NASA successfully completes its Artemis I mission

NASA’s Orion capsule splashed down into the Pacific Ocean at around 12:40PM ET. | Screenshot: Emma Roth / The Verge

NASA’s Orion spacecraft has returned to Earth. The uncrewed capsule safely splashed down into the Pacific Ocean off of Mexico’s Baja California around 12:40PM ET on Sunday, marking the end of the landmark Artemis I mission.

The capsule reached speeds of about 24,500mph as it returned to Earth, while its heat shield sustained scorching temperatures of around 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Orion traveled a total of 1.4 million miles through space over the span of 25.5 days.

As it reentered Earth’s atmosphere, the Orion capsule successfully performed a skip entry maneuver, in which Orion dipped into Earth’s upper atmosphere and lifted out before reentering again. The move is supposed to help the spacecraft land in the designated splashdown...

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The developer who unlocked 90Hz on the Pixel 6A needs help finishing the project

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Remember that Pixel 6A mod that unlocks a 90Hz refresh rate? Well, the developer behind it, Nathan Brooke (aka Lunarixus), just made the changes public in hopes that other developers can finish off the tweak.

In a post on Twitter, Brooke includes a link to the project on GitHub and says that he just doesn’t have enough time to work on it. The mod activates a seemingly untapped 90Hz refresh rate on the budget-friendly Pixel 6A, which would otherwise ship with a 6.1-inch OLED display running at 60Hz. While The Verge’s senior editor, Sean Hollister, confirmed that the mod does work, there are a few caveats.

Note: Green tint is not fixed, this is why we never released it officially, you won't notice green tint on max and lowest brightness,...

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Elon Musk’s $8 Twitter Blue subscription is coming back with phone number verification and a higher price on iOS

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter’s relaunching its Blue subscription on Monday, one month after abandoning a chaotic first attempt that spurred hoax accounts and general mayhem.

As reported previously, the subscription will cost $8 per month to purchase on the web or $11 per month via the iOS App Store to make up for the up to 30 percent commission Apple takes off of in-app purchases. This time, anyone paying for Blue who wants to display a “verified” checkmark on their profile will need to register a phone number first, and changing your “handle, display name or profile photo” will remove the label until your account is reviewed again.

we’re relaunching @TwitterBlue on Monday – subscribe on web for $8/month or on iOS for $11/month to get access to...

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Apple will let its employees talk about discrimination and abuse

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Apple will no longer bar employees from speaking out about workplace harassment and discrimination issues, as first reported by the Financial Times. The company shared the news following a review of Apple’s non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), which previously excluded language surrounding the discussion of working conditions.

Apple shareholders voted to approve the independent review in March after the company failed to make the suggested changes to its concealment clauses last year. The initiative had the backing of Nia Impact Captial, the Transparency in Employment Agreements (TEA) coalition, and Ifeoma Ozoma, the co-sponsor of the Silenced No More Act that’s supposed to protect workers who speak out about workplace harassment and...

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SEC asks companies to disclose exposure to struggling crypto firms

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is asking publicly-traded companies to tell investors about their involvement with struggling cryptocurrency firms (via CNBC). In a notice posted on Thursday, the SEC says companies may have an obligation under federal law to disclose whether their operations or finances have been impacted by the turbulence that’s rocking the crypto market.

The move comes after FTX’s collapse sent ripples across the entire crypto industry and revealed a network of creditors to which FTX owes billions. While the lending arm of Genesis, a major crypto brokerage, suspended withdrawals in the aftermath of FTX’s fall, the crypto trading platform BlockFi filed for bankruptcy and lists FTX as one of its largest...

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These Philips Hue string lights will make your Christmas tree sparkle

The Philips Hue Festavia string lights look great and add a lot of fun to any holiday decor. They’re expensive, though, and only really worth it if you’ve bought into the Hue ecosystem.

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The Verge’s 2022 holiday gift guide for kids

Photography by Joel Goldberg for The Verge

From toddler-friendly tech to analog items that have stood the test of time, we’ve collected a host of gift ideas fit for kids of all ages.

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Apple’s terrific M1 iPad Air is matching its best price to date right now

The latest iPad Air uses Apple’s M1 CPU and has a more powerful camera than the last-gen model. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The holidays are quickly approaching, and if you’re doing a little weekend window shopping for yourself or others this weekend, we’ve collected a handful of excellent deals that we think we think will allow you to cross more than just a few names off your list.

Starting things off is the latest iPad Air, which is discounted at Amazon and Best Buy in the 64GB, Wi-fi configuration to just $499.99, matching its lowest price to date. Apple’s newest iteration of its featherweight tablet includes significant upgrades to its performance thanks to Apple’s M1 CPU, and it’s equipped with a 12MP ultrawide camera with support for Apple’s Center Stage feature. Just like the older model, the fifth-gen Air features a 10.9-inch display and is...

