Google’s new Pixel Watch and Pixel 7 Pro are both on sale for their lowest price to date

The Pixel 7 Pro was a pretty good value for $899, but it’s much better at $749. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Whoa, Nellie! Early Black Friday deals from the likes of Walmart, Best Buy, and Target have been with us for a minute, but today, it feels like things are really ramping up. The early deals that were first teased by Google are here, and that means there’s a lot of money to save on Pixel stuff.

Starting from the top, the flagship Pixel 7 Pro is on sale for $749 ($150 off) at Target, Best Buy, Amazon, and direct from Google. That’s the lowest price yet for Google’s new top-tier phone, which comes with a triple-camera setup (wide, ultra-wide with macro, and telephoto) and ranks up there with the best phones available today. The excellent Android device also has a pretty massive 6.7-inch 120Hz OLED and the latest Tensor G2 CPU for Google’s...

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WhatsApp’s Yellow Pages-style business directory launches in five countries

Businesses can be searched for like preexisting contacts. | Image: Meta

WhatsApp is officially launching a new business directory feature across Brazil, the UK, Indonesia, Mexico, and Colombia. Meta says users will either be able to browse by business category (like travel or banking) or else search directly to find companies that are contactable on the service. Those signed up for WhatsApp’s Business Platform across all five countries will appear in the directory, while in Brazil, the directory will also be open to small businesses.

The official launch of the feature follows a limited test that WhatsApp conducted in São Paulo, Brazil, last year. The feature is only available on Android in Brazil but is available across both Android and iOS in other countries.

“While millions of businesses in Brazil use...

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How to move your notes out of Evernote

Samar Haddad / The Verge

When it launched in 2008, Evernote became the go-to application for many for taking notes, tracking documents, organizing projects, and generally being the place to put anything you might want to find later. However, in the last few years, Evernote’s reputation has suffered due to an aging interface, privacy missteps, increased fees, and performance issues.

And now, it’s being acquired by app developer Bending Spoons.

When an app is depended on by a large number of people — especially one that’s been around long enough so that a number of its users may have a lot of data stored in it — the first thought that many will have is: what will happen to my data?

While it’s usually not a good idea to panic, it never hurts to back up your...

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Meta reportedly punished dozens of employees for offering an inside line to account recovery

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Meta allegedly fired or disciplined over two dozen employees for misusing — and, in some cases, taking bribes for using — an account recovery tool over the past year. The Wall Street Journal reported the news this morning, describing a “cottage industry” of people abusing a tool called “Oops” or Online Operations. That includes accepting thousands of dollars to get legitimate users and hackers alike into Facebook or Instagram accounts.

Oops is a long-running shortcut to Facebook and Instagram’s typically automated account recovery process, designed for acquaintances of Meta employees. (Its queue apparently processed around 50,000 “tasks” in 2020, the number growing rapidly as Meta expanded.) But the Journal report claims a black market...

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Elon Musk lays out options for remaining Twitter employees: click ‘yes’ or you’re done

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In an email early Wednesday morning, billionaire Twitter owner Elon Musk gave the remaining employees at the company an ultimatum. They can stay and sign on to a “hardcore” culture of “long hours at high intensity”or leave. Employees have until 5PM ET today to fill out an online form with their decision.

But just hours before the deadline, key questions about the terms of the agreement remained unanswered, with employee livelihoods, visas, and careers hanging in the balance. On Wednesday, confusion reigned as employees sought out answers to how their employment might be affected. How would severance offers work? What would happen to employees on leave or vacation? What about people on visas, for whom their ability to stay in the US...

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Sonos plans to enter four new product categories — and the first is coming next year

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Sonos is preparing a wave of premium new home speakers for release next year, as The Verge has exclusively reported. But that’s familiar territory for the company. As it turns out, Sonos also has its eye on several new product categories. Four of them to be specific. According to CEO Patrick Spence, the first device from one of these categories will arrive sometime in fiscal year 2023. The company’s hardware lineup is already locked and set for the holidays, so in terms of timing, we’re looking beyond January.

