The Division mobile game gets a name and a trailer

Ubisoft has officially announced The Division Resurgence, a free-to-play mobile game that it hinted was in the works last year. The company says it’ll be an open-world, third-person RPG shooter like the mainline games, with single-player and co-op modes that let players face off against the environment in story missions and other “PvE activities.”

Resurgence will take place in the same world as The Division and The Division 2 did, though Ubisoft says its story will be “independent” from the original, offering a “unique perspective on key story events” as well as new characters and weapons. Personally, though, the trailer the company released for Resurgence reminds me a lot of the original 2014 cinematic trailer. It has a lot of the same...

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Walmart makes InHome direct-to-fridge deliveries an optional perk of Walmart Plus

Walmart’s InHome delivery costs $138 annually with Plus. | Image: Walmart

Walmart is making its InHome delivery service available to Walmart Plus subscribers for an extra $7 per month or $40 per year. The service, which brings groceries and other goods from your local Walmart to the inside of your home, was previously available as a separate subscription costing $19.95 per month or $148 per year.

InHome’s new $138 annual price is $10 less when compared to the previous annual pricing of InHome alone and also comes with the perks of a Plus membership. Of course, this doesn’t count the added fees associated with purchasing a compatible $49.95 Level smart lock, $49.95 Genie automatic garage door opener, or garage keypad (if you don’t have one already) that delivery drivers will use to open your front door or...

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The Duffer Brothers are making yet another live-action Death Note adaptation for Netflix

Ryuk the Shinigami eating an apple | Image: Nippon Television

Though Netflix already made a go at adapting writer Tsugumi Ohba and illustrator Takeshi Obata’s Death Note back in 2017, the streamer’s gearing up to give it another go with the help of the Duffer Brothers.

Fresh off the success of Stranger Things 4 Vol. 2, Netflix announced today that Matt and Ross Duffer have renewed their deal to develop multiple projects for the platform and formed Upside Down Pictures, a new production house named for the dimension at the center of their sci-fi opus. In a public statement about Upside Down Pictures, the Duffers shared that producer Hilary Leavitt (Orphan Black, Ozark) has been tapped to head the studio and expressed confidence in her ability to make it a success.

“It didn’t take long into our first...

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The inside story at Meta as it moves beyond Facebook

The new season of Vox Media Podcast Network’s award-winning narrative podcast Land of the Giants is debuting next week, on July 13th. This time, Recode senior correspondent Shirin Ghaffary and The Verge deputy editor Alex Heath team up to tell the story of Meta, formerly known as Facebook, at a pivotal moment — both for the tech giant and for the billions of people who use its products.

Under the leadership of CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the same man who co-founded Facebook from his college dorm room in 2004, Meta is trying to transition away from its complicated legacy as a social media company to a futuristic metaverse vision that aims to reshape the future of the internet. This transition is happening while criticisms from users, regulators,...

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Senators call on FTC Chair Khan to investigate TikTok’s data security practices

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan is facing new pressure from top Senate Intelligence leaders to investigate TikTok after new reports that the company shares US data with China-based workers.

In a letter to Khan on Tuesday, Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), Senate Intelligence Committee leaders, called on the FTC to open an investigation into TikTok’s data security practices. The call comes after a June BuzzFeed News report detailed how China-based ByteDance engineers had access to TikTok’s US data as late as January 2022.

“In light of repeated misrepresentations by TikTok ... we urge you to act promptly on this matter”

“In light of repeated misrepresentations by TikTok concerning its data security, data...

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

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / 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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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s AirPods Pro wireless earbuds are a go-to pick that’s often on sale. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you know where to look, there are often some great discounts available on Apple’s popular — yet oftentimes expensive — AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods in October and unveiled its new lineup, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model drop from $159 to $129. What’s more, we’ve seen many retailers starting to heavily discount the second-gen AirPods as well as the more expensive AirPods Pro and Max, which offer noise cancellation and better sound quality than the standard model. We’ve even seen some significant discounts on the third-gen model that, despite lacking the “Pro” moniker, resembles the AirPods Pro more than the long-stemmed original model.

