Google Play Games beta opens outside the US

Google Play Games will allow users to play natively on their PCs | Image: Google

Starting today, users in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand, and Australia will be able to register for the open beta for Google Play Games on their PCs. Normally, this catalog of games would be restricted to Chromebooks or other Android-enabled devices, but it will soon be available able to run natively on PCs for users in those select countries. The open beta will have a limited number of slots, and accounts will be added on a first-come, first-served basis, but additional slots are set to become available on a rolling basis.

The open beta isn’t currently available to users in other markets, even though Windows 11 users have had access to Android apps from the Amazon app store for some time. Google originally announced that it would be...

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Steam’s new mobile app looks way, way better

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

I’ve been using the Steam iOS app quite a bit since getting a Steam Deck, but every time I opened the app, I had to deal with an interface that just felt old — the overall design hadn’t been updated in a very long time_._ It seems Valve felt that way, too, because it’s now beta testing a new version of the app that looks dramatically different and, if you ask me, dramatically better.

In a blog post, Valve mentioned the new design as one of the key new features of the app, and the improvements, at least in my brief testing on iOS, are immediately obvious. For example, the app now has a navigation bar on the bottom of the screen where you can navigate to things like the store, your news feed, and the Steam Guard section.

S...

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Amazon will shut down Amazon Care on December 31st

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon plans to shut down Amazon Care, the virtual health service it first launched in 2019, by the end of the year. The company announced the decision to Amazon Care employees on Wednesday, The Washington Post reported.

“Although our enrolled members have loved many aspects of Amazon Care, it is not a complete enough offering for the large enterprise customers we have been targeting, and wasn’t going to work long-term,” Amazon senior vice president of health Neil Lindsay in an email to staff shared with Fierce Healthcare. We’ve obtained the full memo and have included it at the end of this story.

Amazon Care started as a service for Amazon employees based in Seattle. It paired virtual health care services with the option for an in-home...

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Nvidia says it built too many GPUs — expect sales while it works on something ‘new’

The RTX 3080 Ti, one of Nvidia’s top-shelf current generation cards. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

PC sales abruptly tanked this quarter, so Nvidia, like Intel, is suddenly under the gun. What are you going to do about the billions of dollars of growth that just went up in smoke, investors tend to ask! But while that’s an annoying situation for Nvidia during today’s Q2 earnings, it’s an intriguing one for gamers like you and me — because Nvidia tried to placate those investors by revealing that exciting things may be on the way.

First: discounts! Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirmed what we’ve suspected for months: Nvidia actually built too many gaming GPUs and is now being forced to sell them for less money. “We found ourselves with excess inventory,” says Huang. “Our strategy is to sell-in well below the current sell-through levels in...

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Next-day streaming of NBC shows like Law & Order and SNL jumps from Hulu to Peacock next month

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you’re used to getting your fill of Saturday Night Live and Law & Order on Hulu, all that’s going to change on September 19th. From then on, next-day premieres from NBC land on Peacock as part of the streaming service’s plan to consolidate NBC-branded content on its home platform.

Peacock terminated its content-sharing deal with Hulu back in March to prepare for its plans to exclusively secure more of its own content. This includes shows like One Chicago, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and The Voice.

The platform already streams next-day episodes from the NBC-owned Bravo, including The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Below Deck, Top Chef,and Southern Charm. NBC has also made one of its l...

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Your Steam Deck might be coming by the end of September instead of Q4

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Not only are you getting your Steam Deck by the end of the year, but you might also see your long-awaited handheld gaming PC even sooner than that — Valve has just announced that “a bunch of folks” should see their reservations moved up to Q3 instead of Q4, meaning they’ll get emailed an opportunity to purchase the $400-plus portable by the end of September, if not sooner.

It shouldn’t be much longer to wait after you get that email, either: Valve doesn’t send the emails until the systems are in-hand and ready to ship. If you log into Steam, you can check your reservation here.

Great news! We are making more Steam Decks than ever, and have just updated shipping window estimates for reservation holders. If you were previously in the Q4...

