Discord leans on linked accounts to verify who you are and what you can access

A list of Linked Roles on a server, along with icons for the connections they’ll require. | Image: Discord

Discord is making the accounts you have linked to your profile a key part of the chatting experience. It’s introducing a system called Linked Roles, where admins and moderators can grant people access to certain channels and even entire servers based on which third-party apps and websites those people have connected to their Discord account.

In an extremely detailed blog post on Monday, the company says the feature, which will be rolling out over the next few weeks, will support connecting accounts from sites like Steam, Twitter, Reddit, DeviantArt, and more (there are “over twenty official Connections,” according to Discord’s blog post). Server administrators will then be able to set up certain filters based on those connections — for...

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Comcast’s symmetrical multi-gigabit internet test is a preview of next year’s ‘10G’ rollout

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Comcast announced in a press release it successfully tested a symmetrical multi-gigabit DOCSIS 4.0 connection on its live network, taking a major step toward “offering 10G-enabled services” in the second half of 2023.

In Philadelphia, where Comcast is headquartered, it connected service at an undisclosed business location using multiple cable modems and a DOCSIS 4.0-enabled 10G node. If you’re wondering what 10G means, the answer is — more than 5G. As we noted in 2019, the cable industry rolled out its marketing term just in time to have something that’s twice as many Gs as 5G wireless.

DOCSIS 4.0 tech should enable download speeds of up to 10Gbps with 6Gbps uploads, and Comcast said a lab test in January achieved more than 4Gbps speed...

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Twitter Blue is back, letting you buy a blue checkmark again

Would you pay for Twitter? | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Elon Musk’s $8-per-month Twitter Blue subscription with verification is officially available, and you’ll need a verified phone number to sign up.

In a thread on Twitter, the platform notes that Blue will cost $11 per month if you sign up on iOS and will grant you access to the ability to edit tweets, upload 1080p videos, reader mode, and, of course, the coveted blue checkmark. If you paid for the old $4.99 / $2.99 Blue package, then you’ll need to subscribe again to keep its benefits, while anyone who signed up on Apple at the old $7.99 per month price will be automatically renewed at $11 per month unless they cancel.

we’re baaaack! Twitter Blue is now available for $8/month on web or $11/month on iOS – we’ve made some upgrades and...

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Here’s where you can buy a PS5

Getting a PlayStation 5 no longer has to be an uphill battle. Thanks to the increased availability of Sony’s next-gen console, there are multiple options for bringing home a PS5. While availability is sometimes limited to bundles that come packaged with a game, this is still a great opportunity to bring home a console relatively stress-free. We’re keeping a lookout across the web to find where, when, and how you can buy either the PS5 (with a disc drive) or the PS5 Digital Edition, as well as any bundles that are not price surged.

Demand for this console is still high, with no guarantees that inventory will remain available for long. Nevertheless, we’ll do our best to keep this article updated with the latest in-stock alerts and tell...

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Only a quarter of US iPhones are sold through Apple

September is now an unofficial free iPhone bonanza. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

A new report from CIRP says that only about 24 percent of recent iPhones purchased in the US were sold directly by Apple. Instead, the most popular way to buy a new iPhone was through a wireless carrier, which accounted for 67 percent of sales. That’s certainly a perception shift from the time of lines around the block at the Apple store on launch day, but it’s not at all surprising given how aggressively AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile now promote iPhone giveaways every fall.

CIRP (Consumer Intelligence Research Partners) surveys iPhone buyers to find out which models they’re buying and where they’re shopping — information Apple doesn’t disclose. Outside of carriers and Apple retail, CIRP attributes 4 percent of iPhone sales to Best Buy...

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The best deals under $25 that make great gifts

Skullcandy’s Jib True may not be the best wireless earbuds you can buy, but they’re hard to beat as a stocking stuffer. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Once December gets going, it starts to feel like time quickly accelerates, and before you know it, your remaining holiday gift shopping starts bumping up against shipping deadlines. But if you’re in need of some simple and easy gift recommendations that don’t cost too many pennies, you’re in luck. In addition to our extensive collection of holiday gift guides, we’re also keeping a watchful eye out for great gifts that are currently on sale.

