HBO Max is working on a fix for playback errors on Apple TV 4K

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you’ve been running into abrupt “can’t play title” errors when trying to stream HBO Max content on your Apple TV 4K, you're not alone. I ran into the issue last week, and found that others are also dealing with it.

The issue seems to specifically occur on Apple TV 4K devices (all generations) running tvOS 16.1, and is happening on the latest HBO Max app version 52.50.1 (released Nov 16, 2022). For some, the issue is intermittent, and can be dodged through simple troubleshooting steps like force quitting the app, logging out of the app, reinstalling it, or restarting the Apple TV.

HBO’s SVP of Communications Chris Willard tells The Verge they’re “aware and working on a fix.” The company’s specialized support team followed up with my...

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The FTC could challenge Microsoft’s Activision purchase by December

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Federal Trade Commission is preparing a potential legal challenge to Microsoft’s plan to buy Activision for $68.7 billion, and it could file the lawsuit by next month, according to Politico. The outlet’s sources say both CEOs — Satya Nadella and Bobby Kotick — have already been deposed, and yet the FTC remains skeptical.

The report notes that there are still a few steps to go before the regulator is ready to act, including a vote from its commissioners. If it does end up happening, it’d mean the deal would face antitrust challenges in the US, UK and the EU. This is despite Microsoft’s repeated attempts to assure regulators that its purchase of Activision — the company in charge of Candy Crush, Call of Duty, and all of Blizzard —...

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San Francisco police consider letting robots use ‘deadly force’

A remote-controlled robot used to disarm bombs. | ARNO BURGI/DPA/AFP via Getty Images

The San Francisco Police Department is proposing a new policy that would give robots the license to kill, as reported earlier by Mission Local (via Engadget). The draft policy, which outlines how the SFPD can use military-style weapons, states robots can be “used as a deadly force option when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option.”

As reported by Mission Local, members of the city’s Board of Supervisors Rules Committee have been reviewing the new equipment policy for several weeks. The original version of the draft didn’t include any language surrounding robots’ use of deadly force until Aaron Peskin, the Dean of the city’s Board of Supervisors, initially added that...

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The best Black Friday deals under $25

Individual Apple AirTags are on sale for under $25. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

While much of our Black Friday coverage spans a wide range of prices, it’s no secret that the biggest savings are usually on the expensive, showy stuff like TVs. But if you’ve got a lengthy list for your upcoming holiday gift exchange, or you just need to stretch your budget a little more this year, look no further than these Black Friday deals under $25.

While anyone can find cheap crap on sale during Black Friday (just open up Amazon’s page and count all the items from brands you’ve never heard of), we’re compiling the best budget-friendly deals we know shouldn’t steer you wrong. These are items we’ve tried or even tested ourselves — which is why we can say an Apple AirTag tracker for $24.98 is totally worth it, or why the latest A...

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Google Messages has started letting some users react with any emoji

And just like that, Messages are now way more fun.

Google has started letting some users of its Messages app react to text messages with any emoji, instead of limiting them to the standard set of seven that have been available in the app for a while now (via 9to5Google). The feature’s similar to what other messaging platforms like Slack, WhatsApp, and paid versions of Telegram have — pressing and holding on a message gives you the standard emoji reactions, but you can then access the picker to react with whatever you want.

The expanded emoji reactions appear to be a limited test at this point — 9to5Google says it’s heard two reports of it being rolled out, and while one person on The Verge’s staff has access to it, two other people who checked do not. Google didn’t immediately respond to...

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It’s easier to change Alexa’s accent now if you’re into that

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

If you’ve been dreaming of the day you can make Alexa sound like your very own British butler, well then, you’re in luck: Amazon is now making Alexa’s English vocals region-free.

“We’ve added more voice options for English-speaking customers in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia by giving them the ability to select from Alexa’s American, Australian, British, Canadian, or Indian voice options,” PR representative for Amazon Kaley Heuschkel tells The Verge in an email.

