Babylon’s Fell

Image: Platinum Games

All good things must come to an end. Babylon’s Fallis not one of those good things, and yet it, too, is ending. In a statement, the Babylon’s Fall team announced that it would shut down the hack and slash’s servers on February 27th, 2023, not even a full 12 months after the game’s abysmal launch in March of this year.

The game’s quiet, whimper-like ending is both predictable and unexpected. In a tweet made shortly after the game’s release date, the Babylon’s Fall team addressed players’ concerns that its poor initial reception would lead to early cancellation. The tweet assured players that work on the game would continue and that the team had “no plans to reduce the scale of development on Babylon’s Fall.”

Today, we revealed new...

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The SpaceX fans who uprooted their lives and moved to Starbase

Alex Parkin

Worshippers of Elon Musk have flocked to the middle of nowhere in Texas to watch SpaceX’s attempts to build a space-worthy rocket — and to find friends

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Discord voice chat is now available on Xbox consoles

Discord and Xbox users can now chat to each other. | Image: Discord

Xbox owners can now access Discord voice chat on their consoles. Starting today, a new update is rolling out that will allow Xbox users to connect to Discord calls from an Xbox One or Xbox Series S / X console.

Discord voice chat on Xbox works by transferring voice chats from Discord to an Xbox, instead of being a dedicated Discord app for Xbox. That means you can’t directly join Discord calls from an Xbox, and you’ll have to transfer calls from the mobile Discord and Xbox apps to your Xbox console instead. Xbox owners will see a new Discord voice option inside the Parties & chat section of the Xbox dashboard, and this will start a linking process for accounts.

Once you’ve linked accounts you’ll see a new transfer to Xbox option when...

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Asus announces detachable, Snapdragon-powered ExpertBook business laptop

A Chromebook with a kickstand. | Image: Asus

Asus has announced the ExpertBook B3 Detachable, a Snapdragon-powered addition to its premium ExpertBook business line that has a detachable keyboard. The device is available now with a starting price of $599.

The ExpertBook marks a number of hilariously specific milestones for Asus, including “the first ExpertBook laptop with a dual-orientation stand,” “the first Windows laptop operating on Arm with a garaged stylus,” “the first Windows laptop operating on ARM with a garaged stylus,” and “Asus’s first ExpertBook laptop powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 7c Gen 2.”

Asus is just the latest company to bring a detachable, Surface Pro-like form factor to one of its high-end lines. Dell converted its XPS 13 2-in-1 to a similar folio-style...

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Amazon’s latest Kindle has USB-C charging and a much better screen

The new Kindle’s new screen now matches the other models. | Photo: Amazon

Amazon just announced a new model of its Kindle ebook reader, which brings a couple of much-needed upgrades to the entry-level device. The new model has a 300ppi screen, longer battery life, and best of all, it now charges via USB-C. That means a lot of readers finally get to throw away the last of their Micro USB cables. It’ll be available on October 12th and will cost $99.99 with ads or $119.99 without.

Since it was last updated in 2019, the cheapest Kindle has stopped seeming like a great deal. It had the worst screen in the Kindle lineup, forced you to charge via an old standard, and had a design that felt distinctly last-gen. The Kindle Paperwhite has long been the default best option: it had a better screen, a better front light,...

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Fitbit Inspire 3 hands-on: blast from the past

The Fitbit Inspire 3 does the basics well.

The basics with a modern twist

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Sonos announces long-awaited Sub Mini for $429

The Sub Mini will be available October 6th. | Image: Sonos

Sonos fans have been waiting ages for a home theater subwoofer that’s cheaper than the $749 Sub, and now it’s here. After design leaks and a delayed launch, Sonos today is officially introducing the Sub Mini. It’s priced at $429, which is honestly lower than I was expecting; I figured this thing wouldn’t go for less than $499, but I’m glad to be wrong. The Sub Mini is available for preorder today and will be released on October 6th. It comes in either black or white, both featuring a matte finish.

Just how “mini” is the Sub Mini? It weighs 14 pounds, less than half of the 36.3-pound Sub. It stands 12 inches tall compared to the Sub’s 15.3 inches, and the cylindrical design has a 9.1-inch diameter. Those size and heft differences mean...

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The HP Elite Dragonfly Chromebook is incredible — with one big problem

Beautiful chassis, fast processor, great screen, and software that doesn’t keep up

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We have a new Verge comment system!