So to help you “win” this year’s holiday gift exchange, we’ve hand-picked a collection of gadgets and tech-adjacent deals under $25 that may make a great present for all types of people in your life. Some of these discounts may even make it seem like you spent more than you actually did, but we’ll...

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Dril is selling the archives of his legendary tweets

I wonder how many hours of entertainment I’ve gotten from Content forged on this Throne. | Image: dril

Dril, the account behind a frankly unbelievable number of viral tweets, is packaging his magnificent archive into a book and selling it for those of us who want to show off just how Online we are. According to Amazon, the Dril Archives paperback is around 240 pages and contains “10,000 of His finest Posts.”

Like Taylor Swift, Dril is selling several “Flavors” of the archive — the “refined” edition lays out his posts in alphabetical order, “beloved” ranks them by the number of favorites they got, “eternal” sorts them in chronological order, and “chaotic,” obviously, is completely random. While many of us here at The Verge are big fans of the reverse chronological timeline (and it would be very interesting to see the evolution of the Dril...

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Strange World is coming to Disney Plus just a month after its theatrical release

Ethan, Meridian, and Searcher Clade in a spaceship. | Image: Disney

Though Disney’s Strange Worldanimated feature from director Don Hall only hit theaters on Thanksgiving, the studio’s already getting ready to debut the movie on Disney Plus for reasons that might have something to do with its terrible box office returns.

Today, Disney announced that Strange World — a sci-fi action adventure about a family of explorers journeying beneath the surface of their planet — will be coming to Disney Plus this December, just weeks after its theatrical release and subsequent bombing at the box office. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jaboukie Young-White, Gabrielle Union, and Lucy Liu, Strange World tells the story of how multiple generations of the legendary Clade family are pushed to settle their differences as they...

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Lyft drivers who use EVs will get a $150 bonus if they complete 50 trips a week

Lyft drivers can get cash for driving an EV.

Lyft, which has said it wants “100 percent” of the vehicles operating on its platform to be electric by 2030, is offering a new slate of incentives to drivers to get them to ditch their polluting, gas-powered vehicles for ones with zero tailpipe emissions.

Starting today, Lyft drivers who use an EV are eligible to receive a bonus of $150 if they complete 50 trips in a week — which translates to an extra $3 per trip. Drivers will need to register their EVs on Lyft’s app before the end of 2023 in order to qualify for the bonus. And they can keep raking in $150 per week until they hit the bonus maximum of $8,100.

Lyft also wants to turn the experience of charging an EV into an incentive. The company said that drivers who link their Lyft...

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Rivian and Mercedes-Benz electric van partnership is on hold indefinitely

Image: Mercedes-Benz / Rivian

Rivian and Mercedes-Benz halted plans to co-develop multiple new electric delivery vans based on both companies’ commercial EV platforms. Rivian put the agreement on pause reportedly because it was concerned about spending a lot of money on an expensive new vehicle development project amid a slowing economy.

“At this point in time, we believe focusing on our consumer business, as well as our existing commercial business, represent the most attractive near-term opportunities to maximize value,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe stated in a press release. Both Mercedes-Benz and Rivian had signed a memorandum of understanding in September for a joint venture to build large commercial electric vans.

The companies were going to build the vehicles...

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Livestreaming has gotten big, but is it business?

Illustration by Jarett Sitter / The Verge

It’s here: the final episode of The Vergecast’s three-part Creator Economies series. We’ve explored emerging elements of the business of being a creator. We dug deep into creator funds and how giant pools of platform money change the way those platforms operate. We dove headlong into the animated creators of the future. We also look into livestreaming and why everything from shopping to sleeping is suddenly big livestream business.

This week, The Verge’s David Pierce is joined by producer Hadley Robinson to explore that wild world of livestreaming. From the early days of webcams, livestreaming was popular with people who spent all their time online, but it never seemed to catch mainstream audiences. Now, at any given moment, you can find...

