakers might not be ready for any time soon. It also announced a new “fueling and driving tasks apps” feature that you will actually be able to use once the update is released.

Fueling and driving task apps

Fueling and driving task apps are available in CarPlay. Your favorite apps that help you fill your tank and provide you with road information, toll support, towing help, and more can find a home in CarPlay.

This week, Reuters reports at least one gas chain has an implementation of the feature in its pipeline, enabling a new way to find gas stations and pay at the pump using just your car’s infotainment screen....

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The best gaming headset deals you can get right now

Logitech’s budget-friendly G435 boasts color and comfort as well as a host of solid features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A good gaming headset is practically a necessity these days. Clean and precise audio is essential for competitive gaming, allowing you not just to pinpoint your enemies but also to communicate effectively with your teammates. Moreover, recent developments in spatial audio and virtual surround sound have allowed headsets to meet — and occasionally surpass — more expensive audio setups, allowing even the most budget-conscious gamer to obtain a competitive edge at a fraction of the price.

While you could always invest in a massive pair of speakers, they’re likely to earn you the dubious distinction of the worst roommate of the decade. Thankfully, the right headset will allow you to keep the running and gunning to yourself, which is why...

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Insta360’s 1-inch 360 mod sets the stage for 360 cameras to come

But bigger sensors come at bigger costs

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Artists are helping to make Magic: The Gathering more expressive — and fun

Illustration by Jarett Sitter / The Verge

Customized commanders, artistic alters, and pretty proxies galore

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How to factory reset your smartwatch

No one else should see your sensitive data. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

There are many reasons why you might want to factory reset your smartwatch. Perhaps an update got borked during download and no amount of troubleshooting has helped. Maybe you want to upgrade to a new model and plan to gift your current watch to a friend. Apple requires you to do it if you happen to forget your passcode. Or, it’s possible that smartwatches just aren’t your thing and you’re ready to sell.

Whatever the reason, it’s important that you wipe the data from your device. Wearables are personal devices and store a ton of sensitive data — especially if you primarily use your smartwatch for health and fitness tracking. As a general reminder, if you’re not totally throwing in the towel on smartwatches, it’s a good idea to back up...

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On a post-Roe v. Wade internet, unvetted abortion support is going viral

Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last week, ending the constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy, social media platforms have buzzed with anger, dismay, and offers of assistance, particularly from people in states with stronger abortion protections.

But a particular type of offer has captured media attention. In viral tweets, TikToks, and screenshotted and reshared Instagram posts, people are opening their homes up to abortion patients who must travel for care.

“If you choose to have an abortion, and need a place to stay, there is always a bed for you at my apartment in Portland. Free. No questions asked,” reads one tweet, liked more than 150,000 times and retweeted by more than 20,000 people.

Providing lodging or...

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Meet the modder making $20,000 a month bringing the biggest games to VR

Illustration by Jarett Sitter / The Verge

Luke Ross is doing what most game publishers won’t

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Driverless Cruise robotaxis stop working simultaneously, blocking San Francisco street

A group of driverless Cruise robotaxis blocked traffic in San Francisco for hours on Tuesday evening after the cars stopped working without explanation.

Details of the incident were shared on Reddit (and spotted by TechCrunch) and illustrate how driverless vehicles are still experiencing teething problems in real-life settings.

Cruise, which is backed by General Motors and Honda, has been testing its technology in San Francisco since February, but only launched a commercial robotaxi service last week. The cars have no human safety driver at all but operate under certain restrictions. They only offer lifts on “select streets” between the hours of 10PM and 6AM when the weather conditions are favorable, and can drive no faster than 30mph....

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Technoblade, a popular Minecraft YouTuber, dies from cancer age 23 — shares final video

Technoblade posing with his YouTube creator award for surpassing 10 million subscribers. | Image: Technoblade via YouTube

Technoblade, a popular Minecraft YouTuber, has died from cancer age 23.

In a video uploaded to his YouTube channel titled “so long nerds” and narrated by his father, Technoblade thanked his fans and fellow streamers for their support over the years, and revealed that his real name was Alex. (He’d “accidentally” let slip he was called Dave in an earlier video.)

