Yellowjackets season 2 teaser trailer promises plenty more mysteries

Christina Ricci and Elijah Wood in season 2 of Yellowjackets. | Image: Showtime

Showtime hasn’t been shy with teasing the return of Yellowjackets, but now, we finally have a good look at season 2 of the show thanks to a fresh teaser. It’s brief, clocking in at just over a minute, but there’s a lot to dig into: both old and young Misty (Christina Ricci and Samantha Hanratty) crying, Natalie (Juliette Lewis) talking about bringing “darkness” back, and a new character played by Elijah Wood questioning some complicated friendships that revolve around kidnapping and death. It doesn’t give much away about what to expect, though, so don’t worry too much about spoilers.

The first season of Yellowjackets wrapped up nearly a year ago and told the story of a high school soccer team that was stranded in the wilderness after a...

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Clear Calling on the Pixel 7 is like noise cancellation for hard-to-hear phone calls

The Pixel 7 Pro (left) and Pixel 7 (right) support Clear Calling as of December’s feature drop. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

You probably haven’t been on the phone with someone who’s using a serger sewing machine. I have, and I’m here to tell you it sounds like talking to someone who’s in the middle of a raging tornado as it tears through a bus depot. That is, until Google’s Clear Calling feature kicks in. When that happens, the tornado dissipates into a mild windstorm, making it possible to carry on with your conversation. It’s the sort of helpful background feature that Google’s Pixel phones can be so good at delivering. It’s just a shame that most of them won’t get it.

When Google announced the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, it talked up a feature that would be coming after launch. Dubbed Clear Calling, it’s designed to reduce background noise on the line when you’re...

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How to use your phone to find hidden cameras

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

To quote a worn — but occasionally true — saying from Joseph Heller’s novel Catch-22, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” The popularity of Airbnb and other informal rentals has coincided with the increased production of cheaper hidden cameras, making it increasingly likely that your stay could be viewed by the person who rented the place out to you.

Want to make sure your privacy is being respected? There are a couple of ways you can kinda, sorta find out if there are any hidden cameras in your space.

Use your phone to find an IR-equipped camera

Photo by Barbara Krasnoff / The Verge

You can use your camera app to make an infrared light visible; this one is from a Roku remote.

If...

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Netflix is canceling Dead End: Paranormal Park

Norma, Pugsley, and Barney. | Image: Netflix

Though Hamish Steele’s Dead End: Paranormal Parkwas one of the better animated series to hit Netflix last year with its two back-to-back seasons, the streamer’s decided not to bring it back for a third season.

In a Twitter post, Steele explained today that while he’s known for some time that Netflix wasn’t planning to renew Dead End, he was “hoping that we could reverse it, change it, make something good out of it” and even began working with a writers room for a third season.

“We have scripts and designs and outlines ready to go,” Steele said. “It was always the plan to give these characters the proper ending they deserve. But sadly, the powers that be don’t want any more. Honestly, we were lucky to make it through everything...

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The Last of Us’ co-creators say a TV show was always ‘lurking inside the game’

Neil Druckmann on the set of The Last of Us with an actor portraying a clicker. | Image: HBO

HBO’s The Last of Us is a faithful adaptation, but co-creator Neil Druckmann and showrunner Craig Mazin say that the game’s story was truly made for TV.

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Working Through It

Photo by Stella Kalinina for The Verge

Anna* was looking forward to a trip to the US. But this isn’t what she had in mind.

Early this year, Anna was living in Kyiv, Ukraine, where she spent years building a life and career in the tech industry. When her boyfriend moved to the Los Angeles area last fall, she chose to stay behind — she, like millions of others, had plans for her future in her home country. Still, they video chatted every day and made plans to visit each other. Anna was set to fly to the US in March 2022 for her next visit.

But by the end of February, the world had changed completely. The trip to Los Angeles did happen — but not anywhere near as planned. After spending the night in a bomb shelter in the city center, Anna grabbed a backpack and her cat, escaping...

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Apollo Neuro review: a case study in the wellness Wild West

I can’t prove or disprove whether this wearable impacted my stress levels, but wellness gadgets need to be better about using science in marketing.

