The lidar-powered Shark AI Ultra XL robot vacuum is $300 off for Prime subscribers

This Shark robot vacuum is only sold as a package with its self-cleaning charging station. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

If you’re in the market for a quality robot vacuum, the midrange Shark AI Ultra XL is now on sale for an all-time low price of $349.99 at Amazon. This deal saves you $300, though it’s exclusive to Prime subscribers as part of Amazon’s Prime Early Access sale event that’s going on today through tomorrow evening.

This Shark robovac is a formidable challenger to various Roombas and Roborocks of the world, as it’s one of the few bots in this price range that navigates using lidar. This should make its auto-mapping feature more precise and less prone to bumping into everything than other automated vacuums. It’s also sold with an included auto-emptying station, making this deal price even more enticing. Our resident smart home expert,...

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Mark Zuckerberg on the Quest Pro, building the metaverse, and more

A year after rebranding Facebook to Meta, Mark Zuckerberg is still all in on building the metaverse

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Specialized reveals the Haul ST utility e-bike from its new Globe brand

The low-step frame and big, chunky tires are designed for comfort and approachability. | Image: Specialized

Globe, the utility e-bike brand from Specialized, finally revealed its first model today, and I’m low-key obsessed with it.

Back in May, Specialized announced it was creating a new e-bike sub-brand to liberate people from the scourge of car culture. The idea was to create a lineup of practical, affordable e-bikes that can “that will focus on bringing more fun to local living while reducing the number of car, truck, and SUV trips needed for everyday transportation,” the company said.

The teaser image showed a bike hidden from view by bushels of cacti loaded into dual front and rear panniers. I was intrigued because it seemed like Specialized, one of the top legacy bike brands in the US, was positioning Globe to compete with the growing...

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Xbox Cloud Gaming is coming to the Meta Quest

Image: Meta

Microsoft is bringing Xbox Cloud Gaming to Meta’s Quest VR platform. The two companies announced the partnership at Meta’s Connect event on Tuesday but didn’t announce a release date.

With Xbox Cloud Gaming, “You’ll be able to play 2D games with your Xbox controller projected on a massive screen on Quest,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the event’s keynote.

You won’t suddenly be able to play Halo Infinite as a VR-native game, but the app could make for a more immersive experience while playing any of the hundreds of games in the vast Xbox Cloud Gaming library since you’ll be seeing your game on a big virtual screen. (And it gives you another way to play your games if someone else is hogging the living room TV.) It’s also a way...

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Microsoft partners with Meta to bring Teams, Office, Windows, and Xbox to VR

Microsoft Teams on Meta’s Quest VR headsets. | Image: Meta

Microsoft and Meta looked like they were on a collision course last year, poised to compete heavily for the future of work in the metaverse. But today, both companies announced they are partnering to collaborate on how people will work and even game in virtual reality. That starts with Microsoft bringing its biggest services — Teams, Office, Windows, and even Xbox Cloud Gaming — to Meta’s Quest VR headsets.

It’s a surprise partnership that will see Microsoft and Meta combine their strengths. Microsoft sees an opportunity to bring Teams and its other productivity experiences to a capable VR headset, and Meta gets a key partner in its grand metaverse plan.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft Teams in VR.

“We are bringing...

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Mythic Quest season 3 trailer mocks Apple’s Think Different ads

Image: Apple

The trailer for season 3 of Mythic Quest, Apple TV Plus’ comedy show about game development, debuted on Tuesday, and as with previous seasons, it seems to tackle a lot of the big issues in game development today: the difficulty of adapting playable experiences into movies; having to deal with massive egos; and the metaverse. The season will mainly focus on Ian (Rob McElhenney) and Poppy’s (Charlotte Nicdao) new studio, David (David Hornsby)taking on his leadership role at the titular Mythic Quest studio, and Brad (Danny Pudi)coming back from prison — and maybe discovering or doing something sinister.

Even though it’s Apple TV Plus show, there are a few jokes that poke fun at the company; the intro is a reference to the famous “Think...

