How Starlink and other satellite services are changing the shape of the internet

Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge

With so much attention on Elon Musk’s bizarre Twitter adventures, it’s easy to forget how fast SpaceX’s Starlink project has been moving. In just the past six months, the service has rolled out to nine new countries and launched a new service for vehicles as well as a new premium tier. There’s even a spectrum fight quietly bubbling in the background. New satellites are launching regularly, and the dream of a low-orbit internet is only getting closer.

That doesn’t mean the service is delivering everything it promised. Our 2021 review found huge problems with reliability — particularly if you’re anywhere near trees. A more recent review of the RV service was a little better, but it’s clear that many of the big reliability issues have yet...

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The best Prime Day 2022 deals on smart home tech

The excellent Roborock S7 mop / vacuum hybrid robot vacuum is $220 off for Prime Day. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Amazon Prime Day is the second-best time of year to bag some smart home gadgets at excellent prices. While Black Friday and its various offshoots traditionally have deeper discounts and wider product options, Prime Day feels strategically situated on the calendar as an ideal buying season for those invested in the smart home. This is particularly true if you are looking for some bargains on Amazon Alexa devices or compatible gadgets.

This year, there are some good deals to be found for Prime members this July 12th and 13th on everything from smart thermostats and smart locks to security cameras and smart lighting. Plus, it’s a great time to stock up on a couple more Echo speakers if there’s a room in your house that still doesn’t have...

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Samsung reveals a new update for the Galaxy Watch 4 that focuses on accessibility

Samsung says the software updates will arrive as part of One UI Watch 4.5 later this year. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

Samsung announced today that its forthcoming One UI Watch 4.5 update will add new accessibility features to its Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 4 Classic smartwatches. The settings will essentially allow users to adjust audio and visual settings, including color adjustments and rebalancing stereo audio.

For users who may have a hard time distinguishing colors, the update will allow them to tweak the display with various color filters. Samsung is also introducing settings so users can increase contrast to make fonts more readable, disable transparency and blur effects, and remove any animations.

Image: Samsung

One UI Watch 4.5 adds color filters to help people who have a hard time differentiating colors.

People who...

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Verizon’s cheapest unlimited 5G plan has the ‘basics’ but not high-speed Ultra Wideband

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Verizon’s new Welcome Unlimited plan comes with a slightly more attractive $65 / month price tag for one line but only offers access to 5G on the company’s low-band nationwide network. It’s also missing support for a 5GB hotspot that Verizon’s other entry-level 5G Start plan offers for an extra $5 per month.

While Welcome Unlimited comes with unlimited text, talk, and data, Verizon notes that “your data may be temporarily slower than other traffic” whenever there’s more congestion on the network. The plan isn’t included with Verizon’s mix and match Unlimited plans, either — this means everyone on your plan must switch over to Welcome Unlimited if you decide to sign up.

When compared to the 5G Start plan, Welcome Unlimited is virtually...

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These are the best Prime Day 2022 phone deals

There are Samsung deals aplenty. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

The best phone prices undeniably come from wireless carriers — but they also come with a lot of strings attached, like lengthy contracts and requirements to stay on expensive unlimited plans. Buying unlocked means that you aren’t tied to a particular carrier or plan, and that’s why we recommend purchasing a phone that way if you can. Unfortunately, it also means missing out on the “free” phone offer.

While Amazon isn’t giving out any free phones on Prime Day, you’ll find the next best thing: significant discounts on current models, with no contract or trade-in required. Here you’ll find the very best wireless deals on Prime Day, from accessories to flagships to 4G-only phones, with no strings in sight.

Phone accessory deals

• The days of...

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How to turn on and use keyboard haptics in iOS 16

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Last month, Apple announced that, with its iOS 16 update, it is finally adding built-in keyboard haptics to the iPhone — haptics that will allow you to feel vibrations as you type. Previously, haptics were available for other gestures like typing an incorrect passcode or pressing and holding your screen to reveal content, but not for the keyboard. In other words, the keyboard’s new upgrade, which is powered by Apple’s Taptic Engine technology, will finally give iPhone users an opportunity to access haptics without downloading another piece of third party software.

