Successes of 2022: Android smartwatches are finally becoming interesting

Micha Huigen / The Verge

I used to sigh when reviewing Android smartwatches.

I desperately wanted Android users to have a smartwatch that could go toe-to-toe with the Apple Watch, but it wasn’t happening. There was always something. Dismal battery life, a laggy OS, outdated or inaccurate health features, and more tumbleweeds than third-party apps — sometimes all of the above. You never want to be an overly cynical reviewer, but I was losing hope.

However, that wasn’t the case in 2022. Unlike every other year, Wear OS watches were the reviews I looked forward to most.

There were a ton of reasons to be excited. After years of speculation, the Pixel Watch is no longer a mythical gadget whispered about in rumor blogs. It’s a real smartwatch that you can currently...

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The OnePlus 11 is confirmed for a February 7th launch

The OnePlus 11 5G and OnePlus Buds Pro 2 will debut in New Delhi come early February. | Image: OnePlus

Got your 2023 planner in hand? Good, because OnePlus wants you to save the date for its global flagship phone launch on February 7th. Dubbed Cloud 11, the event will take place in New Delhi and will debut the OnePlus 11 5G and OnePlus Buds Pro 2.

A teaser image accompanying Monday’s news lines up with previously leaked renders, showing a redesigned camera bump. Separately, company spokesperson Spenser Blank confirmed that a Hasselblad-branded camera system and the much-beloved alert slider will return on the OnePlus 11 — both features omitted from the OnePlus 10T.

Per usual, there’s not much in the way of concrete details at this point. A tagline for the event teaser reads “Witness the Shape of Power,” which probably has something to...

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Fails of 2022: the Nintendo Switch really showed its age

Micha Huigen / The Verge

The Nintendo Switch’s lousy performance is as enduring as the console itself. Grainy, stuttery graphics are synonymous with playing games on the 2017 system, which hasn’t gotten a spec upgrade to boost how games look and run. And in the five-plus years since the Switch was released, remarking on disappointing visuals has been a fixture in our reviews of the console’s best games.

The Switch’s hardware is pulling in the opposite direction of Nintendo’s modern software, which is bigger, better, and more ambitious in scope than ever before. And yet, its strategy of supporting a low-powered device that gets slowly updated is no different for the Switch than it was for Nintendo’s previous consoles. This long-tail strategy has been successful...

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The $11,500 toilet with Alexa inside can now be put inside your home

You won’t need a nightlight in the bathroom with this toilet. | Image: Kohler

Have you ever sat on the toilet, pondering your day, using your phone even though that’s kind of gross to do on the john, avoiding everyone in the house, and thought, “I wish Alexa was in here with me?” That is, what I assume, the designers of the Kohler Numi 2.0 Smart Toilet were thinking when they made this $11,500 toilet that has Alexa inside.

Kohler first showed off the Numi 2.0 at CES way back in 2019, and not a whole lot has changed from that initial announcement. It still has Alexa built-in, and it still has lots of LED lights and speakers, so any guests who come over will know you appreciate the techier things in life. There doesn’t appear to be a warning built into the toilet telling users Alexa is listening to their bowel...

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Google will soon translate your doctor’s terrible handwriting

Google is working with pharmacists to create a tool that can decipher the handwriting of doctors, detecting medications mentioned in otherwise hard-to-read prescriptions. | Image: Google

Google is developing an AI model that can decipher difficult-to-read handwriting, with a focus on notes and prescriptions written by doctors. The search giant announced during its annual conference in India on Monday that it was working with pharmacists to create a tool in Google Lens that can decode messily written medical notes (via TechCrunch).

Google showcased the feature during the event, demonstrating its capability to specifically detect medicines in a handwritten prescription. There’s no detail yet on when the new text deciphering feature is expected to launch, only that “much work still remains to be done before this system is ready for the real world.”

Google Lens is an AI-powered multipurpose object recognition tool that can...

