Biden administration approves $2.8 billion for EV battery and mineral production in the US

Photo by MANDEL NGAN / AFP via Getty Images

The US Department of Energy is awarding $2.8 billion in grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to shore up domestic battery manufacturing and mineral production, the White House announced Wednesday. The Biden administration is also launching a new government-wide initiative to strengthen supply chains to support electric vehicle manufacturing.

It was the latest move by President Biden to support the shift from polluting gas-powered cars to emissions-free electric vehicles, with the goal of making 50 percent of all new cars sold in 2030 electric. And it comes as automakers, mining officials, and environmentalists have sounded a warning about the US supply of key minerals needed to fuel the EV boom.

The DOE grants will go to 20...

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Lightroom is (finally) all I need for photo editing

GIF: Adobe

I’ve never been a Photoshop person. Some of my Verge colleagues — particularly on our excellent photo and art team — have often used Photoshop in combination with Lightroom when working on images for the site. But I’ve always done my best to stick with Lightroom all by itself among Adobe’s apps. Other software has become essential to my workflow as part of this effort to avoid the all-powerful Photoshop.

There are a few reasons for this. For one, Photoshop can feel like overkill when all I’m really ever doing is touching up review shots or concert photos. But Lightroom is also cleaner. It’s available directly from the Mac App Store and an easy install that comes without extra cruft. And it’s just as simple to remove if I want to. (The...

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Wind and solar smashed records in the EU this year

Solar panels are seen on houses in Gaj, Poland on April 4th, 2022. | Photo illustration by Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Since war broke out early this year, roughly a quarter of the European Union’s electricity has came from wind and solar, a new report finds. That’s a record-setting number, and the growth in wind and solar has saved the EU €11 billion in avoided gas costs after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made purchasing Russian gas politically untenable.

Within the bloc of 27 nations, 19 countries broke their own records for solar and wind electricity generation, according to the new report published by energy think tank Ember and climate think tank E3G. Poland, which has historically relied heavily on coal, saw the biggest bump with a 48.5 percent increase in solar and wind generation. Spain also led the pack with the biggest increase in terms of...

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How to use the Apple Watch’s Compass Waypoints and Backtrack features

While designed for the Ultra, these new compass features work on the Series 6 or later. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Apple did a lot of work prepping new features for the Apple Watch Ultra. That includes redesigning the Compass app in watchOS 9 to include waypoints — points of interest — and Backtrack, the ability to retrace your steps using your watch’s GPS.

Waypoints and Backtrack aren’t limited to the Ultra, either. Anyone with an Apple Watch Series 6 or later can benefit. (That includes both generations of the Apple Watch SE.) That said, Ultra owners get some extra perks. For instance, there’s an exclusive Wayfinder watchface for the Ultra that puts the Compass app front and center. You can also use the Action button as a shortcut to drop waypoints while on the go.

But regardless of which Apple Watch model you have, Compass Waypoints and...

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Tesla is selling another at-home charger that works with other EVs

The new Tesla J1772 wall charger requires an adapter to charge its own companies vehicles but can be used to power other EV makes and models. | Image: Tesla

Tesla has launched a new J1772 wall charger that can be installed into homes and used with other brands of electric vehicles (via Electrek). The charger is capable of adding up to 44 miles of range per hour and features a 24-foot cable and can power-share to maximize electrical capacity, allowing you to charge multiple vehicles at once.

Tesla owners can also use this new charger, but it will require the adapter that comes bundled with their vehicles. Still, this is a decent compromise for households that may have several different models of EV; otherwise, Tesla owners are better off purchasing Tesla’s original Wall Connector for $400, which comes already equipped with Tesla’s proprietary plug.

Image: Tesla

A full...

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The new iPad makes no sense

Seriously, what is this? | Image: Apple

You heard me. What’s up with this entry-level iPad?

The iPad had one thing going for it: price. At $329, the entry-level model has been a real pain in my neck as a laptop reviewer for the past year. Every time I’ve wanted to recommend a budget laptop, Chromebook, or tablet, I’ve had to caveat that the iPad exists and might be a better deal. For multimedia or as a secondary device that didn’t need to accommodate, say, an enterprise workload, $329 was a steal. It was the sole reason I could say “just get a tablet” to some people without immediately being laughed out of whatever room I happened to be in.

But the 10th-gen entry-level iPad starts at $449 — a 36 percent increase. That’s very much not counting the keyboard you’re supposed to...

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Halo Infinite’s Winter Update looks like a second launch for the game

Image: 343 Industries

If Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries’ latest video is anything to go by, the forthcoming Winter Update promises to be a big one. The free update, which is set to be released on November 8th, finally adds things like the long-delayed network campaign co-op and Forge modes, and 343 shared a closer look at what you can expect in a nearly 13-minute video published Wednesday.