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There’s a wonky number at the core of Elon Musk’s case against Twitter

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Listening to the lawyers representing Elon Musk and Twitter argue over which documents need to be provided as part of legal discovery today, I began to wonder if it is possible to measure anything at all.

The arguments centered on a wonky count of user numbers: mDAUs, or “monetizable daily active users.” It’s a nonstandard measure — most social media companies use daily or monthly active users — that focuses on which users can see ads. But Twitter is a nonstandard social media company!

“We are allowed to question their process.”

Twitter is suing Musk for abandoning a deal to buy the company for $44 billion. Part of Musk’s argument is that he was misled about the amount of spam and bots on the platform and that, therefore, the deal can’t...

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How India runs on WhatsApp

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you live in the US, chances are you’ve at least heard of WhatsApp, the messaging app that Meta acquired in 2014.

But if you live in other parts of the world, like India, the service is more than just an app for communicating with friends and family.

“WhatsApp in India is a way of life,” said Rajeev Khera, founder of food tech business Chakki Peesing, which operates outside of New Delhi.

Khera is one of the millions of Indians who run businesses mainly through WhatsApp. And it’s not just businesses: roughly 400 million people in India use WhatsApp to keep in touch with relatives overseas, send money, access critical medical information, and more.

WhatsApp’s simple design helped make it a hit internationally, especially in countries...

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Exclusive: Sonos’ next flagship speaker will play sound in nearly all directions

A 3D product rendering of the upcoming Sonos speaker codenamed Optimo 2, as created by The Verge | Product render by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

After spending 2022 focused on midrange products like the Ray and the rollout of its own voice service, Sonos is about to shift its attention back to upscale devices. Aside from the upcoming, delayed Sub Mini, the company is also at work on a completely new high-end speaker codenamed Optimo 2.

The Verge has viewed early, work-in-progress images of Optimo 2, and it marks a substantial evolution in design compared to Sonos’ existing products, such as the Sonos One, Five, Arc, Beam, and Roam. Encased in a funky, dual-angled shell, the new device will be positioned as the best-sounding speaker that Sonos has ever produced. It includes an arsenal of drivers, including several that fire in different directions from beneath the shell between...

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Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is silly multiplayer fun

I know people are hyped for a subscription-based future of video games. But if it’s anything like a streaming service, the actual experience of having a big library is scrolling around your options and going, Hmm, I sort of remember hearing about this thing five years ago. And because the stakes are low, you try it, and more often than not, you realize why you never bothered paying to see Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle in theaters.

Sometimes, though, a mediocre product can be gratifying, especially if you go into it with some pals.

I stumbled upon Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands on Xbox Game Pass, which, from the title, I assumed was a game about doing recon, in the wildlands, in search of Tom Clancy’s ghost. Turns out I was wrong....

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Cover Screen OS makes the Galaxy Z Flip’s front display better and worse

This screen is just not meant for full-sized apps. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

The Galaxy Z Flip 4 is a great little foldable held back by a too-tiny front display. It’s just hard doing much on a 1.9-inch screen. Even though Samsung tried making it a little more useful in this year’s iteration, it’s still just a little window from which you can view notifications and certain widgets, but not much more. Developer IJP addresses just this pain point with its Cover Screen OS, a free app on the Google Play Store. It’s been available for the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and got a recent update to support the Flip 4. And it works — but it’s also kind of awful for reasons outside of the developers’ control.

To IJP’s credit, the app does a nice job of walking you through a somewhat involved setup process — you have to give it a lot of...

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How to pause your home Wi-Fi

Samar Haddad / The Verge

Wi-Fi is essential in most homes these days. From streaming your entertainment and music to making it possible to work from home, we rely on Wi-Fi for many of today’s modern conveniences. But sometimes, you just need it to stop. This is particularly true for parents. I recently wrote about how I use my smart home — which runs on Wi-Fi — to help keep my family on track. A key component of that is turning off internet access to my kids’ devices.

Thankfully, today’s modern Wi-Fi routers give you the power to pause using your internet service provider or router manufacturer’s smartphone app — no more need to unplug the router just to get your kid off their Xbox or type an IP address into a browser to fiddle with your daughter’s iPad...