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The Meta Quest Pro will feature the new Snapdragon XR2 Plus VR chip

The Meta Quest Pro virtual reality headset. | Photo by Alex Heath / The Verge

Meta finally showed off its Quest Pro virtual reality (VR) headset at its Connect event on Tuesday, revealing that the high-end device will sport the new Snapdragon XR2 Plus Gen 1 chip. Qualcomm says the chip offers 50 percent higher sustained power and 30 percent better thermal performance than the XR2 Gen 1 chip included in the Meta Quest 2.

The Quest Pro headset features 12GB of storage and 10 high-res sensors distributed on both the inside and outside of the headset, with the XR2 Plus Gen 1 chip helping to enable face and eye tracking. This technology’s paired with the Snapdragon 662 chip in the Quest Touch Pro controllers that Meta and Qualcomm say “can self-track through multiple embedded positional cameras and offers ultra-low...

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M3gan’s serving Small Wonder with a side of murder in its first trailer

M3gan the doll sitting among her fellow playthings. | Universal Pictures

The poster alone for Universal’s upcoming horror M3gan, from director Gerard Johnstone, was enough to make it seem like the feature might be worthy of a spot in the great killer doll canon. But watching the movie’s trailer, it’s clear that M3gan’s going for a very of-the-moment kind of madness that owes just as much to Tesla’s totally real and almost functional robots as it does the Child’s Play franchise and classics like Small Wonder.

Written by Akela Cooper and co-producer James Wan, M3gan tells the tale of Gemma (Allison Williams), a roboticist whose work and personal life collide when her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) is suddenly orphaned after a car accident. Though Gemma’s not exactly keen on raising a child herself, in Cady, she...

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The Meta Quest Pro is a cutting-edge headset looking for an audience

The Meta Quest Pro | Photo by Alex Heath / The Verge

Meta’s new high-end headset introduces eye tracking and mixed reality for $1,499

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The Meta Quest Pro costs $1,499 and ships October 25th

The Meta Quest Pro. | Image: Meta

Meta has finally announced the Meta Quest Pro: a $1,499 virtual reality headset it’s been teasing for the past year. The Quest Pro is a new branch of the Quest VR headset lineup, featuring a new processor and screen, a dramatically redesigned body and controllers, inward-facing cameras for eye and face tracking, and a color video feed for mixed reality apps. Preorders open today in 22 countries, and devices will ship on October 25th.

The Quest Pro will sit alongside the $399 Quest 2, which Meta will continue selling as well. But where the Quest 2 user base favors fitness, games, and other entertainment, the Quest Pro is aimed at businesses and professionals who can afford its higher price tag.

The Quest Pro and its new...

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Cyberattack delays patient care at major US hospital chain

Doctors rely on computer systems to deliver care. | Getty

Patients at hospitals in one of the largest healthcare systems in the United States are facing delays in care due to a cyberattack. The disruption is stretching into its second week.

CommonSpirit Health, which operates more than 700 healthcare sites in over 20 states, said in a statement on October 4th that it was “managing an IT security issue” and that it needed to take some systems offline — including electronic medical records. The issue was caused by a ransomware attack, a source told NBC News.

Doctors rely on IT systems and electronic medical records to see patient scans, check medication, and remember details about their specific treatment plan. Without them, they’re left taking notes on paper and ferrying notes through a...

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All the news from Meta Connect 2022

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

It’s Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s moment to show us what comes next in his company’s quest to build the metaverse

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The best smart home deals from Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale

The Roborock S7 vacuum and mop is $270 off during the sale. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

While it’s relatively slim pickings in terms of smart home gear, there are still some good deals to be found during Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale, which runs through October 12th.

As always, there’s a slew of robot vacuums getting price drops; we’ve picked the best deals on the best bots that we saw. There are also a number of older Echo devices seeing some substantial savings as well as some of our firm favorites, such as the Echo Show 8 and Echo fourth-gen smart speakers.

We also found some decent deals on a few of our top picks for smart security cameras, plus savings on smart locks and garage door controllers. Remember, most of the deals on Prime Days are for Prime members only, but if you’re not a member, you can sign up for a...