“Hello everyone, Technoblade here. If you’re watching this, I am dead,” he says. “Thank you all for supporting my content over the years. If I had another 100 lives, I think I would choose to be Technoblade again every single time, as those were the happiest years of my life.”

In the video, Technoblade apologizes for “selling out so much in the past year” by offering...

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Google offers small app developers $90 million to settle antitrust allegations

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google has offered to pay out $90 million to small app developers to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that the company’s Play store policies violated federal antitrust laws.

The suit claimed that Google maintained polices that effectively forced developers to use its Google Play billing system — which for many years had a default 30 percentcharge on all transactions. In July 2021, in a concession to smaller developers and in response to this suit, Google cut this fee to 15 percent for the first $1 million earned through any app.

According to Hagens Berman, the law firm representing the plaintiffs in this class-action, some 48,000 small app developers in the US will be able to claim a payment from the $90 million fund. Hagens...

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Apple’s former securities lawyer pleads guilty for doing the insider trading he was supposed to prevent

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A former Apple lawyer who was in charge of preventing insider trading has pleaded guilty to six counts of securities fraud for insider trading, according to a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release. Gene Levoff, once the company’s former corporate secretary and director of corporate law, “misappropriated material, nonpublic information about Apple’s financial results and then executed trades involving the company’s stock” from February 2011 to April 2016, the release says. Charges against him were initially filed by the SEC as a civil complaint in 2019.

Levoff also served on Apple’s Disclosure Committee, a group that looked over company earnings reports and SEC filings before they were published. Using information he was privy to, he...

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The FCC authorizes SpaceX’s Starlink system to be used on vehicles in motion

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

Today, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) granted SpaceX authorization to use its Starlink satellite internet system on vehicles in motion — including cars, trucks, boats, and aircraft. It’s a big win for SpaceX’s Starlink system, potentially opening up the service to a more diverse range of use cases and customers.

SpaceX requested regulatory approval from the FCC in March of last year to allow Earth Stations in Motion (ESIM) Starlink terminals to be used in moving vehicles. To tap into the system and receive broadband internet coverage, customers must purchase a personal ground-based antenna, or user terminal, that is designed to connect with any orbiting Starlink satellites that happen to be overhead. Up until now, those...

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You can buy Sega’s Mega Drive Mini 2 flight stick and get it shipped to the US

The Cyber Stick | Image: Famitsu

Sega may have only announced the Mega Drive Mini 2 for release in Japan so far, but there’s a pretty cool accessory for it that appears to work with PCs and can be shipped stateside. As of this writing, Amazon has the Mega Drive Mini 2 Cyber Stick controller up for preorder on its Japanese storefront, and as video game deals expert Wario64 points out (ad), the controller also ships to the US.

SEGA Mega Drive Mini 2 Cyber Stick Controller available for preorder on Amazon JPN (Ships to USA) https://t.co/PJvjXdxjEi #ad pic.twitter.com/n7gEhy4ZFw

— Wario64 (@Wario64) June 29, 2022

You’ll be able to use the Cyber Stick controller with games like After Burner II (a jet fighter game), Night Striker (where you fly an armored car to shoot...

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GM’s reportedly only making about 12 Hummer EVs a day

It started delivering the vehicles in December. | Image: General Motors

Months after General Motors started delivering its first Hummer EVs, the company is reportedly only producing around 12 of the massive electric trucks a day, according to The Wall Street Journal. That’s an abysmally slow pace, even compared to how many electric trucks other automakers are making: the Journal says Ford’s producing around 150 F-150 Lightings a day, whereas Rivian’s Q1 production numbers indicate it’s making somewhere between 30 and 40 EVs a day (Rivian didn’t immediately respond to The Verge’s request for more specific numbers).

Recently, GM announced that it was raising the Hummer EV’s price by $6,250, citing “higher prices for parts, technology and logistics,” according to CNBC.

Around 77,500 people have signed up for...

