Elon Musk officially tries to bail on buying Twitter

Musk claims the company is in breach of contract. | Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Elon Musk is officially trying to pull out of his $44 billion agreement to purchase Twitter. In a filing Friday afternoon with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk’s team claims he is terminating the deal because Twitter was in “material breach” of their agreement and had made “false and misleading” statements during negotiations.

“For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to ‘make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,’” Musk’s legal team writes. “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information.”

Twitter still hopes to close the deal, despite Musk’s attempted termination. Twitter board chairman Bret Taylor wrote that the company...

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President Biden signs order on abortion care and patient privacy

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

President Joe Biden signed an executive order on Friday directing federal agencies to protect abortion access and the online privacy of patients seeking reproductive healthcare following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The order’s primary directives prompt the Department of Health and Human Services to expand access to emergency contraception and long-acting birth control devices like IUDs. But it also calls on HHS and the Federal Trade Commission to take steps to protect the sensitive health data of patients seeking abortions and other reproductive care.

“We cannot allow an out-of-control Supreme Court, working in conjunction with extremist elements of the Republican Party, to take away freedoms and our personal...

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The best instant cameras you can buy right now

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

We found the best cameras for your budget and needs

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The best phone to buy right now

William Joel / The Verge

Buying a new phone can be a chore, but we’ve done the work for you

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Right to repair: FTC forces Weber to tell grillmasters it’s OK to use third-party parts

Image: Weber

My Weber grill came with a warning: “The use and/or installation of parts on your WEBER product that are not genuine WEBER parts will void this Warranty.”

That’s not cool. In fact, it’s been illegal since 1975 — and soon, Weber won’t be doing it anymore. According to a new settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Weber Stephen Products will not only have to strike phrases like that from its warranty terms within 90 days, but it’ll have to proactively, clearly, and conspicuously tell customers via mail, email, websites, and apps that the exact opposite is true.

Seriously, Weber will need to use this exact phrase: “Using third-party parts will not void this warranty.”

According to the order (pdf), Weber will also need to post a...

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California will start making affordable insulin on its own, governor says

Vials of insulin at a factory in France | PATRICK HERTZOG/AFP via Getty Images

Insulin prices are so high that California has decided to make its own, California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Thursday. $100 million of the state’s budget will be put into the effort, which seeks to make the lifesaving drug more affordable after years of skyrocketing prices.

“Nothing epitomizes market failures more than the cost of insulin,” Newsom said in a brief statement posted online, noting that patients can pay $300–$500 a month for the drug.

California is going to make its own insulin.

It’s simple. People should not go into debt to get life-saving medication. pic.twitter.com/yB4mpGjtQO

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 7, 2022

Insulin is a hormone produced in the body that helps people regulate something called glucose,...

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This reimagining of the Game Boy looks like a prototype Nintendo could have made

The modified Game Boy on the right retains many design elements of the original one on the left. | Image: Obirux

Imagine if Nintendo made a Game Boy Advance without the Advance part. That’s what video game console and handheld modder Obirux did: they created a reimagined original Game Boy handheld that retains the aesthetic language of the 1989 model but reoriented it as a horizontally handled system akin to the Sega Game Gear, original GBA, and many modern handheld systems, including the Nintendo Switch (via Gizmodo).

This creation is named the Game Boy DMG-0B “Prototype,” a homage to the original model number of the Game Boy DMG-01, where DMG stands for Dot Matrix Game. Obirux has a brief list of what went into this modification: it required the sacrifice of two original Game Boy shells plus extra plastic, padding, and paint / dye. Then the...

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Now the built-in iPhone Music Recognition feature syncs its history with the Shazam app

Music Recognition can now sync identified songs to the Shazam app and across your Apple devices

Apple’s Music Recognition feature in the iPhone Control Center is now able to sync with the latest version (15.14) of the Shazam app and across Apple devices using the same Apple ID (via MacRumors). According to MacRumors, many users thought that the feature required the iOS 16 developer beta, but now it is available for iPhones that have iOS 15 installed.

