You can bring Internet Explorer back to life in Windows 11 if you’re a glutton for punishment

“What is dead may never die.” Much like a White Walker in Game of Thrones, Internet Explorer joins the ranks of the undead that are determined to wreak havoc on humanity. Microsoft tamed the Internet Explorer beast in Windows 11, preventing anyone from summoning it and running its ancient code, but now one dastardly Twitter user has broken Internet Explorer’s chains and set it free to run freely on Windows 11.

Internet Explorer was never supposed to work on Windows 11. Microsoft disabled IE in Windows 11, making it the first version of Windows without IE for more than 20 years. In fact, if you even try to launch Internet Explorer in Windows 11, the OS simply forces you into Microsoft Edge.

you thought Internet Explorer was dead, didn't...

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Solana ecosystem hit by widespread hack draining thousands of crypto wallets

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Hackers have targeted the Solana ecosystem, draining crypto funds from thousands of connected wallets. Such attacks are common among blockchain platforms, but the news is still significant given the praise Solana has attracted as one of the faster and cheaper ecosystems for trading digital assets.

Solana’s official Twitter account said that approximately 7,767 wallets had been affected by the attack, including those operated by third-parties Phantom and Slope. The company did not explain the cause of the attack, but noted that there was no evidence that hardware wallets (those not connected to the internet) had been affected.

“Engineers are currently working with multiple security researchers and ecosystem teams to identify the root...

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Tinder steps back from metaverse dating plans as business falters

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amidst a disappointing set of earnings for the last quarter, Match Group has announced it’s scaling back Tinder’s metaverse dating ambitions and scrapping plans to offer an in-app Tinder Coins currency. Tinder CEO Renate Nyborg, who became the dating app’s first female CEO just last September, is also leaving the position, parent company Match Group’s CEO Bernard Kim announced. Kim himself was named as CEO just two months ago.

Nyborg previously set out ambitious plans for Tinder’s take on the metaverse (or “Tinderverse” as she called it). Tinder acquired a company called Hyperconnect last year, which focuses on video, AI, and augmented reality technology, and Nyborg later cited its avatar-based “Single Town” experience as a way Tinder’s...

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Ford says it delivered the sold-out F-150 Lightning to customers in all 50 states

“The Lightning is the best thing I have ever purchased,” said Chris Ashley, a resident of Maryland and a first-time electric vehicle buyer. | Image: Ford

Ford says it has delivered F-150 Lightning electric truck — which is totally sold out in the US for 2022 — to customers in all 50 states, including Alaska and Hawaii.

It’s a nice, if not exactly important, milestone and a feather in Ford’s cap as it seeks to ramp up production and deliveries of its flagship electric vehicle. And it all happened in the span of two months, which Ford deems “lightning quick.”

“lightning quick”

Ford is counting on its 119 years of production and delivery expertise as well as its vast network of dealerships as it seeks to vault over its rivals in the race to get electric trucks to the most people. Trucks are among the top-selling vehicles in the country, and the F-150 has been the best-selling vehicle in the...

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Sales of Nintendo’s Switch dip as chip shortage continues to bite

Illustrations by Alex Castro / The Verge

Nintendo continues to struggle to hit its Switch production targets as a result of the global chip shortage, which contributed to a near 23 percent decline in console sales to 3.43 million in the three months ending June 30th, the company reported today.

Sales of the standard Nintendo Switch were down 60 percent to 1.32 million units in the quarter, while sales of the Switch Lite were down nearly 50 percent to 0.59 million. The Switch OLED, which only went on sale last October, made up some of the shortfall with 1.52 million units sold. Software sales were also down by 8.6 percent to a little under 41.5 million units. The company still expects to sell 21 million consoles throughout the course of its year ending March 2023.

“Production...

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Blake Masters wins Arizona Republican Senate primary

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Blake Masters, protege to billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, has won the Arizona’s Republican nomination for US Senate late Tuesday night, the Associated Pressand New York Times are reporting.