With the addition of campaign co-op, you’ll finally be able to play through the game’s very good story mode with three of your pals. The mode was pushed from the game’s original launch slipped further throughout the year, though 343 finally previewed it in a test flight in July. Alongside network campaign co-op, 343 will also be adding the ability to replay...

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Don’t confuse Apple’s fertility tracking with birth control

Apple has new cycle tracking features. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

There’s a gap in research around fertility, and tech companies are surging in to fill the space. But they’re not tested rigorously enough for doctors to trust.

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BMW will build a $1.7 billion EV battery factory in South Carolina

BMW will spend $1 billion on EV production and $700 million for a new battery facility. | Photo by Roberto Baldwin for The Verge

BMW says it will make batteries for its electric vehicles at a factory in South Carolina in the latest move by a major automaker to localize EV production in the United States.

The German company plans to invest $1.7 billion in the US, including $1 billion for EV production at BMW’s Spartanburg plant and $700 million for a new battery-assembly facility in nearby Woodruff.

By 2030, BMW says it will have at least six electric models in production in the US. Establishing a US-based EV plant will allow BMW’s upcoming line of plug-in vehicles to qualify for the federal EV tax credit.

BMW said it is partnering with Envision AESC on its plans for a dedicated battery plant in South Carolina

BMW said it is partnering with Envision AESC on its...

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I went all in on eSIM and I have regrets

If you bought an iPhone 14 in the US, then you’re already acquainted with my new frenemy: eSIM.

Before I set up the iPhone 14, I’d never used an eSIM. Whenever possible, I put my personal physical SIM card into whatever phone I’m reviewing rather than using a SIM provided by the manufacturer. When I’m done, my SIM comes out and goes right into the next phone that I’m testing — or, as a rare treat, into my personal iPhone 11. It’s a system that usually works just fine, but after reviewing the iPhone 14, those days are over. I ditched my physical SIM for eSIM when I set up the iPhone 14, embracing the chaos of a digital-only lifestyle. And I wish I hadn’t.

Apple forced my hand here — the versions of the iPhone 14 sold in the US come without a SIM tray. If I wanted to get my personal number onto the new iPhone I was reviewing, I’d...

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Apple’s M1 MacBook Air is still on sale for its lowest price

The M1 MacBook Air may be approaching its second birthday, but it’s still a worthwhile laptop — especially with a good deal. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Look, it’s understandable to be a little thrown off by Apple’s latest announcements. The new Apple TV 4K seems interesting, the 2022 iPad Pro seems a little humdrum (save for the addition of the M2 chip), and the redesigned base iPad looks great, though it might cause some confusion with some accessories. But you know what’s still great and is down to its lowest price ever? The M1 MacBook Air from late 2020.

You can get the base model of the M1-equipped MacBook Air for just $799 at Amazon with a 256GB SSD and 8GB of RAM in any of its three available colors. This $200 discount matches its all-time low that started during Prime Day last week. While this laptop has been with us for a little while now (it’s turning two years old next month)...

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The next generation of Thunderbolt seems nice but less necessary than ever

It doesn’t have a name yet. | Image: Intel

Intel is showing off a preview of the next generation of Thunderbolt, which it says can “deliver up to three times the capability of Thunderbolt 4.” According to the company, its upcoming standard will be capable of:

• Speeds up to 80 gigabits per second both ways
• Support for DisplayPort 2.1
• Two times faster PCIe throughput
• Compatibility with existing Thunderbolt 4 cables up to a meter long
• A special mode that allows for 120Gbps speeds up with 40Gbps down if you need to drive several high-end monitors with a single cable

If these specs sound familiar, it’s because they’re very similar to the ones the USB Promoter Group announced last month with the reveal of USB 4 version 2.0. The official specification for that standard, released on...

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Waymo eyes traffic-choked Los Angeles for its next robotaxi service

Waymo will launch its next robotaxi service in Los Angeles, but it won’t say when. | Waymo

Waymo is bringing its Waymo One robotaxi service to Los Angeles, a city of endless freeways, legendary traffic jams, and many pressing transportation needs that are unlikely to be addressed by adding more cars.

Waymo currently operates robotaxis in two cities: Phoenix and San Francisco. The company is one of a handful trying to launch a widescale commercial service built around autonomous vehicles, like Amazon’s Zoox, Argo AI (which is backed by Ford and Volkswagen), and Cruise (which is backed by General Motors and Honda).

LA isn’t uncharted territory for Waymo; the company has been mapping the city’s various neighborhoods, including downtown LA and the Miracle Mile, since 2019 — though it says it has yet to drive autonomously in the...

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How to create and save Chrome tab groups

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

I usually have at least half a dozen or more projects going at once: I can be writing or updating several short pieces, editing one or two others, getting ready for Apple or Google or some other company to announce their latest and greatest, or dealing with some other project. Each of these projects usually involves several tabs on my Chrome browser: one for the article itself, several for online sources that I need to read or link to, and perhaps also a document or spreadsheet that I’m sharing with my team. And that’s not even counting the tabs for my email accounts (work and personal), calendars (ditto), and other social networking.

