GM announces plans to build ‘coast-to-coast’ network of 2,000 EV chargers at truck stops

General Motors announced a “coast-to-coast” network of fast electric vehicle chargers installed at Pilot and Flying J truck stops and managed by EV charging company EVgo. The announcement is the latest sign that legacy automakers will need to spend their own money to shore up the US’ fractured EV charging infrastructure in order to build customer demand for new plug-in vehicles.

GM and Pilot Company say the new network will include 2,000 DC fast chargers installed at up to 500 truck stops and travel centers, capable of offering speeds of up to 350kW. The charging stalls will be built along US highways with the expressed purpose of meeting the needs of long-haul trucking and road-trippers.

The chargers will be in addition to the 3,250...

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How to make the most of Android’s accessibility features

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Voice control, larger text, and other assistive features

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Twitter is back after a major outage

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter went down for around 40 minutes this morning, in a major outage for the social network. Issues started with the service at around 8:05AM ET, with many users reporting “over capacity” error messages, and even errors saying “this page is down.” The issues affected Twitter web, mobile, and even the company’s TweetDeck app.

Downdetector had thousands of reports of issues with Twitter, but Twitter’s own status page claimed “all systems operational.” While the main Twitter.com domain loaded, many users weren’t able to log into the service or access tweets. Twitter started to come back to life at around 8:40AM ET, with many able to tweet and access the service again.

Image: Twitter

Twitter error page.

This is...

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The hidden history of screen readers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

For decades, blind programmers have been creating the tools their community needs

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UK’s ambitious plan to overhaul online safety laws delayed by government chaos

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

For years, the UK government has been cooking up legislation to more tightly regulate online spaces. Provisions in the Online Safety Bill include mandatory age-checks on porn sites and jail time for tech execs who withhold data from investigators. Now, these ambitious and controversial plans have been delayed, as the Conservative government faces a leadership election after the resignation of Boris Johnson as party leader.

The Online Safety Bill was due to be voted on by the House of Commons next week, but this vote has now been delayed until after parliament’s summer recess, according to reports from BBC News and other outlets. The delay is — in theory — temporary, but could prove fatal for the bill if the next UK prime minister...

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Nintendo acquires animation studio that’ll become ‘Nintendo Pictures’

Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge

Nintendo has acquired CG production company Dynamo Pictures, and will rename it to “Nintendo Pictures,” the company has announced. The new subsidiary will “focus on development of visual content utilizing Nintendo IP” and the “planning and production of visual content including CG animation.” The company’s IMDB page lists credits on dozens of titles, including motion capture work on Death Stranding and Persona 5, and post-production work on Metroid: Other M.

The acquisition comes as Nintendo is gearing up for the most significant cinematic release in years; an animated movie based on the Super Mario Bros. franchise starring Chris Pratt. The film is currently scheduled to release in spring next year, almost thirty years after the last...

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Hyundai’s Ioniq 6 could be your next home away from home office

You can also, like, work outside the car too. Hyundai’s V2L adapter lets you power appliances using the car as a battery bank. | Image: Hyundai

After serving up a potential camping companion in the Ioniq 5 electric crossover, Hyundai EVP and head of design SangYup Lee pitched the recently-revealed Ioniq 6 as a “personal mobile studio” where you can not only work but also relax and revitalize. During a press briefing this week, the car was described as “a cocoon-like personal space.”

If you’re burning out working in a home office, how about switching to a movable one? It has 64 different interior colors and six pre-selected themes to match your mood. They can also brighten as you accelerate — a top-of-the-line model with two motors and AWD can do 0-100km/h (62.14 mph) in 5.1 seconds — to keep you aware of your driving speed.

The automaker emphasizes remote work features such...

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Crypto lending company Celsius Network has filed for bankruptcy

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The crypto crash has claimed another corporate victim: Celsius Network has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The crypto lending company’s future has been in question ever since it abruptly halted all withdrawals and transfers exactly one month ago. It now hopes to continue operating with its remaining $167 million in cash while bankruptcy courts restructure the company.