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How Did This Get Made? renews deal with SiriusXM

SiriusXM

The hit comedy podcast How Did This Get Made? is sticking with Earwolf. Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas, who host the show about terrible movies, have signed a multiyear deal to remain with the SiriusXM-owned podcast studio. SiriusXM spokesperson Ron Gaskill said the deal will keep most of the show’s archive behind Stitcher Premium’s paywall.

The critically beloved show, which dives into the world of terrible / amazing movies like Cats and Moonfall, has been under the Earwolf umbrella since it launched in 2010. “Twelve years ago, Earwolf believed in us before anyone even knew what a podcast was, and so we are thrilled to continue our relationship with them,” the hosts said in a joint statement. The deal also...

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Bring back the Surface Book

Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

Yes, it was too expensive. Yes, it looked dated and clunky. Yes, there were weird things going on with the hinge. But the world needed it. Please, Microsoft, bring back the Surface Book.

I’ve been using a Surface Book 2 as my primary personal laptop since 2018. When I was shopping for a computer back then, I had a particular constellation of needs that I was finding it very difficult to fill. I wanted a convertible device to watch TV and read piano music. (You laugh, but balancing a full-sized laptop atop an electric piano is a task I would not advise anyone here to attempt. Ask me how I know.) I wanted something that wasn’t too heavy because I am whatever the opposite of buff is. I also wanted to play games — not daily, but every so...

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The Witcher 3’s next-gen update makes a beautiful game much smoother

The Witcher 3 running on the PS5. | Image: CD Projekt Red

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has always been a beautiful game. One of my favorite things to do when I played for the first time in 2015 was just wander around on horseback soaking in the incredible atmosphere, from the crumbling ancient ruins to the bustling towns. Seven years later and I found myself awed once again while playing it on the PlayStation 5.

A free next-gen patch for The Witcher 3 launches on December 14th, giving the aging open-world a boost if you’re playing on a PS5, Xbox Series X/S, or high-end PC. I’ve managed to play through the first few hours of the new version — for those who’ve already played, I’m right in the thick of the haunting “Bloody Baron” quest — and while it’s still fundamentally the same game, some of the...

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Apple’s latest AirPods Pro are back down to $199

The second-gen AirPods Pro look just like the originals, but there are improvements within. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

The second-generation AirPods Pro earbuds have returned to their lowest price, first seen during Black Friday and Cyber Monday. You can get the latest top-tier wireless earbuds from Apple on sale for $199.99 at Verizon (normally $249.99). That $50 savings is as good as it gets on these earbuds, which significantly improve on the noise cancellation of the previous model and now support a handy new volume control — allowing you to slide your finger on the stem to easily increase or decrease the volume.

The pricier Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II may have better noise cancellation prowess, but those $300 earbuds are much pricier than this sale price on the second-gen AirPods Pro. Plus, if you use Apple devices, you get a much tighter software...

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A ‘scientific breakthrough’ in nuclear fusion? How to watch the announcement tomorrow

The high-powered Nova Laser before it creates nuclear fusion inside its target chamber at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 1986. | Photo by Roger Ressmeyer/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images

A “scientific breakthrough” in the development of fusion energy is expected tomorrow from the Biden administration. Formore than half a century,people have poured billions of dollars into nuclear fusion research, hoping to create a source of abundant, clean energy.

The rough idea is this: if we develop technology that can replicatethe way the sun generates energy in a controlled way, we could power the world with energy that’s free of greenhouse gas emissions and long-lived radioactive waste. But scientists have been unable to trigger a fusion reaction that results in a net energy gain. Turns out, it takes a lot of heat energy to force atomic nuclei to “fuse” together.

People have poured billions of dollars into nuclear fusion...

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MrBeast is joining Fortnite with his own skins and a $1 million challenge

MrBeast in Fortnite_._ | Image: Epic Games

MrBeast, who recently became the most-subscribed-to creator on YouTube, is the next person to join Fortnite’s Icon Series. The creator made a brief appearance in a trailer for Fortnite’s newest season, and Epic Games is now confirming that not only will MrBeast be getting his own Fortnite skins, but also a MrBeast-themed in-game competition with a $1 million prize.