Once upon a time, I would have had to create bookmarks for all those tabs if I wanted to keep them in...

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The Portland Van Abductions

Some hours before he was abducted by a squad of feds in camouflage tactical gear, Mark Pettibone was playing a pickup game of Frisbee.

It was what had become a normal night for the summer of 2020 in Portland, Oregon. The city was now four months into the pandemic and two months into the ongoing protests against police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

At this point, Mark and his friend Connor O’Shea — whom he knew from his job at Trader Joe’s — had made a habit of going regularly after work to protest at the Multnomah County Justice Center, a downtown building that houses a jail and the local district attorney’s office. It had been weeks — almost two months — of tear gas and flash-bangs. That was the new normal.

This...

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Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga Gen 7 review: we’ve seen this all before

Lenovo did its part, but Intel dropped the ball

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Amazon plans to stream a Black Friday NFL game starting in 2023

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If Thanksgiving Day football isn’t enough, Amazon and the NFL want to create a new tradition by airing a Black Friday football game starting next year (via Deadline). The game will take place on November 24th, 2023, at 3PM ET, but it’s too soon to know which teams will be playing.

Airing the game on Prime Video on Black Friday isn’t a coincidence, either. Hans Schroeder, the chief operating officer for NFL Media, says “Amazon’s uniquely positioned” to partner with the NFL on Black Friday because it’s “one of the most important days of the year for their business.”

Excited to announce our Black Friday @NFL game on @PrimeVideo beginning next season!

Full Release: https://t.co/2ZGw0mmGmvhttps://t.co/t14MAplAGl

— PrimeVideoSportsPR...

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Apple’s October 2022 update brought new iPads and a refreshed Apple TV 4K

Image: Apple

The newly redesigned 10.9-inch iPad, barely redesigned iPad Pro, and a spec-bumped Apple TV option didn’t get the full Apple Event fanfare, but we have all the insight you need right here

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Adobe’s latest AI prototype gives even the worst dancers some impressive moves

AI tech like Adobe’s Project Motion Mix could make your still images replicate viral dance moves. | Image: Adobe

Adobe will reveal a prototype AI project later today at Adobe Max 2022 that can convert a still image of a person into an animated dancer. Adobe says that all you need to do is load a full-body picture into Project Motion Mix, and the system will turn that individual into an AI-controlled puppet, animating new dance moves.

The system uses a combination of AI-based motion generation and what Adobe is calling “human rendering technologies” to create its animations. The software lets users select from different dance styles, tweak the background, and add multiple dancers into one frame. However, it’s still just a prototype, and Adobe says it isn’t sure if or when the system might be added to its user-facing services.

I...

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Bluesky built a decentralized protocol for Twitter — and is working on an app that uses it

The AT Protocol logo aims for a foundational image of the internet. | Image: AT Protocol

Bluesky, the project started within Twitter to create a decentralized social network, announced it’s getting closer to actually shipping an app. “Closer” is the operative word here, though. Bluesky only announced that it is building an app, that it’ll be called Bluesky, and that it will “be a portal to the world of possibility on top of the AT Protocol.” We still don’t have a release date, a feature list, or much of anything else.

The AT Protocol is the real news for Bluesky. The whole idea behind the project was to separate social apps and social networks — to let people use the same back end and data but build and use their own apps on top of it. “It will allow [Twitter] to access and contribute to a much larger corpus of public...

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Microsoft is building an Xbox mobile gaming store to take on Apple and Google

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal is key to the company’s mobile gaming efforts. Microsoft is quietly building a mobile Xbox store that will rely on Activision and King games.

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Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus (2022) review: a fine tablet if you’re subscribed to Prime

The Fire HD 8 Plus is a good budget tablet for Amazon-based entertainment, provided you aren’t concerned with accessing Google apps or services.

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SpaceX’s satellite internet service is coming to planes with Starlink Aviation

Internet is provided via the Aero Terminal, seen on top of the aircraft. | Image: SpaceX

SpaceX’s satellite internet service Starlink will soon be available on select airplanes with the official launch of Starlink Aviation next year, the company has announced. It claims the service will offer internet speeds of up to 350Mbps to each plane equipped with its Aero Terminal, which it says is fast enough for video calls, online gaming, “and other high data rate activities.”

It’s certainly a big leap up from the typical speeds offered by most in-flight Wi-Fi. OneZero reports that most flights either use air-to-ground systems which top out at around 10Mbps per flight (and only work while flying over land), while current satellite systems typically offer between 30Mbps and 100Mbps. Since these speeds are per plane, actual speeds...