After announcing it would acquire Shazam in 2017, Apple debuted Music Recognition as a built-in iOS feature in 2020 with iOS 14.2. The feature allowed iPhone users to identify songs around them and in apps without downloading the Shazam app. Now, if you ask Siri or use the Music Recognition control to help find a song, you are able to store it in the Shazam app if you have it...

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Google celebrates Army’s anniversary with BTS street view tour

These guys! | Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images

July 9th marks the ninth birthday of the BTS Army (specifically, the official announcement of its name). As Twitter celebrates the anniversary, Google has released a new street view experiment through its Arts & Culture platform in collaboration with the band. The BTS x Street Galleriesexhibition brings viewers on a virtual tour of the group’s favorite artworks.

Each member has curated a virtual gallery, with their selections placed in various public locations that will be highly recognizable to BTS fans. J-Hope decorated the UN General Assembly, where BTS gave an address and shot a music video last year; RM guides fans through Seoul’s Namdaemun, where BTS performed for 2021’s Global Citizen Live festival.

For anyone...

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Xbox Cloud Gaming looks worse on Linux — here’s why it’s bad and how to fix it

All you need to do is change your user agent.

Anyone who’s tried the Xbox Cloud Gaming beta on Linux (which is likely a small crowd, I know) may have noticed that the image quality is a little rough, even by cloud gaming standards. Now, though, community members have found a quick workaround to get better image quality, and we have what seems to be an official explanation for why the hack works and why the problem exists in the first place.

On Monday, Reddit user Spiritual-Ad2806 posted on the Xcloud subreddit, saying that they were able to trick the Xbox service into showing them a better quality stream on Linux by making it think it was running on Windows. Doing that is relatively simple; they used an Edge extension to change their user agent, which is essentially a string of text...

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The best noise-canceling headphone deals

You can buy the AirPods Max for around $479 instead of $549. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

With more people working from home than they used to, owning a good pair of noise-canceling headphones has become more appealing than ever. However, they can be expensive and difficult to shop for due to the range of available models, many of which cater to different lifestyles and priorities. Some are better suited for long-haul flights, for instance, while others are ideal for multitasking and marathon listening sessions.

That’s why we’ve curated this list of the best deals on noise-canceling headphones. Here, you’ll find sales on all kinds of on-ear and over-ear headphones, all of which are designed to eliminate outside noise but come with their own strengths and weaknesses. And if you want to do even more research before making a...

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The FCC is trying to stop annoying auto warranty spam calls

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is taking new steps to try and stop annoying auto warranty spam calls. If you feel like you get a lot of them, you’re not alone: the FCC thinks that more than 8 billion of those spam calls, which the agency says could be illegal, have been generated by just a few entities since at least 2018.

The FCC believes the calls have been generated from an “operation” consisting of “Roy Cox, Jr., Aaron Michael Jones, their Sumco Panama companies, and international associates,” according to an FCC press release. The FCC has told some carriers to cease and desist carrying the calls and ordered all networks to “be on the lookout for this traffic.”

The agency has also opened a formal case to investigate the...

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Google reportedly offers to shuffle ads business to avoid Justice Department lawsuit

Whether the US government thinks it’s enough is another matter. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google has reportedly offered to spin off its ad auctions business, which lets companies buy advertising space on the web and in search results, into a slightly more separate company if it’ll help avoid antitrust actions, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The offer is reportedly part of multiple concessions Google has offered the US Department of Justice, as it looks to avoid further lawsuits alleging anti-competitive practices.

According to the WSJ, the move would be a corporate shuffle. Rather than spinning off parts of its ad business into a completely separate company or selling them altogether, the proposal would make them a separate Alphabet company. Alphabet is the holding company for Google’s properties, such as...