Keyboard haptics are a good confirmation tool to indicate that what you’re typing is going through. If you’re someone who has to keep their phone silenced during the day, it...

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Spotify acquires music trivia game Heardle

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Spotify announced Tuesday that it has purchased Heardle, one of the many themed trivia games that cropped up in the wake of Wordle’s blockbuster success. Heardle is Spotify’s first game acquisition, and the company hopes it will play a dual role: in addition to keeping music nerds engaged, it can act as a music discovery tool.

“We are always looking for innovative and playful ways to enhance music discovery and help artists reach new fans,” said Jeremy Erlich, global head of music at Spotify. “Heardle has proven to be a really fun way to connect millions of fans with songs they know and love and with new songs and a way to compete with their friends as to who has the best musical knowledge.”

The game remains a standalone website for now....

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The Verge Prime Day 2022 live blog

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Tracking the best noteworthy deals as they come up

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Accessibility Week

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A little more than 1 in 4 Americans live with a disability — that’s more than 60 million adults who are deaf, blind, neurodivergent, or physically disabled. Technology offers the utopian promise of a universally accessible society, but it only delivers part of the time.

Assistive tech has been a life-changing advancement for many people with disabilities. But as technology changes, each innovation is accompanied by a host of access needs that are all too frequently ignored.

This week, The Verge will explore technological advances in accessibility and the ongoing fights to expand access in software and hardware, as well as provide feature reviews of the accessibility options in Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android.

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How to make the most of your Windows PC’s accessibility features

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A list of accessibility features in Windows 11, where to find each one, and what they can do

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The best Prime Day 2022 deals on 4K TVs

Image: TCL

If you’re a savvy tech shopper, you can set your watch to the annual cadence of TV deals. There are the big ones, like Black Friday and the Super Bowl, and then smatterings around and in-between with Memorial Day, Labor Day, and some others. Amazon Prime Day has become another notable TV shopping holiday, with its somewhat annual cadence and occasional date changes starting back in 2015. With Prime Day 2022 kicking off, it’s another great chance to get a new 4K TV or upgrade your existing one for something better, faster, and maybe even bigger.

Among all the Prime Day deals we’re covering here at The Verge (smart home tech, earbuds, phones, laptops, and much more), this is one of the biggest. There are TVs with OLED and Mini LED panels...

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Peloton will stop building treadmills and bikes in-house to reduce costs

Image: Peloton

Peloton has announced it will completely out-source the production of its bikes and treadmills to Taiwanese manufacturer Rexon. The fitness company currently builds some of its hardware in-house, but says out-sourcing will allow it to reduce costs and simplify its supply chain.

It’s the latest move by recently-installed CEO Barry McCarthy to right Peloton’s troubled ship. As a fitness firm focused on delivering home workouts, the company was a natural pandemic darling. But founder and former CEO John Foley overestimated demand for its products, and saw sales, subscribers, and stock plunge as the company was left burdened with surplus inventory. Its most recent earnings showed losses of some $757 million.

Peloton is increasingly focused...

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My son didn’t need a scientific miracle, he just needed an iPad

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

We thought technology would mediate between my disabled son and an ableist world. We got endless bureaucracy instead.

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PUBG Mobile is hosting its first ever virtual concert with K-pop stars Blackpink

Blackpink on stage at Coachella in 2019. | Photo by Rich Fury/Getty Images for Coachella

Mobile-based battle royale shooter PUBG Mobile will host its first ever virtual concert later this month featuring best-selling K-pop girl group Blackpink.

It’s the latest example of a video game expanding into virtual events (which, yes, we could label as part of the “metaverse” if we really wanted to — but we don’t.) Compared to rivals like Fortnite, which has hosted various concerts by the likes of Travis Scott and Ariana Grande, PUBG isn’t exactly known for such activities. But in a press release from publisher Tencent Games, executive Vincent Wang said PUBG Mobile is“expanding” its “ever-evolving world.” So: make of that what you will.