“While we are always cautious when talking about our product roadmap, we are investing in products that will allow us to enter four new categories, one of which we expect to announce in fiscal ’23,” Spence said on Sonos’ Wednesday...

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Google search now displays 360-degree views of sneakers from brands like Vans and Puma

Illustration: The Verge

It’s now possible to use Google search for more than just Taylor Swift ticket queries: starting today, the search engine will use augmented reality to help you find the perfect pair of shoes from the comfort of your home. The search giant is also making its AR beauty feature more inclusive and easier to use.

As what appears to be a part of the reinvention of Google’s search engine, Google now displays 360-degree 3D views of sneakers after first introducing the feature during September’s Search On event. You can zoom in on the details, spin the shoes around, and use AR to see what they’d look like in your own space.

For now, though, users can only get these 3D images of sneakers from Saucony, Vans, Puma, Sperry, and Merrell. Google will...

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The Arc browser is the Chrome killer I’ve been waiting for

Arc’s sidebar is much more than a bunch of vertical tabs. | Image: Arc / David Pierce

Arc isn’t perfect, and it takes some getting used to. But it’s full of big new ideas about how we should interact with the web — and it’s right about most of them.

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Google Maps will help you explore neighborhoods with your phone’s camera

There are some nice new features coming to Google Maps. | Illustration: The Verge

Google is adding another big new augmented reality feature to Google Maps that lets you learn more about what’s around you just by looking through your phone’s camera. The feature, which Google calls Search with Live View, shows you things like coffee shops and ATMs when you’re holding up your phone and pointing it at the world around you.

If you’re in a city where Search with Live View is available, just tap the camera button in the Google Maps search bar, point your phone’s camera at the buildings and places nearby, and look for the dots that pop up indicating where landmarks are. You can tap on a dot to learn more about it. This one is a little more easily understood in a GIF, so check out this one from Google:

Google...

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Microsoft drops Xbox Series S price to $249.99 for the holidays

Microsoft’s “holiday” packaging for the Xbox Series S. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is dropping the price of its Xbox Series S console to $249.99 for the holidays. The new promotional price starts today and includes special holiday-themed packaging. It’s part of a series of Black Friday deals from Microsoft that includes up to $300 off the new Surface Laptop 5, $200 off select Surface Pro 9 models, and up to 67 percent off Xbox digital games.

While we saw the Xbox Series S drop as low as $249 in a limited offer that lasted just hours at Woot earlier this year, Microsoft’s official promotion means Best Buy, the Microsoft Store, and other retailers will all be offering the console at this promotional price. Target is even bundling a $50 gift card with its own Xbox Series S deal.

Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer...

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Motional and Lyft will launch a robotaxi service in Los Angeles

Motional

Motional, the autonomous vehicle joint venture between Hyundai and Aptiv, is bringing its robotaxis to Los Angeles, where they will be available to hail through the Lyft app.

The service is comprised of Motional’s fleet of Hyundai Ioniq 5 electric vehicles, which will be fully autonomous at the time of launch and not require a human safety driver behind the wheel.

The company would not say when exactly the service will go live, though. “We plan to reveal timing when we are closer to launch,” a Motional spokesperson said. Previously, Motional said it wouldn’t deploy fully autonomous vehicles until 2023, so it’s probably safe to assume that LA residents won’t be able to hail one of the company’s vehicles until at least January.

LA will...

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Android will prompt you to update apps if they’re crashing

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google is tweaking Android to offer a new prompt in the face of software crashes that reminds you to update your damn apps.

“Update the app to fix crashes,” the prompt says, according to Esper’s senior technical editor Mishaal Rahman. “The app stopped working, but the latest update for the app may fix the issue. Install the update and then open the app again.”