According to Celsius Network’s filing, the company has between $1 billion and $10 billion in assets but owes a similar amount. The five largest claims range between $20 million and $80 million each. The company was valued at $3.25 billion last year, according to Fortune, and managed as much as $24 billion worth of assets before this year’s sell-off. That had...

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Intel’s 12th Gen CPU can’t handle the Bar exam

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Law students getting ready to take the Bar exam digitally may run into a serious issue: one of the nation’s most frequently-used test-taking software packages, Examplify, is incompatible with Intel’s latest generation of processors.

In a notice to users, ExamSoft, the company that owns Examplify, writes that 12th Gen Intel processors aren’t compatible with its software. “New Windows devices containing the Intel 12th generation chipset are triggering Examplify’s automatic virtual machine check,” Examplify’s notice reads. “These are NOT currently supported. Therefore, they cannot be used for the upcoming July 2022 bar exam.” One user drew attention to the issue in a post on Twitter, and included a screencap of what appears to be a notice...

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Tesla’s head of AI is out

Photo By Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images

Andrej Karpathy, Tesla’s head of AI and a key leader in the development of Autopilot, its driver assist feature which requires supervision by a human, announced on Twitter Wednesday that he’s leaving the company.

“It’s been a great pleasure to help Tesla towards its goals over the last 5 years and a difficult decision to part ways,” Karpathy wrote. “In that time, Autopilot graduated from lane keeping to city streets and I look forward to seeing the exceptionally strong Autopilot team continue that momentum.” In a follow-up tweet, Karpathy said he has “no concrete plans for what’s next” but wants to revisit “my long-term passions around technical work in AI, open source and education.”

I have no concrete plans for what’s next but look...

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Ex-CIA engineer convicted for being WikiLeaks source in ‘Vault 7’ hacking tools leak

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

On Wednesday, a jury in New York convicted ex-Central Intelligence Agency engineer Joshua Schulte on all nine charges he faced (as first reported by @InnerCityPress) as a result of the single largest leak in agency history. Dubbed Vault 7, the files and information shared by WikiLeaks in 2017 exposed a trove of tactics and exploits the CIA used to hack its targets’ computers, iPhones or Android phones, and even Samsung smart TVs.

CIA spokesperson Tammy Thorp said in a statement given to The Verge, “Today’s verdict affirms that maintaining the security of our nation’s cyber capabilities is of the utmost importance. It’s critical to the security of the American people, and it’s critical to our advantage against adversaries abroad. As set...

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The Chipofy USB-C cable with a built-in power display is selling for a new low on Prime Day

Yes, that’s a power meter in this USB-C cable that costs only a bit more than $15 right now. | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

All kinds of stuff are on sale when Amazon Prime Day lasts two whole days. Here are some things we love, some of our favorites, and even some utter crap. But one intriguing piece of tech that’s currently on a Lightning Deal is the Chipofy 6.6-foot USB-C 100W charging cable, complete with a freakin’ built-in display for power metering. This nifty little tool is on sale for just $15.32, a savings of $10.67 (41 percent) off its regular $25.99 asking price. It outputs enough wattage to power and charge even some full-size laptops, but the best part is you’ll know exactly how many watts are actually reaching your device. Read our hands-on impressions here.

What else is better to get us tech nerds excited like a speedy USB-C cable that can...

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Amazon is giving away Mass Effect and a bunch of other games for Prime Day

Get it for free while you can — if you’re a Prime member. | Image: BioWare

Amazon is giving away a whole bunch of free PC games for Prime members for Prime Day, so if you haven’t claimed them yet, you might want to check out what’s available before the shopping event concludes at the end of the day.

Perhaps the biggest game you can get is Mass Effect Legendary Edition, a remastered version of the epic Mass Effect trilogy from BioWare that includes all three single-player titles and more than 40 DLC packs. If the Star Wars side of space is more your thing, Amazon is also offering Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, and Star Wars Republic Commando. And if racing games are more your speed, you might want to grab Grid Legends and Need for Speed Heat.

There’s also a big list...

