You can find a rare discount on the Nintendo Switch OLED at eBay

Any day you can get the Switch OLED for less than $300 is a good day. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

We’ve got a bunch of rare discounts coming your way this Thursday or, as I like to call it, Friday, junior. Our deals begin with the Nintendo Switch OLED in its white colorway, which is currently discounted to $296 at eBay when you checkout with the code COUNTDOWN22, knocking roughly $50 off the price of Nintendo’s top-tier handheld. This rare deal on a factory mint Switch OLED comes to us courtesy of nationwidedistributors, a reputable eBay retailer. The Switch OLED includes a number of small improvements over the standard Switch, including a larger, seven-inch OLED screen, a wider kickstand for better tabletop stability, and slightly better speakers. Read our review.

Another blue-moon discount, Woot is currently offering refurbished...

Continue reading…

Google’s new ad hub offers more control over the advertising it shows you

Illustration: The Verge

After announcing it back at Google I/O in May, Google is beginning to roll out a hub this week that it says will give you more control over which ads it shows you and what data it uses to target them. Once it rolls out, the My Ad Center hub will be accessible at myadcenter.google.com or via the three-dot menu button on ads shown in Google’s search, Discover, and YouTube services.

According to a blog post from Google VP and general manager for ads Jerry Dischler, available controls will include the ability to increase or decrease the amount of advertising you see on certain brands and topics, to blacklist certain sensitive topics, including alcohol, dating, and weight loss, or to opt out of ad personalization entirely. Dischler gives the...

Continue reading…

Final Fantasy XVI’s new trailer has huge monsters and even bigger crystals

Image: Square Enix

A slightly embarrassing leak from IGN Southeast Asia tipped fans off that a new Final Fantasy XVI trailer might be dropping today, and here it is. The four-minute-long trailer titled “Ambition” doesn’t reveal too much new information regarding the next entry in the 35-year-old series, but hot damn, does it look cool. It is bloodier than your typical Final Fantasy fare, so you’ll have to watch it on YouTube.

Who shall claim their fading light?
From a single spark, will the land ignite
A new shadow rises to fall upon the Dominants,
painting their destinies black as night.

This is the brand-new Final Fantasy XVI trailer, Ambition. #FF16 pic.twitter.com/CWytTJgJw6

— FINAL FANTASY XVI (@finalfantasyxvi) October 20, 2022

The trailer is e...

Continue reading…

Elon Musk’s frisky earnings call touched on the Cybertruck, Twitter, and the future of Tesla

Laura Normand / The Verge

For a guy who once said he wasn’t going to be on many future earnings calls, Elon Musk has a hard time staying away.

Last night, Tesla reported its third quarter earnings, and Musk was front and center, making boastful claims about his company’s future (bigger than Apple and Saudi Aramco), dropping hints about Tesla’s next vehicle platform, hyping the much-delayed Cybertruck, and even offering some commentary on his on-again, off-again deal to buy Twitter.

Musk defended the company’s performance despite missing delivery and revenue expectations amid fears of softening demand for Tesla’s vehicles.

“We have excellent demand for Q4 and we expect to sell every car that we make for as far as the future as we can see,” Musk said defiantly....

Continue reading…

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 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 truly 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 u...

Continue reading…

How to create a spooky smart home for Halloween

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Want the spookiest smart home on the block? Here’s how to get a creepy yet cool setup using smart speakers, smart lights, and video doorbells.

Continue reading…

Now the Camo ‘use your phone as a webcam’ app works over Wi-Fi

Image: Reincubate

Camo’s new version 1.9 update can turn your smartphone into an untethered webcam. The camera utility software, one of the earliest around to convert iOS or Android devices into a computer webcam, can now connect via Wi-Fi in addition to the previous USB plug-in requirement.

It’s a great time for Camo to release this update as Apple’s macOS Ventura prepares to launch with its own Continuity Camera feature that can turn iPhones into a webcam. It’s still in demand as a solution for work-from-home setups, as the return to the office has turned into more of a hybrid schedule for many of us. Apple’s implementation involves little setup and can mount to the top of a MacBook with a specialty mount like this Belkin one, enabling special features...

Continue reading…

Google adds replies and stars to Messages — and is taking the RCS fight to iPhones

Google is pushing harder than ever to make RCS the norm. | Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Google announced a number of updates to its Messages app on Thursday, including an in-line reply feature for responding to individual messages and the ability to star or set a reminder on a text. Some of the best new features require users to have RCS enabled, which seems to be precisely the point: Google is pushing harder and harder to get carriers and developers to make RCS the standard, even if it means some complicated compatibility issues in the meantime.