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The best laptop deals from Amazon’s Prime Day Early Access Sale

The MacBook Air has hit a tempting low price. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Amazon is in the thick of its Prime Day Early Access Sale, and we’re here to help you make sense of which deals to buy and which deals to skip. While Black Friday and Cyber Monday are still to come, they can sometimes be a hectic time to shop. If products you have your eye on show up in the Prime Day Early Access Sale, you can get them earlier and skip the line.

We’ve combed through all the laptops that are discounted today, and we’ve picked out the ones that are worth your attention. The items below can make great purchases for yourself, a friend, or a family member this holiday season.

The best Apple laptop deals

• Apple’s 2020 MacBook Air with the M1 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD is on sale for $799 ($200 off). The MacBook...

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The best TV deals from Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale

LG’s C2 OLED is one of the many TVs available at a discount during Prime Early Access Sale. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale is providing yet another opportunity to get a fantastic discount on a 4K TV. If you’ve been scouting for deals in the lead-up to Black Friday, this is a week when you’ll want to be paying attention. Right now, we’re seeing some big price cuts on all sorts of smart TV models, ranging in size, streaming platform, and display (QLED, OLED, etc.). This roundup includes deals that are exclusive to Prime members as well as some that are available from Best Buy, Walmart, Target, and wherever else we find good discounts.

• Amazon’s 75-inch Fire TV Omni 4K TV is available for just $839.99 for Prime members, down from its original $1,049.99 price. Note that this model is from Amazon’s first-gen run of Omni TVs,...

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Netgear’s Orbi 860 Wi-Fi 6 mesh router is ready for multi-gig internet service if you’ve got it

The new Orbi 860 looks very similar to the other models. | Image: Netgear

Netgear released new Orbi mesh routers that are ready to support multi-gig fast internet speeds just as more providers start pushing gigabit-plus service. The Orbi 860 Series doesn’t have the latest Wi-FI 6E technology like the super-pricey Orbi 960 Series and other options like Google’s Nest Wifi Pro or the Eero Pro 6E, but if most of your devices don’t support the 6-GHz band, then you might not need it any time soon. What it does have — other than the 10Gb Ethernet port its 850 predecessor lacks — is Wi-Fi 6, plus four LAN ports on the router and satellites that support Gigabit networking.

The 860’s third band supports dedicated backhauling that can increase your local network speeds, while the standard 2.4 and 5GHz bands keep up with...

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The best anti-Prime Early Access Sale deals happening at Best Buy

Illustration by Kristen Radtke

Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale isn’t the only place where you can find marked down tech products. Best Buy is participating with deals of its own, many of which price-match what we’re seeing at Amazon’s Prime member-exclusive event. By and large, searching on Best Buy for any of the deals currently live on our main post should pull up a price match.

Similarly, its deals are also in effect for two days, lasting through Wednesday, October 12th. So, whether it’s more convenient to shop at Best Buy, or you’d prefer to spend your money at a brick-and-mortar location, here are the best anti-Prime Day deals happening at Best Buy.

Best Buy’s Flash Sale deals

TV, monitor, and home entertainment deals

• The 55-inch LG B2 OLED TV is a...

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TikTok is planning its own US fulfillment centers, according to job listings

Nick Barclay / The Verge

TikTok is reportedly building its own shopping fulfillment centers in the US, according to more than a dozen job postings first spotted by Axios.

The LinkedIn job listings include global fulfillment center positions in Seattle and Los Angeles. TikTok has already made its e-commerce ambitions in the US clear, and the job descriptions double down on the company’s focus on shopping features.

According to listings, TikTok plans to provide warehousing, delivery, and returns

“The e-commerce industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years and has become a hotly contested space amongst leading Internet companies, and its future growth cannot be underestimated,” one listing reads. “With millions of loyal users globally, we believe TikTok is...

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One of the most important women in Apple’s history never worked for Apple

Margot Comstock holding a conversation with Infocom designers Marc Blank and Joel Berez at the Softalk Publishing booth at Applefest 1983 | Image: Al Tommervik

Margot Comstock took her winnings from a TV game show, bought a magazine, and turned it into a major hub for the nascent community of developers and fans of one of the most important computers in history.