Here, we’ll run through the best deals...

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Apple’s new feature adds ‘extreme’ protection to your devices

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple is taking steps to increase security for people like journalists, activists, and politicians with a new setting in iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura called Lockdown Mode. This setting hardens an iPhone, iPad, or Mac’s defenses in ways that interrupt methods we’ve seen used to compromise devices for highly targeted attacks.

Lockdown Mode blocks many message attachment types, disables link previews, turns off certain web browsing technology by default, blocks invitations and FaceTime calls from unknown sources, locks down wired connections to computers or accessories while the device is locked, and disables the ability to add new configuration profiles or enroll in mobile device management (MDM).

These are the areas that we know...

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My Hero Academia’s battle royale beta is coming soon and will be free to play

Image: Bandai Namco

At this year’s Anime Expo in Los Angeles, Bandai Namco announced a new game based on the popular anime series My Hero Academia: a 24-player battle royale that pits teams of heroes and villains against each other. The free-to-play game, called My Hero Ultra Rumble, will be available on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PC.

You can sign up for the closed beta, which is currently just for PS4 players, on Bandai Namco’s website. The first phase starts on August 17th at 10PM ET (7PM PT) and ends on August 18th at 6AM ET (3AM PT), while the second phase runs from August 18th at 10PM ET (7PM PT) to August 21st at 2PM ET (11AM PT).

The confirmed roster so far includes just 12 characters

My Hero Ultra Rumble seems like an interesting...

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Horizon Forbidden West patch adds VRR support and new ‘balanced’ graphics mode

Patch 1.17 is available now. | Image: Sony

Horizon Forbidden West now offers variable refresh rate (VRR) and high refresh rate support as well as a new 40Hz “Balanced” graphics mode on PS5, developer Guerrilla Games announced Wednesday. They’re available as part of patch 1.17, which you can download right now.

Variable refresh rates can dynamically adjust the refresh rate of your display while you’re playing a game. In practice, it means that games will generally feel smoother to play, though you’ll need a display that supports the feature.

After messing around with the update for a few minutes while writing this article, I can say that Horizon Forbidden West does feel smoother on the “Favor Performance” graphics mode. (I have my PS5 hooked up to a TCL 6-Series Google TV, which...

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This smart ring aims to ‘hack’ your metabolism

The Ultrahuman Ring is the latest take on metabolism and fitness tracking. | Image: Ultrahuman

Fitness startup Ultrahuman is launching a smart ring that it claims will give users “ultrahuman power.” And by ultrahuman power, the company means a fitness tracker that gives insights into your metabolism by monitoring sleep and movement. The smart ring can also be used with the company’s M1 glucose monitoring patch for more in-depth metabolic tracking.

In terms of design and features, the Ultrahuman Ring seems to be taking a page from the popular Oura Ring. It has a PPG heart rate sensor, temperature sensor, and motion sensor. (Though Ultrahuman spokesperson Bilal Mahmood told The Verge it won’t have SpO2 sensors.) Like the Oura Ring, there’s no screen and no haptics — meaning you’ll have to look at the Ultrahuman app to see your...

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Axie Infinity’s blockchain was reportedly hacked via a fake LinkedIn job offer

Image: Sky Mavis

The blockchain of high-profile crypto game Axie Infinity was reportedly hacked with an elaborate phishing scheme involving fake LinkedIn job offers. The Block reported the news today, citing two sources with knowledge of the incident. It revealed a new dimension to one of the biggest decentralized finance, or DeFi, hacks to date.

According to The Block, hackers — identified by the US government as North Korean group Lazarus — targeted employees of Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis. They reportedly reached out over LinkedIn on behalf of a fake company, and when employees took the bait, they proceeded with multiple rounds of fake job interviews and then an “extremely generous” fake compensation package. The con culminated in one senior...