Masters’ triumph over solar power executive Jim Lamon installs the Trump-endorsed candidate as the GOP’s choice to take on former NASA astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly (D) this fall. Arizona is one of a handful of toss-up races that could decide which party controls the Senate come November.

Prior to Masters’ campaign announcement last summer, Politico reported that controversial tech investor Thiel funneled millions into the new Saving Arizona PAC in anticipation of his pupil’s Senate race. Thiel has donated at least $15 million to the PAC as of...

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AT&T’s 3G shutdown catches blame for a major election headache in Michigan

Some Michigan counties can’t immediately report Tuesday night’s election results due to a confusing mix of federal vote reporting guidance and AT&T’s decision to retire its 3G networks this past February.

In a website alert, the Wayne County clerk’s office confirmed that 65 of Michigan’s 83 total counties “are no longer modeming unofficial election results.” Wayne County is where Detroit is located, and it’s the state’s biggest county by population with about 1.8 million residents. It’s unclear how many are due to county officials that did not upgrade their own modems, or if this is due to U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) guidelines advising against using modems. Elsewhere in Michigan, Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum told The...

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A man made millions unlocking T-Mobile phones with stolen passwords

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A jury has found Argishti Khudaverdyan, a former owner of a T-Mobile store, guilty of using stolen credentials to unlock “hundreds of thousands of cellphones” from August 2014 to June 2019 (via PCMag). According to a press release from the Department of Justice and an indictment filed earlier this year, Khudaverdyan made around $25 million from the scheme, which also involved bypassing carrier blocks put on lost or stolen cell phones.

For years, he reportedly used several tactics to acquire the T-Mobile employee credentials needed to unlock phones, including phishing, social engineering, and even getting the carrier’s IT department to reset higher-ups’ passwords, giving him access. The DOJ says he accessed over 50 employees’ credentials,...

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The best Sonos speaker and soundbar deals

The Sonos Roam launched last year is now available in refurbished condition for $139. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Most would agree that Sonos offers some of the best speakers and soundbars currently available. That’s because Sonos makes speakers that — more often than not — boast great sound quality, support for all the major streaming platforms, and simple multi-room functionality. Unfortunately, however, those perks often come at a high price. Sonos products aren’t cheap, and, outside of the occasional rogue discount, they rarely go on sale. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t ways to save at least a few dollars on Sonos gear.

If you’re comfortable buying refurbished, for example, you could save a decent amount. We also occasionally see sales on Sonos’ collaborative series with Ikea and discounted bundles that include Sonos...

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The God of War comes to Xbox, sort of

Kratos, God of Warning. | Image: War Gods Zeus of Child’s Xbox Store listing

The big God of War sequel is one of the year’s most anticipated video games, and you can now play it on Xbox. Yes, that’s right, War Gods Zeus of Child, which stars Sony’s video game character Kratos and a horde of identical and generic monster baddies, is currently available for just $4.09 on the Xbox store.

Oh, you thought I was talking about a different game? Nope, War Gods Zeus of Child is definitely an approved and legitimate entry in one of Sony’s most valuable franchises being sold on a competing console platform.

I promise you’ll want to play it just based on the game’s description:

War Gods Zeus of Child is a great war game. Destroy all enemies and creatures with the Zeus War Gods of challange [sic]. Kill them all with your gun....

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Chevy is offering up to $6,000 Bolt rebates — with a big asterisk

New owners of the historically troubled car have a decision to make. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Chevy has started offering some Bolt owners rebates of up to $6,000 as a “goodwill reimbursement” for anyone who bought one of the battery-powered EVs shortly before the company made them significantly cheaper. However, as Jalopnik points out, taking the rebate means agreeing to never sue the company for any present or future issues with the car or its battery or join any class action suits related to the Bolt.

Given that Bolt had to be recalled twice following several battery fires (and the fact that the recall was expanded to include pretty much every model of the car), it may be an uncomfortable agreement for some. However, most people who were actually affected by the battery problems won’t be the ones having to decide whether to...