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Nvidia ends support for its GameStream feature on Shield devices

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Nvidia is planning to remove GameStream, a feature for streaming PC games, from its Shield TVs and tablets. GameStream has been a feature of Nvidia Shield devices ever since they were portable, allowing Shield owners to stream games to their TV from a PC at up to 60fps in 4K resolution.

Shield owners will be disappointed to hear that Nvidia isn’t just discontinuing its GameStream feature, but it’s actually going to remove it from devices. An update due in mid-February will totally remove the GameStream feature, in a bizarre move after nearly 10 years.

Nvidia recommends Steam Link instead

Nvidia is recommending that Shield users switch to Steam Link, which is a similar way of streaming PC games to a Shield device. You’ll need the Steam...

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Microsoft Teams Premium is now available as a free 30-day trial

Meeting organizers can apply a sensitivity label to meeting invites from Outlook or Teams to set meeting protection defaults, such as preventing chat and setting encryption for meeting video and audio. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft Teams Premium is now available for public preview, enabling users to test AI-powered smart features such as live translations, custom meeting branding, and advanced meeting protections.

Microsoft Teams Premium is an add-on for the Microsoft Teams conferencing service that introduces a host of new features that make meetings on the platform “more personalized, intelligent, and secure,” according to a new Microsoft blog post. The preview is available as a 30-day free trial via the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

Features available to try out include live translation of 40 languages into captions, custom meeting templates, and advanced webinar experiences (which includes registration of up to one thousand attendees, interactivity...

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Elon Musk proposes stepping down as head of Twitter in poll

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Elon Musk may be close to ending his run as Twitter CEO.

After haphazardly establishing a ban on links out that put his site at odds with both The Washington Post’s Taylor Lorenz and his own supporters, like Silicon Valley venture capitalist Paul Graham, Elon Musk’s doxxing, banning, and moderation outburst ended — predictably — with an apology and a promise it “won’t happen again.”

All Musk needs from his captive audience is a little more attention, with a promise that there will be votes about “major policy changes” in the future.

The first change put to a vote? Musk’s role as Chief Twit.

Should I step down as head of Twitter? I will abide by the results of this poll.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 18, 2022

His $44 billion...

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Riot Games says Sam Bankman-Fried’s love of League of Legends hurts the brand

Illustration: The Verge; Image: Getty Images

League of Legends developer Riot Games says Sam Bankman-Fried’s affiliation with the game is hurting the company’s image (via Molly White). In a filing in FTX’s bankruptcy case, Riot Games asks the court to terminate its League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) sponsorship deal with the collapsed crypto exchange, citing irreversible “reputational harm.”

Bankman-Fried’s love for gaming entered the spotlight following the fall of FTX, and he became notorious for playing League of Legends (and other games) during meetings. In a now-deleted profile of Bankman-Fried posted by venture capital firm Sequoia, co-founder Neeraj Arora says he was even playing League of Legends during their first meeting over Zoom.

8. On League of Legends:

I...

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Twitter abruptly bans all links to Instagram, Mastodon, and other competitors

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter will no longer allow users to promote their presence on certain social platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tribel, Nostr, and Post. In a post outlining these changes, Twitter says it will take action against accounts that violate this policy “at both the Tweet level and the account level.”

This means users can no longer include a link to their profiles on other social networks in their Twitter bio, nor can they link to their posts on banned platforms unless it’s a cross-post. Twitter also says it may suspend accounts “used for the main purpose of promoting content on another social platform” and will no longer allow users to link to third-party link aggregators, like Linktree or Lnk.bio. Twitter is...

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Apple’s reportedly working on several monitors — including an updated Pro Display XDR

The 2019 Pro Display XDR alongside the Mac Pro. | Photo by Avery White for The Verge

Apple’s working on “multiple new” external monitors outfitted with the company’s in-house silicon, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. This lineup’s expected to include an updated version of the Pro Display XDR, which was last released in 2019.

Gurman says the addition of Apple’s own chips should help the displays “rely less on resources from the attached computer.” Apple similarly incorporated the iPhone 11’s A13 Bionic chip into the Studio Display it launched back in March, allowing the monitor to support certain features like Center Stage, spatial audio, and “Hey Siri” voice commands.