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Dead solar panels are about to become a lot more valuable

Aerial view of a solar farm producing clean renewable energy on April 20, 2022, in Emmeloord, Netherlands. | Photo by Sjoerd van der Wal / Getty Images

In the coming years, recyclers will hopefully be able to mine billions of dollars worth of materials from discarded solar panels, according to a new analysis published this week. That should ease bottlenecks in the supply chain for solar panels while also making the panels themselves more sustainable.

Right now, most dead solar panels in the US just get shredded or chucked into a landfill. The economics just don’t shake out in recycling’s favor. The value you can squeeze out of a salvaged panel hasn’t been enough to make up for the cost of transporting and recycling it. That’s on track to change, according to the recent analysis by research firm Rystad Energy.

Making the panels themselves more sustainable

Rystad expects the value of...

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Roger Goodell tries to explain why the league is launching NFL Plus

Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images

The NFL is working on its own direct-to-consumer streaming service, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell told CNBC in an interview. Goodell didn’t specify exactly what content will be available on the service, which he called “NFL Plus,” but the league is aiming to launch it for the upcoming NFL season.

“We think it’s very important to have a relationship directly with the consumer,” Goodell said. “We think we have a lot of content and a lot of ability to be able to do that. The consumers want it, so we’re very excited about what NFL Plus is going to be. But it’s really in an early stage. I think over the years you’ll see that continue to grow. And it will be an important opportunity for us to be able to speak to our fans directly. That’s an...

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The best video doorbell camera to buy right now

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge, Shutterstock

We picked the best brainy buzzers

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Here are the best Kindle deals right now

Amazon’s ad-supported base Kindle from 2019 remains the cheapest Kindle you can buy at around $68. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

When it comes to finding a device to use to read your ebooks, you have a few options to choose from. You can always buy a tablet or use your smartphone, but those devices are multipurpose and can be used for a ton of things, like surfing the web or doom-scrolling on Twitter. If you are looking for something to strictly read books, e-readers, while niche, are designed to store all of your books in a virtual library with limited functionality.

Amazon, one of the pioneers of the e-reader, has dominated the space for years with its Kindle lineup, which consists of several unique models with their own pros and cons.

Below, we’ve listed each model currently available for purchase. Sometimes, there isn’t a deal for one, or any, of the...

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Fire Emblem’s hack and slash spinoff just made me want to play Three Houses

Image: Nintendo

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, the _Fire Emblem: Three Houses-_themed hack and slash game, is pretty damn good — I just wish I could enjoy it. Three Hopes made a bit of a splash for its debut during February’s Nintendo Direct. Fans had seen the familiar blue-red-yellow primary color scheme and hoped that the morose Dimitri, best boy Claude, and Edelgard and her merry band of fascists had come back in a sequel to one of the best Nintendo Switch games in the console’s history. Some of them rolled their eyes to see Three Hopes was not Three Houses 2 but the next in a long line of licensed hack and slash games.

I was not one of those fans. I love hack and slash games. I voraciously consumed the middle handful of Dynasty Warriors and W...

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NASA teases list of first celestial objects imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope

JWST’s primary mirror on Earth before it launched | Image: NASA

Today, NASA released a list of celestial targets that will be revealed next week when the agency publishes the first full-color images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST. The targets include galaxies, nebulas, and a giant planet outside our Solar System.

JWST is NASA’s massive new deep-space observatory, which launched on Christmas Day in 2021. Sporting a large gold-coated mirror spanning more than 21 feet across, the observatory is set to transform the field of astrophysics by collecting light from the first stars and galaxies that formed right after the Big Bang. It’s also designed to study objects throughout our Universe in unprecedented detail, giving us insight into our distant Solar System, planets outside our cosmic...

