Apple Car project reportedly still running into roadblocks — and nearly a jogger

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Apple’s development of a self-driving car has proven arduous and massively challenging for the company. The Information today published an extensive chronology of the project so far. It covers some familiar ground for anyone who’s been following Project Titan over the years, like a revolving door of leadership, high turnover across the team, and shifting goalposts around what Apple is even trying to accomplish with the large effort. But the report goes beyond recounting the project’s history and stumbles.

The Information also reveals some interesting new details. Craig Federighi, Apple’s software chief and a key executive at the company, is said to be “particularly skeptical” of Project Titan. Owing to all the setbacks and reset...

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Uncontrolled rockets pose unnecessary risk, study finds

BEIJING, CHINA - MAY 02: China’s space station core module ‘Tianhe’ flies over the Bell Tower on May 2nd, 2021, in Beijing, China. A Long March 5B rocket carrying the core module of China’s space station blasted off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on April 29th. | Photo by Lu Lin / VCG via Getty Images

What are the odds a free-falling rocket will kill one person somewhere in the world? There’s about a 10 percent chance over the next decade if current practices in the space industry stay the same, according to the authors of a new paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

While that’s not a huge risk, the threat is significantly bigger in some parts of the world than in others. In particular, many countries in theGlobal South are likely to deal with a larger share of space trash even though they’re not responsible for it, according to the analysis. And it could become a bigger issue as rockets launch into space more frequently to ferry up a growing number of satellites.

The threat is significantly bigger in some parts of the...

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FDA to consider ‘mini’ over-the-counter birth control pill

Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

The Food and Drug Administration is set to evaluate an application for what would be the first over-the-counter birth control pill. French pharmaceutical company HRA Pharma said Monday that it has formally asked the FDA to authorize its contraceptive.

The submission comes as the United States is grappling with a fast-changing reproductive healthcare landscape after the Supreme Court ended federal protections for abortion. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a Supreme Court opinion that the court should reconsider opinions on rights to contraception. The timing is a coincidence, Frédérique Welgryn, HRA Pharma’s chief strategic operations and innovations officer, told The New York Times. “Birth control is not a solution for abortion access,”...

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How to watch NASA reveal the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope

Today and tomorrow, NASA is releasing the first full-color images taken by the agency’s mighty James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful observatory ever sent into space. It’s a major moment for the telescope, signaling the beginning of scientific operations for the mission that could fundamentally transform astrophysics and our understanding of the Universe.

The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, sports the largest mirror we’ve ever sent into space, spanning more than 21 feet across. Made out of gold-plated beryllium, the mirror is designed to gather infrared light — a type of light invisible to the human eye that can travel incredibly long distances across the Universe. Equipped with this impressive mirror, JWST...

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Oppo’s Air Glass is an AR experiment with one great idea

Photo by Charles Pratt / The Verge

Augmented reality, monocle style

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WhatsApp to let users react with any emoji, not just its chosen six

A selection of the newly available emoji reactions. | Image: Meta

WhatsApp users will soon have the ability to react to messages with any emoji, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced in a Facebook post. “We’re rolling out the ability to use any emoji as a reaction on WhatsApp,” the CEO wrote before listing a couple of his favorite emoji. It comes just a few short months after WhatsApp added the ability to react with a limited number of just six emoji.

Like previous emoji reactions, the feature is accessible by long-pressing the message you want to react to. This opens the menu containing the previous six emoji reactions along with a new plus icon. Tapping the plus icon opens a menu containing every available emoji, ranging from standard smiley faces to recent additions like the saluting emoji and the...

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Google’s Pixel 6 at $499 is a better value than the 6A

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales

We’re less than a day away from Prime Day 2022 kicking off. Those Prime member deals will begin at 3AM ET / 12AM PT on July 12th. But, as we saw last week, some companies aren’t waiting until then to begin striking prices down to the lowest that we’ve seen so far this year. For example, Google’s Pixel 6 with 128GB of storage is $100 off at Amazon and Best Buy (when you click activate later), costing $499 for the unlocked phone. It was already a stunning value at full price, but it’s truly in a class of its own for under $500. And, if you want the 256GB version, it’s $100 off, too, costing $599. Considering that the Pixel 6A will debut for $449 later this month, this might be the better deal for you.

This is the first time that we’ve seen...

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Microsoft still plans to block Office macros by default after temporary rollback

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge

Microsoft is still planning to block Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros by default in Office apps. The software giant rolled back planned changes last week, surprising IT admins who had been preparing for Microsoft to prevent Office users from easily enabling macros in Office files downloaded from the internet. The change, designed to improve security in Office, was supposed to go live in June before Microsoft suddenly reverted the block on June 30th.