If you’ve watched any of MrBeast’s outrageous challenges on his YouTube channel (recent examples: “Last To Take Hand Off Jet, Keeps It!” or “Survive 100 Days In Circle, Win $500,000”), then you might not be surprised that the in-game event is called an “extreme survival challenge.” Players will have to try and get the highest score they can on a custom-built island and the...

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Seeing other people’s AI art is like hearing other people’s dreams

A DALL-E depiction of “a dream that is fun to experience but boring to tell other people about.” | Image: DALL-E

If you’ve been on Twitter (or Discord or plenty of other places) this month and your feed is anything like mine, it’s currently full of weird machine-generated text and art. The launch of ChatGPT, Lensa, and other tools has made a once difficult-to-access tool ubiquitous, and the result is an explosion of people posting their interactions with artificial intelligence.

I love these tools, and I’ve been playing with them for a while now — at least since the release of AI Dungeon 2 in 2019. But over the years, I’ve realized there’s a huge gap between the way I experience work I generate and work created by someone else. The closest way I can describe it is this: seeing somebody else’s AI art is like hearing the plot of someone else’s dream....

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Meta shuts down its Connectivity division after nearly a decade

Nick Barclay / The Verge

Meta’s shuttering its Connectivity arm almost 10 years after launching the initiative, according to a report from Light Reading. The company confirmed to both Light Reading and Fierce Wireless that it will instead split the division across its Infrastructure and Central Products teams.

Meta Connectivity (formerly Facebook Connectivity) launched in 2013 with the goal of getting more people online so they could use the company’s social networks. Through the initiative, the company developed and then shut down a project that involved autonomous, high-flying drones beaming the internet to underserved parts of the world. It also worked on creating a Starlink-like internet system using low Earth orbit satellites, but the staff developing it w...

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Elon Musk booed at Dave Chappelle show, claims it was only like ‘10 percent boos’

Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Elon Musk took a brief break from running multiple companies mired in drama to create a little more drama by appearing onstage with Dave Chappelle during his show Sunday night at the Chase Center in San Francisco.

During Chappelle’s set, the controversial comedian introduced the controversial billionaire, who came onstage to confused applause and booing. Musk proceeded to bomb harder than the time he appeared on SNL.

Videos of his appearance immediately appeared on Twitter. One video, filmed by Twitter user CleoPat48937885, contains the majority of Musk’s appearance and quickly went viral. That Twitter account has since disappeared, with some Twitter users accusing Twitter and Musk of censorship. We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment.

...

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Dough’s next gaming monitor is a 27-inch OLED

Image: Dough

Knead a high-refresh-rate gaming monitor with the deep colors and incredible response time of OLED? Dough is rising to the occasion. Today, it’s announcing the Dough Spectrum OLED, a 27-inch screen that attempts to beat LG at its very own game.

You see, today — December 12th — is the day that LG is opening preorders for its new $999 LG UltraGear 27GR95QE-B, a 27-inch OLED monitor at 240Hz and 2560 x 1440 resolution shipping this January. But Dough is promising to put the very same LG panel into a glossy monitor with more desirable features — as long as you’re willing to wait until July and trust a company with a spotty track record.

Where LG’s monitor only offers a pair of unspecified HDMI ports, a DisplayPort, and a two-port USB 3.0...

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How to watch the FTX collapse hearings in Congress this week

Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images

Nearly a month after FTX’s public implosion, founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is expected to testify before Congress about his company’s bankruptcy this week.

Bankman-Fried is set to testify on Tuesday before the House Financial Services Committee alongside FTX’s current chief executive John J. Ray III. It will be the first of two congressional hearings investigating the collapse this week.

1. I still do not have access to much of my data -- professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won't be as helpful as I'd like.

But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th. https://t.co/KR34BsNaG1

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 9, 2022

Where can I watch the...

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Matter finally arrives on devices you can actually use

The Eve Motion sensor is one of the first smart home devices that will work with Matter. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Christmas has come a little early for the smart home: the first Matter-compatible devices are finally here. Starting today, December 12th, Eve Systems is beginning the roll-out of a firmware update to its Thread-enabled Eve Energy smart plug, Eve Door & Window contact sensor, and Eve Motion motion sensor to upgrade them to Matter.