RCS is a long-in-the-works standard aimed at replacing SMS as the primary infrastructure for mobile messaging. Since it works over the internet and not carrier bandwidth, it can support a huge number of additional features: encryption, multimedia, more interactive features, and...

Continue reading…

Amazon’s The Peripheral turns a piercing William Gibson novel into generic sci-fi

Chloë Grace Moretz in The Peripheral | Image: Sophie Mutevelian / Prime Video

The new adaptation waters down the book’s bite in favor of more straightforward action

Continue reading…

Alan Wake Remastered launches on Switch just in time for spooky season

That looks like a totally normal and fun building to explore. | Image: Epic Games

Alan Wake Remastered is launching Thursday on the Nintendo eShop, just in time for any pre-Halloween gaming. Developer Remedy Entertainment and publisher Epic Games had announced that the psychological thriller would be released this fall but, at the time, didn’t say exactly when.

Remedy and Epic first released Alan Wake Remastered on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC last year. This Switch port runs natively on Nintendo’s hardware — it’s not a cloud app, like some other big-name ports — and comes with the main game and both story expansions. The game typically costs $29.99, though it’s on sale for 20 percent to celebrate the launch.

If you haven’t played Alan Wake yet (like me), Remastered might be a good place to start ahead of the release...

Continue reading…

DirecTV can now quickly switch from satellite to broadband to avoid TV disruptions

GIF: DirecTV

DirecTV is introducing a new feature today it calls SignalSaver, which is designed to preserve TV reception even during times of satellite interference. Available at no extra cost to residential DirecTV subscribers with an internet-connected set-top box, SignalSaver automatically prompts you to switch from a satellite signal to internet-based TV when an interruption is detected.

“After a few seconds of signal calibration, and with the proper high-speed Internet connection, customers can enable SignalSaver to still enjoy up to an HD (720p) quality viewing experience,” the company explains in its press release. DirecTV’s broadcasts at home top out between 720p and 1080i, so you’re not losing much in terms of quality.

At launch,...

Continue reading…

Stack Overflow wants to make it easier to code in the Arctic or prison

What if you didn’t need the internet to find code to copy and paste? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Stack Overflow is trying to make sure that its repository of programming knowledge, stored in the form of millions and millions of questions and answers, is available even to people without internet access. It's announcing an initiative called Overflow Offline, where it’ll work with developers and a wide range of organizations that deal with things like the justice and prison systems, education, and scientific endeavors.

For people who don’t have constant internet access, being able to easily download, search through, and read Stack Overflow could be a big help. A blog post from Stack Overflow goes into how it’s being used by prisoners or students in remote communities who are trying to learn coding as well as researchers at places like...

Continue reading…

Intel Core i9-13900K review: an AMD Zen 4 beater

Intel takes the PC performance crown back from AMD thanks to big multithread performance gains and boosts to gaming and creator apps

Continue reading…

Fallout: London modders drop zombie Queen Elizabeth II character for obvious reasons

Concept artwork of the now-cancelled “Feral Queen” character. | Image: Tony Sart

The makers of Fallout: London, an ambitious mod for Fallout 4 set in everyone’s favorite post-apocalyptic hellscape, have announced they’re cutting two characters based on the late Queen Elizabeth II and then-Prince Charles. The announcement was initially made on Twitter on September 8th shortly after the Queen’s death, but the team’s project lead Dean Carter officially announced the change during a recent development update.

“We have always maintained that if she was to pass away before the mod was complete we would change it,” Carter said. “Do not expect them in there. There’s no point asking in the comments. There’s no point moaning. It’s the official stance of the mod and it will not change.”

Concept art of the two characters show...

Continue reading…

Gotham Knights’ beautiful world and wonderful writing are undermined by sluggish fighting

Image: WB Games

The new open world action game has shades of Arkham, but is let down by performance issues

Continue reading…

DaVinci Resolve is finally coming to the iPad

DaVinci Resolve will be availabe for iPad users by Q4, 2022. | Image: Blackmagic Design

Creatives and filmmakers rejoice: the iPad will soon support DaVinci Resolve following an official announcement from Blackmagic Design, the company behind the popular video editing software. Both the free version of DaVinci Resolve and the premium DaVinci Resolve Studio ($295 on desktop) will be available for iPad users by the end of 2022.

Apple already said support for DaVinci Resolve was coming during its unveiling of the M2-powered iPad Pro earlier this week, but at the time, screenshots of the DaVinci Resolve app running on a new iPad Pro was all we had to go on, with no pricing or feature information included in Apple’s announcements.

Introducing DaVinci Resolve for iPad! Get professional Hollywood quality editing and color...