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The Marriott hotel chain has been hit by another data breach

The Marriott International hotel chain has confirmed that it has been hit by yet another data breach that exposed staff and customer information in another unfortunate security incident for a company that was affected by a number of major hacks in recent years.

In the latest incident, first reported by DataBreaches.net, hackers are reported to have stolen around 20GB of data, including confidential business documents and customer payment information, from the BWI Airport Marriott in Baltimore, Maryland. Redacted sample documents published by DataBreaches appear to show credit card authorization forms, which would give an attacker all of the details needed to make fraudulent purchases with a victim’s card.

Melissa Froehlich Flood, a...

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The best wired or wireless gaming headsets to buy

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A few options for each platform

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The Woman King is not to be trifled with in first trailer

Sony

Sony’s upcoming historical action epic The Woman Kingfrom director Gina Prince-Bythewood tells the story of the all-female army that solidified the Kingdom of Dahomey’s status as a militaristic power player right up until the turn of the 20th century. Though the legacies of the actual Dahomey Amazons have lived on in fantasies like Marvel’s Black Panther, The Woman King’s going to make people understand why they became legends judging from the movie’s first trailer.

The Woman King tells the story of Nanisca (Viola Davis), general of King Ghezo’s (John Boyega) Amazons, and Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), a young girl newly recruited into the kingdom’s famed army of warrior women. Much like Black Panther’s Dora Milaje, the Dahomey Amazons are skilled...

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Toyota will be the third automaker to lose the EV tax credit in the US

Photo by Abigail Bassett for The Verge

Toyota sold its 200,000th plug-in electric vehicle in the US, triggering a slow phaseout of the federal EV tax credit over the next 15 months, according to Bloomberg. The automaker is the third manufacturer to pass this mark, following Tesla and General Motors.

The phaseout for Toyota is poorly timed, coming just weeks after the company’s new electric SUV, the bZ4X, went on sale in the US. It’s the latest bad piece of EV news to hit the automaker, coming just a few weeks after it was forced to recall the bZ4X over loose hub bolts that could cause the wheels to come off while driving. Toyota pledged to spend $17.6 billion to roll out 30 battery-electric models by 2030.

The phaseout of the federal tax credits begins two quarters after an...

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Crypto broker Voyager Digital files for bankruptcy following the collapse of Three Arrows

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Cryptocurrency broker Voyager Digital filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday in the wake of the collapse of the major crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC). Voyager’s Chapter 11 filing comes just days after 3AC filed for bankruptcy — and about a week after 3AC defaulted on a loan provided by Voyager.

In a press release, Voyager Digital states that it has about $1.3 billion worth of crypto assets on the platform, $110 million in cash and crypto assets on hand, and the $350 million it holds in an FBO (For-Benefit-Of) account for customers. It also says 3AC still owes more than $650 million.

Voyager CEO Stephen Ehrlich blames the company’s financial struggles on “the prolonged volatility and contagion in the crypto markets” as well as 3AC’s...

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Japan to start jailing people for online insults

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Posting “online insults” will be punishable by up to a year in prison time in Japan starting Thursday, when a new law passed earlier this summer will go into effect.

People convicted of online insults can also be fined up to 300,000 yen (just over $2,200). Previously, the punishment was fewer than 30 days in prison and up to 10,000 yen ($75).

The law will be reexamined in three years to determine if it’s impacting freedom of expression — a concern raised by critics of the bill. Proponents said it was necessary to slow cyberbullying in the country.

But there aren’t clear definitions of what counts as an insult, Seiho Cho, a criminal lawyer in Japan, told CNN after the law passed. The law says an insult means demeaning someone without a...

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Rivian is starting to shed its vaporware status by getting actual trucks to customers

Rivian’s promise to upend the auto industry with beautifully designed emissions-free, adventure-themed trucks and SUVs was almost dependent on the company’s ability to deliver actual vehicles to actual customers. And, in that respect, Rivian is getting slightly better.