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How to watch the end of NASA’s Artemis I mission

NASA’s SLS rocket sends the Orion Capsule on its way to the Moon on November 16th, 2022. The capsule is set to return to Earth on December 11th. | Photo by Joe Burbank / Orlando Sentinel / Tribune News Service via Getty Images

This weekend NASA’s Orion spacecraft will return to Earth, following its 25-day mission around the Moon. The uncrewed spacecraft is scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday, December 11th.

Since its launch on November 16th, Orion has traveled through Earth’s atmosphere and out into space, making a close flyby of the Moon and heading into a distant orbit, reaching a distance of over 43,000 miles from the Moon at its furthest point. Orion traveled around the Moon and made a second close flyby on the return journey and is now on its way back to Earth.

The biggest challenge that awaits the spacecraft now is safely entering the Earth’s atmosphere and landing in the ocean.

“At present, we are on track to have a fully successful...

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Stellantis is blaming EVs for its upcoming Jeep layoffs

One of Stellantis’ EV concept vehicles. | Image: Stellantis

Stellantis, the company behind Fiat, Dodge, and Jeep, has announced that it plans to halt one of its plants and lay off 1,200 workers come February. Its reasoning? Pressure from COVID-19, sure, along with a dash of chip shortages — but mainly all those electric vehicles it has to make.

The factory in question is one that builds Jeep Cherokees in Illinois, and the news comes as the automaker is gearing up for union negotiations. While United Auto Workers argues that “the transition to electrification also creates opportunities” at the plant, an unnamed Stellantis spokesperson told CNBC and The Wall Street Journal that it was instead the reason for the halt. “The most impactful challenge is the increasing cost related to the...

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The best entertainment of 2022

Image: Marvel Studios

We all know the feeling: you sit down in front of the TV, exhausted after a long day, only to become absolutely paralyzed by choice. There’s so much to watch and play that settling on one single thing to do can be a challenge. So we’re here to make your evenings a little less stressful. Throughout 2022 this page will be regularly updated with all of our favorite entertainment experiences — everything from the latest hit on Netflix to that open-world game people can’t stop talking about — to make those moments of choice that much easier. If you see a show, game, or movie in this collection, know that it’s an experience we fully recommend.

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Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is a gnarly and spiritual fairy tale about what makes life beautiful

Pinocchio performing alongside a pair of traditional puppets. | Image: Netflix

Guillermo del Toro’s new Pinocchio is a haunting and beautiful instant classic that will leave you thinking about your mortality.

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Peloton removes classes feat. Kanye West from on-demand library

You won’t find Ye’s music in Peloton’s on-demand library. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Music is a big part of any Peloton workout, but Kanye West, now legally known as Ye, won’t be. Over the past few days, Peloton has removed hundreds of classes from its on-demand library featuring Ye’s music.

In late October, Peloton began telling members that Ye’s music would no longer appear in new classes following the rapper’s antisemitic comments. However, previously filmed classes were left alone. Now it appears Ye’s presence has been entirely scrubbed from the platform.

The classes first began disappearing on December 6th, according to unofficial Peloton fan site Pelo Buddy. The Verge also confirmed that searching for “Kanye West” or “Ye” no longer shows results on our Peloton Row review unit or on Peloton’s desktop site. The...

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Disney Plus with ads isn’t a very good deal

If you want the cheapest tier of Disney Plus, you’ll be suffering through some ads. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Disney Plus’ new ad-supported tier, Disney Plus Basic, is now available, which means I’m back for another blog about what ads look like in your streaming services. The tier itself didn’t surprise me too much; if you’ve seen ads on other web videos, actually watching Disney Plus’ ads won’t feel much different. But the service’s new pricing, including a price jump for no ads, means the ad plan isn’t a very good deal.

Any ad content on Disney Plus is noted with a little “Ad” box in the bottom-left corner of the screen with a countdown showing how much longer you’ll have to suffer through it. You can pause an ad, though you can’t fast-forward through it. On the progress bar for whatever you’re watching, you’ll see little notches marking...

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Here are the shipping deadlines to get your holiday gifts there on time

The Noc Design / The Verge

The same thing happens every year. Things get busy with work, school, and life in general until you’re suddenly up against the clock as you race your gifts to your local post office, FedEx store, or UPS location before Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Hanukkah. We’ve all been there — I somehow find myself in this predicament year after year — but we want to be of some help to you as you buy your gifts and plan out your next move.

If you’ve got to send them via mail, what follows are the upcoming domestic shipping deadlines for various retailers and shipment carriers so you can ensure that your packages arrive before the holidays. Hopefully, it’ll help you to avoid some holiday stress, if at all possible.