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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 also always a way to save on an Echo device, from the last-gen Dot to the wall-mounted Echo Show 15. 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.

B...

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HBO Max’s $90 million Batgirl movie is headed to the vault

Image: Leslie Grace (Twitter)

About a week ago, industry observers noticed that Comic-Con 2022 came and went without any mention of Batgirl, the Warner Bros. film shot over the winter and apparently due for release in 2023. Today, the New York Post, The Wrap, and other entertainment outlets report that despite being in the final stages of post-production, Warner Bros. and DC Films have decided not to release the movie on any platform or in theaters.

The list of American unreleased films on Wikipedia is not a long one, and the flicks on it usually have a reason for being there — see the 1994 Fantastic Four effort or Netflix’s shelved Bill Cosby 77 project. The Post says this film will join them due to new Warner Bros. Discovery executive David Zaslav and new Warner...

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AMD rode the PS5, Xbox, and GPUs from a loss in 2020 to a likely billion in 2022

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Today, we’re learning how big AMD’s gaming business is for the very first time — and the answer is $5 billion a year. That’s how much the company earned in 2021 from the “semi-custom” chips that go into Sony’s PS5, PS4, and every modern Microsoft Xbox, in addition to its discrete GPUs you’ll find in graphics cards and high-end gaming laptops.

It appears to have become quite a profitable business, too — nearly $1 billion in revenue in 2021 — and could exceed that this year: in an earnings call, CEO Lisa Su says the company typically sees its most money from game consoles in the third quarter, and it’s on track for “record semi-custom annual revenue in 2022.”

In 2020, AMD actually lost $138million on gaming... but in just one year,...

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MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor steps down to ‘focus’ on Bitcoin as chairman

Saylor will take on the role of executive chairman. | Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images

Bitcoin advocate Michael Saylor is stepping down as the CEO of the software company he co-founded, MicroStrategy, and will instead take on the role of executive chairman. Saylor’s belief in Bitcoin has turned the company into a holding vehicle for the cryptocurrency. The news came as the company reported its second-quarter earnings. It noted a loss of $1.062 billion, mostly due to an impairment charge of $917 million based on the value of its Bitcoin holdings, which have plunged since the price peaked in November last year.

Phong Le, MicroStrategy’s current president, will take Saylor’s place as CEO. “I look forward to leading the organization for the long-term health and growth of our enterprise software and bitcoin acquisition...

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The Orion looks like if Kirby swallowed your Switch

Think carefully if you want this to be your reality. | Image: Up-Switch

One of my biggest complaints about using a Nintendo Switch in handheld mode is that its screen is just too small. And unlike previous Nintendo handhelds like the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance, no company has been brave enough to release a straight-up book light and magnifying glass window combo for the Switch.

If you asked me how interested I’d be, then, in a Switch that had a massive 11.6-inch display, I’d count the days down until I could own what sounds like a glorious thing. (Not quite what I had in mind for a Switch Pro, but I guess Nintendo knows best.) Well, that future is here — and it has apparently been here for longer than I realized. A company called Up-Switch makes the Orion, a glorified Switch dock-meets-screen that can be...

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Robinhood is firing nearly a quarter of its staff

“Employees from all functions will be impacted.” | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Robinhood is letting go of nearly a quarter of its staff, CEO Vlad Tenev said in a message posted to the company’s blog.

“As part of a broader company reorganization into a General Manager (GM) structure, I just announced that we are reducing our headcount by approximately 23%,” Tenev wrote. “While employees from all functions will be impacted, the changes are particularly concentrated in our operations, marketing, and program management functions.”

The announcement came as Robinhood released its Q2 2022 earnings information a day earlier than scheduled, reporting total revenue of $318 million over the three months, which is 44 percent lower than the same period in 2021.

In April, Robinhood said it planned to cut 9 percent of its...

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Robinhood quarterly revenue drops by almost half

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Robinhood’s transaction-based revenue in the second quarter of 2022 fell to $202 million from $451 million in the second quarter last year, a drop of more than half. The picture on the overall revenue isn’t much better: down 44 percent to $318 million from $565 million a year ago. Yes, about a quarter of the company is getting fired.