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Verizon is sending free 4G flip phones to customers who haven’t moved on from 3G

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

After a few delays, Verizon seems poised to actually follow through on shutting down its 3G CDMA network at the end of this year. But the carrier is still contending with a subset of customers who sat out the 4G LTE era and haven’t yet upgraded their 3G phones. So, as 2022 rolls onward, Verizon is sending those wireless subscribers a free extremely basic flip phone to prevent them from losing connectivity when the 3G network goes offline.

According to its website, Verizon will provide customers with one of three phones: the Orbic Journey V, TCL’s Flip Pro, or the Nokia 2720 V Flip. The retail value for each of those devices is under $100: the Orbic is $99.99, with the other two running $79.99.

Verizon says customers can opt out of the...

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Roku’s Streaming Stick 4K is a streaming powerhouse that’s $20 off

Roku’s solid Streaming Stick 4K is on sale for just $29.99 — nearly half off — at Amazon. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Finding a good show to watch after a long day of work can sometimes require too much brain power — at least if you’re as lazy as I am. That’s why a streaming device that’s simple to use, like Roku’s latest Streaming Stick 4K, can be so great. All of your streaming service apps are easily and quickly accessible in a big grid, and Roku even highlights free content that doesn’t require subscription services for those of us who are both lazy and cheap. While we wish there were support for Wi-Fi 6 and USB-C in the latest version, it does support Dolby Vision, Apple’s AirPlay 2, and both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice assistants.

Regularly $49.99, Amazon and Best Buy are both currently selling it for $29.99, which is just $1 shy of...

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Go read this report on the downfall of Wish, the internet’s impossible bargain bin

A screenshot of some of the offerings on Wish

If you need a $2 pair of jeans, a $1 pop-up pool for your backyard, and waterproof sheets for $0.50, Wish is the online store to find all that and more. Or at least it was.

A New York Times deep dive tracks the arc of the internet’s most nonsensical shopping destination known for its array of bizarre merchandise priced impossibly low. The story paints a picture of an e-commerce juggernaut’s rapid ascent that ultimately caused its own downfall when growth was prioritized over the basic tenants that shoppers expect — products arriving in a timely fashion, for example, but also more essential things, like listings being real at all.

One anecdote in the piece proves the impossibly low prices were, in fact, too good to be true — because Wish...

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Elon Musk’s quest to repopulate the Earth

Elon Musk is out to solve a lot of problems — including population collapse.

Elon Musk’s pinned tweet is from May. It’s a chart from The Wall Street Journal showing that the US fertility rate has been below the “replacement level” since the 1970s. “USA birth rate has been below min sustainable levels for ~50 years,” was Musk’s contribution to the tweet. He’s been talking about population decline for years, actually. He’s even talked about it as one of the greatest issues facing humanity, and his solution is simple: have more kids, everybody!

Say this for Musk: dude practices what he preaches. Insider reported this week that Musk had twins last November with Shivon Zilis, a star in the AI world, a longtime colleague of Musk’s at OpenAI and Tesla, and a current executive at Neuralink. The twins came to be in the...

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Samsung SmartThings’ upcoming Philips Hue integration is around music, not TV

Samsung SmartThings is working on more integrations with Philips Hue smart lighting. | Image; Signify

Samsung is planning for deeper integration with Philips Hue lighting in its SmartThings smart home platform. The company tells The Verge that it is working on enhanced music-based experiences that leverage Hue’s smart lighting. This follows a report from SamMobile that claimed a new update to the SmartThings app would let users synchronize their Hue lights with what is playing on their TV.

“In the coming months, we hope to announce more details of an expanded partnership between Samsung SmartThings and Philips Hue that will provide enhanced music experiences,” said Samantha Fein, vice president of marketing and business development for SmartThings, in a written statement provided to The Verge. “However, a few recent articles seem to have...

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Wearables were starting to demystify reproductive health — then Roe fell

A study found the Oura Ring can detect pregnancy. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

In early May, Ben Smarr published a new study showing that the Oura smart ring can detect pregnancy before most people take a test. It was an exciting finding — earlier detection of pregnancy based on wearable devices could, he wrote in the paper, “increase the agency of pregnant individuals.”