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Amazon’s latest Kindle Paperwhite is still on sale for $99.99

You can buy the latest Kindle Paperwhite with ads for $99.99. | Image: Chaim Gartenberg

If you missed out on all the great Kindle Paperwhite deals we saw in July during the first Prime Day, you still have a chance to save. Right now, Amazon is selling the latest ad-supported Kindle Paperwhite with 8GB of storage for $99.99 instead of $139.99 as a part of its Amazon Prime Early Access Sale, with Target also matching that price. If you prefer to read without distracting ads getting in the way, you can also buy the ad-free version for $119.99 ($40 off).

The latest Kindle Paperwhite is a terrific e-reader, one with a battery that can literally last months so you’ll not need to worry about recharging it. It also offers IPX8 waterproofing so you can enjoy reading by the pool, and comes with USB-C support for faster charging....

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The new AirPods Pro have hit an all-time low

Right now, you can save $25.76 on the second-gen AirPods Pro. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale, a.k.a. Amazon Prime Day 2.0, has arrived, and with it comes the best discount we’ve seen yet on Apple’s newest AirPods Pro. Right now, you can buy them on sale for just $223.24 instead of $249. That’s a small price cut, true, but it’s also the steepest discount we’ve seen on the noise-canceling earbuds since they launched just a few weeks ago.

While the second-gen AirPods Pro aren’t dramatically different from their predecessor, they do include new swipe-based controls and better noise cancellation. They also now come with four replaceable ear tips instead of three, which might make them more comfortable for listeners with smaller ears. Plus, their MagSafe charging case differs from others in the...

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The best Amazon Prime Early Access PC accessory deals

Monitors and other cool PC accessories are discounted during the Prime Early Access Sale | Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge

All of the deals on display during Amazon’s Prime Day Early Access sale gives us a chance to highlight some cool accessories that typically won’t find their way into our regular deals roundups. Yes, we know that we’ve already got a roundup of the best gaming deals of Prime’s Early Access Sale, but this one is explicitly for the best discounts we could find on PC accessories. That means we’re not just looking at mice, and keyboards, but we’re diving into motherboards, water coolers, and graphics cards too.

While gaming accessories get all the glory, we’re including plenty of PC accessory deals that are productivity first. Whether you’re looking for an ultra-fast external hard drive, or a slick-looking PC case, our Amazon Prime Early...

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The best Apple deals available for Amazon Prime Day 2022

Apple’s second-gen AirPods Pro are on sale right now at a slight discount. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Think you have to wait until Black Friday to score a good deal on Apple devices? Think again. Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale (aka Prime Day 2.0) has officially arrived, and with it comes some pretty solid Apple deals. Right now, there are stellar deals to be had on Apple’s first-gen AirPods and the latest AirPods Pro, which are on sale for their lowest price to date. If you’re looking for something else, however, there are also deals available on the latest entry-level iPad and iPad Pro, the M1-powered MacBook Air, and more.

Below, we’ve listed some of the best Apple deals currently available, all of which are exclusive to Amazon Prime subscribers. To save on non-Apple devices and other kinds of tech, be sure to also check out our...

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Google’s partnering with Coinbase to let cloud customers pay in crypto next year

The Verge

Google is partnering with Coinbase to let customers pay for its cloud services in “select” cryptocurrencies (via CNBC). According to Coinbase and Google, crypto-based payments will become available to customers in the Web3 space early next year to start.

To enable these payments, Google will use Coinbase Commerce, a tool that lets businesses receive, accept, and convert cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD Coin, Tether USD, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and others. As noted by CNBC, Coinbase will take a cut of transactions made through its commerce tool. Google plans on utilizing Coinbase Prime as well, an “institutional-grade” crypto trading platform primarily built for large companies, to store and trade cryptocurrencies.

As part...

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How to understand TikTok’s homescreen icons

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Icons have become a very handy way of accessing the features of your various apps — especially when you’re dealing with a lot of features on the relatively small screen of your phone. However, if you’re not yet familiar with a particular app and you are faced with a plethora of icons, most of which are not labeled, how do you know what they are and how you should be handling them?