Image: NASA Ames Research Center

The Verge is now powered by Coral, and you are all beautiful fish

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Welcome to the new Verge

Revolutionizing the media with blog posts

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Intel just leaked its 13th Gen processor specs

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Intel has accidentally published the specifications for its 13th Gen Raptor Lake processors. A day after confirming an upcoming 13th Gen CPU will run at 6GHz at stock, Intel published and quickly deleted specs for its Core i5-13600K, Core i7-13700K, and Core i9-13900K CPUs.

Intel posted the specs to its Canadian website (Google cached view), and Twitter users were quick to spot them. The specs reveal that the top of the line i9 13900K will have 24 cores and 32 threads, with the performance cores running at a maximum frequency of 5.4GHz. The i7 13700K will ship with 16 cores and 24 threads, with up to 5.3GHz on the performance cores. Finally, the i5 13600K comes with 14 cores and 20 threads, and a maximum frequency of 5.1GHz on the...

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Sony’s latest smartphone accessory is pretty cool

The Xperia Stream clips onto the back of Sony’s smartphone. | Image: Sony

Sony has launched a smartphone cooling fan accessory that’s designed to lower the temperature of its Xperia 1 IV under intense gaming loads. The Xperia Stream also offers a selection of extra ports in addition to working as a cooling accessory. It’s available to preorder now in Japan for 23,100 yen (around $162) with shipping expected on October 14th.

The aim with these kinds of accessories, which have also been produced by the likes of Asus and Razer, is to let a phone’s processor run at higher speeds for longer, by preventing the kinds of high temperatures that can lead to performance throttling. Asus has the AeroActive Cooler for its gaming-focused ROG Phone lineup, while Razer recently released an RGB cooling fan that’s designed to...

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Apple will let you roll back the iPhone’s security patches

But doing so obviously leaves your phone unprotected. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple will let you remove the security patches installed by iOS 16’s Rapid Security Response system, which can install patches without the need to fully update your iPhone (or even without having to restart it, in some cases). According to a support document spotted by MacRumors, you can remove a Rapid Security Response update by going to Settings > General > About, then tapping on the iOS Version. From there, you’ll be presented with a “Remove Security Update” button.

The document doesn’t give any examples of why you’d need to uninstall one of the patches, leaving your phone open to the vulnerability it protects against. It’s easy to imagine a few special circumstances where the feature could be useful, perhaps if one messes up some...

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EA and Koei Tecmo are partnering on ‘the next great hunting game’

Concept art from EA and Koei Tecmo’s new game. | Image: EA

EA and Koei Tecmo are partnering on a new title that they’re describing as “the next great hunting game.” When I first read that description, my thoughts jumped to Big Buck Hunter, the arcade series of hunting games where you shoot wild animals, but looking at the concept art (above), combined with who’s making it, I’m guessing this game will actually be much more like Capcom’s popular Monster Hunter series.

In a press release, EA and Koei Tecmo describe this new game as an original IP that “delivers a truly AAA experience based in fantasy feudal Japan.” It will be developed by Koei Tecmo’s Omega Force, which is known for the Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors “musou” action games. And a statement from an EA exec Jeff Gamon says Omega...

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The Nissan Leaf can now officially power homes using bidirectional charging

Fermata Energy’s FE-15 bi-directional charger in a commercial use case. | Image: Nissan

Nissan has approved the first bidirectional charging system for use with its all-electric Leaf vehicle in the US. The FE-15 charger by Fermata Energy, which can power homes using the EV’s battery, charge it, and send stored energy back to the grid, is the first system of its kind to earn UL 9741 certification for bidirectional charging solutions.

Back in 2012, Nissan promised its maybe soon-to-be-discontinued EV would eventually share its stored battery power back to your home or the grid during peak hours or even in emergencies. This technology is broadly known as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G), Vehicle-to-Home (V2H), and Vehicle-to-Load (V2L), which all can be used interchangeably to describe a system that converts EVs to a backup power...

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No one can stop you from spending $3,500 on a Samsung Odyssey Ark

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

Samsung’s behemoth Odyssey Ark, a $3,500 55-inch curved gaming monitor, is going on sale today after a few weeks of being available for preorders. And — somewhat shockingly, given how gaming launches have gone in the past few years — you may actually be able to just walk into a store and buy one. Checking stock at our local Best Buys, several Verge staff members found that stores had one or two models available for pickup today.

To be clear, I’m not saying that you should casually spend a month or two’s rent on a mini LED gaming monitor that’s the size of a decent TV. In fact, it feels a little bit wrong that it could even be that easy — there have been nine months of hype building around the Odyssey Ark since its CES 2022 debut, and...