A number of concerts will take place in the game from July 23rd to 24th and then from July 30th...

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Amazon Prime Day 2022: here are the best tech deals

Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Welcome to our repository of only the best Amazon Prime Day 2022 deals for Prime members. What will you find in here? You’ll find big discounts on tech products that we actually like, and other Verge-y stuff that we feel comfortable recommending based on specs and price. What you won’t find are bad, also-ran deals that appear at several other times of the year. You don’t have time for that, and we don’t have time for that, either. That criteria means we’re trying to keep the list trim to make it easier to peruse.

If you aren’t ready to shop Prime Day 2022 deals today, fret not, as many of them should last through Wednesday, July 13. And we’ll be updating this post throughout the big sale event, with the freshest and best deals occupying...

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Amazon’s latest Kindle Paperwhite hits a new low price for Prime Day

The newest Kindle Paperwhite features a slightly larger backlit screen. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg

No matter what time of year it lands, Amazon Prime Day is always one of the best opportunities to buy Amazon’s own products. Now that Prime Day 2022 is upon us, last year’s excellent Kindle Paperwhite is selling for a new all-time low of $94.99. This is $45 below the usual starting price for the ad-supported model. If you’re in the market for a Kindle, this is maybe just the ideal model to get, and the perfect price to buy it for. Unless, of course, you prefer the ad-free version — which is discounted by $50 to $109.99.

The latest Kindle Paperwhite may look a bit like its predecessor, but it features many quality of life improvements, including a larger 6.8-inch screen, adjustable color temperature for reading at night, and a USB-C port...

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Apple’s terrific AirPods Pro are on sale for their best price of the year so far

Amazon is selling Apple’s AirPods Pro for just $169.99. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you missed out on buying Apple’s AirPods Pro when they were on sale for $159 during Black Friday, you’ve got another chance at saving big thanks to Amazon’s excellent Prime Day deal. Regularly $249, you can buy the AirPods Pro — which we consider to be the best true wireless earbuds for iPhone owners — for just $169.99, a price that is only $10 shy of the all-time low we saw in November. It’s also the lowest price Amazon has offered this year on the outstanding noise-canceling earbuds, which come with a MagSafe-ready charging case, swappable silicon tips for a comfortable fit, and spatial audio support for a more immersive sound experience. Read our AirPods Pro review.

Of course, $169.99 isn’t exactly cheap. If you prefer a great a...

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The best Prime Day deals on Amazon devices

The 2021 Kindle Paperwhite is available at a new all-time low. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

If you’ve been waiting to score a phenomenal deal on an Amazon device, today’s your lucky day. This year’s Amazon Prime Day is delivering a ton of great deals, but some of the best — naturally — are on Amazon’s own products. So if you’ve been eyeing the newest Kindle or one of the many Alexa-powered smart displays, now is a good time to make the leap.

Below, we’ve listed the best Prime Day discounts available on Amazon devices, from e-readers and smart speakers to TVs, home security systems, and even Wi-Fi routers. Also, if you’re looking for deals on non-Amazon goods, be sure to check out our massive list of the best Prime Day deals happening right now. Just remember: you’ll need to sign up for Amazon Prime to take advantage of Amazon’s...

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Hive’s abandoned smart home devices will cease operation starting in 2023

The Hive View is among the cameras being discontinued. | Photo: Yves Béhar via DesignBoom

Hive, the smart home company best known for its smart thermostats, is officially getting out of the home security market globally. In a support page posted on its website, the company says it’s no longer selling its Hive View security cameras, HomeShield security system, and Hive Leak water detection device. And soon, existing devices will cease to function.

After September 1st 2023 Hive Leak will stop functioning, and by August 1st 2025 all its cameras and security system will have joined it. The sound detection feature of its Hub 360 will disappear at the end of 2022. Hive’s customers have begun receiving emails warning them of the shutdown.