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The best Amazon Prime Day deals on work-from-home tech

Work-from-home tech doesn’t have to be boring or expensive. | Image: HP

Working from home is just how things are done now for many people, whether you’re a full-time remote employee for the long haul or you have a hybrid role. It’s important to have a comfortable space to get your stuff done easily and efficiently, and with Amazon Prime Day ongoing right now, there are some great chances to save you some coin on the tech and tools you’ll use to make your moolah.

It’s not just webcams and monitors you may want to consider — though those can be important. There are some ongoing deals for laptops, headphones, and even smart home tech that can make your work life at home a little easier. Here are some highlights of the best Prime Day tech deals for working from home going on at Amazon, Best Buy, Target, and...

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Verge readers, here’s an invite to buy an Opal C1 webcam

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

It was wishful thinking that the Opal C1 would be discounted for Amazon Prime Day. It’s not, but Opal is giving Verge readers the next best thing: an invite to buy one. You can bypass Opal’s invite-only system right now by using the code opalverge. Click “Reserve” at the top of Opal’s purchase page, then click “Buy with Invite” to enter the invite code. From there, you’ll be able to enter the code, then quickly and easily purchase a black or white Opal C1 without having to wait for an invite to arrive in your inbox.

The Opal C1 is a great webcam that I enjoy recommending to people who care about looking good during video calls. While pricier than most webcams at $300, it offers macOS users a lot of value out of the box, in terms of...

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A new CPU for Wear OS watches is coming soon

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

Wear OS watches could finally get the upgraded chip that they so desperately need (via 9to5Google). Qualcomm teased the possibility in a video posted to Twitter, indicating its next Snapdragon smartwatch chip is “coming soon.”

After Samsung and Google announced their collaboration on Wear OS 3 last summer, Qualcomm said it would roll out a new chip in the next year. It looks like Qualcomm’s following through on that promise, although we have no idea when it will launch. (Maybe Google will use it in its upcoming Pixel Watch).

The clock is ticking on something big. ⌚ pic.twitter.com/0bYaGf3SrF

— Snapdragon (@Snapdragon) July 12, 2022

Snapdragon chips power a number of Wear OS watches. But its most recent one, the Wear 4100 series, was...

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The worst Amazon Prime Day deals of 2022

Some of these deals aren’t what they appear to be at first glance. | Screenshot: Amazon.com

Everybody loves a good deal. That’s largely the appeal behind e-commerce “holidays” like Amazon Prime Day. The only problem is while you’re lured in by the promise of paying less, you might actually find yourself bamboozled.

In recent years, Amazon’s become a minefield of legitimate products mixed with counterfeits. It’s not just charlatans peddling snake oil, either. (Though, there’s plenty of that, too.) The problem has gotten so bad that Amazon’s own products have been hijacked by counterfeiters, and in 2020, the company launched a Counterfeit Crimes Unit to combat the sheer number of knockoffs on its site. In 2021, Amazon claimed it had blocked over 10 billion phony listings.

And that’s just the fake products. A 2019 Wall Street...

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FDA authorizes Novavax COVID-19 vaccine

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Food and Drug Administration authorized the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine for people 18 and older, the fourth shot cleared in the United States. It’s been a long road for this vaccine, and the company faced multiple setbacks over the past few years.

It’s a different type of vaccine than the ones already on the market in the US — it’s a protein-based vaccine that delivers pieces of the virus spike protein directly to the body. Clinical trials found that the shot was 90 percent effective at preventing COVID-19. The trials, though, were conducted in early 2021 — before the delta and then omicron variants of the virus took over, so those numbers would likely be lower now.

Early on in the pandemic, experts thought that the Novavax vaccine...

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Here are a few Verge favorites that are on sale for Amazon Prime Day

Ember’s 14-ounce mug is on sale on Amazon for $119.95, about 20 percent of the list price. | Image: Ember

The staff members of The Verge are certainly opinionated — and that goes for our opinions of our favorite stuff. As a result, we run an article listing some of our favorite gear every few weeks in a series we have appropriately dubbed, you guessed it, Favorites. They can be items we use to cook, relax, make our pets happy, and more.