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PlayStation is hosting a State of Play on the same day as Nintendo’s Direct

The next State of Play is happening soon. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Sony just announced that it will be hosting a PlayStation State of Play video presentation on Tuesday at 6PM ET. The show will be about 20 minutes long and cover games coming to PS5, PS4, and PSVR2.

The presentation is taking place ahead of Tokyo Game Show, which kicks off later this week. This State of Play will feature “some great updates from our amazing Japanese partners, along with a few other surprises from developers all around the world,” Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Sid Shuman said in a blog post.

Tuesday promises to be a big day for video game news, as Nintendo’s next big Direct event will be taking place just a few hours earlier at 10AM ET, and Sony acknowledged the situation in a tweet replying to Nintendo’s Direct...

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Cruise will launch robotaxi services in Phoenix and Austin by the end of the year

A robot car of the General Motors subsidiary Cruise is on a test drive. | Photo by Andrej Sokolow / picture alliance via Getty Images

Cruise, the autonomous vehicle company owned by General Motors, will launch a robotaxi service in Phoenix, Arizona, and Austin, Texas, before the end of 2022, the company’s CEO said today.

The company currently operates a ride-hailing service in only one city, San Francisco, where it received permission to begin charging customers for rides earlier this year. That service took years to scale up; Cruise now says it can do the same in two new cities in 90 days.

The company has done autonomous testing in Phoenix through a delivery partnership with Walmart. But it has yet to deploy any vehicles in Austin, which Cruise CEO Kyle Vogt said was unprecedented.

“This is something people thought may take years”

“In Austin, what I’m really...

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Peloton’s co-founder and former CEO rides into the sunset

Photo by Kimberly White / Getty Images for TechCrunch

Peloton co-founder and former CEO John Foley has resigned as executive chairman of the board, marking the latest big shakeup at the connected fitness company (via The Wall Street Journal).

Things have been quite turbulent as of late for Peloton. Despite selling products and classes that are widely beloved, the company has had to cut jobs and adjust prices (both decreases and, months later, increases) this year after overextending to meet increased demand during the early part of the pandemic. In its Q4 2022 earnings report in August, the company reported a $1.2 billion operating loss, though current CEO Barry McCarthy positioned its earnings as a sign of “substantial progress.”

Foley, who was Peloton’s CEO for almost 10 years, stepped...

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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.

...

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It’s time to bring contrast back to our smartphone photos

Embrace the shadows. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

A little while back, my colleague Mitchell Clark and I challenged each other to use our old iPhones for the weekend — mine was an original iPhone SE, and they had an iPhone 5S. I bailed a few hours in after my wireless connection flaked out, and I watched the phone battery drop 10 percent in a matter of minutes. (Mitchell saw the challenge through.)

But it wasn’t a totally futile exercise. When I looked back at the photos I took during those few fleeting hours, I noticed something I hadn’t seen much of in photos from newer phones — something I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing. That thing? Contrast. It’s been out of favor in smartphone image processing lately, but there are some easy ways to bring it back to your photos. I think...

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There’s a plan for Google’s failed balloon-based internet, and it involves lasers

Satellites are the new balloons. | Image: Alphabet

Alphabet’s Loon project, which aimed to provide internet via a series of balloons, was shut down last year — but the tech associated with it has been spun off into a startup that ditches the floating platforms and aims to use lasers and the cloud to provide internet to remote places. The company inheriting the Google tech is called Aalyria, and while CNBC reports that Alphabet has a minority stake in it, it’s no longer going to be a direct subsidiary of Google’s shell company.

Aalyria has two main focuses: Tightbeam, a laser communications system that uses beams of light to transmit data between base stations and endpoints, and Spacetime, the cloud-based software that’s meant to juggle constantly changing connections. Spacetime was o...

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Disney’s CEO teases a ‘hard bundle’ of Disney Plus and Hulu

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A “hard bundle” of Disney Plus and Hulu could be coming in the next few years if Disney CEO Bob Chapek has anything to say about it. Chapek spoke with the Los Angeles Times during Disney’s big fan event, D23, this past weekend. It was one of the first times he’s spoken about the company and the myriad of controversies it has reckoned with over the last two years. Most of what he said was very neutral, but then they got onto the conversation of the future of Hulu, the streaming giant currently co-owned by Comcast, and Chapek showed his cards... just a little.

Disney is currently on the hook to buy out Comcast’s stake in Hulu as early as 2024. The two companies are haggling over what Hulu is actually worth — with Comcast claiming it could...

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Hori’s Split Pad Compact adds a pop of color and customization to your Switch

The Split Pad Compact will be available in light gray with yellow (as is shown here) or apricot red.

