Instagram was fined $402 million for mishandling teens’ data in the EU

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission has fined Meta €405 million (about $402 million) after an investigation into how it handled teenagers’ data. The decision and fine were finalized last Friday, DPC spokesperson Caolmhe McGuire tells The Verge, and “full details of the decision will publish next week.”

The DPC’s deadline for making a final decision on this matter was the end of this week. The investigation leading started almost two years ago, and focused on two ways in which the company allegedly breached GDPR rules. The first was Instagram allowing young users, ages 13-17, to set up business accounts on the platform, which made those users’ contact information publicly available. (Users sometimes switch to business accounts because...

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TikTok denies reports that it’s been hacked

Nick Barclay / The Verge

TikTok is denying reports that it was breached after a hacking group posted images of what they claim is a TikTok database that contains the platform’s source code and user information (via Bleeping Computer). In response to these allegations, TikTok said its team “found no evidence of a security breach_.”_

According to Bleeping Computer, hackers shared the images of the alleged database to a hacking forum, saying they obtained the data on a server used by TikTok. It claims the server stores over 2 billion records and 790GB worth of user data, platform statistics, code, and more.

“We have confirmed that the data samples in question are all publicly accessible and are not due to any compromise of TikTok systems, networks, or databases,”...

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The GoPro Hero11 Black will reportedly have a new sensor and an old design

Imagine this, but with an 11 on the side. That’s the Hero11 Black, apparently. | Image: Becca Farsace / The Verge

GoPro is reportedly getting ready to launch its next camera, but don’t hold your breath for a big redesign. Instead, according to images and specs first spotted by WinFuture, it appears the GoPro Hero11 Black will look virtually identical to the Hero10, and all the important tweaks will be on the inside.

The biggest upgrade sounds like a new sensor, which WinFuture says will be capable of 27-megapixel still images. (The current Hero10 Black, for comparison, shoots 23-megapixel photos.) Video resolution doesn’t sound like it’s changing, though: the new model will reportedly still cap out at 5.3K at 60 frames per second, or 4K at 120 fps. Details about the new sensor are otherwise pretty scarce at the moment, but even a slightly larger...

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A utility company locked thousands of customers out of their smart thermostats in Colorado

The sun sets behind electric power lines as the California Independent System Operator urged conservation to avoid blackouts in Redondo Beach, California on August 31, 2022. | Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images

Thousands of Colorado residents found themselves locked out of their smart thermostats during sweltering temperatures last week in an effort to prevent power demand from overwhelming the grid.

About 22,000 Xcel customers lost control of their smart thermostats for hours on August 30th, Denver7 News reports. That led to backlash on social media as some people said the temperatures inside their homes reached as high as 88 degrees Fahrenheit. Outdoor temperatures climbed into the 90s that day across parts of Colorado as much of the western US grappled with sweltering heat.

All of the customers affected had enrolled in an energy-saving program, called AC Rewards, that’s meant to ease the strain on the power grid during heatwaves. Xcel can...

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Netflix’s Arcane is the first streaming series to win an Emmy award for animation

Image: Netflix

Arcane, the popular Netflix animated series based on the League of Legends video game has won the award for Outstanding Animated Program at the Emmys’ Creative Arts ceremony, on top of the three other animation-related trophies it earned earlier this year.

This marks the first time that a streaming-exclusive show has won the award, despite growing competition in recent years. Arcane beat another streaming exclusive, Marvel’s What If…? (available to watch on Disney Plus), as well as non-streaming offerings from Bob’s Burgers, The Simpsons, and Rick and Morty to the punch. Previous years have seen entries from other Netflix animated shows, such as Big Mouth and BoJack Horseman,nominated for the award.

Honored doesn’t even begin to...

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Amazon’s latest robotics, healthcare buys have the FTC asking more questions

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating Amazon’s plans to acquire robot vacuum maker iRobot and the 1Life healthcare company behind One Medical, according to reports from Politico and The Wall Street Journal. Amazon announced a $3.9 billion deal to buy One Medical in July and said it would acquire iRobot for $1.7 billion just weeks later.

One Medical serves as a sort of Netflix-for-healthcare subscription service that gives customers access to in-person and virtual appointments at 125 clinics across the US for $199 per year. Meanwhile, iRobot’s known for its line of Roomba robot vacuums that have only grown more adept at understanding users’ homes and their habits with the rollout of iRobot OS.