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Samsung will give you a $50 credit when you reserve and preorder the Galaxy S23

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Samsung’s next Unpacked event will kick off on February 1st, when we expect it to launch the Galaxy S23 and a new Galaxy Book laptop. As usual, the company has opened up some promotions that can earn you free credit to use in its online store. From now through the day of the event, simply placing a free reservation for either the Galaxy S23 or the Galaxy Book will set you up to get a $50 gift card, or $100 if you choose to reserve both. The catch is that, to get this credit, you have to follow through with preordering them once the floodgate opens on February 1st.

Actually, there’s more than one catch. You must spend the complimentary gift card at the same time you put money down for your preorder — and you can’t use it to make your new...

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How ‘radioactive data’ could help reveal malicious AIs

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Bit by bit, text generated by artificial intelligence is creeping into the mainstream. This week brought news that the venerable consumer tech site CNET, where I worked from 2012 to 2013, has been using “automation technology” to publish at least 73 explainers on financial topics since November. While the site has refused to answer any questions, it’s hardly the first news organization to explore replacing human labor with robots: the Associated Press has been publishing automated stories since 2014.

This week the New York Times’ Cade Metz profiled Character A.I., a website that lets you interact with chatbots that mimic countless real people and fictional characters. The site launched last summer and for the moment leans heavily on...

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Get a crash course in horror in the new trailer for Netflix’s Junji Ito anime

Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre. | Image: Netflix

Horror master Junji Ito is bringing his particular blend of scares to Netflix very soon — and you can get a brief taste in a new trailer. The show, which has the somewhat unwieldy title of Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre, adapts 20 different stories from the manga artist, from iconic pieces like Tomie to cult material such as Layers of Terror. Netflix says that all of the included stories have “the shared theme of madness,” which, of course, is pretty standard for Ito.

The trailer is a brisk run through the included material, giving you a hint of what to expect (namely, lots of body horror and disturbing creatures) without giving too much away. If nothing else, the show appears to do a very good job of sticking to Ito’s...

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Meta sues surveillance company for scraping data with fake Facebook accounts

Meta claims to have disabled over 60,000 fake Facebook and Instagram accounts used by Voyager Labs. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Meta has filed a legal complaint against a company for allegedly creating tens of thousands of fake Facebook accounts to scrape user data and provide surveillance services for clients.

The firm, Voyager Labs, bills itself as “a world leader in advanced AI-based investigation solutions.” What this means in practice is analyzing social media posts en masse in order to make claims about individuals. In 2021, for example, The Guardian reported how Voyager Labs sold its services to the Los Angeles Police Department, with the company claiming to predict which individuals were likely to commit crimes in the future.

Voyager Labs is accused of creating over 38,000 fake Facebook user accounts to scrape data

Meta announced the legal action in a...

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Another Earth-size exoplanet discovered in habitable zone of nearby star

Newly discovered Earth-size planet TOI 700 e orbits within the habitable zone of its star in this illustration. Its Earth-size sibling TOI 700 d can be seen in the distance. | Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Robert Hurt

NASA’s planet-hunting telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), has discovered a second Earth-size planet within the habitable zone of a nearby star.

Named TOI 700 e, the planet is one of four known planets orbiting a cool star approximately 100 light-years away. The system was already known to host one planet, called TOI 700 d, in the habitable zone, but recent research that will be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters reveals it is joined by another planet inside its orbit. The other two planets in the system, TOI 700 b and TOI 700 c, orbit closer to the star and, as such, are likely to have higher temperatures, putting them outside of the habitable zone.

The new planet “is nestled in there between planets...

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Friday’s top tech news: unexpected price cuts at Tesla

A Tesla Model Y at a recent trade show. | Photo by Vernon Yuen/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Plus more information on Royal Mail’s ongoing cybersecurity incident, and a neat new Nvidia feature.

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Royal Mail’s ‘cyber incident’ appears to be a ransomware attack

Photo by Nathan Stirk/Getty Images

British postal service Royal Mail’s ongoing cybersecurity incident is the result of an attack carried out using ransomware tools from Russia-linked hacking group LockBit, The Telegraph reports. Royal Mail disclosed the incident on Wednesday, saying that it’s unable to send packages internationally.