Since it’s currently day two of Amazon’s Prime Day sales, we thought we’d take a look and see if any of our favorite gadgets are on offer for Prime members — just in case there may be something you’d like as well.

Favorite pet gear

Whistle Go Explore dog location tracker

As a puppy, my Wirehaired Pointing Griffon, Gus, was the consummate escape artist. He could leap our five-foot-high fence in a single bound...

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The best Prime Day 2022 tablet deals

The entire Tab S8 lineup and other tablets are being discounted during Prime Day. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Amazon and other retailers are offering some excellent discounts on Android and Apple tablets during Prime Day 2022, and we’re going to tell you about them. We’ll continue to keep this page updated as deals become available or as specific devices sell out. If you’re looking to save on more than just tablets, you should definitely check out our Prime Day hub summarizing all of the best tech deals you can find right now or keep tabs on our live blog for up-to-the-minute information on new and interesting sales.

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

The best Amazon tablet deals

• The 10.1-inch Amazon Fire HD 10 is just $74.99, half off of its normal $149.99 price. Read our review.
• You can also find the 10.1-inch Amazon Fire...

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New York House candidate accuses Hulu of censoring campaign ad

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Suraj Patel — a Democratic congressional candidate in New York — is accusing Hulu of requiring his campaign to remove language related to abortion, climate change, and gun laws from a campaign ad before it would be allowed to air on the platform, as first reported by Jezebel on Wednesday.

According to Patel, a Hulu representative called his campaign notifying them that the 30-second ad violated an “unwritten Hulu policy” related to “sensitive” content in political ads shortly after it was submitted to the platform on June 30th.

“Hulu demanded we remove footage of Jan. 6 and the word ‘climate change’ from our ad as they were deemed ‘sensitive,’” Patel said on Twitter Wednesday. “How are the two of the biggest issues facing our country –...

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How the News Feed turned Facebook into a juggernaut

Mark Zuckerberg wants a fresh start. He’s betting his company’s future on the metaverse, imagining a world powered by AR glasses that’s lifted from the pages of science fiction. Meanwhile, the rest of us are still here in the present, grappling with Facebook and Meta’s powerful influence over the real world.

We explore the original source of that influence in the inaugural episode of the new season of Land of the Giants, Vox Media Podcast Network’s award-winning narrative podcast series about the most influential tech companies of our time. This season, Recode and The Verge team up over the course of seven episodes to tell the story of Facebook’s journey to becoming Meta, featuring interviews with current and former executives.

To...

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Tesla asks Texans to avoid charging their EVs during peak times because of the heatwave

Tesla is asking its customers in Texas to avoid charging their electric vehicles during peak times in order to prevent overtaxing the state’s power grid. The alerts come as Texas’ grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas or ERCOT, is calling on residents to conserve electricity during the recent heatwave, as the system is being pushed to near-emergency conditions.

Tesla sent an alert to customers’ in-car screens advising them to avoid charging their vehicles from 3PM–8PM. “A heat wave is expected to impact the grid in Texas over the next few days,” the alert reads, according to Electrek. “The grid operator recommends to avoid charging during peak hours between 3pm and 8pm, if possible, to help statewide efforts to manage...

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Major Optimum outage in New Jersey cuts off internet for more than 13,000 customers

Illustrator by Alex Castro / The Verge

More than 13,000 customers in New Jersey are currently affected by a major Optimum outage, according to the company’s outage map. Optimum, which offers internet, TV, and phone services, doesn’t specify which of its services are down, though the outages appear to be affecting all three for customers in the Parsippany-Troy Hills and Boonton areas.

The outage map doesn’t have an indication of when things might be fixed. The company’s @Optimum and @OptimumHelp Twitter accounts have asked frustrated customers who have tweeted to DM. The accounts haven’t given guidance about what might be going on, though @OptimumHelp says the company’s working with local utilities to get things back up. One individual, citing Optimum, says the outage was due...