The numbers are bad and the vibes are off

Hilariously, in the text of their earnings press release, they give sequential figures, noting that this quarter was better than last quarter. True but not the point!

Robinhood was the figurehead of the meme stock trading revolution, which reached public consciousness through the GameStop debacle. But as interest rates have risen and pandemic restrictions have eased,...

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How to customize the new Home app in iOS 16

There are more customization options in the new Home app, including putting your devices into jiggle mode to rearrange them.

There’s a major redesign coming to Apple’s HomeKit Home app with iOS 16 this fall. I recently previewed all the new features arriving on the smart home platform, but I wanted to do a quick tutorial on one of my favorite new features: customization.

In the new Home app, the options for customizing how your smart home devices, Rooms, and Favorites appear on the screen have vastly improved. You can rearrange your Home View to put your most-used Rooms right up top or designate that your Favorites or Camera feeds be the first thing you see when you open the app.

You need to be running iOS 16 to use the new Home app

You can also rearrange the individual buttons for your devices, such as lights, door locks, and shades — just like arranging...

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Netflix’s limited-edition Cowboy Bebop vinyl is a very good boy

Image: Netflix

Netflix’s gamble on Cowboy Bebop has paid off with dividends for fans. A tweet from Wario64 has revealed a limited-edition vinyl collection of the short-lived series’ soundtrack, featuring new music from Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts.

Limited Edition Cowboy Bebop 2xLP soundtrack available at Netflix ($160. Music from the Netflix series) https://t.co/2Q3zrCW4B4

limited to 1000 qty, featuring a decadently furry ⁠— and super touchable ⁠— jacket pic.twitter.com/peXMqhY5cw

— Wario64 (@Wario64) August 2, 2022

That was always the devil’s bargain with this show. It could have been good (and I maintain that it was decent enough to deserve a second season). It could have been atrocious. (It wasn’t, but there were some really bad moments.) But no...

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Microsoft made this WNBA court look like an Xbox loading screen

That’s some slam dunk branding. | Image: Microsoft

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the New York Liberty Women’s National Basketball Association (or WNBA) team will be playing against the Los Angeles Sparks on a basketball court that’s covered in Xbox logos and console-inspired designs. Microsoft says that it’s the league’s “first gaming-inspired basketball court,” with the area under the net made to look a bit like the ventilation holes in the Xbox Series X.

Of course, there’s also a “metaverse” tie-in as well — the court has been recreated in the Dunking Simulator Roblox experience. While the gameplay doesn’t look quite as realistic as something like NBA 2K, it could be fun for those of us who won’t be able to attend one of the actual games.

Gif: Xbox

Something tells...

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Blake Masters is splitting the difference between Donald Trump and Peter Thiel

Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images

In campaign ads and stump speeches, Blake Masters is playing Trump’s greatest hits. He complains about “wokeness,” talks openly about American decline, and demands that the government finish building the wall on the southern border. But unlike Trump, Masters’ political ambitions reimagine America in the eyes of Silicon Valley and one of its most powerful — and controversial — investors.

On the heels of Trump’s endorsement, Masters is poised to win Tuesday’s primary and become the GOP’s next Senate nominee in Arizona. But his mentor Peter Thiel casts a long shadow over his candidacy and raises the stakes to something much larger than a single Senate seat. Over the last decade, Masters has studied under Thiel at Stanford, led Thiel’s...

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Jetpack Joyride is getting an Apple Arcade-exclusive sequel

Art for Jetpack Joyride 2 | Image: Apple

Jetpack Joyride, one of my favorite iOS games of all time, is getting a sequel that will be available exclusively on Apple Arcade. You’ll be able to play Jetpack Joyride 2 on Apple’s $4.99-per-month games subscription service beginning August 19th.

Jetpack Joyride 2 looks like it will carry over a lot of what you might know from the first; it’s a side-scrolling shooter where the goal is to dodge obstacles, survive as long as you can, and get a lot of coins. But Jetpack Joyride 2 will also be a “story-driven experience” with new mechanics, according to an Apple press email — which is honestly enough for me to want to play it immediately.