A ransomware note circulating on Twitter that was apparently sent to Royal Mail says that its data is “stolen and encrypted,” and threatens to publish it online if a ransom isn’t paid. The note namechecks “LockBit Black Ransomware,” which is thought to be LockBit’s latest encryptor.

BleepingComputer reports that the ransom note contains links to the LockBit’s data leak and negotiation Tor sites. But when contacted for comment by the...

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Tesla cuts prices in the US and Europe by up to 20 percent

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla is cutting prices throughout Europe and in the US. Reuters reports that prices for a Model Y rear wheel drive have dropped by 17 percent in Germany, with cuts of 20 percent for the Model Y long range in the US. Tesla has also cut prices for its Model X and Model S in the US. The price cuts arrive less than a year after Tesla made multiple price hikes in 2022.

Today’s changes put the prices of the Model 3 and Model Y below the listed price they were at before Tesla’s initial big price hikes almost a year ago. EV researcher Troy Teslike has compiled a list showing the price changes in the US, with the Model Y long range now $13,000 cheaper before the tax credit and $20,500 cheaper including the credit. That’s a 31 percent discount in...

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Some third-party Twitter apps appear to be broken

There was a problem accessing your account. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Some third-party Twitter clients such as Twitterific and Tweetbot appear to be experiencing an outage, though the cause is currently unclear. Developers haven’t received any communication from the company about whether the issue is caused by a bug or something else, according to a Mastodon post from Paul Haddad, one of Tweetbot’s creators.

There’s been speculation from Twitter users and some news outlets that this is a move from Twitter to shut down third-party clients altogether. However, the outage may not be universal. Some apps, like Fenix 2 or Albatross, appear to be working for me and some others, though I have seen other users report problems with Fenix. The first-party Twitter app is also still functional.

Tweetbot and other...

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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 in 2023 at a substantial discount. Although a fresh slate of new models was announced at CES 2023, it might be a while until many of them arrive — and even longer before they receive a discount. However, you don’t have to wait until later this year to land a great deal on a mid- or high-end TV from Sony, LG, TCL, or Samsung, as many models of the flagship models from last year are currently selling for hundreds of dollars less than their original list price.

Right now, there are 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 TV for the bedroom or a high-end OLED that’s...

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Nvidia Broadcast can now deepfake your eyes to make you look at the camera

The effect is very impressive in stills, but wait until you see it in motion. | Image: Nvidia

Nvidia’s streaming software now has an option to make it appear like you’re making eye contact with the camera, even if you’re looking somewhere else in real life. Using AI, the “Eye Contact” feature added to Nvidia Broadcast 1.4 will replace your eyes with “simulated” ones that are aligned with your camera — an effect that worked really well when we tested it ourselves, except for all the times it didn’t.

In an announcement post, the company writes the feature is meant for “content creators seeking to record themselves while reading their notes or a script” without having to look directly at a camera. Pitching it as something you’d use during a public performance, instead of something you’d use socially, does kind of sidestep the...

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Tim Cook takes a $35 million pay cut that he recommended

He’s still set to make a lot of money, though. | Photo by Kevin Mazur / Getty Images

Apple CEO Tim Cook is taking a big pay cut — at his own recommendation. Cook’s target compensation will be decreasing by $35 million, according to a new regulatory filing, dropping from $84 million in 2022 to $49 million in 2023. That’s a drop of more than 40 percent.

The changes come entirely from an adjustment in his equity award value, which makes up the bulk of Cook’s total compensation. In 2022, that value was estimated to be worth $75 million, but this year, that estimate drops to $40 million. His base salary of $3 million and his annual cash incentive of $6 million will remain the same. Bloomberg reported the pay cut earlier on Thursday.

To set Cook’s new pay, the compensation committee on Apple’s board “balanced shareholder...

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The best deals on Nintendo Switch games right now

Right now, there are discounts available on Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope and a handful of other essential Switch titles. | Image: Nintendo

The Nintendo Switch is one of the most popular consoles ever released, one with an ever-expanding library of games to choose from. Odds are if a game is capable of working on the Switch’s hardware, it’s either already available, or it will be soon.