UPS 2022 deadlines

You have until...

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Sam Bankman-Fried secretly handed $27 million to a major crypto news site and its CEO

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of failed crypto exchange FTX, loaned $27 million to Michael McCaffrey, the CEO of crypto publication The Block, to help it stay afloat, according to a Medium post from the site’s chief revenue officer, Bobby Moran. Bankman-Fried also loaned McCaffery $16 million, some of which helped him purchase property in the Bahamas, where FTX is headquartered, according to Axios, which broke the story_._

McCaffrey is stepping down from his position today and will be replaced by Moran. Moran writes that McCaffrey kept the funding secret from everyone else in the company until revealing it before Thanksgiving this year.

3/ The loan was to an entity I own and the funds were used to effect the restructuring. In early...

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Who’s snitching on the big crypto group chat?

How much is that group chat in the window? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

I have been somewhat unsure of what to make about The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times’ reports about text messages, sent on Signal, between rivals Changpeng “CZ” Zhao and Sam Bankman-Fried around the time FTX went up in smoke. That’s because I am not entirely sure who leaked them or who stands to benefit. But I’m pretty sure someone leaked to both of those outlets because the reports went up within hours of each other. So someone wants everyone to know about this!

Because I don’t understand what’s going on, I’m going to walk through these two stories, which are the same in broad brushstrokes, suggesting that the sourcing was similar. (As longtime readers know, reidentifying anonymous sources is one of my favorite games, though...

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Activists respond to Apple choosing encryption over invasive image scanning plans

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

When Apple introduced its slate of initiatives to prevent the spread of child sexual abuse material, or CSAM, last year, they were controversial, to say the least. While some praised the company for taking action, there was also no shortage of detractors, some of whom said that Apple’s plans to do on-device scanning for illegal content would require an unacceptable huge hit to user privacy.

The backlash caused Apple to delay some of the features in September 2021, and earlier this week, the company confirmed it has abandoned its efforts to create the hashing system that would’ve searched people’s iCloud photo libraries for illegal materials. We contacted some of the organizations that had spoken out either in support of or against...

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The best instant photo printer you can buy right now

Whether you want the best photo quality or ultra-portability, there’s a printer for you.

Instant printers are an easy and entertaining way to get photos off of your phone and into the real world.

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Forspoken’s new demo has fun parkour hiding under a generic action RPG

Image: Square Enix

It might be time to stop ragging on Forspoken. Yes, it has an abysmal name (that, upon reflection, is no more ridiculous than, say, Triangle Strategy or Live A Live), but after finally getting my hands on the demo that launched yesterday, there’s actually a solid game hidden under the layers of poor promotion and cringey dialogue.

I’ll admit to not being particularly wowed by Forspoken during any part of its development cycle. It looked like a very generic action RPG whose only interesting feature was that it had the shiny veneer of being a PlayStation 5 exclusive with all the souped-up graphical impressiveness that entails. The marketing for the game was not the greatest, featuring dialogue that was memed to death (and not in the good...

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Now you can go password-free in Chrome with passkeys

Now, compatible sites can ask to log in with passkey within Chrome. | Screenshot: The Verge

Passkeys are now available to use in Chrome. Google added the passwordless secure login standard this week to Chrome Stable M108 after going through a testing period that started in October.

The feature now works using Chrome on both desktop and mobile running Windows 11, macOS, and Android. Google also lets you sync passkeys from Android to other devices through either the company’s own password manager or a third-party one that supports it, like 1Password or Dashlane.

This QR codes generated when trying to log in to the site. It can link with your mobile device and use the passkey on it.

Alternatively, you can use a USB security key to log in if you’d prefer.

A passkey is a unique identity...

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Eight artists will journey around the Moon on a future SpaceX flight

Maezawa with the dearMoon crew and two alternates. | Image: Yusaku Maezawa

On Thursday, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa announced the selection of an eight-person crew who will join him on a SpaceX mission around the Moon. Maezawa’s dearMoon mission aims to be the first private mission around the Moon, carrying artists and creatives on a SpaceX Starship.

The crew consists of eight artists from a range of disciplines — it includes an EDM DJ, two photographers, a documentary filmmaker, and a YouTuber, along with other creative professionals.

“I hope each and every one will recognize the responsibility that comes with leaving the Earth, traveling to the moon and back,” Maezawa said in a video about the announcement, which is translated from Japanese. “They will gain a lot from this experience, and I hope they...