The acquisitions of both...

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Psssstt…you can watch House of the Dragon for free on YouTube right now

HBO is tempting new subscribers to its streaming service with a free sample of House of the Dragon. | Image: HBO Max

HBO has made the first episode of its Game of Thrones prequel series House of the Dragon available to watch for free on YouTube, a marketing move that amusingly coincides with the release of Amazon Prime’s The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Friday last week.

Life is good for fans of epic fantasy right now, with House of the Dragon drawing in the largest audience ever for a new HBO series (and seemingly bricking the streaming service in the process). At the same time, The Rings of Power attracted 25 million global viewers the day it premiered, which also happens to be Amazon Prime’s biggest debut.

10 million people tuned in for the House of the Dragon premiere.

The success of Amazon’s Tolkien adaptation is likely at least...

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Google Chrome’s latest update has a security fix you should install ASAP

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google Chrome users on Windows, Mac, and Linux need to install the latest update to the browser to protect themselves from a serious security vulnerability that hackers are actively exploiting.

“Google is aware of reports that an exploit for CVE-2022-3075 exists in the wild,” the company said in a September 2nd blog post. An anonymous tipster reported the problem on August 30th, and Google says it expects the update to roll out to all users in the coming days or weeks.

A serious security vulnerability that hackers are actively exploiting

The company hasn’t released much information yet on the nature of the bug. What we know so far is that it has to do with “Insufficient data validation” in Mojo, a collection of runtime libraries used by...

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How to watch Apple’s ‘Far Out’ event

Apple’s ‘Far Out’ event is being held on Wednesday, September 7th | Image: Apple

Apple’s next big product event is set for September 7th. It’s the company’s third live event of the year, and we’re expecting to see quite a few big announcements, from the iPhone 14 lineup to a new “Pro” Apple Watch model to the next generation of AirPods Pro — plus a bunch more.

The event is being held in person for select members of the media, but it’s also going to be streaming online for everyone else. Here are the details for you to watch the event from wherever you are.

When does the Apple event start?

The Apple event is set to begin September 7th at 10AM PT / 1PM ET.

Where can I watch the Apple event?

A livestream for the Apple event will be available on Apple.com, Apple’s YouTube channel, and the Apple TV app. We’ve also...

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Xbox energy saver modes could save you up to £5 per month in the UK

Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

If you’re an Xbox owner in the UK or Europe it might be time to look at what energy mode your console is using. Rising energy costs across the UK and Europe mean the consoles’ Instant On standby mode could cost up to £5 per month next month for many households, as the energy cap on prices jumps a massive 80 percent in the UK alone.

Microsoft offers two power modes on its Xbox consoles. Instant On keeps Xbox One S and Xbox Series S / X consoles in a standby mode that consumes between 11-13 watts (depending on the model) and lets players instantly resume games. Energy Saver mode, by comparison, only consumes around 0.5 watts, but means you have to fully boot up the Xbox before resuming play.

Photo by Tom Warren / The...

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DALL-E can now help you imagine what’s outside the frame of famous paintings

OpenAI has added a new “outpointing” function to its text-to-image AI model DALL-E that lets the system generate new visuals that expand the borders of any given picture.

In the example above, you can see how DALL-E, with the help of human prompting, “imagines” what’s outside the frame of Johannes Vermeer’s portrait “Girl with a Pearl Earring.” Note, how, even from the limited information provided by the portrait, the system is able to match Vermeer’s style, mimicking the shadows and highlights of the original.

In the timelapse below, you can also see how the artist responsible, August Kamp, had to expand the image in small sections at a time, often redoing DALL-E’s generations in order to get the outcome she wanted. Not seen in this...

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Leaked Apple Watch Pro cases hint at extra buttons, thankfully

A supposed third-party case for the rumored Apple Watch Pro. | Image: Sonny Dickson (Twitter)

Images of purported third-party accessories for the rumored Apple Watch Pro are making the rounds this morning, and boy do I hope they’re legit. Those cutouts mean two more physical buttons are being added to the left of the display, while keeping space for the existing digital crown and side button to the right. If true, it means that Apple really understands the multisport athletes this watch is supposedly targeting. Adventure junkies like touchscreens for some things, but need to have big grabby buttons when in the surf, under water, on the slopes, and bombing down trails.