“Following user feedback, we have rolled back this change temporarily while we make some additional changes to enhance usability,” explains Kellie Eickmeyer, principal product manager at Microsoft, in a blog post update. “This is a temporary change, and we are fully committed to...

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Upnext is a nice read-later app — and the very beginning of something bigger

Upnext is a dumping ground for all your content, no matter what it is. | Image: Upnext

Upnext is a read-later app. No, it’s a bookmarking app. No, it’s a content-curation-social-network thing. Even Jeroen Seghers, one of the service’s co-founders, struggles to explain it. “Longer term,” he says, “I like to think about what we’re building as a knowledge browser.” But even he admits that doesn’t mean much to anyone right now. Eventually, Upnext settled on “A reader with superpowers,” which is close enough.

Whatever you call it, here’s what Upnext is: it’s a place to save and interact with content from all over the internet. It handles articles and blog posts like Pocket or Instapaper but also serves as a dumping ground for all those YouTube videos you want to watch later, the podcast episodes you’ll eventually listen to, the...

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How to make the most of the Mac’s accessibility features

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A wide range of useful accessibility options

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How the ride-sharing revolution failed passengers with disabilities

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Uber and Lyft could have stepped up when public transportation fell short — but over a decade later, activists still fight for equitable service

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Hideo Kojima’s studio says it will consider ‘legal action’ after fake assassin posts circulate

Kojima Productions founder Hideo Kojima. | CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images

Hideo Kojima’s game studio has issued a response after fake posts circulated across social media and news outlets that misidentified Kojima as the assassin of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. In a tweet, Kojima Productions says it “strongly condemns the spread of fake news and rumors that convey false information” and “will consider taking legal action in some cases.”

On Friday, a man shot and killed Abe during his speech at a political campaign rally. Police captured the shooter at the scene who was later identified as 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami.

#KojimaProductions strongly condemns the spread of fake news and rumors that convey false information. We do not tolerate such libel and will consider taking legal action in some...

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Twitter reportedly hires the firm that invented the ‘poison pill’ to sue Elon Musk

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter lawyered up. The company reportedly hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, a firm notable enough to have its own Wikipedia page, and a founding partner, Martin Lipton, credited with inventing the shareholder rights plan or “poison pill” defense that Twitter initially used to put the brakes on Musk’s attempted buyout.

On Friday, Elon Musk filed a document to attempt to cancel his $44 billion takeover of Twitter. In response, Twitter chairman Bret Taylor tweeted the company would pursue legal action to close the deal as agreed upon. Wachtell Lipton’s hiring, as reported by Bloomberg, suggests Twitter is serious about arguing its case in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Twitter hired two key lawyers for its team. One is William...

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Uber leaks reveal how it spread ‘fucking illegal’ ride-sharing globally

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A trove of internal Uber documents leaked to The Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), as well as dozens of other news outlets, outlines its strategies for global expansion — even if the company had to bend some rules. The leak, collectively dubbed the Uber Files, consists of over 124,000 documents spanning the period between 2013 and 2017.

Uber has since responded to the leak in a post on its website, stating it “moved from an era of confrontation to one of collaboration” after CEO Dara Khosrowshahi took over following founder Travis Kalanick’s resignation in 2017.

According to The Guardian, the leak also “shows how Uber tried to shore up support by discreetly courting prime...

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Spotify quietly rolls out real-time lyrics on the Nest Hub

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Spotify has quietly rolled out support for real-time lyrics on the Google Nest Hub, according to a report from 9to5Google. The feature, which has already been made available on iOS, Android, game consoles, desktop computers, and select smart TVs, lets you listen to music on Spotify while seeing a stream of lyrics that progresses with the song.

While Spotify hasn’t formally announced the feature’s launch, a number of users — including the folks over at 9to5Google — report spotting real-time lyrics on their Nest Hub devices. As 9to5Google notes, you can access the feature by tapping the lyrics icon that appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen when you select a song. The video embedded below shows the feature in action.

It’s not...

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Ford recalls more than 100,000 Mavericks, Escapes, and Corsairs over fire risk

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

Ford is recalling certain models of the 2020 to 2022 Escape, Maverick, and Corsair due to the risk of under-hood fires, according to reports from Reuters and CNBC. The recall affects over 100,000 vehicles in the US, all of which come with a 2.5-liter hybrid / plug-in hybrid (HEV / PHEV) engine.