Previously, if you attempted to switch up Alexa’s voice, Amazon would force you to make a region change as well, which would disrupt products and services that are only available in the country you live in. In comparison, Apple already lets US customers switch Siri’s accent to...

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The best phone to buy right now

Photo Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

Bad news: flagship phones cost a small fortune these days. Good news: we can help you pick the right one.

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The best Black Friday 2022 deals on headphones and earbuds

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Whether you’re shopping for yourself or trying to come through with an amazing gift for someone else, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are great opportunities to pick up the latest wireless earbuds and headphones. Some of this year’s best models from Apple, Samsung, Sony, Bose, Beats, and others have now been on the market for a few months and seeing their first big discounts. Meanwhile, old favorites are hitting all-time lows.

Many deals are already up for the taking even before Black Friday technically gets underway. You can expect most of them to continue through Cyber Monday; we’ll be keeping an eye on this list and updating it with notable new discounts as they pop up.

The best AirPods deals during Black Friday and Cyber Monday

• A...

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The best fitness trackers to buy right now

Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

From simple fitness bands to rugged sports watches

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The best Black Friday deals on smartwatches and fitness trackers

The Apple Watch Ultra is $60 off at multiple retailers. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Picking a smartwatch or fitness tracker can be daunting. There are dozens of factors to consider, such as style, durability, connectivity options, battery life, and the types of metrics tracked. Plus, there are enough models to make your head spin. With all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, it can be hard to know what’s worth it and what isn’t.

No worries. I’ve picked out the best deals so you don’t have to. They’re separated into three categories: smartwatches, multisport watches (for your hardcore athletes), and fitness trackers.

The best Black Friday smartwatch deals

• The 41mm Apple Watch Series 8with GPS is $349, which is $50 off its normal price, at Amazon, Walmart, and Target. It lacks cellular capability, but it’s still...

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The best laptop you can buy in 2022

Image: William Joel/The Verge

The best laptops for you, from ultraportables to high-powered editing machines

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Best gaming laptop in 2022: seven laptops to get your game on

The best gaming laptop is the Asus ROG Zephyrus G15. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales/ The Verge

All the best gaming laptops at every size and price

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What’s the best student laptop? We asked students

The Dell XPS 13 is one of the best laptops for high school and college students. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Shopping for a laptop can be stressful — doubly stressful if you or your children will be learning online for the first time. Kids of different ages have a range of different laptop use cases and different needs. And as the choices for best laptop and best Chromebook evolve, so do students’ needs. So I spoke to some experts on the subject: students themselves.

My recommendations here are meant to accommodate a variety of preferences and price ranges. But they’re a jumping-off point rather than an exhaustive list: every student is different. Before making a decision, you’ll want to make sure you read reviews and try out devices yourself if you can. I’ll do my best to keep this article up to date with items that are in stock.

Best laptop...

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The best smartphone you can buy for under $500

The Verge

You can get a great smartphone at this price, whether you want an iPhone, a 90Hz screen, or water resistance

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An alleged crypto scam involving a bank called Polybius is headed to court

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Two Estonians have been arrested and are facing extradition to the US after being accused of defrauding thousands of people out of around $575 million with a crypto Ponzi scheme, according to the US Department of Justice. Sergei Potapenko and Ivan Turõgin, along with four unnamed co-conspirators, were allegedly behind a scam crypto mining company called HashFlare and a fake crypto bank project called Polybius.

The scheme began in 2013 when Potapenko, Turõgin, and the others started a company called HashCoins, according to an indictment, which you can read in full below. HashCoins said it built cryptocurrency mining equipment, though the DOJ says it actually only “sometimes” resold equipment and components that it bought off the shelf. By...

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Elon Musk proposes letting nearly everyone Twitter banned back on the site

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Now that Elon Musk has let us know that he’s totally done with his moderation council myth, he’s put up a new poll asking users if he should let most suspended accounts back onto the site. On Wednesday, he asked: “Should Twitter offer a general amnesty to suspended accounts, provided that they have not broken the law or engaged in egregious spam?” He gave users 24 hours to vote, and so far, “yes” is ahead by a wide margin.