Obviously the prompt is only going to help if an app isn’t already fully updated. If you’re already running its latest version and it’s still crashing, then frustratingly it’s likely that a fix isn’t available (yet). Still, given the amount of times I’ve personally been able to resolve crashing issues with a simple update, I’m hoping that the new prompt will be more helpful than...

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Nvidia and Microsoft team up to build ‘massive’ AI supercomputer

The two computing tech giants will collaborate to create “one of the most powerful AI supercomputers in the world.” | Image: Nvidia / Microsoft

Nvidia has announced a “multi-year collaboration” with Microsoft to build “one of the most powerful AI supercomputers in the world,” designed to handle the huge computing workloads needed to train and scale AI. The collaboration will see Nvidia utilizing Microsoft’s scalable virtual machine instances to accelerate advances in generative AI models like DALL-E.

Based on Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure, the AI supercomputer will use tens of thousands of Nvidia’s powerful H100 and A100 data center GPUs and its Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking platform. According to Nvidia, the combination of Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and Nvidia’s GPUs, networking, and full AI suite will allow more enterprises to train, deploy, and scale AI —...

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What’s wrong with US broadband?

Erik Carter for The Verge

The Verge and Consumer Reports collected 22,000 internet bills to find out how Americans are getting online. They paint an ugly picture.

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See how far Pokémon Go creator Niantic’s AR gaming ambitions have come

Pokémon Go developer Niantic has unveiled its latest tech demo showing off what it thinks could be the future of augmented reality gaming. The trailer, which apparently depicts “actual headset gameplay” shows a handful of players wearing AR glasses as they interact with shared virtual objects, including game elements as well as more practical virtual signage, while out and about. A couple of the players appear to be interacting with the game using handheld motion controllers, but there’s no sign of anyone needing to directly use a smartphone to play.

The trailer was released to coincide with several announcements made at this year’s Qualcomm Snapdragon Summit. These include a new processor from the mobile chip giant, a new reference...

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Pokémon Violet and Scarlet are the vast open worlds the series has been building to

A trainer riding Koraidon, one of the new additions to Pokémon Violet and Scarlet_._ | Image: Nintendo

The latest Pokémon release is a big, expansive adventure that also pushes the Nintendo Switch to its limits.

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Blizzard will suspend World of Warcraft in China because of licensing dispute

Blizzard

Blizzard will suspend games in China because it can’t reach an agreement with its licensing and publishing partner NetEase, it said in a press release. World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch 2, Starcraft, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo III, and Warcraft III: Reforged won’t be available in China after January 23, 2023.

Blizzard will suspend the sale of games and offer guidance to Chinese players “in the coming days,” according to the press release, which did not offer a specific timeline. Development of Diablo Immortal is in a separate agreement and will continue, NetEase said in a statement. Upcoming releases including the latest World of Warcraft expansion, _Dragonfligh_t, and the second season of Overwatch 2, “will proceed later this...

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Only the iPhone 15 Pro will get a speed upgrade with USB-C, says analyst

A longstanding criticism of the pro phones is that it takes forever to get data off of them. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The iPhone 15 Pro models are in line for a massive upgrade to their wired transfer speeds with the switch to USB-C, according to noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Unfortunately, he doesn’t believe that benefit is coming to the regular 2023 iPhones. He predicts that the 15 and 15 Plus will also swap in USB-C ports but, just like the 2022 10th-gen iPad, they’ll be stuck with the same USB 2.0 speeds they had with Lighting.

Kuo made the prediction in a series of tweets on Wednesday and says the information is from his “latest survey.” (The analyst is known for getting information from supply chain sources.) He specified by predicting that the “15 Pro & 15 Pro Max will support at least USB 3.2 or Thunderbolt 3.” If that’s true, that’d mean they...

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Qualcomm has a new chip brand

Qualcomm has announced a new subbrand of CPUs for its Snapdragon family of products, called Oryon. The new CPU will be released in 2023 and available to manufacturers to use in devices such as Windows PCs, smartphones, and other applications. The company announced the new CPU at its Snapdragon Summit on Wednesday, but provided few details about what it entails.