A variety of images were posted to twitter via reputable leakers Sonny Dickson and DuanRui (via Weibo). They appear to show decorative case accessories for the...

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Samsung is bringing new features to its older foldables and smartwatches starting today

The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 is getting some Z Flip 4 features. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Older generations of Samsung foldable phones and smartwatches will soon be eligible to update to the latest versions of One UI, granting new features such as multitasking gestures, optimizations for large-screened devices, first-party app enhancements and a PC-like taskbar for phones, and new watch faces and customizations for Galaxy smartwatches.

Samsung’s One UI 4.1.1 is based on Android 12L and first appeared on devices such as the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4. Samsung has already started to roll out the UI 4.1.1 update globally today to the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3 devices, which should reach all users within the next few days. The Galaxy Z Fold 2, Galaxy Z Flip, and Galaxy Z Fold have also been confirmed to receive the...

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Instagram removes PornHub’s account as pressure from campaigners grows

Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Instagram has removed the official account for PornHub as pressure from campaigners against the site grows.

The news was first reported by Variety, which notes that at the time of its removal, PornHub’s Instagram account had some 13.1 million followers and 6,200 posts. The account posted safe-for-work content that promoted PornHub’s various videos and performers. PornHub still operates popular accounts on other social media platforms like Twitter.

It’s not clear exactly why Instagram’s parent company Meta removed the account, though screenshots shared by anti-PornHub campaigner Laila Mickelwait suggest the account was taken down for violating Instagram’s community guidelines. The Verge has reached out to Meta for confirmation and...

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LG is bringing NFTs to its smart TVs

Image: LG

Just months after Samsung announced that it’s bringing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to its TVs, now LG’s doing the same. The company’s new NFT marketplace, called LG Art Lab, lets you “buy, sell and enjoy high-quality digital artwork” from your TV.

For now, only users in the US with an LG TV that runs webOS 5.0 or later can access the app, which is available to download from the TV’s home screen. Through the portal, you can buy and sell digital works made available through LG’s NFT drops. The first one of these drops is set to occur on September 22nd and features a set of metallic-looking NFTs from sculptor Barry X Ball.

Since I just so happen to own a compatible LG TV, I downloaded and tried out the app for myself... and there’s not much...

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Cloudflare blocks Kiwi Farms due to an ‘immediate threat to human life’

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Cloudflare, a website security and hosting provider, announced on Saturday that it had blocked Kiwi Farms, an online forum known for hateful content. In a post on Cloudflare’s blog, the company said Kiwi Farms posed an “immediate threat to human life,” citing an increase of “targeted threats” over the past two days.

Concerns about Kiwi Farms grew after transgender YouTuber and Twitch streamer, Clara Sorrenti (Keffals), had been targeted by a dangerous harassment campaign by users from the site. Last month, Kiwi Farms users waged a swatting attack against Sorrenti, otherwise known as the act of providing a false tip to police that someone’s planning on carrying out a violent crime, resulting in police swarming the victim’s home.

Sorrenti...

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Amazon’s putting a three-day pause on reviews for The Rings of Power

Image: Amazon Studios

Amazon is reportedly putting a three-day delay on user reviews for all of its content on Prime Video, including the newly-released The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. According to reports from Varietyand Deadline, the delay is supposed to help stave off review bombing, or the act of flooding a particular show, movie, game, or book with negative remarks.

An Amazon representative told Variety that it put the policy in place to give the service time to evaluate whether a user review comes from an actual viewer — not a bot or troll looking to hijack the reviews section. Amazon introduced the policy earlier this summer, starting with its reboot of A League of Their Own, which contended with review bombers who opposed the show’s...

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Apple’s reportedly set to reveal the AirPods Pro 2 this week

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Apple is getting ready to reveal the second generation of the AirPods Pro at its “Far Out” event on Wednesday, according to a report from Apple tracker Mark Gurman. While we’ve been expecting the AirPods Pro 2 sometime this year, this is the first solid rumor indicating that they could launch this week.

“The new AirPods Pro will update a model that first went on sale in October 2019,” Gurman’s Power On newsletter reads. “I reported last year that new AirPods Pro would arrive in 2022, and now I’m told that Wednesday will be their big unveiling.”

The AirPods Pro 2 is rumored to come with a number of upgrades, including the next generation of Apple’s H1 processor. There’s also the potential for higher quality sound using either Apple’s...