Smarr, a data scientist at the University of California, San Diego does research on wearable devices and health — including reproductive health. He’s working with Oura on other projects around pregnancy. His team is also looking to see if data from devices can detect miscarriages.

Reproductive health in general — and its intersection with wearables in particular — is an often underexplored area of research. The applications were exciting. But the...

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What is a verified Twitter account and how to get one

Verification can be a handy tool in building an audience. | Photo by Fabian Sommer/picture alliance via Getty Images

If you’ve spent any time on Twitter — or any social media, really — you’re likely familiar with the blue checkmark. These badges indicate verified accounts. According to Twitter, a verified account is any account of public interest that’s been authenticated by the company itself. Basically, it’s Twitter’s way of letting everyone know that you are who you say you are.

It’s not hard to see why you might want a verified Twitter account. Recognizability, curtailing misinformation, building trust with an audience — these are all major reasons why individuals, public figures, and brands alike seek the blue checkmark. But while it’s clear that verification comes with some benefits, getting verified may not be a walk in the park.

Twitter’s...

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Why social networks won’t stop pushing NFTs

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The NFT boom of the past couple years appears to be conclusively over for average consumers. For big social networks, though, it appears that the work is just getting started.

The latest platform to embrace non-fungible tokens is Reddit, which on Thursday announced the arrival of “blockchain-backed collectible avatars” — unique profile pictures from artists riffing on Reddit’s “Snoo” alien mascot, giving purchasers the right to use them on and off the site. The avatars can be purchased only with fiat currency; Reddit takes a 5 percent cut of each transaction.

Reddit’s announcement takes pains never to refer to these avatars as NFTs

In a sign of how badly damaged the crypto brand has become, Reddit’s announcement takes pains never to...

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A major Rogers outage is affecting 911 calls and internet access in parts of Canada

Rogers has acknowledged a major outage in parts of Canada this morning, affecting cellular and internet connectivity. Downdetector has thousands of reports of issues with Rogers, and problems seem to have started at around 5AM ET. Another third-party service tracker is reporting Rogers outages across Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal.

Rogers has not shared any specifics about the issue or its cause, but addressed the outage in a tweet from its official support account, saying “We are aware of issues currently affecting our networks and our teams are fully engaged to resolve the issue as soon as possible. We will continue to keep you updated as we have more information to share.”

We know how important it is for our customers to stay...

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The best deals on MacBooks right now

The 2020 MacBook Air, one of the best laptops you can get, is now available at Amazon and Best Buy starting at $899.99.

With multiple configurations and various models to choose from, finding a deal on an M1-equipped MacBook or Mac Mini is not all that difficult. It’s a slightly different story for the MacBook Pros with the beefier M1 Pro and M1 Max CPUs, but any bit of savings you can get on the new Pro models is sure to be worthwhile. As for the new 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with M2, it may still take a while to see some deals. Amazon’s Prime Day 2022 is right around the corner, though, so maybe there’s a tiny (albeit slim) chance we’ll get a surprise for the M2 MacBook Pro that’s already released.

Here, we’ll run through the discounts that are currently available for the current MacBooks, as well as any deals to be had on the Mac Mini. Of...

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Microsoft rolls back blocking Office VBA macros by default

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is rolling back a planned change to block Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros by default in a variety of Office apps. Announced earlier this year, Microsoft had been planning to prevent Office users from easily enabling certain content in files downloaded from the internet that include macros, in a move to improve security against malicious files. Microsoft had been testing this change ahead of a planned rollout to all Microsoft 365 users in June, but suddenly reverted the block on June 30th.

BleepingComputer reports that Microsoft notified IT admins last week that it was rolling back the VBA macro block based on feedback from Office users testing the changes. “We appreciate the feedback we’ve received so far, and we’re...

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