Continue reading…

Warner Bros.’ Lord of the Rings NFT ‘experience’ is just The Fellowship in 4K

Ian McKellen as Gandalf | Image: Warner Bros.

For reasons that only Warner Bros. Discovery can truly know, the multimedia entertainment giant has partnered with Web3 firm Eluvio to release The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in its entirety as a set of NFTs meant to kick off the “WB Movieverse,” an endeavor that makes less sense the more you hear about it.

Today, Warner Bros. announced the impending arrival of “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Extended Version) Web3 Movie Experience,” a cumbersomely named rerelease of Peter Jackson’s 2001 film that will live on Eluvio’s branded Content Blockchain. In a press release about their partnership, Eluvio CEO Michelle Munson sang Warner Bros.’ praises for its commitment to NFT projects and said that their...

Continue reading…

Cherry’s latest mechanical keyboard switch is inspired by the community

Cherry’s new MX Ergo Clear switch. | Image: Cherry

For its latest mechanical keyboard switch, German manufacturer Cherry has taken inspiration from a popular modification of one of its existing switches. The new MX Ergo Clear was announced by the company in a press release this week, but the design dates back to a DIY mod posted to the mechanical keyboard forum GeekHack way back in 2011.

The original, community-made Ergo Clear is what’s known as a “frankenswitch,” where users mix and match components of different switches to create new and interesting typing feels. The original Ergo Clear mod combined the stem of a Cherry MX Clear with the spring of a Cherry MX Black switch. It meant that it inherited the satisfying tactile bump of the MX Clear (which is far more pronounced than the...

Continue reading…

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...

Continue reading…

250 million devices run Android Go — but the new version is more demanding

Customization, even if your phone has limited hardware. | Image: Google

Google has announced that over a quarter of a billion devices that people use each month are running Android Go edition, which is designed for phones with limited storage and memory. However, the new version that Google announced on Wednesday, Android 13 Go, will require more power than its predecessors.

Based on the latest version of Google’s mainline OS, Android 13 Go edition adds a version of the Material You system, letting you pick one of four color schemes based on your wallpaper. When Google originally announced Material You as a feature of Android 12 (though the Go edition of that OS didn’t feature it), it also touted the inclusion of fancier animations. Its post about Android 13 Go doesn’t mention those, however — it’s possible...

Continue reading…

Konami announces Silent Hill F and a Silent Hill 2 remake

Image: Konami

After rumors and leaks, including an early morning flub that revealed today’s entire showcase lineup, Konami has finally officially shared its plans for the Silent Hill franchise.

During today’s showcase, which was presented as a livestream but ended up being a 48-minute-long video, we saw news of a remake, a new movie, an interactive live experience, some merch, and a brand new game, all within the Silent Hill universe.

The first announcement came as little surprise: Bloober Team, the studio that developed Layers of Fear and, more recently, The Medium, is working on a Silent Hill 2 remake. No word yet on a release date, but it is notable that the game will be available exclusively on PS5 and PC for the first 12 months post release. The...

Continue reading…

Can Netflix reclaim the ‘Netflix for games’ crown from Xbox Game Pass?

Netflix has signaled that it has bold ambitions beyond mobile gaming. | Image: Netflix

Netflix just announced that it’s ‘seriously exploring’ cloud gaming. Could it succeed where Stadia failed and beat Microsoft in cloud gaming?

Continue reading…

Discord on Xbox won’t need a phone soon

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft is making Discord voice calls way better on Xbox soon by removing a big annoyance. You won’t have to use a phone to connect to Discord voice chats anymore in an upcoming update, allowing Xbox owners to connect directly to calls in servers. This will make it a lot easier to just connect to Discord servers and start chatting with friends.

Xbox Insiders on the Alpha and Skip-Ahead Alpha rings can start testing these changes today, and they allow you to browse all voice channels across all the Discord servers you’re in. Connecting no longer requires you to transfer the call with the Xbox or Discord mobile apps, and once your account is linked for the first time, you can freely join straight from your Xbox.

Discord on Xbox is...

Continue reading…

Tesla is smoothing its vehicle delivery process to avoid bottlenecks

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amid ongoing supply chain constraints, production delays in China, and increasing competition from the legacy auto industry, Tesla just reported its third-quarter earnings (PDF), in which the company said it earned $3.3 billion in net income on $21.4 billion in revenue. That represents a 56 percent increase year over year compared to $13.7 billion in revenue in Q3 2021. The company said it had a free cash flow of $8.9 billion.

The earnings report comes on the heels of a somewhat disappointing production and delivery report in which Tesla said it delivered 343,830 vehicles to customers over the past three months. That was about 20,000 less than the 364,660 vehicles that Wall Street analysts had been expecting for the quarter.