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Alleged Google Pixel 7 Pro appears in unboxing video ahead of launch

The device shows the faint Google logo on its rear. | Image: Gadgetfull BD

What appears to be the upcoming Google Pixel 7 Pro surfaced in a brief unboxing video posted on Facebook by Gadgetfull BD, a technology shop based in Bangladesh. The video shows someone taking the device out of a Google-branded box and showing off its sleek black exterior, which features Google’s “G” logo stamped on the back.

Google first teased the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro at I/O in May, and will likely launch the device next month alongside the Pixel Watch. The phone in the video posted to Facebook matches up with Google’s official renders, complete with the aluminum camera bar with two cutouts for the sensors. It even features what looks like Google Pixel’s official animation sequence when it’s booted up, followed by a device setup screen.

...

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‘Large’ hydrogen leak foils NASA’s schedule for Artemis I mission

NASA’s SLS rocket rolling out to the launchpad from the Vehicle Assembly Building in March. | Photo by Loren Grush / The Verge

NASA will not attempt to launch its Space Launch System in the coming days, the agency announced today, skipping potential launch windows on Monday and Tuesday. The announcement comes after two scrubbed launch attempts of the massive rocket, and will likely result in a delay of several weeks.

August 29th, 2022 was supposed to be the debut launch of the Space Launch System (SLS). That launch attempt was scrubbed after engineers noticed an issue with the temperature of one of the rocket’s four engines. Today, a second launch attempt was foiled by a persistent hydrogen leak that Artemis mission manager Michael Sarafin described as “large,” in a press conference after the scrub. A small hydrogen leak was also noticed during the attempt on...

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Hackers caused a massive traffic jam in Moscow using a ride-hailing app

Hackers sent taxis to the same location at the same time. | Photo by KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images

Hackers caused a major traffic jam in Moscow after exploiting the Russian ride-hailing app, Yandex Taxi, to summon all available taxis to the same location at the same time (via Vice). The attack occurred on September 1st and had traffic heading towards Kutuzovsky Prospect — an already busy boulevard — stuck at a standstill.

A video showing lines of taxis seemingly trying to get to the same destination was shared widely on Twitter and Reddit on Thursday. While Moscow is known for its heavy traffic — it ranked number two as the world’s most congested city in the world last year — this incident wasn’t related to the capital city’s typical traffic patterns.

Someone hacked #YandexTaxi and ordered all available taxis to Kutuzov Prospect in...

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Twitter’s edit button is a big test for the platform’s future

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter seems to have handled adding an edit button about as well as possible. The edit button biases toward transparency, adding an edit history for every tweet and a big notice saying a tweet has been edited. Users will only have 30 minutes to edit their tweet, and will only be able to do so “a few times.” Twitter’s surely going to be looking closely at those numbers in its testing to see exactly how editable tweets should really be. It’s only coming to paying subscribers of Twitter Blue, and the test is going to start out small. Twitter is being as careful as can be on this one, and seems to have landed in the right place.

Whether Twitter should have an edit button is still a fun and controversial debate. Will some users abuse the...

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The iPhone 14 Pro could bring back the old battery percentage indicator

The battery icon and percentage shown on the iPhone 8. | Photo by James Bareham / The Verge

The iPhone 14 Pro is rumored to revive the classic battery percentage indicator (yes, the one with the percentage and the battery level icon side-by-side), according to an alleged mockup of the device’s interface shared with MacRumors. This means Pro users may not get stuck with the hideous, and sometimes unreadable, indicator that Apple’s testing in the iOS 16 beta, which shows the percentage inside the battery icon.

But Apple’s current version of the indicator on newer devices takes the form of a battery icon (without a percentage) that shows a visual representation of how much power your phone has left. This was first introduced in the iPhone X due to a lack of space caused by the notch, and forces you to swipe down to the Control...

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NASA delays Artemis I’s launch for a second time

Photo by Joel Kowsky/NASA via Getty Images

NASA has once again scrubbed the launch of its Space Launch System (or SLS) rocket after engineers failed to fix a persistent hydrogen leak.

The hydrogen leak was first noticed this morning, soon after the rocket began being fueled with liquid hydrogen. The team made three troubleshooting attempts, but a leak was detected after each effort to fix the problem. After the third time, engineers recommended that the launch be a ‘no go’.