The company has made Snapdragon-branded chips for Windows and Chrome OS computers for a few years now but has had slow traction getting them into many Windows devices. The few ultraportable computers that have used Qualcomm’s Arm chips have been niche, premium devices that appeal to a specific subset of PC buyers, but not the broader market.

Image: Qualcomm ...

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Apple makes iCloud.com look like a iPad homescreen

It’s a very new look for Apple’s online portal to your documents, pictures, and more.

Apple has updated iCloud.com to make the site look and feel significantly more modern, adding widget-like tiles that show you information from photos, notes, mail, and more (via MacRumors). It’s a big change from the previous version of the site, which basically just showed a handful of icons that acted as links to web apps, and should be a welcome upgrade for anyone who has to regularly access their iCloud data from a browser rather than an app running on an iPhone or Mac.

With the new design, which was available to beta testers last month, you can customize your iCloud.com homepage, adding tiles that can show your most recent photos, emails, documents, calendar events, notes, and more. Like with most iOS widgets, though, you’ll still...

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Steve Aoki dropped the beat at Amazon during layoffs

This is a photo of Aoki performing in Las Vegas, not at the Amazon event. | Photo by David Becker/Getty Images

Amazon may have just confirmed that it would be laying off employees, but it seems to still have room for a Steve Aoki concert. On Wednesday evening, the superstar DJ performed a live concert for what appeared to be a group of Amazon warehouse employees, and the whole thing was streamed on the AmazonVestLife Twitch channel.

We learned this was happening at all thanks to the New York Times’ Karen Weise, who tweeted about the performance shortly before it wrapped up. But it seems the concert wasn’t exactly a secret, as the “amazonvestlife” Instagram (which, like the Twitch channel, describes itself as the “official account for Amazon associates”) posted a story featuring Aoki to promote the show earlier on Wednesday. The DJ gave a shoutout...

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Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022: deals, news, and more

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

We’re rounding up all of the best deals from across the internet to help you cross some names off your holiday shopping list.

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The Prius gets a glow-up, but it’s still just a hybrid

Image: Toyota

Toyota’s Prius has long been the ugly duckling of the eco-car market, but the automaker is finally delivering a version that’s easier on the eyes. The redesigned fifth-generation 2023 Prius was just revealed in Japan, with a sportier coupe-like look to hide that it’s still a four-door compact with hybrid and plug-in hybrid options.

It’s certainly prettier, no doubt — the 1997 Prius was the first mass-produced hybrid electric vehicle, but it wasn’t very visually appealing, nor were any of the successive iterations. Toyota says this new one follows the “monoform silhouette” design introduced in the second-generation Prius (2003-2009), and the development team started from scratch to create a “Hybrid Reborn” concept that heavily informs...

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How to make your iPhone’s wallpaper a rotating gallery of good vibes

Samar Haddad / The Verge

With iOS 16’s overhaul of lock screen customization, Apple introduced a feature that lets you choose a shuffling set of pictures for your wallpaper. I was recently reminded of this feature thanks to a tweet from @cabel, and I’ve used it to make my lock screen a rotating gallery of beautiful nature pictures.

Here’s how you can do that, too, and how you can use the Photo Shuffle feature to turn your phone into a slideshow of friends, family, pets, or places you’ve visited.

• Go to the Settings app, then to Wallpaper.
• Tap Add New Wallpaper > Photo Shuffle. (Note: if this is the first time you’re doing this, your Photo Library may need to be processed. If you don’t want to wait, you can go ahead and choose photos manually or just exit and...

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GPUs are headed in the wrong direction

The RTX 3080 on top of the ginormous RTX 4080 — which, by the way, is the same size as a 4090. | Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge

This year’s long-awaited flagship graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia aren’t normal. Perhaps we shouldn’t expect them to be. In 2020, AMD finally showed it had the potential to catch up to Nvidia in raw gaming performance, and of course, Nvidia desperately wants to maintain that lead.