Besides the rumored Pro Display XDR, it’s still not entirely clear what other kinds of monitors Apple has planned. Supply chain analyst...

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Ford’s electric F-150 Lightning is getting more expensive, again

Ford’s raising the price of its F-150 Lightning pickup yet again — this time, by about $4,000 (via CNBC). The increase affects both the entry-level Pro model for business customers and the consumer-focused XLT trim with no added options, which now start at $55,974 and $63,474, respectively.

For comparison, the Pro work truck initially started at $39,974 when it launched back in April, but subsequent price hikes brought the price up to $46,974 in August and $51,974 in October. The base XLT, on the other hand, launched with a sticker price of $52,974 before that increased to $59,474 several months later.

Screenshot: Emma Roth / The Verge

The price increase only affects the Pro and XLT models.

“Pricing adjustments...

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YouTube bans Pornhub’s channel over ‘multiple’ rule violations

Pornhub’s channel had nearly 900,000 subscribers before YouTube removed it. | Photo by Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images

YouTube has removed Pornhub’s channel over “multiple” community guideline violations, as first reported by Variety. According to Google, Pornhub’s account violated YouTube’s external link policy, which prohibits users from linking to content that’s not allowed on the platform, such as pornography.

“Upon review, we terminated the channel Pornhub Official following multiple violations of our Community Guidelines,” YouTube spokesperson Jack Malon tells The Verge. “We enforce our policies equally for everyone, and channels that repeatedly violate or are dedicated to violative content are terminated.”

Pornhub’s YouTube channel, which had nearly 900,000 subscribers before it was taken down, posted safe-for-work content promoting the site and...

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Apple reportedly backs out of NFL Sunday Ticket negotiations

Apple’s exit leaves Amazon and Google as potential Sunday Ticket candidates. | Photo by Christopher Mast/Getty Images

Apple has exited talks to secure the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket, according to a report from Puck’s Dylan Byers (via 9to5Mac). Sources tell Byers that Apple backed out of the deal because it doesn’t “see the logic,” not because it can’t afford the NFL’s rumored $3.5 billion asking price.

The Athletic’s Daniel Kaplan backs up Byers’ reporting, saying on Twitter that he’s told, “Apple has indeed bowed out.” While Apple was once considered the front-runner in Sunday Ticket negotiations, talks between the iPhone maker and the NFL dragged on over the past several months, with a November report from The Athletic indicating that Apple’s expectations didn’t align with that of the NFL.

Had source confirm for me Apple indeed has bowed out h...

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Fossil Gen 6 Wellness Edition review: history repeats itself

Fossil makes the best of a messy Wear OS 3 transition, but it’s hard to shine when you keep getting dealt a bad hand.

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Logitech’s Streamcam is on sale for its lowest price to date

Logitech’s Streamcam, one of our favorite webcams, is down to just $99.99. | Image: Logitech

Tis the weekend before Christmas, and if you’re now starting to panic because you’ve yet to decide what you want to gift, we’ve got your back. True, the clock is ticking, but you still have a few days left to order and receive a gift on time. What’s more, we’re currently seeing some great deals on popular presents for all budgets, so you can save, too.

If your giftee is a content creator who produces videos, or just want to look good on video calls, Logitech’s Streamcam is currently on sale for $99.99 ($70 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, which is a new all-time low. It’s one of the best webcams available thanks to its sharp picture quality and a slew of extra features, making it a great choice for those who need a high-quality webcam.

The...

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The best phone grips and stands for people who hate phone cases

Bumper frames, stands, and grips abound for the case averse among us.

Grips, wallets, skins — and even a few cases — for people who can’t stand putting a case on their phone.

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Elon Musk re-enabled Twitter accounts for several journalists banned over @ElonJet

Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

Elon Musk has started to lift the suspensions of some journalists on Twitter after re-running a poll asking if he should “Unsuspend accounts who doxxed my exact location in real-time.” (The journalists did not reveal his real-time location.) Out of the two poll options, “now” won with 58.7 percent of the responses, beating “in 7 days.” There were almost 3.7 million responses to the poll.