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Netflix is partnering with Microsoft for its new ad-supported tier

Netflix is partnering with Microsoft for its upcoming ad-supported streaming tier, the company announced Wednesday. The streaming service says Microsoft will become its “global advertising technology and sales partner” upon rolling out the cheaper option.

“It’s very early days and we have much to work through,” Netflix COO Greg Peters writes in the post. “But our long term goal is clear. More choice for consumers and a premium, better-than-linear TV brand experience for advertisers. We’re excited to work with Microsoft as we bring this new service to life.”

We’re thrilled Netflix has selected Microsoft as its advertising technology and sales partner. We want publishers to have more long-term viable ad monetization platforms, so more...

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Microsoft starts testing new Windows 11 taskbar UI changes

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Microsoft is experimenting with new UI changes to the Windows 11 taskbar. The software giant is testing out bringing back the familiar search bar from Windows 10, alongside notification badges for the Widgets section in Windows 11.

Windows 11 currently ships with a search button on the taskbar, which can be disabled and only shows the search logo. Microsoft is now testing three different search taskbar visual changes. One experiment is the usual search icon, while two others include a small or large search bar in the taskbar. Microsoft is looking for feedback on the changes before they’re rolled out more broadly, and the tests are part of Microsoft’s new experimental Windows 11 features, which does mean they might not ship.

...

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Sega’s Genesis Mini 2 launches in October with more power and more games

Image: Sega

Sega has announced that it’s releasing a second edition of its Genesis Mini console in the US on October 27th. The company says this version is more powerful than the hardware released in 2019. It’ll ship with a batch of over 50 games, and this time, some of those will be Sega CD titles. (Yes, Sonic CD and Shining Force CD are among them.) The Genesis Mini 2 will be available exclusively through Amazon, where you can already place a preorder for $103.80. Amazon is also charging $21.99 for shipping; the high costs are because US buyers will be importing this from Sega of Japan.

The hardware design is now based on the Sega Genesis Model 2, and you’re getting the six-button gamepad instead of the three-button gamepad that came with the...

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Hasbro will put your face on a Power Ranger (or Black Panther or Spider-Man) for $60

Ever wanted to have an action figure of yourself? It’s been possible for the lucky few: movie stars; the occasional contest winner; and those who might be satisfied with a knockoff novelty gift rather than the real deal. But today, Hasbro is announcing that practically anyone will be able to stick their face onto a fully posable, licensed, and highly detailed Power Ranger, Ghostbuster, G.I. Joe, Star Wars, or Marvel figure this fall — thanks to a partnership with Formlabs to scan and 3D print your head before applying it to an iconic action figure body.

GIF by Sean Hollister / The Verge

The faces look fantastic.

(Well, anyone in the United States, that is — it’s limited to the US, with no current plans to...

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The future of cars is a subscription nightmare

Photo by Roberto Baldwin for The Verge

As cars get more expensive to make and profit margins dwindle, automakers are coming up with new and loathsome ways to squeeze more money out of their customers. Subscription-based access to vehicle features, like heated seats or remote-start key fobs, are the latest attempt to charge people for things their car already came with. The question is whether customers are going to lay down and take it.

Earlier this week, some media outlets noticed that BMW was selling $18-a-month subscriptions to heated seats in a number of countries, including South Korea. The German automaker had previously tried and failed to get customers to pay $80 a month for access to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto — features that are otherwise free in other...

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How to set up medication reminders in the iOS 16 beta

The Medications feature is the most practical health feature introduced in the iOS 16 beta.

Of all the Health app features introduced in the iOS 16 beta, the new Medications feature may be the most practical. According to the CDC, 48.6 percent of Americans take at least one prescription medication a day. Unfortunately, an NIH study found that 30 to 50 percent of patients don’t adhere to long-term medications — in other words, they don’t keep to their medication schedules. This is a problem that costs the healthcare system hundreds of millions of dollars per year. In the iOS 16 beta, however, you can log and schedule which medications you take and set up reminders on your iPhone or Apple Watch. You can also share your medication list with loved ones or healthcare providers.

30 to 50 percent of patients don’t keep to their...

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