Wyze’s security cameras and home monitoring services will go offline tonight for two hours

Wyze’s systems will be down for maintenance tonight taking all its cloud services offline, including its security system’s connection to 24/7 monitoring. | Image: Wyze

If you have Wyze cameras or a Wyze home security system, you will need to make other arrangements to monitor your property from 12AM PT to 2AM PT tomorrow morning.

The smart home company sent an email to its customers this week stating that system maintenance on February 8th at 12AM PT will impact every feature of the system that relies on the app or website. That includes being able to alert Noonlight, the professional monitoring company Wyze uses for its Sense security system, about a potential break-in.

Not only will your security system be down, but if you use Wyze cameras to keep an eye on things going bump in the night, you’ll have to stay awake. Wyze cameras won’t be able to upload any video to the cloud or send alerts for motion...

Continue reading…

Users say Samsung’s latest Pro SSDs have health problems

Image: Samsung

Something seems to be wrong with Samsung’s 980 and 990 Pro SSDs. Owners of the highly regarded M.2 solid-state drives are reporting rapid degradation, with some users sending their 990 Pros back to Samsung. And for the older 980 Pro, Samsung is reportedly recommending owners to update to the latest firmware (via PC Gamer).

The issue was first reported by Neowin writer Robbie Khan, whose new, recently released 990 Pro 2TB module dropped to 94 percent health status at just over 4TB of written data. Prior to the article, Khan posted the findings on Reddit, which was met with owners voicing similar issues.

Samsung has acknowledged an issue but says so far it hasn’t received widespread complaints. “We are aware of limited reports concerning...

Continue reading…

Disney removes Simpsons episode in Hong Kong that references Chinese labor camps

The pulled episode references “forced labor camps where children make smartphones.” | Image: Disney / 20th Television Animation

A fairly recent episode of The Simpsons that contains a reference to China’s use of forced labor camps has vanished from the Disney Plus streaming service in Hong Kong. First spotted by the Financial Times and later confirmed by Axios, the episode titled “One Angry Lisa” is not available to stream on Disney Plus, even though the rest of The Simpsons’ 34th season is. The episode contains a line critical of the country — “Behold the wonders of China: Bitcoin mines, forced labor camps where children make smartphones.”

Though it is a punchline in The Simpsons, China has been repeatedly criticized by external governments and human rights organizations for allegedly detaining millions of its native Uyghur population and other Muslim minorities...

Continue reading…

Microsoft’s ChatGPT-powered Bing is open for everyone to try starting today

A slide announcing AI chat features in Bing and Edge. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Microsoft’s new ChatGPT-powered Bing experience will be available today for everybody as a “limited preview” on desktop. You’ll have a limited number of queries that you can use with it, but you will be able to sign up for full access soon.

If you visit Bing.com, you may see some example searches that you can try out, if it shows you the new interface. Clicking on them will lead you to a Bing search page with traditional results on the left, and a chat window on the right with the AI-generated answer. Until you have full access, you won’t be able to ask follow-up questions or clarify the results. Searching for your own query will give you Bing’s traditional search results, despite the homepage using the new chat-style UI.

...

Continue reading…

Super Bowl LVII: how to watch the Kansas City Chiefs play the Philadelphia Eagles

The Philadelphia Eagles mascot dances during the NFL Super Bowl LVII opening night ceremonies. Will it be dancing as happily on Sunday? | Photo by Adam Bow / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Super Bowl LVII is being played at the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, at 6:30PM ET on February 12th, with the Kansas City Chiefs facing off against the Philadelphia Eagles.

No matter what you use to watch it, the Super Bowl should be a fun and exciting event, whether you’re more interested in the star-studded halftime game (featuring nine-time Grammy winner Rihanna), the commercials, or — surprise! — the game itself. We’ve got the info you need about how, when, and where. And as more information becomes available about entertainers, ads, and other cool stuff, we’ll continue to bring you updates.

As it did in 2020, Fox will be capturing the game in 1080p HD with HDR; the network will then upscale the feed to 4K — so if you have...

Continue reading…

Microsoft announces new Bing and Edge browser powered by upgraded ChatGPT AI

Microsoft has announced a new version of its search engine Bing, powered by an upgraded version of the same AI technology that underpins chatbot ChatGPT. The company is launching the product alongside an upgraded version of its Edge browser, promising that the two will provide a new experience for browsing the web and finding information online.

“It’s a new day in search,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at an event announcing the products, arguing that the paradigm for web search hasn’t changed in decades, but that AI can deliver information more fluidly and quickly than traditional methods.