Journalists from a variety of outlets, including The New York Times, CNN, NBC, The Intercept, and more, had their accounts suspended on Thursday, most of them after tweeting about @ElonJet, a Twitter account that tracked the SpaceX-owned private jet Elon Musk uses, based on publicly available FAA flight tracking data. The ElonJet account was suspended...

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John Carmack is leaving Meta

John Carmack onstage. | GABRIELLE LURIE/AFP via Getty Images

John Carmack, a titan of the technology industry known for his work on virtual reality as well as classic games like Doom and Quake, is stepping down from his role as a consulting CTO at Meta, according to Business Insider and The New York Times.

Carmack originally joined Oculus as CTO in 2013, after helping to promote the original Oculus Rift prototypes that he received from Palmer Luckey, and got pulled into Meta when the company (then Facebook) acquired Oculus in 2014. However, in 2019, he took a reduced role at the company, stepping down as the CTO of Oculus to move into a new consulting CTO role.

At the time, he said he was going to go work on artificial general intelligence — and this August, we learned that work would not be for...

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The Verge’s 2022 holiday gift guide for travelers

Photography by Joel Goldberg for The Verge

Taking a trip can prove challenging, even without a pandemic. Thankfully, we’ve found some great gifts to make jet-setting a little more enjoyable.

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Tesla’s new virtual power plant lets Texans sell electricity back to the grid

This home with a Tesla Solar Roof and Powerwall could be an ideal candidate for the new Tesla Energy service. | Image: Tesla

Tesla launched a new power utility provider service in Texas this week that lets select locals with home Powerwall backup batteries sell excess energy back to the grid. To qualify, residents must live in areas that allow for retail choice — Tesla’s site mentions the Dallas and Houston metro areas specifically — and, for now, will need to wait for an invitation to join through the Tesla app.

Those who join the new Tesla Electric service will become part of an automated system that sells energy from owners’ Powerwalls to the grid and vice-versa when most viable. And when pulling from the grid, Tesla provides offsets from renewable energy sources.

Image: Tesla

The Tesla app with the new Electric service.

This...

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Google is letting businesses try out client-side encryption for Gmail

The extra privacy does come at the cost of a few features. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google has launched a beta of its client-side encryption for Gmail, letting businesses apply to test out the feature meant to make “sensitive data” and attachments unreadable even to Google. The company announced the beta, which Workspace administrators can sign up for until January 20th, in a blog post on Friday.

Once the feature is enabled and set up for a workspace’s users, they’ll have an additional option when using the web version of Gmail. Clicking on a padlock will let them choose to turn on additional encryption for the message, though they will have to give up some features to do so, including the ability to use emoji, a signature, and Smart Compose. Google says client-side encryption will be added to its Gmail app for Android...

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Epic is giving away free games daily for the holidays — again

Get a new game every day until January 5th. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Epic Games is once again giving away a bunch of free games over the course of the holiday season. Technically, the company will be giving 15 free games on the Epic Games Store, but since the sale kicked off on Thursday, if you missed the first freebie (Bloons TD 6), you won’t be able to claim it.

As I write this on Friday, the current free game is Horizon Chase Turbo, which typically costs $19.99. Epic isn’t revealing what the next game is until it’s available at 11AM ET Saturday. If you want to grab the rest of the free games over the course of the promotion, you might want to set a daily reminder to visit the Store’s homepage at that time.

The freebies are part of the Epic Games Store’s annual holiday sale. In a blog post, Epic says...

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The Verge’s favorite holiday gifts under $25

Photography by Joel Goldberg for The Verge

Gift-giving can be pricey. Thankfully, we’ve pulled together a list of budget-friendly recommendations so you can gift more for less.

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Elon Musk is offering the generous opportunity to invest in Twitter at $54.20

I’m not owned! I’m not owned! | Illustration by Laura Normand / The Verge

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about that time when Elon Musk bought a McLaren F1 for $1 million and then immediately drove it into a ditch while trying to show off to Peter Thiel. “You know, I had read all those stories about people who made money and bought sports cars and crashed them,” Musk said to Thiel, according to Max Chafkin’s The Contrarian. “But I knew it could never happen to me, so I didn’t get any insurance.”

