MultiVersus adds Fortnite characters LeBron James and Rick and Morty

Image: Warner Bros. Games

MultiVersus, Warner Bros. Games’ Super Smash Bros.-like fighting video game, is adding real-life NBA player LeBron James and Rick and Morty from the cartoon Rick and Morty to its already crossover-laden roster. (This actually isn’t the first time LeBron and Rick and Morty have shown up in a big crossover game — they’ve also appeared in Fortnite.)

LeBron James will be playable in MultiVersus beginning July 26th, the same day the game will be available in open beta, and you can see him in action in his debut trailer. If you listen closely, you might be able to tell that LeBron isn’t actually voiced by LeBron — instead, he’s played by John Bentley, who also voices Barrett Wallace in Final Fantasy VII Remake. Rick and Morty will be added...

Continue reading…

Leaked Fitbit Sense 2 photos show the capacitive button is dead

The rumored Fitbit Sense 2’s new bezel | Image: 9to5Google

Buttons are a touchy subject among smartwatch owners, but new leaked Fitbit Sense 2 and Versa 4 photos from 9to5Google indicate the company is ditching capacitive buttons for both of its next-gen smartwatches.

We got a hint that Fitbit may be bringing back physical buttons on the Versa 4 a few months ago, but it wasn’t clear at the time if that would extend to the Sense 2. The decision isn’t surprising. Fitbit introduced the capacitive button as a way to create a slimmer profile and prevent accidental presses, but in reality, it made for a finicky user experience. Many Versa and Sense users found the button to be unresponsive or just plain unreliable. (Ironically, when I reviewed the original Sense, it was way too easy to accidentally...

Continue reading…

Here are the best iPad deals right now

Select iPad models go on sale quite regularly. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

While some of the best iPad deals typically occur around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you can still find plenty of great discounts at all times of the year if you know where to look. Whether you’re after the high-end iPad Pro or the most affordable entry-level iPad, there’s likely a sale going on somewhere you may be interested in.

Of course, it’s difficult to know exactly where you can find the most notable deals unless you’re scouring the major retailers on a daily basis. But that’s often what our deal hunters at The Verge are doing each and every day, so let us help you out. Below, we’ve listed the best deals you can get on each iPad model that is currently available, including the latest ones equipped with Apple’s powerful M1 chip.

...

Continue reading…

The best laptop you can buy in 2022

Image: William Joel/The Verge

The best laptops for you, from ultraportables to high-powered editing machines

Continue reading…

Amandla Stenberg may head to the dark side in Star Wars’ Acolyte series

Amandla Stenberg attends The 2021 Met Gala | Theo Wargo/Getty Images

New details about The Acolyte, an upcoming Disney Plus Star Wars series set during the last days of the High Republic Era, were few and far between during this year’s Star Wars Celebration event. The surprises, it seems, were being kept for the week of San Diego Comic-Con.

In an Instagram post tagged to San Diego Comic-Con, The Hate U Give actor Amandla Stenberg announced that they’ve joined the cast of The Acolyte in a mysterious role that may have something to do with the Dark Side judging from their Darth Maul jersey.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @amandlastenberg

While Lucasfilm has been careful not to reveal all that much about The Acolyte — a thriller focused on the rise of those...

Continue reading…

Groot is getting a series of cute Disney Plus shorts in August

I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT I AM GROOT.*

*I Am Groot is a series of five animated shorts coming to Disney Plus on August 10th.

Check out this new poster for Marvel Studios' #IAmGroot.

All Original shorts start streaming August 10 on #DisneyPlus. p...

Continue reading…

Ford will reportedly slash a quarter of its workforce to fuel EV expansion

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Ford is eyeing major cuts to its workforce in the midst of a shift to electric vehicles. According to a recent report in Bloomberg, the Blue Oval is gearing up to lay off 8,000 salaried workers — about a quarter of its workforce in the US — as it aims to reduce $3 billion in operational costs by 2026.

The cuts will be coming from Ford Blue, the company’s legacy internal combustion engine business. Earlier this year, Ford split itself into two entities, with Ford Blue covering ICE vehicles and Ford Model E focused on electric vehicles and software projects. At the time, Ford said that Ford Blue would generate the revenue that would help power Ford Model E to develop new and innovative products.