“We’ve made the tough decision to discontinue our smart security and leak detection products”

T...

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BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month

Photo by Silas Stein/picture alliance via Getty Images

BMW is now selling subscriptions for heated seats in a number of countries — the latest example of the company’s adoption of microtransactions for high-end car features.

A monthly subscription to heat your BMW’s front seats costs roughly $18, with options to subscribe for a year ($180), three years ($300), or pay for “unlimited” access for $415.

It’s not clear exactly when BMW started offering this feature as a subscription, or in which countries, but a number of outlets spotted its launch in South Korea this week.

BMW has slowly been putting features behind subscriptions since 2020, and heated seats subs are now available in BMW’s digital stores in the UK, South Korea, Germany, New Zealand, and South Africa. It doesn’t, however, seem...

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Popular ‘link in bio’ service Linktree is launching a mobile app

The app is coming to iOS and Android. | Image: Linktree

Linktree, a popular “link in bio” service, is launching a mobile app on iOS and Android, the company announced on Tuesday. Previously, you’ve had to log into Linktree through a browser on desktop or your phone to manage your profile, but if you prefer an app, that will now be an option. The “majority” of Linktree’s signups and logins from its more than 25 million users happen on a mobile device, according to a Linktree press release, so this new app could prove to be a popular choice for creators.

Link in bio services, which generally let you make a simple page with a list of all the links you want to share with the world, have become more and more popular among creators in recent years. Social networks like Instagram and TikTok only let...

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Nikon is reportedly dropping out of the market for SLR cameras

A Nikon DSLR camera on display at Paris Fashion Week in 2020. | Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images

Optics and imaging giant Nikon will stop making new single lens reflex cameras — once the technological mainstay of professional photography — according to a report from Nikkei.

The death of SLR cameras has been coming for quite some time, as mirrorless alternatives have increased in image quality while offering consumers the option to use lighter and smaller products.

According to Nikkei, Nikon will continue to produce and distribute its existing SLR models, but will focus development of new models entirely on mirrorless. Nikkei notes that Nikon’s SLR cameras were “widely used by professional cameramen for more than 60 years and have come to be seen as synonymous with the Japanese company.”

Nikon will continue to sell existing DSLR...

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Bluetooth audio’s biggest upgrade in years is coming soon to headphones

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

We’re on the cusp of a new generation of wireless headphones that are more power-efficient, sound better, and support novel new features like being able to connect an “unlimited” number of devices to a single source. That’s thanks to Bluetooth LE Audio, an umbrella term for a collection of new features for Bluetooth devices that the Bluetooth standards body is officially announcing the completion of today.

Bluetooth LE Audio was announced way back at the beginning of 2020, and the Bluetooth SIG had originally hoped that supporting devices would be released before the end of that year. But, after a significant delay due to the pandemic, the completion of the specification today means that manufacturers can now start adding support for the...

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Amazon’s new smart shopping cart looks like it has a pair of eyes peering at your groceries

Amazon has announced an updated version of its smart Dash Cart — a shopping cart that lets users scan and pay for their purchases as they shop to avoid waiting in checkout lines.

The original Dash Cart launched in 2020 and Amazon has been slowly rolling them out (ho ho) to its Fresh grocery stores and Whole Foods Market stores. It’s clear they’re still a bit of an experiment, though, and Amazon says the new Dash Cart will only be available at its Westford, Massachusetts Whole Foods store some time “in the coming months,” before slowly heading to other Fresh and Whole Foods locations across the US.

The cart’s main feature is a sensor array in the rim that uses AI-powered cameras and barcode scanners to identify whatever you put in (or...

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HMD’s new Nokia phone has a hidden charger for included earbuds

HMD’s Nokia 5710 XpressAudio. | Image: HMD

HMD has announced a trio of new Nokia feature phones including the Nokia 5710 XpressAudio, which has a built-in charging case for an included pair of true wireless earbuds. The company is far from the first to have had this idea (check out 2019’s Servo R25 as one recent example), but it’s notable to see the form factor attempted by a more established company with global reach.