(And believe me, if you have this problem, you’re not the only one — I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hit a mysterious icon out of curiosity and then started yelling, “I didn’t want to do that!” at the screen....)

So I’m going to go over the icons you will probably see as a viewer on your TikTok homescreen and various other screens. Keep in mind that apps...

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The best Amazon Prime Early Access deals under $50

For a limited time, you can buy the fourth-gen Echo Dot with two smart bulbs for just $24.99. | Image: Dan Seifert / The Verge

Amazon’s ongoing Prime Early Access Sale is a great opportunity to take advantage of steep discounts on a range of popular gadgets. These include items like Amazon’s Fire TV Omni and Apple’s new AirPods Pro, the latter of which launched less than two weeks ago. That said, many of us wouldn’t consider a $235 pair of earbuds to be affordable, even if they are discounted. Thankfully, there are plenty of products currently on sale on Amazon for less than $50, ranging from smart speakers and location trackers to gaming mice.

Here, we’ve compiled a list of the top tech deals you can buy for less than $50 so you can truly save money in the run-up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. And if you don’t mind spending a little extra — or if you want to...

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Wendell & Wild is raising hell in its latest trailer

Image: Netflix

Set a note on your calendars this Halloween — Netflix has dropped the full trailer for Wendell & Wild, a spooky upcoming animated movie co-written and produced by director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) and Jordan Peele (Nope, Get Out).

Peele stars alongside comedic partner Keegan-Michael Key (Key & Peele) as the titular characters, a pair of demon brothers who trick troubled orphan Kat Elliott (played by This Is Us star Lyric Ross) into summoning them to the land of the living, resulting in exactly the kind of mayhem you’d expect from a children’s dark horror-comedy. Selick will also direct the movie, making this his first feature film since Coraline (2009).

Image: Netflix

Key and Peele will play...

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Best smartwatch and fitness tracker deals for Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale

The Apple Watch Series 8 is $50 off. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Amazon’s back with yet another Prime-exclusive shopping bonanza. The Prime Early Access Sale runs through October 12th, and it’s an opportunity to get a head start on your holiday shopping way before Black Friday. That includes some neat deals on smartwatches and fitness trackers if you, or a loved one, are keen on crushing some fitness and health goals (or if you want to spend less time looking at notifications on your phone).

While you won’t find deals on some of the newest launches — like the Pixel Watch — just yet, there are great options from brands like Apple, Bose, Garmin, Amazfit, and Mobvoi. This is a smart way to dip your toe into a new category, especially if you’re unsure whether wearables are for you. Quick reminder: you...

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Google is going to test its 3D video chat booth with more companies

Google first announced Project Starline in May 2021. | Image: Google

Google is bringing Project Starline, its next-gen 3D video chat booth, to more companies starting later this year. As part of an early access program, “enterprise partners,” including Salesforce and T-Mobile, will begin using Starline, with Google deploying units of the booth in “select partner offices” for testing, according to a blog post.

Google first announced Project Starline at last year’s Google I/O. The idea is that you can sit in the booth and have a virtual conversation with another human being without squinting at a tiny Zoom window or wearing a virtual reality headset. The booth creates the effect of talking to a “real” person by capturing how you look with cameras and sensors and so it can recreate a 3D model for the person...

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The best Amazon Prime Early Access deals under $25

Amazon’s premium Fire Stick 4K Max and mid-range Fire Stick 4K streaming dongles look identical, though the latter is currently discounted to just $24.99. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Amazon’s Prime Early Access sale is under way, and while all the attention may be turned towards big-ticket items like TVs, laptops, or wearables, we know not everyone can throw money around on that kind of stuff on a whim. There are also deals going on that can appeal to any tech fiend on a tight budget, so we’re pooling together all the best deals under $25 that we can find.

But you’d be remiss to think of these deals as just “cheap stuff.” We carefully comb through the myriad sales to find budget-friendly items that are worth your time and dollars, even at these lower-stakes prices: like a 4K-capable Fire TV Stick, small and lightweight wireless earbuds, or a compact gaming mouse that’s capable enough for nearly any gamer. Frankly,...

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