Matter is a new smart home standard that will allow devices such as smart plugs, light bulbs, and door locks to work with any platform you choose. Up until now, Eve’s devices have only been compatible with Apple Home. With this update, they’ll work with the Samsung SmartThings ecosystem, as well as Google Home and Amazon Alexa (once those platforms roll out their Matter updates).

While Matter officially...

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AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT / XTX review: 4K performance for less

AMD’s top RDNA 3 GPU manages to beat the RTX 4080 in many games at a $200 lower price. But ray-tracing performance is far behind Nvidia.

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Xiaomi makes the jump to Qualcomm’s new flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor

The Xiaomi 13 Pro features three 50 megapixel cameras. | Image: Xiaomi

Vivo may have been the first manufacturer to announce new smartphones with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor, but Xiaomi isn’t far behind with the Xiaomi 13 and 13 Pro. Both include Qualcomm’s new flagship processor, but only the 13 Pro gets top features like a large 1-inch-type camera sensor and support for 120W wired charging.

Among the more functional differences between the two phones are their cameras. The Xiaomi 13 Pro features a total of three 50-megapixel rear cameras. The main camera uses the same 1-inch-type Sony IMX989 sensor found in the Xiaomi 12S Ultra, and its joined by a 50-megapixel telephoto, and a 50-megapixel ultrawide with support for macro photographs taken from as little as 5cm away. Meanwhile, the...

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Xbox boss: Sony wants to ‘grow by making Xbox smaller’

Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge.

Xbox chief and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer says Sony’s opposition to the Activision Blizzard deal comes down to the PlayStation maker wanting “to protect its dominance” in consoles. “The way they grow is by making Xbox smaller,” said Spencer in a recent Second Request podcast (Via Eurogamer).

Sony has been opposed to Microsoft’s $68.7 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard, and has focused on the future of Call of Dutyin filings with regulators. “Sony is leading the dialogue around why the deal shouldn’t go through to protect its dominant position on console, so the thing they grab onto is Call of Duty,” says Spencer. “The largest console maker in the world raising an objection about the one franchise that we’ve said will...

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WhatsApp’s ‘View Once’ feature might expand to include text messages

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

WhatsApp’s “View Once” feature, which currently lets you send photos and videos that disappear after the recipient has viewed them, may soon also support standard text-based messages. WABetaInfo reports that it found evidence of the in-development feature in the latest beta version of WhatsApp’s Android app, which might one day let users send messages that are only viewable once before disappearing into the ether.

Much like the current “View Once” feature, the new functionality could one day be useful for sending sensitive information that you don’t want a recipient to have ongoing access to, like a password or credit card details. In fact, when WhatsApp announced the launch of View Once for photos and videos, it used the example of...

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Monday’s top tech news: (Twitter) Blue Monday

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Photo: Getty Images

Plus, Orion splashes back down to earth and Returnal’s PC RAM requirements are surprisingly high.

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The Witcher: Blood Origin isn’t witcher-y enough to stand out

Michelle Yeoh in The Witcher: Blood Origin. | Image: Netflix

Without Geralt (or another memorable lead), the series doesn’t do enough to feel different from all the other sprawling fantasy adventures.

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Returnal is coming to PC, but you’ll need 32GB of RAM to play comfortably

Returnal demands more RAM than even Microsoft Flight Simulator. | Image: Sony

Sony’s Returnal is the latest PlayStation exclusive to make the jump to PC, but it comes with a hefty RAM recommendation (via WccfTech). While you’ll need a minimum of 16GB of RAM in your rig just to get it in a playable state, Returnal’s Steam listing recommends at least 32GB to get the most out of its gameplay and graphics.

To get an idea of how unusual this is, not even Microsoft Flight Simulator recommends this amount of RAM; it has a minimum requirement of 8GB of RAM and recommends 16GB. Meanwhile, other graphically-demanding PC games, like Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, Dying Light 2, and A Plague Tale: Requiem, don’t suggest more than 16GB of RAM.

Returnal is a third-person roguelike shooter that features undeniably...

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