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Chevy accidentally leaked the hybrid Corvette on its site

A prototype Corvette shown off earlier this year. | Image: Chevy

Chevy has accidentally leaked a few details about its upcoming electrified Corvette, with a virtual model of the sports car appearing via the company’s online virtualizer, according to Corvette Blogger. This has revealed some new details about the car, known as the 2024 Corvette E-Ray, such as what colors it’ll come in and what packages will be available, as well as hints about exactly how it’ll make use of electric motors.

When Chevy announced that it was making an electrified Corvette earlier this year, it wasn’t clear whether it’d be a plug-in hybrid or just a regular hybrid, which would rely solely on regenerative breaking to fill its batteries. The model in the visualizer (which you can see some pictures of below — it’s since been...

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JetBlue no longer plans to offset emissions from domestic flights

A JetBlue plane takes off at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in San Francisco, California, United States, on September 15th, 2022. | Photo by Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

JetBlue is giving up carbon offsets for its domestic flights, shifting its focus instead to sustainable aviation fuels. It’s a step that could help the airline actually reduce its emissions rather than relying primarily on controversial carbon offsets to counteract its fossil fuel use.

Back in 2020, JetBlue became the first US airline to voluntarily offset greenhouse gas emissions from all of its domestic flights. That effort ends in 2023, the company announced this week.

The airline now plans to effectively cut its per-seat emissions in half by 2035. For flights to take off without generating as much pollution, JetBlue says its planes will need to run on sustainable aviation fuels [SAF].

“JetBlue views SAF as the most promising avenue...

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PlayStation VR2 preorders are now available without an invitation

The PSVR2 headset. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

PlayStation VR2 preorders currently appear to be open to everyone with a PlayStation account, no special invitation required. When preorders first opened last month, you had to register ahead of time and then be selected by Sony to be able to put an order in for the PSVR2. But as of this writing, you can preorder Sony’s next-generation VR headset from the PlayStation Direct website and get it within a week of its February launch.

I actually discovered this on accident Thursday night. I had registered for the preorder but, to my disappointment, never got an email. I figured it was a sign from the universe that I’d just have to get the headset at another time next year.

But while I happened to be browsing PlayStation Direct, I noticed I...

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Garmin Venu Sq 2 review: an excellent Fitbit alternative

Garmin’s getting the hang of what casual users like in a fitness watch. Now if it would only declutter its app.

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Jump into Portal on PC and Steam Deck for just $1

Portal will look the best it ever has with an RTX 40-series GPU, but you definitely don’t need one to play the game. | Image: Nvidia and Valve

A deal on a single PC game doesn’t usually rise to the top of our daily pickings of discounts, but it did today. Valve’s mind-bending and often hilarious puzzle game Portal costs a single dollar at Steam. This price cut is timed with Nvidia’s release of a big graphical overhaul of the game that adds optional ray tracing and DLSS 3 AI upscaling that’s best experienced with its pricey RTX 40-series GPUs. Thankfully, you don’t need one of those to play the game — far from it. It originally released in 2007 as part of Valve’s The Orange Box collection, and it’s compatible with Windows PCs, macOS, and the Steam Deck. Even the Portal Companion Collection containing Portal and Portal 2 for the Nintendo Switch is on sale, costing $13.39 ($6.70...

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Lexus could save the stick shift for EVs, if drivers are willing to pretend

Image: Ferrari

The manual transmission, once a staple of base trim economy cars and high-end sports cars alike, has been in decline for years now. But for a small and shrinking group of drivers, the answer to that is “from my cold, dead hands.”

So manual gearbox purists will be delighted to know that a highly unusual suspect, Lexus, is apparently working on a “virtual” manual to find out if the stick shift can survive the electric revolution. But is it too little, too late for the stick?

Is it too little, too late for the stick?

British car enthusiast publication Evo reported this week that Lexus, which now leads Toyota’s high-performance EV efforts, is developing a kind of shifting system that mimics the feel of a clutch and a stick shift in an...

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Fortnite got a huge face-lift in chapter 4

Fortnite. | Image: Epic Games

Fortnite: Chapter 4 introduced a new island to the long-running battle royale game, but the most important change might actually be under the hood. As part of the update, the game moved to Unreal Engine 5.1, which might not sound like a big deal, but it means that Fortnite is now taking advantage of some of the lofty visual features Epic has been talking about since UE5 debuted (so long as you’re playing on a PS5, Xbox Series X / S, or high-end PC, that is). It’s a lot of fancy words, but the gist is that this five-year-old game is now one of the best showcases for next-gen hardware.

As part of the upgrade, Fortnite now supports Unreal tools like Nanite (more detailed geometry), Lumen (better lighting and reflections), and Virtual Shadow...

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When drivers are attacked, Uber leaves police waiting for help

Ricardo Tomás / The Verge

An investigation from The Markup found that Uber is slow to respond to law enforcement requests, leaving drivers vulnerable to repeated attacks.

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