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New York denies air permit to Bitcoin mining power plant

The logo of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin is seen on a symbolic “Bitcoin coin” | Photo by Silas Stein / Picture Alliance via Getty Images

Bitcoin miners in New York state faced a regulatory blow today as the state denied air permits for a gas-fired power plant used to mine Bitcoin. It’s the latest step that New York has taken to crack down on crypto mining as it tries to meet its goals on climate change.

The decision was made for the Greenidge Generating Station in New York’s Finger Lakes region. Bitcoin mining brought new life and renewed controversy to the embattled plant in 2020. That drew outrage from some local residents worried about how the plant could affect fish and tourism by discharging hot water into nearby Seneca Lake.At the state level, Greenidge’s revival has sparked fears that pollution from the energy-intensive process of mining Bitcoin could revive other...

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T-Mobile 5G home internet reaches 5 million new addresses in the middle of the country

T-Mobile wants to sign up 7 to 8 million home internet customers by 2025. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

T-Mobile has announced that its 5G home internet service is now available in more cities, spanning parts of Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, Iowa, and Kansas. The service now covers more than 40 million homes, and earlier this spring, the company said it signed up its one-millionth customer. That’s good news in our landscape of cable internet provider monopolies, but T-Mobile has some real work to do if it plans to meet its goal of 7 to 8 million customers by 2025.

Providing fixed wireless internet to a broad portion of the nation was a big selling point in T-Mobile’s case to the FCC when it argued to be allowed to acquire Sprint. The gist of the whole deal was that we’d lose one of our four wireless carriers temporarily while T-Mobile...

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The Supreme Court just took away an EPA tool to fight climate change — what happens next?

The Longview Power Plant, a coal-fired plant, stands on August 21st, 2018, in Maidsville, West Virginia. | Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The Supreme Court just gutted a major policy tool the US might have used to tackle climate change. Its decision today on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency essentially says that the EPA shouldn’t be allowed to determine whether the US gets its electricity from clean or dirty sources of energy.

That derails previous efforts by the agency to transition the US away from fossil fuels to clean energy sources like wind and solar by regulating the power sector. With the new decision, the agency might be able to push a power plant to install technology to reduce its emissions on-site, but it can’t influence states’ decisions on where they get their energy from in the first place. To make things worse, the premise of the court’s...

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Meta warns employees of ‘serious times’ in internal memo listing key product bets

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Meta is warning of “serious times” and preparing for a leaner second half of 2022, according to an internal memo circulated to employees this week. The note comes from chief product officer Chris Cox and outlines the company’s priorities and challenges to its business going forward.

“I have to underscore that we are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce,” Cox wrote in the memo obtained by The Verge and published in full below. “We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets.”

The biggest revenue challenge comes from privacy changes affecting Meta’s ad business and macroeconomic pressures, Cox says in the memo, which was first reported...

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Elon Musk’s ‘Teslas in Tunnels’ Las Vegas project is still happening, and here’s the first station

The first passenger station in the “Vegas Loop” network of vehicle tunnels that’s being built by Elon Musk’s Boring Company was revealed Thursday. The station is situated underneath Resorts World Las Vegas, the first in what is expected to be 55 stops along 29 miles of tunnels.

The Boring Company already operates a small version of this “Teslas in Tunnels” system underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center, which opened in early 2021 and involves two 0.8-mile tunnels. Afterward, Musk’s startup proposed a massive citywide expansion that was eventually approved by Clark County officials last year. The system uses human-controlled Model X and Y vehicles to transport passengers, despite Musk’s previous statements about using sleds to carry...

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Halo Infinite’s campaign co-op preview kicks off in July

You’ll be able to try out co-op very soon. | Image: 343 Industries

Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries is finally going to kick off a public test of its long-awaited network campaign co-op mode in July, the developer announced Thursday (via Polygon). The studio is also planning to test the ability to replay campaign missions, which wasn’t in the game at launch.

The beta for both features is targeted to take place from July 11th to July 22nd, according to a press email sent to The Verge. If you own the campaign portion of Halo Infinite or are an active Xbox Game Pass member, you can participate by signing up as a Halo Insider. On Xbox, you’ll also need the Xbox Insider app.

You’ll be starting the campaign from the beginning

If you’ve already played Halo Infinite’s campaign, anything you’ve...

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