Musk previously ran a poll asking whether he should allow former president Donald Trump back onto the site, with the “yes” responses winning out by a relatively narrow margin. The general amnesty poll has been up for less than an hour, so it’s too soon to tell how it’ll shake out.

Should Twitter offer a general...

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The best Black Friday deals under $50

Black Friday has plenty of worthy deals that don’t cost a grip. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

With all the deals, discounts, and promotions running around, it can be awfully tempting to spend a mint over Black Friday and Cyber Monday. But for those trying to stay thrifty and keep their spending in check, we’ve gathered some of the Best Black Friday deals you can currently find for less than $50. There are plenty of worthwhile deals on wireless earbuds, smart home devices, and Bluetooth speakers that fall below the $50 mark, many of which we’d normally recommend picking up at full price.

If you’re planning to do some spending on bigger ticket items, we’ve also rounded up all the noteworthy discounts that are currently live at retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy, as well as the best early Black Friday deals overall.

...

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Alexa Together review: keeping tabs on Dad

For $20 a month, the service provides peace of mind, but many of its features should be free

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The best Black Friday laptop deals

This MacBook Air M2 could be yours for a discounted price this Black Friday season. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are great times to get your gadget shopping out of the way. Not only can you find discounts on smaller devices like headphones and games, but you can also save on bigger-ticket items like laptops across the price continuum. Whether you’re looking for the thinnest and lightest device you can buy or a heavy-duty gaming rig, Black Friday and Cyber Monday bring discounts for all.

Amazon Laptop Deals

• The Razer Book 13is down to $1,449.99 at Amazon (normally $1,999.99). The Razer Book has Razer’s signature portability and sleek style, but it’s built for work and productivity use rather than gaming. Read our review.
• Samsung’s 13-inch Galaxy Book2 Pro is available at Amazon for $899.99 ($400 off). This is an...

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The best noise-canceling headphone deals

You can currently buy the AirPods Max for around $449 instead of $549. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

With more people working from home than they used to, owning a good pair of noise-canceling headphones has become more appealing than ever. However, they can be expensive and difficult to shop for due to the range of available models, many of which cater to different lifestyles and priorities. Some are better suited for long-haul flights, for instance, while others are ideal for multitasking and marathon listening sessions.

That’s why we’ve curated this list of the best deals on noise-canceling headphones. Here, you’ll find sales on all kinds of on-ear and over-ear headphones, all of which are designed to eliminate outside noise but come with their own strengths and weaknesses. And if you want to do even more research before making a...

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The best Black Friday streaming deals on Hulu, HBO Max, Paramount Plus, and more

For a limited time, Hulu’s just $1.99 per month for 12 months. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

If you’ve been waiting for a good deal to land on a streaming service you’ve been eyeing, Black Friday is a great opportunity to save. A number of major services are currently offering some pretty solid deals that’ll save you a lot in the long run, and best of all, some of them are available to both current and returning subscribers. Right now, for instance, new and returning subscribers can enjoy a year of Hulu for just $1.99 a month instead of $7.99 a month, which equates to a savings of $72.

To make your life just a little easier, we’ve highlighted some of the best Black Friday streaming service deals currently available below. If you’re looking to save even more money this week, though, be sure to check out our roundup of the best...

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OnePlus Nord N300 5G review: fast charging isn’t enough

OnePlus’ N300 comes with 33W wired charging and a very budget-friendly price tag, but it’s not enough to make up for a less-than-enjoyable experience.

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Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 Classic and its slick rotating bezel is just $149

That rotating bezel for just $149 has got me spinning. | Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

Smartwatches can be a popular gift around the holidays, but the best ones can certainly blow up many folks’ budgets. Thankfully, today, you can get the 42mm Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic for just $149 from Walmart in black or white, which is an exceptional discount of $200. This model is the only one remaining with Samsung’s awesomely tactile and unique rotating bezel control, allowing you to operate the watch with less reliance on the touchscreen — very helpful for glove-clad hands in the winter months.