Ford Blue will have to generate those...

Continue reading…

Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg are set to be deposed about Cambridge Analytica

As Twitter user SwiftOnSecurity once quipped: “Nobody has fun in the deposition room fam.” | Photo by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

Several top Meta executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg, and the person set to replace Sandberg as COO when she leaves the company later this year, are set to give depositions in a lawsuit about the Cambridge Analytica scandal (via Bloomberg). According to a court document filed earlier this week, Zuckerberg will have to answer questions for up to six hours, while Sandberg could face up to five hours of deposition.

You can read the full filing below if you want to see the plaintiffs and Meta argue about what the company has and has not provided during the discovery period.

Zuckerberg and Sandberg have already faced tons of questions about Cambridge Analytica

The lawsuit, which could wind up as a class action case...

Continue reading…

Diablo Immortal is in trouble in China due to Winnie the Pooh

Diablo Immortal. | Image: Blizzard

Diablo Immortal, the free-to-play Diablo game for mobile and PC, was delayed in China last month because of a social media post that could be interpreted as criticism of Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to Bloomberg.

The post, which came from the official Diablo Immortal Weibo account, reportedly alluded to Winnie the Pooh, who has been banned from the internet in China because he is used to make fun of the president. Bloomberg says the account has since been suspended for “violating relevant laws and regulations.”

Diablo Immortal is now set to launch in China on July 25th, though the date could still shift, Bloomberg reports. The game, which was co-developed by Blizzard Entertainment and Chinese tech giant NetEase, has been out...

Continue reading…

SpaceX just broke its annual launch record — and it’s only July

A Falcon 9 launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base in February 2022 | Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP via Getty Images

This afternoon, SpaceX successfully launched its 32nd Falcon 9 mission of 2022, officially breaking the company’s own record for orbital launches conducted in a single year. And since it’s only July, there’s still plenty of year left to push that record even higher.

SpaceX has been steadily increasing its launch cadence each year — aside from a dip in 2019. For 2021, the company pulled off 31 launches, the most it had ever done, which also made SpaceX the most prolific American launch provider by far.

At the beginning of 2022, SpaceX set an incredibly ambitious goal of launching 52 missions over the course of the year. That number was revealed by a NASA safety advisory panel in January, with a word of caution that SpaceX should still...

Continue reading…

Now Google Meet meetings can easily livestream on YouTube

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

More than two years into the pandemic, as video calls have taken over workspaces, Google Meet is now rolling out the ability to livestream meetings on YouTube, which could open them up to viewers more easily than the old way of livestreaming events through Meet itself. Google Workplace admins can opt in to public streaming for the business accounts they manage, which also includes a few guardrails to make sure your weekly standup doesn’t turn into an open mic.

The feature is available to most paid Workplace accounts: Enterprise tiers (starter, standard, and plus), Education Plus, Teaching and Learning upgrade, and Workplace individual subscribers, as well as Google One Premium plan members in certain countries. People on most starter,...

Continue reading…

How to choose between the M2 MacBook Air and the M2 MacBook Pro

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

If you’re interested in one of Apple’s new M2 MacBooks but you’re confused about which one you should buy, don’t worry — it’s confusing. The two devices are very similar, but they do have a few important differences.

To get one big group of folks out of the way: if you’re using this device for work on a consistent basis and your work primarily involves anything more intense than Chrome (for example, any program with Adobe in its name), you should buy a 14-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro or M1 Max instead of one of these computers. Those laptops are much faster, with bigger screens and a much more useful port selection, and those upgrades are going to be worth the extra money.

But if you’re not in that category and you’ve got your heart...

Continue reading…

There’s beauty and battles in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’s new trailer

Amazon’s very big and very expensive take on Lord of the Rings has yet another trailer. At San Diego Comic-Con, the company revealed the latest look at The Rings of Power, a new series for Prime Video that takes place thousands of years before the events of Lord of the Rings, during the “Second Age” of the history of Middle-earth. The three-minute-long clip features more stunning vistas along with some fantasy warfare.

Here’s the official premise:

Beginning in a time of relative peace, the series follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. From the darkest depths of the Misty Mountains, to the majestic forests of the elf-capital of Lindon, to the...