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California is ready to drag the rest of the US into the EV age

California is about to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles. | Getty

California is poised to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles — a far-reaching policy that is likely to reverberate throughout the rest of the country and the world.

On Thursday, the California Air Resources Board will issue the new rules that were first rolled out by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2020, which would require 100 percent of new cars sold in the state to be free of carbon emissions, according to The New York Times.

The rule would phase in over time

The rule would phase in over time, with 35 percent of new passenger vehicles sold by 2026 and 68 percent by 2030. California says that over 16 percent of new car sales were “zero-emission vehicles” in 2022 — up from 12.41 percent last year and 7.78 percent in 2020.

CA continues...

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The government’s student loan sites are crashing after debt relief announcement

Photo by Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images

The government’s financial aid website is crashing after President Joe Biden’s announcement of a federal student loan forgiveness program that cancels up to $20,000 of student loan debt for some people. According to several user reports on Twitter, Downdetector.com, and testing done by Verge staffers, people are having issues logging into StudentAid.gov or even getting the site to load at all.

The plan announced on Wednesday doesn’t provide blanket loan cancellation — those with a personal income over $125,000 (or double that if they’re married and file taxes jointly) aren’t eligible for forgiveness, and people who received Pell Grants will have more debt canceled than those who didn’t. The complexity has wound up leaving a lot of people...

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Can a YouTube ad change your mind about disinformation?

A screenshot from a video “prebunking” appeals to emotion. | Image: Inoculation Science

“Prebunking” false information with short videos could nudge people to be more critical of it, suggests a new study from researchers at the University of Cambridge and Google’s Jigsaw division. The study is part of ongoing work in the field of mis- and disinformation, and it’s encouraging news for researchers hoping to improve the online information ecosystem — albeit with many caveats.

The Jigsaw and Cambridge study — which also involved researchers from the University of Bristol and the University of Western Australia, Perth — is one of several attempts to “inoculate” or “prebunk” people against disinformation instead of debunking it after the fact. Published in Science Advances, it recounts the impact of a video series about common...

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Disney’s latest Pinocchio trailer brings the boy to life

I feel like the fox will end up being a bad guy, but I really love his style. | Image: Disney

There’s a new trailer out for Disney’s upcoming live-action Pinocchio movie, directed by Robert Zemeckis (the man behind Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Polar Express). Compared to what we’ve seen of the movie up until this point, it shows off a lot more of Benjamin Evan Ainsworth’s performance as the titular character as well as Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Jiminy Cricket.

Disney’s first teaser for the movie, which came out in May, mostly worked to set up the world and the story — it cut off just before Pinocchio was brought to life. In the new trailer, though, we get to see the puppet-turned-boy in action, running around the streets and talking to a fox, who appears to be the ringmaster of a circus, and a pirate. We...

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Facebook removed a Planned Parenthood post sharing information about abortion pills

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Facebook removed a Planned Parenthood of Michigan post that shared resources for medication abortions earlier this month, as first reported by the Michigan Advance.

The post, shared on the organization’s Facebook page, explained what a medication abortion is, linked to an article outlining online abortion pill providers, and noted the organization was proud to offer medication abortion to patients, according to Motherboard. A Facebook alert shows the post was flagged as going against community standards, and the post was restricted so that the public would not see it.

Hey @facebook. Medication abortion is safe and legal in Michigan. You don’t need to help anti-abortion politicians restrict access any further. p...

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The Nintendo Switch is Denuvo’s next DRM target

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Denuvo, an anti-cheat and DRM (digital rights management) software that has become synonymous with performance issues, is coming to Nintendo Switch games in an attempt to block users from emulating games on PC. The service claims the new software has “no impact on the gaming experience.”

Denuvo’s software currently comes bundled with a number of games on PC, including Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy, FIFA 22, Deathloop, and many, many more. The software has a history of affecting performance on the games it’s included with, and when its servers go down, all the games it supports go down with it. Fans even pleaded with the developers of Humankind to remove it — which the studio ended up doing.

Denuvo’s implementation on the Switch is...

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Obsidian’s old-timey Pentiment gets a November release date

Image: Obsidian Entertainment

Pentiment, the new narrative game from Microsoft’s Obsidian Entertainment that looks like medieval art come to life, will be released on Xbox and PC on November 15th. Microsoft first announced the game during its recent Xbox Showcase but, at the time, only provided an open-ended “November 2022” release window.