While the newer Galaxy Watch 5 brought slightly improved battery life and a somewhat useless temperature sensor, the Watch 4 Classic has remained in the lineup and is now seeing steep enough discounts that make it still very appealing....

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The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special turns Christmas into lore

Dave Bautista as Drax. | Image: Disney

The sprawling Marvel Cinematic Universe has set its sights on the holidays. It started quietly, with a black-and-white monster movie released ahead of Halloween. But now, with The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special on Disney Plus, the MCU has gone ahead and turned the most wonderful time of the year into another piece of its complex and ever-expanding narrative.

Now, to be fair, it’s at least a fun addition to the MCU. The special clocks in at less than an hour and is basically a feel-good Christmas story with some sci-fi shenanigans thrown in. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt, doing his best Super Mario impression) is understandably sad following the loss of Gamora (Zoe Saldaña), so his friends Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom...

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The best robot vacuum you can buy right now

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

These wonderful little robots do all the hard work for you

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New York pauses permits for the most polluting crypto mining

Governor Kathy Hochul greets the crowd at Election Night Watch Party at Capitale in New York City on November 9th, 2022. | Photo by Lev Radin / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Efforts to crack down on crypto’s pollution notched a big win yesterday when New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill into law that presses pause on a particularly dirty form of crypto mining. The law imposes a two-year moratorium on any new permits for certain fossil fuel power plants seeking to mine crypto.

In one high-profile case, a struggling gas plant in New York’s Finger Lakes region overcame economic headwinds by mining Bitcoin. Environmental advocates hoped the moratorium would prevent any other gas or coal plants, which might have otherwise shuttered, from turning into crypto mines.

The moratorium is limited to crypto mining that uses the enormously energy-hungry process for validating transactions that Bitcoin employs,...

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Keychron’s new keyboard pairs a low-profile design with premium construction

Keychron’s S1 keyboard. | Image: Keychron

People like to make fun of the sheer number of keyboards that Keychron releases, and the company is showing no signs of slowing down anytime soon. It’s just put on open sale the first entry in a whole new lineup, the $109 Keychron S1, which combines the low-profile laptop-style form factor of K-series boards like the $84 Keychron K3 with the more premium build quality of a Q-series keyboard like the $170.10 Keychron Q1.

That means the Keychron S1 is more focused on being high-quality than feature-rich. It’s not wireless, and it’s not hot-swappable as standard, meaning you can’t change the switches on its entry-level model without a soldering iron. But what you do get is an aluminum construction, double-shot PBT keycaps, a 1,000Hz...

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Twitch says it’s getting better at detecting and blocking young users

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Twitch is cracking down on accounts belonging to users under the age of 13 as part of its efforts to protect children on the platform. In a post on Twitch’s safety center, the Amazon-owned company announced that it’s improving its methods for detecting and terminating the accounts belonging to young users and is also working on ways to block users who were previously suspended for being under 13.

These changes come after a report from Bloomberg revealed rampant child predation on the platform. The report, first published in September, analyzed 1,976 accounts on Twitch with follower lists made up of 70 percent or more users who are kids or young teenagers. According to Bloomberg, a total of 279,016 children were targeted by these alleged...

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Amazon is selling last year’s Apple TV 4K for $80, and that’s practically a steal

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

There aren’t a ton of differences between the third-generation Apple TV 4K and last year’s model. The new one’s faster (but good luck telling the difference), supports HDR10 Plus, and has a smaller, lighter design. But unless you’ve got a recent Samsung TV, those aren’t good enough reasons to skip this great deal at Amazon that’s coming ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2022.

The company has slashed $100 off the price of both the 32GB and 64GB 2021 Apple TV 4K units. That brings them down to just $79.99 and $99.99, respectively. At that point, you’re barely paying more than the cost of the redesigned Siri Remote, which sells for $59.99. And even if you opt for 32GB — I’ve never managed to exceed any Apple TV’s storage — you’re...

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The best instant cameras you can buy right now

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge

We found the best cameras for your budget and needs

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