Continue reading…

Apple’s new U1-enabled Nearby Interactions feature is on its way

Image: apple.com

Apple developers got a taste of iOS 16’s new Nearby Interactions feature at WWDC last month that lets third-party smart devices talk to Apple’s ultra-wideband (UWB) U1 chips in the background for “new hands-free user experiences” — making things like activating a light bulb when just walking by it possible. Developers can take advantage of the real-time, precise location triggers with the new framework, and chipset makers can seek MFi certification for interoperability with U1, something that chip manufacturer Qorvo did this week (via MacRumors).

“Our extensive portfolio of UWB chips, modules and software will help accelerate the ecosystem of connected UWB products and accessories,” said Qorvo Mobile products president Eric Creviston in...

Continue reading…

How to use Magic Eraser on Pixel 6 phones

Magic Eraser isn’t magic, but it is simple to use.

It doesn’t take much to ruin an otherwise great photo. That could mean there’s someone you don’t want in the background or a distracting, brightly colored object behind your subject that you didn’t see when you snapped the shutter. Removing these uninvited guests from images usually takes time, expensive software, and advanced knowledge of photo retouching. If you’re short on any of the above, Google wants to help — that is, if you have a current Pixel.

Google introduced its Magic Eraser feature with the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, and it’s available on the Pixel 6A, too. It’s designed to address the scenarios above by removing or masking distracting elements from your photos. The results aren’t exactly, uh, magic, but they’re often better than...

Continue reading…

The best laptop deals you can get right now

The MacBook Air equipped with Apple’s M1 processor is the best laptop for most people and is often on sale. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

If you want a great laptop, you’re going to have to fork over a ton of money, right? Not necessarily. There are dozens of good laptops on the market at various price points. While it can feel overwhelming to find the right one for your needs (some are better suited for, say, college students, whereas others are ideal for gamers), that’s why we’ve come up with this list of some of the best laptop deals available right now.

In addition to the latest deals, we’ll share each discounted model’s best features (and downsides) to give you more clarity during your shopping journey. And if you need to do more research, you can also check out our guides to the best laptops on the market and the top cheap laptops as well.

Photo by...

Continue reading…

Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess to be replaced by Porsche chief in major shake-up

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

In a major shake-up, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess is stepping down as head of the world’s second-largest automaker and will be replaced by Porsche chief Oliver Blume, the company announced Friday.

Blume will replace Diess in his role as chairman of the board of management on September 1st, the company announced. In a statement, Hans Dieter Pötsch, who chairs the company’s governing supervisory board, thanked Diess for his service and for his “key role in advancing the transformation of the company.”

It was a surprising development, considering Diess had narrowly avoided ouster by the VW supervisory board late last year. The German automaker has clashed frequently with labor unions and other key stakeholders over VW’s strategic direction...

Continue reading…

Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now

Apple’s latest Apple Watch, the Series 7, boasts a larger display and faster charging than its last-gen predecessor. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Thinking about picking up a new Apple Watch? It might be tempting to order one of the Series 7 models, but newer hardware always comes at a premium. And while Apple’s latest wearable offers a slightly larger display and some improvements to durability, it is largely the same Apple Watch we’re familiar with.

Thankfully, each Apple Watch model offers ample functionality and has seen its fair share of discounts over the last year. So which ones should you consider if you’re in the market for Apple’s popular smartwatch while trying to shop smarter?

Most of the time, there are four Apple Watch models to choose from, all of which support watchOS 8. The highest-end is the Apple Watch Series 7, which starts at $399 but is often discounted. The...

Continue reading…

A small Canadian town is being extorted by a global ransomware gang

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Canadian town of St. Marys, Ontario, has been hit by a ransomware attack that has locked staff out of internal systems and encrypted data.

The small town of around 7,500 residents seems to be the latest target of the notorious LockBit ransomware group. On July 22nd, a post on LockBit’s dark web site listed townofstmarys.com as a victim of the ransomware and previewed files that had been stolen and encrypted.

LockBit ransom listing for the Town of St. Marys

In a phone call, St. Marys Mayor Al Strathdee told The Verge that the town was responding to the attack with the help of a team of experts.