Inflated more than inflation

But as a result, both companies’ new GPUs have bloated in a way we’ve never seen. They’ve inflated more than inflation itself. They’re suddenly both far more expensive and physically huge in a way we haven’t seen this decade if ever.

Here, I made a chart to show you:

Line chart by Sean Hollister / The Verge, using Flourish, with some dimensions by Tom’s Hardware

This is not normal.

We’re in the middle...

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It’s take your kids to space day in My Dad the Bounty Hunter’s first teaser trailer

COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Spacefaring bounty hunters tend to be known for living for themselves, but the hero of Netflix’s upcoming animated series My Dad the Bounty Hunterfrom executive producers Everett Downing and Patrick Harpin is very much a family man who loves his kids even though they might end up getting him killed judging from the show’s new teaser trailer.

My Dad the Bounty Hunter tells the story of a young girl Lisa (Priah Ferguson) and her brother Sean (JeCobi Swain) — two kids that want nothing more than to hang out with their well-meaning dad (Laz Alonso), who always seems to be rushing off to work. The kids understand that their father’s constantly ducking out to take care of business in order to be able to take care of them. But it’s still...

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TSM FTX drops FTX

You won’t be seeing the FTX logo on TSM’s jerseys. | Image: TSM

The esports giant TSM FTX is suspending its blockbuster sponsorship deal with the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange and is dropping FTX from its name.

“After monitoring the evolving situation and discussing internally, we’re suspending our partnership with FTX effective immediately,” TSM wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. “This means that FTX branding will no longer appear on any of our org, team and player social media profiles, and will also be removed from our player jerseys.”

We've suspended our partnership with FTX effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/u8vQSWnAbX

— TSM (@TSM) November 16, 2022

TSM also cautioned that the change might take some time to roll out on social media, and at least for a little while, the old name was...

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Xbox’s improved Discord experience is rolling out to everyone

No need to pull out your phone to join a voice server. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft announced it’s starting to roll out the Xbox November update, which adds the ability to connect to Discord voice channels straight from your console, a new Captures app, and several other improvements.

Before, if you wanted to join a voice channel on your Xbox, you’d have to use your phone or computer to transfer the call. With the update, you’ll be able to join them straight from the Discord section of the Parties and Chats menu. When Microsoft let insiders test the feature starting last month, there was still the limitation that you’d have to use your phone to join a direct one-on-one voice call.

Discord on Xbox is getting way better. You won't need to use your phone soon, so you can connect to calls in Discord servers...

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Linktree is letting creators add paywalls for premium content

Image: Linktree

Linktree, a popular tool used to link out to additional social channels and websites, is adding a way for users to monetize the content they share on their page.

The new Payment Lock feature announced today will allow creators to put a paywall in front of certain content, like digital files, links to Pinterest mood boards or playlists, or even calendar meeting slots. Creators can charge up to $150 for each piece of content.

The paywalling feature isn’t available to Linktree users on the free plan, and creators aren’t allowed to use it to charge for adult content. Linktree doesn’t seem to be taking a cut at this time — the company declined to confirm on the record.

Linktrees are a common sight on social media profiles where it’s difficult...

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Airbnb is cracking down on party bookings and identity verification

Starting January 16th, Airbnb guests will need to verify their identities in order to book stays in its top 35 countries and regions. | Image: Airbnb

Airbnb is cracking down on parties booked through its service and will require that all guests in top countries verify their identity for a booking to be successfully completed. The new policies are meant to improve hosting experiences and drive more bookings to the platform.

Starting today, Airbnb will require that all users verify their identity if they’re booking in any of the platform’s top 35 countries and regions, representing 90 percent of all reservations. Tara Bunch, Airbnb’s head of global operations, said in an interview with Fast Company that around 80 percent of the platform’s guests and hosts were already verified prior to this expansion. The process requires guests to verify their identity using personal information such...

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