Thankfully, a number of games are currently receiving price breaks if you’re looking to expand your collection, including first-party offerings like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild andPaper Mario: The Origami King. However, if you want to add some less conventional titles to your collection, Persona 5 Royal and 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim are also discounted right now.

Below, we’ve rounded up some of the deals on Nintendo Switch games. In many instances, the Nintendo eShop is typically...

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Electric air dusters rock

My tool. My friend. My electric air duster. | Photo by Christopher Person / The Verge

I have always had a complicated relationship with canned compressed air. For a neat freak, it’s a vital tool. It keeps your keyboards clean, it blasts dust out of your gaming PC, and it gets gunk out of those hard to reach parts of devices. It’s an invaluable tool, an ally — heck, even a friend.

But the waste!

I’m not trying to be a cheapskate here, but a can of compressed air costs like five bucks, and I got air at home. Like, a whole lot of it, just floating around, not paying rent. Can’t I just shove that into a can? I think you see where this bit is going.

Image: XPower Manufacture

The XPower A-2S Cyber Duster. It also comes in a “B” variant that is battery-powered.

Say hello, dear reader, to the XPower...

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Marvel Snap PvP mode drops very soon

Image: Second Dinner

After weeks of playtesting, theorycrafting, ladder-climbing, and a bunch of shit-talking, I am ready to face my friends in Marvel Snap’s PvP mode. In a new blog on the Unity developer tools website, Marvel Snap associate design director Kent-Erik Hagman wrote about what players can expect when Battle Mode is planned to launch on January 31st.

Marvel Snap’s Battle Mode will work a bit like a standard match with one critical change — instead of wagering for cubes that can be won, you’re betting with your health. Each player starts with 10 health, and at the end of the match, the winner deals the amount of wagered health as damage. Hagman wasn’t clear if betting health will work the same way as betting cubes, so we don’t yet know if wagers...

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Upgrading the Skagen Falster 6 to Wear OS 3 removes a bunch of watchfaces

The Wear OS 3 update is rolling out to Skagen Gen 6 owners. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge

Fossil has started rolling out the Wear OS 3 update to its Skagen Falster Gen 6 smartwatches. The only catch is that doing so removes many watchfaces that were previously available — yet another factor you’ll have to weigh when deciding whether to upgrade to Wear OS 3.

The disappearing watchfaces were first noted on Reddit (via 9to5Google), and The Verge was able to confirm that the number of available Skagen watchfaces dwindles from roughly 20 to 5 once you upgrade. This might not faze some people, but fashion is one of Fossil’s strengths as a smartwatch maker, so it’s a little disappointing to see.

Otherwise, Wear OS 3 on the Falster Gen 6 is very similar to what you’ll find on Fossil’s newly released Gen 6 Wellness Edition. That...

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Mercedes-Benz may drop its ‘EQ’ brand for electric cars after just a few years

Image: Horacio Villalobos#Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Well, that was quick.

After just a few years on the market, Mercedes-Benz’s “EQ” brand for electric vehicles — which currently includes the EQS, EQE, and a host of others coming soon — may be on the way out. The news was first reported by Germany’s Handelsblatt daily newspaper and has since been confirmed by Reuters and other outlets.

While it may seem abrupt, this doesn’t mean Mercedes is giving up on electric cars — very much the opposite. The outlets report that since Mercedes’ goal is to go fully electric by 2030 with no new internal combustion engines or platforms released after 2025, the different branding has become unnecessary.

While it may seem abrupt, this doesn’t mean Mercedes is giving up on electric cars

Jan Weber, a...

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Congress says the Army can’t spend $400 million buying Microsoft HoloLens headsets

A soldier wearing an IVAS headset. | Image: US Army

Congress has denied the Army’s request to buy up to 6,900 headsets based on Microsoft’s HoloLens technology, according to a report from Bloomberg. The military was apparently asking for around $400 million — instead, it’s getting around a tenth of that to go toward improving the system, as previous versions reportedly caused “mission-affecting physical impairments,” such as headaches and nausea during tests.