In the case of an engine failure, Reuters and CNBC report that engine oil and fuel vapor could flood ignition sources, causing a possible fire beneath the hood of the car. Ford plans on adjusting affected vehicles’ under-engine shield and active grille shutter to allow for better air flow, and will start notifying owners of the recall on August 8th. According to CNBC, Ford has received 23 reports of the issue while engines are switched on,...

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How to watch Nothing’s Phone 1 launch event

Image: Nothing

Nothing, the new consumer tech startup led by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, is poised to announce its debut smartphone on July 12th at an event it’s calling (brace yourselves): Nothing (event): Return to Instinct.

The company hasn’t been shy about pre-announcing the Nothing Phone 1’s features ahead of its “official” launch, so we already know what it’s going to look like and many of the features it’s going to offer. Its most flashy element (literally) is a set of illuminating lightstrips on its rear, which can flash in time with the phone’s ringtones, light up to show its charging status, and more.

But the key information that Nothing is yet to reveal is how much the phone will cost, when it’ll release, and where exactly it’ll be...

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Hitman 3 is getting its first new map on July 26th as free DLC

Image: IO Interactive

Hitman 3’s new map, Ambrose Island, will arrive as free DLC to all players on July 26th, IO Interactive announced in its July roadmap. This marks the game’s first new map since it launched last January.

Judging by the trailer, Ambrose Island looks like a dingy, tropical locale led by a rebel outcast. IO Interactive says the map is a “fully explorable sandbox location” with a “hidden cove, home to a dangerous pirate syndicate operating in the Andaman Sea and to many hidden secrets.” It’s also set to come with a slate of new targets, challenges, and rewards to unlock.

Welcome to Ambrose Island.https://t.co/7zWlhYSE6W pic.twitter.com/ejuLvRk590

— IO Interactive (@IOInteractive) July 8, 2022

IO Interactive first previewed the map —...

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Ford-backed autonomous car startup Argo AI lays off 150 employees

An Argo AI vehicle in Miami, Florida. | Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Argo AI, an autonomous vehicle startup backed by both Ford and Volkswagen, has laid off about 150 employees, as reported earlier by Bloombergand The Wall Street Journal. The move is supposed to offset a period of rapid growth, in which the company hired more employees than needed.

“With incredible growth and progress made in our mission to deploy driverless vehicles, we are making prudent adjustments to our business plan to best continue on a path for success,” Argo AI said in an emailed statement obtained by Bloomberg. The Verge reached out to Argo AI with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

As noted by the WSJ, the layoffs make up about 6 percent of the Pittsburgh-based company’s 2,000-person team. Argo AI was...

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Elon Musk says he’ll increase childcare benefits at his companies ‘significantly’

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Elon Musk says he’s going to boost childcare benefits at his companies as part of his mission to tackle the “underpopulation crisis” that he adamantly claims is “the biggest danger civilization faces by far.” The world’s richest man currently runs Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company — he was also about to helm Twitter until he attempted to back out of the $44 billion buyout, much to the discontent of the company’s board.

“Kids are worth it if at all possible,” Musk writes. “I’m planning to increase childcare benefits at my companies significantly. Hopefully, other companies do the same.” Musk’s statement comes in response to a tweet asking about the financial implications of having several kids, a thread that Nick Cannon, w...

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Rogers restores service for ‘vast majority’ of customers after massive outage

Rogers Communications provides mobile and home phone services, internet, and cable to millions of Canadians.

Canadian telecom giant Rogers Communications says it has restored connectivity to the “vast majority” of customers following a major outage that took down its internet, mobile, and home phone services on Friday. In an update posted to Twitter on Saturday morning, Rogers explained that some customers “may experience a delay in regaining full service” as it works to get everyone back online.

The outage began as early as Friday at 5AM ET, lingering throughout the entirety of the day and well into the evening. At the time of the outage, internet disruption tracker NetBlocks found that it brought down about a quarter of Canada’s connectivity.

Following our previous updates, we have now restored services for the vast majority of our...

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Amazfit’s long-lasting GTR 3 smartwatch is nearly $60 off for the first time

The Amazfit GTR 3 features an always-on display and more than 100 watchfaces. | Image: Amazfit

We’re just days away from the official start of Amazon Prime Day, and while many discounts have already arrived, all signs point toward a swell of deals that should reach their peak on July 12th and 13th. There are many popular categories of tech expected to receive sizable sales — a few of which our deals team discussed via Twitter Spaces earlier this week — but some of the bigger categories are wearables and smart home tech. Luckily, there are already some pre-Prime Day deals in both categories that are worth your attention.