The company announced that it had produced 4,401 vehicles during the second quarter of 2022, a 72 percent increase over the previous quarter. It also delivered 4,467 vehicles to customers, a 267 percent increase over the first quarter. How many of those vehicles were R1T electric trucks and how many were its electric delivery vans (EDV) for Amazon, we can’t say — Rivian didn’t provide a breakdown.

The company hasn’t said when it will report its Q2 earnings, but there...

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Nintendo made a colorful Switch OLED covered in Splatoon 3 ink

Image: Nintendo

Bubbling up from the painted-splattered floor comes a new Switch OLED model. Nintendo has announced that on August 26th, it will release a special editionSplatoon 3 SWOLED. Check out the video highlighting all the details below.

For those of you with misophonia (or you just hate all the wet paint sounds Splatoon games like to throw around) and can’t stand more than five seconds of the video, the Splatoon 3 SWOLED features a blue and yellow gradient controller along with a white graffitied dock. Accompanying the new Switch OLED will be a Splatoon 3-ified Nintendo Switch Pro controller and carrying case.

The SWOLED launched on October 8th of last year, and this seems to be the first special edition of the console. It stands to reason...

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Quick fixes: restoring pages of tabs on Chrome

Issue

I was forced to manually shut down Chrome and reboot my computer — losing dozens of tabs.

Quick fix

Use History to restore complete Chrome windows, including all groups and tabs.

The full story

Over the weekend, I needed to use my somewhat elderly MacBook Pro — the one I usually use for work — for a Zoom call. Unfortunately, I had been running several work projects and had two iterations of Chrome going, each with about 40 or 50 tabs. (Okay, I had a couple of other apps going as well.) As a result, when I began to run Zoom, the computer started to go on strike.

I didn’t have time to start winnowing out which tabs I could easily lose or save them as bookmarks, so I simply closed down the two iterations of Chrome — or tried to. While...

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Vizio’s Elevate soundbar with rotating speakers is $300 off

Image: Vizio

Prime Day 2022 is quickly approaching. The two-day sale event that’s exclusive to Prime members will kick off Tuesday, July 12th, (who said Tuesdays always have to be boring?) and last through Wednesday, July 13th. We’ll be covering every great deal that’s available so you won’t have to worry about missing out on stellar discounts. But all of that’s for next week. Here’s what you can save big on today.

Vizio’s high-end, 48-inch Elevate 5.1.4 sound system is selling for the lowest price that we’ve seen yet. Originally $1,099 (though currently selling for $999 through Vizio), you can supercharge your entertainment center for $698 at Amazon. While less costly soundbars like Sonos’ second-gen Beam claim to have Dolby Atmos support, it’s a...

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NASA is having a hard time communicating with its new tiny lunar spacecraft

An artistic rendering of CAPSTONE at the Moon. | Image: NASA/Daniel Rutter

NASA is having trouble establishing contact with its new CAPSTONE spacecraft, a tiny probe that just launched from Earth to test out a new orbit around the Moon. Because of these communication issues, NASA had to delay a planned maneuver of the vehicle that would help refine its path to deep space. The agency is still trying to reestablish contact.

CAPSTONE is the first mission of NASA’s Artemis program, the agency’s efforts to eventually send humans back to the Moon. As part of this lunar return, NASA plans to build a new space station in the Moon’s orbit. But the orbit NASA wants to use is a unique one; it’s a particularly elongated path that’s never really been used by a spacecraft before. CAPSTONE is meant to serve as a pathfinder...

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God of War: Ragnarok is launching on November 9th

God of War will be available on PS5 and PS4. | Image: Sony

God of War: Ragnarok, one of Sony’s biggest games of the year, now has an official release date. Sony announced today that Ragnarok will be hitting both the PS4 and PS5 on November 9th. In addition to the release date news, the developer also put out a new CG trailer that teases out some of the story. Here’s the somewhat ominous description:

Join Kratos and Atreus on a mythic journey for answers before the prophesied battle that will end the world. All the while, the eyes of Asgard watch their every move...