Obsidian, which is known for games like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II and Fallout: New Vegas, describes Pentiment as a “narrative-adventure game” that takes in 16th-century Bavaria. “You will take on the role of Andreas Maler, a very clever journeyman artist who gets caught up in a series of murders and scandals that spans 25 years in the fictional town of Tassing and Kiersau Abbey,” Obsidian’s Mikey Dowling said in a...

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Apple’s repair program creates ‘excruciating gauntlet of hurdles,’ iFixit says

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

On Monday, Apple expanded its DIY repair program to include MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops equipped with M1 chips (including the Pro and Max). At least, in theory. The repairability experts at iFixit, who regularly dissect Apple’s gadgets, have taken a look at the new program, and their outlook is...mixed.

iFixit’s Sam Goldheart writes that the new MacBook Pro guides “threw us for a loop.” The issue: the documentation “makes MacBook Pros seem less repairable” than they have been in the past.

The repair manual for replacing the 14-inch MacBook Pro’s battery, for example, is a whole 162 pages long. (One of the first steps, of course, is “Read the entire manual first.”) The reason the guide is so long, it turns out, is that replacing...

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How to remove Facebook posts from your feed without also losing all of your friends

Samar Haddad / The Verge

Sure, Facebook can be a great way to connect and stay in touch with family and friends. Yet, more often than not, it’s a headache that can turn toxic thanks to the News Feed. Whether it’s fake news, envy-inducing vacation photos from a classmate you barely know, or a relative’s upsetting political post, there are just some things better left unseen. True, you could unfollow a page if you want to stop seeing those kinds of posts, but you can’t exactly unfollow your uncle or a close friend without potentially putting those relationships at risk.

Thankfully, there’s a way around it. It turns out, you can customize your Facebook feed so you don’t have to see their posts without needing to unfriend anybody. There are a number of ways to do...

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She-Hulk’s breaking the fourth wall to show you what real power looks like

Image: Marvel Studios

She-Hulk’s not just talking to her audience for laughs

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SpaceX and T-Mobile’s August 25th event could blend Starlink satellite internet and 5G

Image: Starlink

SpaceX and T-Mobile will host a joint event on Thursday at 8PM ET announcing plans to “increase connectivity.” SpaceX “chief engineer” Elon Musk and T-Mobile’s CEO and president Mike Sievert will be presenting at the event, which will happen at SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in South Texas, where a Starship prototype was recently loaded onto the launchpad.

The two companies haven’t revealed much more beyond that, though Musk is already teasing that the event will be “something special.” The livestream link is already live.

This is something special https://t.co/LSMIRYT8zf

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 24, 2022

With how little has been revealed, it’s hard to know what exactly the two companies are planning on discussing. Perhaps...

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Indonesian developer accuses one of Guilty Gear’s publishers of exploitation

Image: PQube Games / Mojiken Studio

Mojiken Studio, an Indonesian indie developer, has accused its UK publishing partner PQube Games of manipulation and exploitation related to the funding and development of its latest game, A Space for the Unbound.

In a statement on Twitter, Mojiken said that PQube Games — publishers of well-known indie hits like Guilty Gear, BlazBlue, and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero — leveraged Mojiken’s status as a developer in Indonesia to secure grant money from a “major console platform” reserved for helping underrepresented developers get through the financially ruinous times of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mojiken then said that PQube did not disperse the funds to Mojiken and withheld information about the provenance and purpose of the money in order to...

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HyperX is now in the monitor game

The Armada 25 (left) and the slightly bigger, higher-res Armada 27 (right). | Image: HyperX

HyperX is expanding into monitors with the announcement of two models designed for gamers who want a minimalist desk setup. The most unique thing about these monitors is that they each include a desk mount and versatile monitor arm, which let you customize exactly how you want to arrange the display on your desk. (Not to mention, the lack of a traditional stand means you won’t lose much desk space.) You can orient the monitor horizontally or twist it 90 degrees for a taller view.