First up is the GPS-equipped Amazfit GTR 3, which is down to a new low of $120.98 ($59 off) on Amazon in the gray colorway. The budget-friendly smartwatch features a round, 1.39-inch OLED display and runs Amazfit’s...

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The Steam Deck is changing how I buy games

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Buying multiplatform games used to be a simple decision for me: I’d almost always get them on the Nintendo Switch because of how easy it is to play games both on a TV or in portable mode. The Steam Deck has thrown a wrench in that decision-making process. The handheld gaming PC might be heavier, have worse battery life, and doesn’t come with an easy Switch-like dock to throw my games onto a bigger screen, but because I feel like I can bank on Steam games being available much longer into the future, I’m having to make tough choices about whether I buy games on Valve’s storefront instead of Nintendo’s.

There’s one important thing I should state up front: I hadn’t owned a gaming PC of any kind until I got the Steam Deck in April. For a long...

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Elon Musk proves he’s the wrong man to save the world

It’s on. Elon Musk has officially filed to kill his own Twitter acquisition, and Twitter is calling his bluff. They’ll see Musk in court. And while it’s only going to get messier from here, one important verdict has already been rendered by Elon Musk himself: he doesn’t have what it takes to run Twitter. And that’s a damning blow to his own central mythology.

We’ll look at the specifics of Musk’s formal SEC filing in a minute, but first it’s important to remember what he’s said about the deal and why he wanted to do it in the first place. It’s not like the world forced the acquisition of a relatively small social network on the world’s richest man. And Musk’s conduct surrounding the deal has been marked by a lot of obvious troll...

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Here are the best Amazon Echo deals right now

The Echo Show 5 (left), Echo Show 8 (middle), and the Echo Show (right). | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Amazon’s current Echo lineup offers a broad selection of smart speakers and displays that can fit just about anywhere in your home. Whether you want to place a voice assistant in your living room, replace the bulletin board in your office, or pick up a touchscreen-enabled device to showcase recipes in the kitchen, there's an Echo device for just about every occasion and use case.

Regardless of why you might want one, there’s always a way to save on an Echo device, from the last-gen Dot to Amazon’s latest Echo Show 10. Even when they’re selling at full price, for instance, Amazon offers a 25 percent discount when you trade in select devices, meaning there are still other ways to save money when none of the models are on sale.

Below,...

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Twitter tells employees not to tweet about Elon Musk deal

“Refrain from Tweeting, Slacking, or sharing any commentary.” | Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Following Elon Musk’s notice to Twitter that he wants out of his $44 billion deal to purchase the company, employees have been instructed to not publicly comment on the deal. An internal memo by Twitter’s general counsel and obtained by The Verge says that staffers should “refrain from Tweeting, Slacking, or sharing any commentary about the merger agreement.”

The note, which you can read in full below, cites the fact that the merger is an ongoing legal matter. Musk’s team alleges that the company “failed or refused to provide” information about the number of bots on its platform,” and Twitter’s board has announced that it’s suing Musk to ensure that the deal goes through as originally agreed.

After the news broke Friday that Musk wanted...

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Elon Musk and the $44 billion Twitter buyout he’s trying to terminate

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Now Elon wants out of the deal?

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Twitter says it’s going to sue Elon Musk for trying to back out of the deal

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter’s message to Elon Musk after his attempt to bail on his $44 billion agreement to buy the company: we’ll see you in court.

“The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement,” tweeted Twitter’s chairman, Bret Taylor, less than an hour after Musk’s legal team said he wanted out of the deal in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”

If you’ve been following the twists and turns of this deal, it’s not a surprise that Twitter plans to put up a fight. Soon after Musk said he would buy Twitter and take it private, he began laying the...

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Captain America 4 will be directed by The Cloverfield Paradox’s Julius Onah

Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier | Image: Disney Plus

Marvel Studios’ upcoming fourth Captain America feature — the first since Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson officially took over the mantle in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier— may not yet have a name or release date, but the movie’s just picked up a director in the form of one Julius Onah.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Onah (The Cloverfield Paradox) has signed on to direct the next Captain America film that will pick up some time after Sam Wilson’s confrontation with John Walker and the Flag Smashers. Onah joins The Falcon and The Winter Soldier creator Malcolm Spellman and series staff writer Dalan Musson, who will be scripting the new film together. Currently, no other details about Captain America 4 have been released, but it’s...

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The best robot vacuum you can buy right now

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

These wonderful little robots do all the hard work for you

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