The game was originally scheduled to release in 2021, but was later bumped to 2022. “We remain focused on delivering a top-quality game while maintaining the safety and wellbeing of our team, creative partners, and families,”...

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Meta open sources early-stage AI translation tool that works across 200 languages

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Social media conglomerate Meta has created a single AI model capable of translating across 200 different languages, including many not supported by current commercial tools. The company is open-sourcing the project in the hopes that others will build on its work.

The AI model is part of an ambitious R&D project by Meta to create a so-called “universal speech translator,” which the company sees as important for growth across its many platforms — from Facebook and Instagram, to developing domains like VR and AR. Machine translation not only allows Meta to better understand its users (and so improve the advertising systems that generate 97 percent of its revenue) but could also be the foundation of a killer app for future projects like its...

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Driving the Rivian R1S in semi-responsible fashion

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

I only popped one tire, which seems like a win

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Apple’s new MacBook Air with M2 ships July 15th, preorders start Friday

Apple’s upcoming M2 MacBook Air comes in four color options. | Apple

Apple’s upcoming MacBook Air with M2 processor finally has a shipping date. After a bit longer wait than usual, the new $1,199 laptop will begin shipping on July 15th, with preorders opening on July 8th at 8AM ET. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with a Touch Bar announced alongside it at WWDC 2022 is already available. While that familiar-looking model was first out of the gate with the second-generation chip, this MacBook Air is offering a whole lot more that’s new, like a MagSafe charger, 1080p webcam, and a revised design with a larger, notched 13.6-inch display.

Though the new MacBook Air has a lower starting price than its 13-inch Pro counterpart, it’s certainly the more colorful and unique-looking one. Unlike prior Air laptops, it shifts...

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Amazon Prime subscribers now get GrubHub Plus free for a year

Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images

Amazon Prime subscribers in the US are getting a new benefit as part of their subscription, the company has announced. From today, they’ll be able to redeem a free year of Grubhub Plus, the monthly subscription service that offers free food delivery on orders over $12 from participating restaurants. Grubhub Plus normally costs $9.99 a month.

According to Amazon, free deliveries associated with Grubhub Plus are available from hundreds of thousands of restaurants across over 4,000 cities in the US. After the year is up, Grubhub will automatically start charging $9.99 a month for continued access. Existing Grubhub Plus subscribers can still make use of the promotion, which will be applied from the start of their next billing cycle....

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Apps and advertisers are coming for your lock screen, and it’s going to be exhausting

Your lock screen is up for grabs, and Glance and others want in | Image: Glance

Your phone’s lock screen is the hottest new real estate in tech. Apple made the iPhone’s lock screen a centerpiece of iOS 16, giving users more control over how theirs looks and works. But while Apple talked about pretty clock fonts and nifty color-matched wallpapers, it also showed off a world in which your lock screen is more than just a security measure: it’s becoming another surface on which companies can put information, apps, and even ads. Apple’s far from the only company thinking about this, too. TechCrunch reports that Glance, a lock screen content company (which apparently is a thing!) is already in talks with US carriers and plans to launch on some Android phones in the US in the next two months.

The competition for your...

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Stranger Things 4 just became the second Netflix show to hit 1 billion hours viewed

A lot of people liked Stranger Things 4. | Courtesy of Netflix

Stranger Things 4, the most recent season of the hit show, just became the second Netflix show ever to surpass a billion hours viewed. Since the first installment of the season dropped on May 27th, viewers have spent a cumulative 1.15 billion hours watching the season’s nine episodes, including 301 million hours just this past weekend. That makes Stranger Things 4 the second most-watched Netflix season ever, after Squid Game in 2021. It was in Netflix’s Top 10 in 93 different countries this weekend, the company says. The show is so popular right now that it’s boosting the older seasons, too: all four Stranger Things seasons were in Netflix’s six most-watched shows over the weekend, with only The Umbrella Academy able to keep up.

N...

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