It was those results that reportedly led to the budget for new headsets, called Integrated Visual Augmentation Systems or IVAS by the Army, not being included in the government’s $1.75 trillion spending bill. The Army says it plans to fix those, though, with a version 1.2 that will include “a new form factor” meant to address the...

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At least one HBO Max refugee just got picked up by Starz

I think you can guess what Minx was about from this image. | Image: HBO Max

If you’ve been irritated by all the shows and films HBO Max has been dumping from its service, here’s some silver lining: at least one of them has been saved. Minx, which is produced by Lionsgate, has been picked up by Starz, which is owned by Lionsgate.

The show, starring Jake Johnson and Ophelia Lovibond, followed the creation and making of a feminist porn magazine in the 1970s. The first season aired on HBO Max, where the few people who saw it liked it (I was one of them). But unfortunately, not enough people watched it for HBO Max’s taste.

In December, HBO Max canceled the second season of the show — which had already been shot — and pulled the first season from its streaming service. While some shows have been canceled and are no...

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ExxonMobil accurately predicted climate change while publicly dismissing it

The American multinational oil and gas ExxonMobil Corporation headquartered is seen on December 29th, 2022, in Diegem, Belgium. | Photo by Thierry Monasse / Getty Images

ExxonMobil predicted rising global temperatures with remarkable accuracy even as it attempted to downplay the existence of climate change, new research shows. It comes with damning data visualizations that put hard numbers on just how much ExxonMobil knew about the climate crisis it was creating.

There’s been a litany of evidence about how ExxonMobil rejected mainstream climate science, even though the company’s own research and internal communications acknowledged that burning fossil fuels would cause global warming. Now, a paper published today in the journal Science gives us the first comprehensive review of decades of ExxonMobil climate models. And the company’s projections for how much global temperatures would rise over the years...

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EA’s latest Madden NFL 23 fumble locked players out of the game

Joe Burrow in Madden NFL 23_._ | Image: EA

Madden NFL 23’s newest title update briefly locked players out of the game on Thursday, EA confirmed on Twitter. It’s the latest in a string of issues to plague the popular football title over the past few weeks.

At 11:43AM ET Thursday, EA’s Madden NFL Direct Twitter account shared that “we are aware of players being unable to access the game after downloading the latest Title Update.” Many players reported problems on Downdetector, while fans on the Madden Reddit posted threads expressing their frustrations with the issues. At 12:12PM ET, the Madden NFL Direct account said the issue had been resolved.

Update:

Our teams have resolved the issue and players should now be able to log in, thank you.

— MaddenNFLDirect (@MaddenNFLDirect) J...

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Netflix’s Luther movie starts streaming in March

Idris Elba in Luther: The Fallen Sun. | Image: Netflix

Idris Elba is jumping back into one of his most iconic roles for the upcoming Netflix film Luther: The Fallen Sun. Today, the company revealed that the movie will start streaming on March 10th but will also be available in select theaters starting February 24th.

For the uninitiated, Luther was a psychological crime thriller that ran for five seasons between 2010 and 2019 and starred Elba as the titular detective. The new movie will pick up where the series left off, which means that Luther is in, let’s say, a bad spot. Here’s the premise:

A gruesome serial killer is terrorizing London while brilliant but disgraced detective John Luther sits behind bars. Haunted by his failure to capture the cyber psychopath who now taunts him, Luther...

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How to turn off chat features on an Android phone

Switching phones? Here’s how to make sure you keep getting all of your texts. | Image: Samar Haddad; Allison Johnson / The Verge

If you recently switched from an Android phone to an iPhone and suddenly stopped receiving texts from your Android phone-owning friends, don’t panic. It’s a nerve-racking but easily solvable problem, and it’s one that we’re all too familiar with at The Verge since some of us tend to switch phones a lot.

The likely culprit is the protocol called RCS, which is short for Rich Communication Services. There are a lot of reasons to like RCS in Google’s Messaging app. It provides read receipts and emoji reactions and enables higher-quality media sharing than the older SMS protocol it replaces. But as much as Google would like it to be, RCS isn’t a universal standard — Apple uses its own iMessage protocol, so if you’re switching between Android...

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