If you want to get an idea of what you can expect, Apple has a trailer and some screenshots on the J...

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TwitchCon San Diego will not require masks or vaccinations

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues and California declares a monkeypox state of emergency, TwitchCon San Diego released its health measures policy, indicating that there will be no testing, vaccination, or mask requirements.

“In accordance with current local guidelines, there will be no COVID-19 vaccination or testing requirements at TwitchCon San Diego. Although masks are encouraged, they are not currently required to attend TwitchCon,” read the statement on the TwitchCon website.

For TwitchCon Amsterdam, which took place last month, there was a similar policy in place. Twitch partner Nazih Fares told The Verge he left after four hours, concerned for his health despite being fully vaccinated.

“It was as if the whole pandemic never...

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Will TikTok Music be the next big podcast platform?

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Selena Gomez is reportedly developing a Working Girl reboot, and I don’t know how to feel about it. As the daughter of a Staten Island girl who worked on Wall Street in the ’80s, the original is just too close to my heart.

Anyway, let the river run — Audacy and Snap try to be more like TikTok, TikTok tries to be more like Spotify, and Spotify tries to make you pay extra for a play button.

Audacy’s new podcast discovery app takes a page out of TikTok’s playbook

Radio giant Audacy has acquired podcast discovery app Moonbeam, according to the app’s founder, Paul English. Discovery has been a massive challenge for the industry, and Moonbeam addresses it by operating less like a traditional podcast player and more like a social platform.

“We...

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The best budget laptop of 2022

Photography by Monica Chin / The Verge

The best cheap laptops under $800 from HP, Lenovo, and more.

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s AirPods Pro are one of our go-to picks and are often on sale at retailers like Amazon and Walmart. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you know where to look, there are often some great discounts available on Apple’s popular — yet oftentimes expensive — AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods last year and unveiled its new lineup, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model drop from $159 to $129. What’s more, we’ve seen many retailers heavily discounting the second-gen AirPods as well as the more expensive AirPods Pro and Max, which offer noise cancellation and better sound quality than the standard model.

In recent months, we’ve even seen some significant discounts on the third-gen model that, despite lacking the “Pro” moniker, resembles the AirPods Pro more than the long-stemmed original model. Here, we’ll run through the best...

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‘An engine for the imagination’: the rise of AI image generators

An AI-generated image was made with the following prompt: “A robot steam engine, barreling down the tracks at terrific speed, emitting clouds of colorful smoke.” | Image: Midjourney / The Verge

An interview with Midjourney founder David Holz

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Twitter will tell you if an embedded tweet has been edited

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

We’re still waiting for Twitter to begin publicly testing its not-an-April-Fools’-joke edit feature, but thanks to some sleuthing from app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, we now have an idea of how edited tweets will look when they’re embedded on a website.

Wong discovered how things could look in two different scenarios. If you’re embedding the most recently edited version of a tweet, you’ll see a “Last edited” message under the text of the tweet. But if the tweet has been edited since it was embedded, you’ll instead see a message indicating that there’s a new version of the tweet that you can see on Twitter proper.

Embedded Tweets will show whether it’s been edited, or whether there’s a new version of the Tweet

When a site embeds a...

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Rumble’s antitrust lawsuit against Google can proceed, says judge

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A California judge says video service Rumble can proceed with the early stages of an antitrust suit against Google. Rumble sued Google in 2021, alleging that it favored its own YouTube video platform in search results and the Android operating system. Google urged the court to split the suit’s arguments and dismiss substantial parts of the reasoning as well as strike parts of the suit related to Android app preinstallation. Judge Haywood Gilliam declined to do so late last week, putting the case on track to proceed — although it could still be dismissed before it reaches trial.

Rumble’s suit overlaps with several ongoing Big Tech controversies. The company takes aim at Google’s deals with Android phone makers, who typically agree to p...

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