“To be honest, we’re in somewhat of a state of shock,” Strathdee said. “It’s not a good feeling to be targeted, but the...

Continue reading…

What record-low water levels at the Hoover Dam reservoir look like from space

A bathtub ring watermark at Hoover Dam / Lake Mead has dropped two inches every day since February (26 feet in one year) is viewed on July 12th, 2022, near Boulder City, Nevada. | Photo by George Rose/Getty Images

The US’s largest water reservoir, Lake Mead at the Hoover Dam, is in very, very bad shape. How bad is it? New satellite images from NASA show just how much the reservoir’s footprint has shrunk over the past two decades — and the difference between July 2000 and July 2022 is stark.

Water levels at Lake Mead are at a historic low — the reservoir hasn’t been this empty since 1937 when it was being filled for the first time. It’s currently at just 27 percent capacity. The last time it was close to full capacity was 1999, just one year before the image on the left of the slider below was taken.

The water elevation at the Hoover Dam stood at a meager 1,041 feet on July 18th, 2022, according to the Bureau of Reclamation, which manages Lake...

Continue reading…

This solar-powered smart lock is also a video doorbell

The Lockly Vision Elite is a $500 do-everything smart lock. | Image: Lockly

Smart door locks and video doorbells are useful for keeping an eye on and controlling what's going on at your front door. But there are very few that actually work together, meaning you end up with two different apps or two different taps in your smart home app to both see a visitor and then unlock (or lock) your door.

Smart door lock maker Lockly has a three-in-one solution for this problem: the $499 Lockly Vision Elite. A camera and a doorbell built into a door lock, the Lockly Vision Elite launched this week and is the successor to the company’s Lockly Vision video smart lock.

The Vision Elite has a number of improvements over its predecessor, including full 1080p HD video, a wider viewing angle, night vision, and a motion sensor. It...

Continue reading…

Guerrilla Games is shutting down multiplayer servers for two Killzone games

Killzone Shadow Fall. | Image: Sony

Guerrilla Games, the Sony-owned studio most recently known for Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, is shutting down online multiplayer for three games in August (via Polygon). The shutdowns, which will happen on August 12th, will affect Killzone: Mercenary, Killzone Shadow Fall, and Rigs: Mechanized Combat League.

“Online features (including online multiplayer modes) will cease on that date,” Guerrilla wrote in a tweet on Friday. “Single player offline modes remain available.”

On 12 August 2022, online servers for Killzone: Mercenary, Killzone Shadow Fall (including Intercept Mode) and RIGS: Mechanized Combat League will shut down. Online features (including online multiplayer modes) will cease on that date. Single player...

Continue reading…

The Horizon Forbidden West PlayStation 5 bundle is available right now at Best Buy

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Still on the hunt for a PlayStation 5? Today could be your lucky day: you now have a chance to buy the disc-based PS5 as part of the Horizon Forbidden West bundle for $549.99. Even better, unlike some of Best Buy’s past console restocks, this one is available to the general public online.

While there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to nab the PS5 today, there are a couple of things you can do to reduce the time it takes to check out and thus improve your chances. First, make sure to log in ahead of time to ensure both your billing and shipping details are current. Be sure also to click on the “Add to Cart” button to actually get into the queue as well, and be prepared to potentially verify your account while in line.

Once you’re in the...

Continue reading…

Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro with the speedy M1 Pro CPU is $250 off

Apple’s 14-inch MacBook Pro is discounted to its lowest price ever. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Whether you’re trying to make the most of your summer or planning ahead for the fall semester, our deals team is always busy chasing down deals. And if you’re a college-bound student looking for a powerful machine for content creation, Apple’s latest MacBook Pro likely fits the bill (if you can afford it). Thankfully, the 14-inch MacBook Pro is currently on sale at Best Buy and B&H Photo with an eight-core M1 Pro CPU, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage for $1,749 ($250 off), matching the lowest price we’ve seen for Apple’s premium laptop.

In addition to providing some of the best performance and battery life we’ve seen in an Apple laptop, the 14-inch MacBook Pro offers extensive connectivity options, allowing you to use microSD cards or...