The SLS is meant to be one of the workhorses of NASA’s Artemis program, and is tasked with launching the Orion crew capsule that will hopefully ferry astronauts to the moon.

The agency also scrubbed the previous launch attempt of the SLS, which was supposed to happen on August 29th, citing issues with the...

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Why it Matters that I just saw a Google Nest Hub control an Apple HomeKit smart plug

A Google Nest Hub (2nd-gen) controlling an Eve Energy smart plug.

Matter, the upcoming standard that’s attempting to give the smart home a single unifying language, is almost here — and I was just treated to an early demonstration of the kinds of cross-platform compatibility that it should enable in the future. The demonstration was given by Eve, which produces a range of smart plugs, radiator valves, lighting, and security devices.

Historically, Eve has only ever worked with Apple’s HomeKit smart home platform. This is because it didn’t want to use cloud-to-cloud platforms, preferring to keep its devices on locally-controlled platforms for privacy and security. Eve has had an iOS app but no Android app, and it didn’t support Samsung’s SmartThings, Amazon’s Alexa, or Google Home. So it was notable to...

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Meta’s chip deal with Qualcomm may reflect its unrealized VR ambitions

The heat may be hitting Meta’s big bet. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Qualcomm and Meta have signed a multi-year agreement promising to team up on custom versions of Qualcomm's Snapdragon XR chips for the "future roadmap of Quest products" and "other devices," as Mark Zuckerberg put it.

While, in some ways, the move is business as usual — the Quest 2 is powered by the Snapdragon XR2 chipset — it could provide insight into Meta's compromises as it faces declines in revenue and tries to keep the spiraling expenses of Mark's metaverse project in check.

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A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

What the Qualcomm deal shows is that Meta's upcoming headsets, which reportedly include a high-end headset codenamed Cambria and, later, new versions of...

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Google put Parler’s app back in the Play Store

As long as it keeps up moderation. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google has allowed Parler back onto the Google Play Store, according to a tweet from the social media platform, after it removed the app in January 2021, citing the platform’s lack of moderation on posts inciting violence at the US Capitol. Apple re-instated Parler to its App Store in May 2021, after temporarily removing it around the same time Google did.

Parler, which advertises itself as a platform for free speech, agreed to moderate posts that show up in the Play Store app, according to a Bloomberg report. The company previously told The Verge that it has a similar deal that allows it to remain on the App Store — “Anything allowed on the Parler network but not in the iOS app will remain accessible through our web-based and Android...

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Microsoft will keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for ‘several more years’ beyond existing deal

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is committing to keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation for “several more years” beyond the existing marketing deal Sony has with Activision. Microsoft Gaming CEO and Xbox chief Phil Spencer made the commitment in a written letter to PlayStation head Jim Ryan earlier this year, and it’s the clearest sign yet that Call of Duty won’t suddenly disappear from PlayStation platforms if Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal is approved by regulators.

“In January, we provided a signed agreement to Sony to guarantee Call of Duty on PlayStation, with feature and content parity, for at least several more years beyond the current Sony contract, an offer that goes well beyond typical gaming industry agreements,” says Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer...

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Samsung says a data breach revealed some customers’ names, birthdays, and more

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Samsung is warning customers about a cybersecurity incident in July, where “an unauthorized third party acquired information from some of Samsung’s U.S. systems,” including things like names, birthdays, contact info, and product registration information. The company says it discovered the breach on August 4th, and is currently investigating it with “a leading outside cybersecurity firm.”

According to the company’s FAQ about the incident, it’s sending emails to customers who were specifically affected, and it will continue doing so as its investigation progresses. Samsung says that not everybody will have had the same info leaked. The company didn’t immediately reply to The Verge’s request for comment on which of its systems were...

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Leaked Sonos Sub Mini marketing photos show off its cylindrical shape

Leaked Sonos Sub Mini image | Image: WinFuture.de

Sonos customers have been waiting for a cheaper subwoofer since the first signs of one popped up late last year, and now WinFuture.de is giving us a few pics for a better look at the device.

The Sub Mini’s design was first revealed by The Verge several months ago, and these marketing images closely resemble our original rendering. As seen in the pictures above has a large cutout that appears to more closely resemble the port in Sonos’ larger, $749 Sub, along with an overall height that’s closer to the Sonos One speakers.

Product render by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

The pictures don’t come with much in the way of details, specifications, or release date; however, as WinFuture points out, these marketing pics...

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