Hori released the crowd-pleasing Split Pad Pro in 2019, the Joy-Con alternatives that make playing games so much more comfortable. It’s basically like using Nintendo’s Switch Pro controller in handheld mode, giving you bigger buttons, analog sticks, and cozy grips to accompany your play sessions.

Now, it’s experimenting with a slightly smaller pastel-colored version called the Split Pad Compact. In the US, the Compact is releasing on October 2nd at Best Buy for $49.99 (with more retailers following later in the month), the same price as the Pro model. You’ll be able to buy it in light gray with yellow (as pictured throughout this post) or in apricot red.

The Compact features textured analog sticks, which the Pro does...

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The best deals on MacBooks right now

The 2020 MacBook Air, one of the best laptops you can get, is frequently on sale.

With multiple configurations and various models to choose from, finding a deal on an M1-equipped MacBook or Mac Mini is not all that difficult. It’s sometimes a slightly different story for the MacBook Pros with the beefier M1 Pro and M1 Max CPUs, but any bit of savings you can get on those Pro models is sure to be worthwhile. As for the newer 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air with M2 processors, it may take time to see sizable savings.

Here, we’ll run through the discounts that are currently available for the current MacBooks, as well as any deals to be had on the Mac Mini. Of course, you may still find older Intel-based configurations lying around, with some heavy closeout sales. While those are compatible with macOS Monterey and the...

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How to capture text from a video on your Android phone

Samar Haddad / The Verge

One of the cool new features in iOS 16, the latest version of Apple’s OS, is called Live Text, which allows you to quickly capture and use text from both a still photo and, now, a video as well. While Android doesn’t (yet) capture text directly from video, it does capture text from still photos using the handy Google Lens app — and with a little bit of maneuvering, you can use Lens to capture text from a video as well. It may not be quite as quick as Live Text, but it’s mostly painless and works just as well.

Here’s what to do.

• Create your video on your Android phone.
• Go to the Photos app and start the video.
• Pause the video at the point where you want to copy the text.
• Near the bottom of the video, you’ll see a button labeled Get...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s first-gen AirPods Pro are one of our go-to picks and are often on sale at retailers like 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, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model drop from $159 to $129. And now that you can preorder the second-gen AirPods Pro, we’ll likely start seeing discounts on the last-gen Pro and other models, including the over-ear AirPods Max.

If you can’t wait until then, though, fret not: we’re already beginning to see some good discounts ahead of the holiday season and the arrival of the second-gen AirPods Pro. Below, we’ve curated the best deals currently available on each model, including the entry-level AirPods, the AirPods Pro, the...

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Gmail’s iOS 16 lock screen widget looks great, but it’s not coming today

The Verge

Google has revealed a series of new lock screen widgets for the iPhone, including one for Gmail, timed along with the release of iOS 16. A refreshed lock screen is the most obvious change to iOS in this latest update (even if it’s not a new thing for Android users), and Google’s major apps will support it, but you’ll have to wait a little while.

While some developers are pushing updates to their apps today with new widgets, Google says you can expect these to arrive “in the coming weeks,” so until they’re available, we’ll walk you through the showcase.

Image: Google

Lockscreen widgets for several Google apps shown on iPhone screens.

The Gmail lock screen widget includes several different displays with clean,...

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Roku’s Weird Al movie is ridiculous in the best possible ways

Daniel Radcliffe as Weird Al in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. | Image: Roku

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story opens with a shirtless Daniel Radcliffe screaming in a hospital, demanding a pencil and paper from Lin-Manuel Miranda. Things only get weirder from there. Though it may look like the life story of the titular parody singer, the movie is actually more of a parody of biopics than anything else. Much like Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story lampooned the many overserious films about major musical stars, Weird does the same, only it pretends to be about a real person. After watching it, I don’t think I know anything new about Yankovic — and I definitely know a lot of things that are not remotely true. Fittingly for a guy who writes absurd lyrics over popular songs, Weird takes a popular concept — the music biopic —...

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Instagram knows it has a Reels problem

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Instagram’s attempt to take on TikTok has cost the platform millions of dollars, countless app updates, and a week-long firestorm involving the most famous people on the planet, mad about the direction it was going in. And so far, Instagram hasn’t caught up to the company it’s chasing.

An internal Meta document obtained by The Wall Street Journalpaints the picture of Instagram struggling to court creators as Reels engagement falls. Compared to 197.8 million hours users spend on TikTok a day, Instagram users are spending 17.6 million watching Reels — less than a tenth, according to the document titled, “Creators x Reels State of the Union 2022.” The report, published in August, said Reels engagement had fallen 13.6 percent over the last...

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