Continue reading…

Pro-Russia authorities will ban Google in occupied regions of Ukraine

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Google search engine will be banned in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, currently under Russian occupation, as reported byThe Guardian.

Denis Pushilin, leader of the Russia-backed separatist state Donetsk People’s Republic, posted a message on Telegram accusing Google of “promot[ing] terrorism and violence against all Russians, and especially the population of Donbas,” according to The Guardian.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine this spring, a number of social media platforms have been banned in Russia and in the occupied regions. In March, a Russian ban on Facebook and Instagram was upheld, accusing the platforms of engaging in “extremist activities” for policies that allow for...

Continue reading…

Trust me, you need a bookmarking app — and Raindrop is the best one

Raindrop works practically everywhere, like any good bookmarking app should. | Image: Raindrop

Bookmarking apps are a lost art. They were once a hot industry, where Delicious and Diigo and Wink and Furl (these are all real names, I swear!) competed to be the home for all your URLs. But those went out of style right around the time James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful” dropped off the radio charts, and the whole idea of “bookmarks” never really came back in style. You have browser bookmarks; what else do you need?

Here’s why you should be using a bookmarking app: because it’s the storage unit the internet needs. Seriously, think of it like you rented one of those self-storage squares, and now you have a place for all of the stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else. Instead of emailing yourself links or keeping 100 tabs open just in case,...

Continue reading…

Vergecast: Netflix vs. broadcast, Tesla sells its Bitcoin, and an upgrade to Thread

Every Wednesday and Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where our editors make sense of the week’s most important technology news. On Fridays, Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel, editor-at-large David Pierce, and managing editor Alex Cranz discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories.

In today’s episode, the crew starts the show with Tesla’s quarterly earnings, which leads to a discussion of the state of electric cars in America — what models are actually available, the move from green to blue branding, and if Tesla has figured out the Cybertruck’s windshield wipers yet.

Kicking off my career in automotive design with a bang pic.twitter.com/prEbxCyqvL

— Miles...

Continue reading…

Yeezy Gap and Balenciaga made a mobile game to promote a new clothing line

The collision of gaming and fashion continues to manifest in unexpected ways: the latest example is a web game to promote a collaboration between Gap, Balenciaga, and Ye.

The game, which launched at the same time as the in-store Yeezy Gap Balenciaga collection and its very expensive T-shirts, is a fairly straightforward mobile title with a high-fashion aesthetic. (You can play it in a browser right here, though it only works on mobile.) You start by creating an avatar, which involves selecting a gender, skin tone, and — obviously — picking from one of several vaguely post-apocalyptic-style outfits. From there, the game itself is basic if a little odd; your avatar soars through the sky, and you have to move your phone from side to side to...

Continue reading…

The best deals on true wireless earbuds right now

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

When it comes to true wireless earbuds, there are a ton of brands and products to choose from. Whether you need something with noise cancellation for your daily commute like the Apple AirPods Pro or a fitness-focused pair like the Beats Powerbeats Pro, there’s now a pair of wireless earbuds well suited for nearly every occasion. Some, like the UE Fits, even conform to the shape of your ear to provide a secure fit that’s uniquely yours.

Regardless of the brand or model that speaks to you, however, we’ve scoured the internet to find the best deals currently available on true wireless earbuds. Of course, if you’re still trying to find the right make and model for you, make sure to check out our guide to the best wireless earbuds, which...

Continue reading…

Don’t Worry Darling’s coming apart at the seams in its latest trailer

Florence Pugh as Alice Chambers in Don’t Worry Darling. | Warner Bros.

In Warner Bros.’ upcoming thriller Don’t Worry Darling from director Olivia Wilde, most everything about the fictional company town of Victory seems perfectly normal from a distance — as do the handful of picture-perfect nuclear families who call the place home. But there’s something sinister about Victory that at least one of its Stepford-esque housewives is becoming aware of in Don’t Worry Darling’s new trailer.

Like all of Victory’s homemakers, Alice Chambers (Florence Pugh) adores her husband Jack (Harry Styles) and delights in almost every aspect of “traditional” suburban domestic femininity like cooking, cleaning, and always having a full face of makeup. Though Alice and the other women don’t exactly know what the men of the town d...

Continue reading…