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Lyft now lets you reserve parking spaces

The new Lyft parking feature allows users to search for and reserve parking spaces directly within the app. | Image: Lyft

Lyft users can now search, reserve, and pay for parking spaces from the app in cities across the US, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. Drivers can access the new Lyft Parking feature by tapping the steering wheel icon located on the bottom-right corner of the Lyft app, according to Lyft’s website.

The parking reservation feature is made possible by a partnership between Lyft and SpotHero, a Chicago-based parking company, and is available through both the iOS and Android versions of the Lyft app.

Image: Lyft

The Lyft parking feature will show available spaces with pricing, much like a hotel reservation.

The SpotHero service is available in over 300 cities across the US and Canada but it’s unclear which...

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Logitech updates Crayon stylus with the USB-C port missing from the Apple Pencil

The Logitech Crayon, complete with USB-C charging port. | Image: Logitech

Logitech has released an updated version of its Crayon stylus to coincide with the announcement of Apple’s new iPads. The new stylus costs the same as the old model, $69.95, but now features a USB-C charging port rather than Lightning — a helpful change given the 10th-generation iPad’s switch from Lightning to USB-C.

The change means that the Logitech Crayon arguably has a much more elegant charging mechanism than Apple’s first-party $99 Pencil when used with the base-level iPad. Logitech’s new stylus can charge using just the USB-C cable that comes with the tablet — no fiddly USB-C-to-Lightning adapter required. The wirelessly-charging second-generation Apple Pencil isn’t compatible with Apple’s new entry-level iPad.

Apple’s product...

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Netflix is ‘seriously exploring’ a cloud gaming service

Stadia might be exiting cloud gaming, but Netflix might be jumping in. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Netflix is seriously considering its own cloud gaming platform, the company’s VP of games Mike Verdu said at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference on Tuesday (via Protocol). Netflix jumped into gaming in a big way last year with its mobile games lineup, but the company is apparently looking to use its overall expertise in streaming data to let people play games over the cloud.

“We’re very seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering so that we can reach members on TVs and on PCs,” Verdu said. “We’re going to approach this the same way we did with mobile, which is start small, be humble, be thoughtful, and then build out. But it is a step we think we should take to meet members where they are on the devices where they consume Netflix.”

Verdu...

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Bird is pulling its scooters out of ‘several dozen’ cities, but it won’t say which ones

Bird is shrinking as it seeks to right-size its finances. | Photo by Ty O’Neil / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

Bird is exiting three European countries — Germany, Sweden, and Norway — as well as “several dozen” small- to mid-sized cities in the US, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The cash-strapped shared scooter company also said it would be laying off an undisclosed number of employees in the affected markets, though it declined to share which cities it would be leaving.

Bird said the decision to exit these markets was motivated by a plan to achieve financial self-sustainability. Under this plan, Bird would close shop in cities that lack “a regulatory framework necessary to facilitate the development of an innovative, competitive, self-sustaining micromobility industry.”

The company continued:

It has become clear that some markets lack...

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How to record a phone call on an iPhone

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Are you trying to find a way to record your phone calls on an iPhone call, say, for an interview? Unfortunately, there’s no native feature or app that allows you to do that in a straightforward manner given the potential legal repercussions Apple could face. Thankfully, though, there are a few ways to get around that obstacle.

Assuming you have permission from the person on the other end of the call that you’re recording (depending on where you live, you could be breaking the law if you don’t!), we found three ways you can do so.

Use the Voice Memos app

There are a few ways you can record phone calls from your iPhone if you’re comfortable using an external device and a recording app. For example, if you have a second iOS device like an...

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Netflix has 55 more games in development

Netflix’s games library is only going to get bigger. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Netflix currently has 55 games in development, including additional games based on Netflix franchises, the company said in its investor letter released Tuesday (PDF). The company only really got serious about gaming with the initial release of its Android and iOS lineup late last year, but the commitment to even more games signals Netflix has been pleased with the launch so far.

Part of Netflix’s strategy is that subscribers will view its games as another reason to stick around, “and we’re seeing some encouraging signs of gameplay leading to higher retention,” the company wrote in the letter. Netflix said that gaming is a “multi-year journey,” indicating it will continue to invest in it for the long haul — which it might need to, as...

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Netflix is all-in on binge-watching

Jung Ho-yeon in Squid Game | Image: Netflix

As the various streaming services try different release models, Netflix is making one thing clear: binge releases aren’t going away. In its quarterly earnings statement today, the company explained that “we think our bingeable release model helps drive substantial engagement, especially for newer titles.” It cited the success of Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story as an example, saying that the all-at-once release “helped drive significant interest in the show.”

In fact, Netflix went so far as to say the release model was a big reason for the success of one of its biggest hits to date. “It’s hard to imagine, for example, how a Korean title like Squid Game would have become a mega hit globally without the momentum that came from people...

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