The Nokia 5710 XpressAudio looks like a regular candy bar-style feature phone from the front, with a 2.4-inch display and classic T9 keypad. But around back, there’s a charging compartment, revealed with the slide of a plastic cover. The device will retail for £74.99 (€69) and will be available in the UK in late July, though there’s no word on a US release.

...

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This remote keyfob hack may leave the past decade of Hondas vulnerable

Even the most recent models. | Image: Honda

Security researchers and The Drive’s Rob Stumpf have recently posted videos of themselves unlocking and remotely starting several Honda vehicles using handheld radios, despite the company’s insistence that the cars have security protections meant to stop attackers from doing that very thing. According to the researchers, this hack is made possible because of a vulnerability in the keyless entry system in many Hondas made between 2012 and 2022. They’ve dubbed the vulnerability Rolling-PWN.

The basic concept for Rolling-PWN is similar to attacks we’ve seen before used against VWs and Teslas, as well as other devices; using radio equipment, someone records a legitimate radio signal from a key fob, then broadcasts it back to the car. It’s...

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The best stock Nerf blasters ever made are half-off for Prime Day

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Has there ever been a better day to get into Nerf? I’m having a hard time thinking of one. Two of the best, most competitive unmodded blasters cost half their normal price today — including the Dart Zone MK-3 and the Nerf Rival Perses — and I’m seeing huge discounts on a bunch of other actually-fun foam throwers as well.

Just note that you won’t actually find most of these blasters at Amazon. Target and Walmart are holding the best blaster sales, likely in an attempt to draw focus from their competitor.

• Dart Zone MK-3 for $65 (normally $130) at Target. The hobby’s never seen a stock blaster like the MK-3 before, pictured atop this story. You get semi-auto AND full-auto; short darts AND long darts; 8AAs or the option of a drop-in...

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GameStop’s NFT market has arrived just in time for a crypto market crash

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

GameStop is seemingly ignoring that whole ”crypto winter” thing and moving ahead with the launch of its own NFT marketplace, which is now open in what the company calls a “public beta.”

Right now, you can use the platform to buy, sell, and create NFTs. There are more than 200 collections you can peruse and more than 53,000 NFTs listed on the marketplace. The art I’ve seen seems to be pretty standard NFT fare — in just a few minutes of perusing, I’ve already spotted some some weird cat and monkey-themed collections, for example. Unsurprisingly, you can connect the newly-launched GameStop Wallet to manage your digital assets, though you can also use options like WalletConnect and MetaMask. And not just anyone can create an NFT on the...

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Liquidators for crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital say they can’t find founders

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Where in the world are Su Zhu and Kyle Davies? The founders of the cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) are nowhere to be found, according to officials charged with liquidating the bankrupt company (via Reuters). According to a court document filed Friday, Zhu and Davies’ whereabouts are currently unknown, and its liquidators say they have not received “any meaningful cooperation” from the two.

The Singapore-based 3AC filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy earlier this month, a move designed to protect foreign companies’ assets from creditors in the US. News of the bankruptcy filing surfaced after 3AC defaulted on a $670 million loan provided by crypto broker Voyager Digital, which has since filed for bankruptcy as well. 3AC...

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Here’s the first full-color image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO

Today, NASA unveiled the first full-color image taken by the agency’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope, a pivotal moment for the deep-space observatory that marks the beginning of its first year of transformational science. The incredibly detailed image — a deep field of some of the most distant galaxies seen from Earth — showcases the mighty power of the telescope and serves as a teaser for even more awe-inspiring images of the Universe that are still to come.

The picture is one of a handful of inaugural full-color images that NASA plans to release this week to celebrate the start of science operations for the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST. President Joe Biden and NASA administrator Bill Nelson unveiled the first picture this...

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