Anyway, according to Semafor, Musk is trying to get more investors for Twitter at the original $54.20 per share price he bought the company at before he frightened away advertisers and banned a bunch of journalists.

I feel? Like I am losing my mind?

About that price — remember how Musk decided actually buying Twitter...

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Democrats plan to return over $1 million from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried

Illustration: The Verge; Image: Getty Images

Three top Democratic campaign arms said Friday that they would set aside more than $1 million in contributions from former crypto golden boy FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, as first reported by The Washington Post. The groups plan to return the money to FTX customers as part of ongoing legal proceedings.

The Democratic National Committee and two top Democratic campaign groups announced the moves days after Bankman-Fried was arrested and charged with eight counts, including wire fraud and campaign finance violations.

“Given the allegations around potential campaign finance violations by Bankman-Fried, we are setting aside funds in order to return the $815,000 in contributions since 2020,” a DNC spokesperson confirmed in a statement to T...

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The best deals on 4K TVs

We’ve collected deals on all sorts of TVs, ranging from affordable (yet feature-packed) models to high-end OLED and QNED TVs that’ll impress the most discerning viewers. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

The future looks bright for those who are looking to nab a great TV at a substantial discount. It’s not just low-end 4K TVs that are getting the best price cuts this year; we’ve seen many of the latest mid- and high-end models from Sony, LG, Samsung, and more selling for hundreds less than their original list price. So, whether you want a cheap and simple 4K TV with built-in streaming capabilities or you want to spend more money on something like Samsung’s artistic The Frame or LG’s fantastic C2 OLED, we’ve got you covered with all the best deals of the year.

Right now, there are currently a number of discounted 4K TVs to choose from, spanning a wide variety of prices, size configurations, and feature sets. Whether you want a secondary...

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Netflix’s Dragon Age show is a fun romp without the games’ emotional stakes

Image: Netflix

As a Dragon Age fan, Netflix’s new show Dragon Age: Absolution was always going to be like catnip for me. I am unable to resist the alluring scent of not only a new Dragon Age anything but also a new Dragon Age something that might give me a few precious crumbs of Dreadwolf lore to tide me over until BioWare decides to release the game. For my _Dragon Age-_addled brain then, Absolution perfectly satisfies my rapacious needs. But if I take a moment to step outside that mindset, the show that emerges is still pretty decent but wholly forgettable. If you’re an outsider looking for something along the lines of Arcane or Castlevania — shows whose stories and themes appeal to a wider audience than source material fans — keep looking.

In Dragon...

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Marvel Snap will let you play against friends ‘in the next month or two’

Silver Surfer stars in the game’s current season. | Image: Second Dinner

Marvel Snap is finally getting a way to battle against your friends sometime soon. In a roadmap for the game shared Friday, developers Second Dinner provided details about the mode, titled Battle Mode vs. Friends, and said it aims to launch it in “the next month or two.”

Currently, Marvel Snap pits you against a random opponent every time you press the play button. But in Battle Mode, you’ll play a series of games with a friend to see who can outlast the other. Both players will start a match with 10 health, and whoever wins a game does damage to the other based on the number in the glowy cube at the top of the screen you typically hit when you want to Snap and up the stakes. To pair up with a friend, you’ll either create a match or join...

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13 predictions for tech platforms in 2023

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

I like to end each year by asking you all for your predictions about the year ahead, and comparing them with my own. Before we do that, though, I think it’s only fair to check in on the predictions I made here last year about 2022. Overall, I think I did pretty well — which means I should probably try to make more daring predictions this year.

A quick look at those 2022 predictions

**What I said: “**Europe cements its position as the most important tech regulator in the world.”

The reality: I do think Europe extended its lead here in 2022 — particularly over the United States, which didn’t manage to pass a single meaningful tech regulation despite one party having control of the executive and legislative branches. To give only the most...

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