Tesla...

Continue reading…

Marvel Snap is 5D chess in six minutes or less

Image: Second Dinner

I love Marvel Snap for one very specific reason: the games are short. I’m a lover of collectible card games — Magic: The Gathering, specifically. But I know when I sit down to play a game, I have to be prepared to give up a significant portion of my time. As a result, it’s rare that I commit myself to a random game of Magic: The Gathering Arena because of the time involved. (Which is why I remain a below-mediocre player whenever I participate in my monthly casual MTG league.) But with Marvel Snap, one of the game’s biggest selling points is that a match can be completed within five to six minutes, with the same thrill and strategy of a 30-minute MTG game.

Marvel Snap is the debut game of Second Dinner, an indie studio co-founded by f...

Continue reading…

Pinterest is bringing popular music to Idea Pins, its TikTok-like feature

Pinterest’s TikTok-esque Idea Pins will now feature popular music. | Image: Pinterest

Pinterest is doubling down on its TikTok-style video feature by adding more music options through deals with record labels.

The company announced deals today that will allow Pinterest users to add popular music to their video posts, called Idea Pins. The record labels participating are Warner Music Group, Warner Chappell Music, Merlin, and BMG, according to a Pinterest blog post, and the available catalog includes music by artists like Ed Sheeran, Paramore, and Twenty One Pilots.

Pinterest, mostly known as a platform to create mood boards and organize images, introduced Idea Pins in 2021. Idea Pins are somewhere between a TikTok and an Instagram story, allowing creators to upload short clips or still images that viewers can flip...

Continue reading…

Sonos fixes Arc and Sub issues that frustrated some customers for months

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Ever since a system update released over two months ago, some owners of the Sonos Arc and Sub have complained about reduced performance from their pricey home theater devices. This thread on the company’s forum is a good chronicle of the frustrations. Customers noticed that the Arc had lost some oomph at lower volumes, and for those who had run Trueplay tuning on their setup, the Sub had been robbed of its bottom-end growl.

Now, Sonos says it has resolved both issues as of the latest update. Version 14.18 was rolled out yesterday. And while the official changelog only mentions “bug fixes and performance enhancements,” a Sonos employee went into much greater detail in the forum thread:

With the 14.18 software update, both of these...

Continue reading…

Netflix’s whimsical The School for Good and Evil is worth the price of admission

Sofia Wylie as Agatha, Michelle Yeoh as Professor Anemone, and Kerry Washington as Professor Dovey. | Image: Gilles Mingasson / Netflix

So long as there are literate young people trudging their way to school every morning, there’s always going to be an appetite for stories asking “what if the educational system, but magical?” That’s exactly the question author Soman Chainani’s The School for Good and Evil and Netflix’s new adaptation of the novel pose. Like all of the books in Chainani’s fairy tale-inspired YA series, Netflix’s The School for Good and Evil both pulls deep from and pokes fun at the magical storybook canon with a tale about the many different forms love can take.

Netflix’s The School for Good and Evil from director Paul Feig tells the story of Agatha (Sofia Wylie) and Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso), two best friends who, despite being slightly different...

Continue reading…

Uber wants to annoy riders with its own version of taxi TV

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Forget your peaceful Uber ride — the ride-hailing service just announced it’s testing in-car tablets dedicated to displaying ads during your trip. The company’s, thankfully, not rolling out the program widely yet; it’s only piloting it in San Francisco and Los Angeles to start.

So far, Uber says it has partnered with over 40 brands, including NBCUniversal, Heineken, and United Artists Releasing for its new “Journey Ads.” It also created an advertising division to help build out this offering and plans on sticking more ads in the Uber Eats app, in emails, on digital storefronts, and through car-top ads — a sort of digital billboard drivers can place on the roof of their vehicles.

Lyft launched a similar advertising arm in August and has...

Continue reading…

You can now mute your Xbox’s startup sound and control volume through the console

Quiet, console. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Microsoft has released software updates for the Xbox Series S and X and the Xbox app for iOS and Android that bring some quality-of-life improvements and small tweaks that you may notice the next time you go to play a game.

If you have your console output audio via HDMI, you may now be able to control the volume of your speakers from the Xbox itself, using new options in the Audio and Music section of the Xbox menu. If you don’t see the volume down, up, and mute buttons, it’s likely because your audio setup isn’t CEC all the way through — my Xbox outputs audio to the TV, but because it’s shuffled off to a pair of speakers via an optical cable, I can’t control volume from my Xbox.

Image: Microsoft

No need to find...

Continue reading…