The 25-inch 1080p Armada 25 and the 27-inch QHD Armada 27 coming in September aren’t far apart in price, costing $449 and $499, respectively. Both seem like a great deal considering they include monitor arms, which typically sell for around $100 or more. Apart...

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Apple’s iPhone 14 launch event will take place on September 7th

Wonder what clues might be in the image? | Image: Apple

Apple’s next product launch event will take place on September 7th, the company announced in an invitation sent out to journalists today. At the show,Apple is expected to share details on upcoming iPhones and Apple Watches.

The iPhone 14 lineup will likely be the main attraction. Apple is rumored to introduce four models: a 6.1-inch iPhone 14; a new 6.7-inch iPhone 14 (possibly with the “Plus” or “Max” tag); a 6.1-inch iPhone 14 Pro; and a 6.7 iPhone 14 Pro Max. Yes, that means Apple likely won’t be releasing a new Mini phone, much to the disappointment of the dozens of us in the iPhone Mini fan club.

The biggest upgrades could come to the Pro line. Perhaps the biggest change is the rumored axing of the infamous notch in favor of a h...

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Google’s entry-level Pixel Buds A-Series wireless earbuds are a nice bargain at $69

Google’s Pixel Buds A still earn the rank of the most olive earbuds around. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Google’s Pixel Buds Pro may be getting a lot of attention — and deservedly so — but if you don’t mind not having noise cancellation or multipoint support, the lower-tier Pixel Buds A-Series are a great deal at $69.

The Pixel Buds A-Series are on sale for that nice price at Amazon, Best Buy, and direct from Google. This deal takes $30 off these earbuds, which were already fairly affordable at the original full price of $99. We’ve seen them fall to $79 with some regularity, but this is the lowest price yet. They don’t offer noise cancellation like their new, pro brethren, but they do a fine job of isolating audio with multiple sizes of ear tips — plus, the small protruding wings keep them locked in your ears for a secure fit. If you’re a...

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Now Peloton is selling its Bike on Amazon, complete with free delivery and assembly

The Peloton Guide will be one of the devices available on Amazon. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

Peloton recently dropped the news that it would cut its distribution network, shift further toward third-party logistics, and plans to shutter retail showrooms starting next year. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that the company is now partnering with Amazon to sell its original Bike, the Guide, and apparel.

According to CNBC, Peloton’s Amazon store will sell the Bike for $1,445, and the Guide will go for $295. (Both products were spared from price hikes introduced earlier this month.) Not included are the more expensive Bike Plus and Tread. Customers will be able to get the Bike delivered to their homes and can choose between self-assembly or having someone come and assemble it for them. Previously, buying Peloton equipment included free...

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Samsung’s new flagship SSDs are even more overkill for your PS5

Lights, heatsink, action. | Image: Samsung

Samsung has announced a new version of its flagship PCIe SSD, dubbed the 990 Pro. Not only does the PCIe 4.0 M.2 storage device get even closer to being as fast as it can theoretically be, but there’s also the option of getting it with a heatsink that comes complete with RGB lighting (though, if you get that version to upgrade a PlayStation 5, which requires add-on SSDs to have a heatsink, those lights will likely get lost behind a layer of textured plastic).

The 990 Pro’s big selling point over its predecessor is that it’s even faster: in sequential reads and writes, it can do up to 7,450 MB/s and 6,900 MB/s, respectively, and it can achieve 1,400K random read input / output operations per second (or IOPS). That’s compared to the 980...

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The SEC asked Twitter to explain its user metrics after Elon Musk complained

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

This summer, the SEC conducted an active review of Twitter’s user numbers in response to concerns of bot activity, as revealed in new filings made public on Wednesday. The review came in the weeks after Elon Musk raised concerns over the same user figures and suggests federal regulators took Musk’s allegations seriously.

Notably, the review began more than a week before the full whistleblower report by Peiter “Mudge” Zatko, although it deals with many of the same concerns he reported to the SEC.

“please disclose the methodology used in calculating these figures”

“We note your estimate that the average number of false or spam accounts during fiscal 2021 continues to represent fewer than 5% of mDAU,” the commission wrote to Twitter in a...

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