“The race starts today, and we’re going to move and move fast,” said Nadella. “Most importantly, we want to have a lot of fun innovating again...

Continue reading…

Zoom is laying off 1,300 employees, around 15 percent of its workforce

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Zoom is laying off about 15 percent of its staff, which means about 1,300 people will lose their jobs, according to a memo from Zoom CEO Eric Yuan that the company posted on its blog. “Each organization” at the company will be affected by the cuts, Yuan said.

The company scaled up rapidly as people shifted to remote work during the pandemic, and Zoom grew three times in size within 24 months. However, “we didn’t take as much time as we should have to thoroughly analyze our teams or assess if we were growing sustainably, toward the highest priorities,” Yuan wrote. “The uncertainty of the global economy, and its effect on our customers, means we need to take a hard — yet important — look inward to reset ourselves so we can weather the...

Continue reading…

All the news from Microsoft’s February AI event

Illustration: The Verge

Is this the rise of ChatGPT-powered Bing?

Continue reading…

Microsoft’s ChatGPT event live blog

Image: The Verge

Microsoft is holding a surprise event at its Redmond headquarters today, where it’s expected to focus on its OpenAI partnership and introduce a version of Bing with ChatGPT. Unlike most of Microsoft’s events over the past few years, this special press event will be held in person and not livestreamed at all. You’ll need to follow The Verge’s live blog below for all the announcements as they happen.

Microsoft invited media to this event last week before making the details public just minutes after Google announced its own ChatGPT rival. That should tell you how important this event is for Microsoft and what’s on the agenda. While Microsoft is keeping details thin, the invite says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will “share some progress on a...

Continue reading…

Shift Happens celebrates 150 years of typewriters, keyboards, and the people who use them

The book is split into two volumes, roughly one for typewriters and one for keyboards. | Image: Marcin Wichary / Shift Happens

A wide-ranging interview with Marcin Wichary, author of Shift Happens, which launches today on Kickstarter.

Continue reading…

Samsung prices its super bright 77-inch QD-OLED TV at $4,500

The 77-inch S95C starts shipping this month. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Samsung announced its second-generation QD-OLED TV lineup back at CES, with a new 77-inch model joining the 55-inch and 65-inch sizes that were offered with last year’s S95B. Regardless of what size you prefer, these TVs utilize the very latest quantum dot OLED panels from Samsung Display, which promise significant brightness gains — potentially crossing 2,000 nits — and the S95B was already among the brightest OLEDs on the market. Now we know how much the 77-inch S95C will cost: it’s priced at $4,499.99.

That’s more expensive than LG’s 77-inch G2 (the company hasn’t yet announced pricing for its 2023 series yet), but not outlandishly so: the G2 originally had an MSRP of $4,199.99. And I’m sure we’ll see discounts on Samsung’s OLEDs...

Continue reading…

Analogue opens up final preorders for its beautiful takes on the Sega Genesis and SNES

The Mega Sg is a compact version of the Sega Genesis, complete with HDMI out and wireless controllers. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Analogue is offering one more chance to buy its premium modern-retro consoles before they’re gone. The Analogue Mega Sg and Super Nt, the company’s modern takes on the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo, are once again available for preorder as they go on their final production run. Each console costs $199.99 (controllers not included) and can be preordered in various color options on Analogue’s site, with estimated shipments to arrive in the second quarter of 2023.

These final units are no different than previous production runs, so if you already own one, you don’t have to get too much FOMO over not owning some sort of special edition — though that may not stop these from becoming quite the collector’s item.

Image:...

Continue reading…

Meta’s VR hellscape might soon be invaded by children

Image: Meta

Meta’s planning to open up Horizon Worlds to users aged 13 to 17, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. In an internal memo viewed by the outlet, Meta says it wants to make the virtual reality-based social platform available to younger users as early as next month.

The company first opened Horizon Worlds to users 18 and up in 2021 but has since been struggling to keep users coming back to the platform. Last October, the WSJ reported that Meta lowered its goal of reaching 500,000 monthly active users by the end of the year to just 280,000 and that most users don’t return after one month of using it. Even the employees working on the service don’t find themselves using it very much, as reported by The Verge’s Alex Heath last...

Continue reading…

Drop’s latest Lord of the Rings keyboard wants us to give Mordor a chance

The keyboard features an Eye of Sauron illustration above its arrow keys. | Image: Drop

Drop is back with a third Lord of the Rings-themed keyboard. But unlike its first two, which drew their language and iconography from the good guy Elves and Dwarves, the third is all about celebrating darkness. The keyboard pairs the Black Speech keycap set — a black-on-grey twist on the Elven set that evokes the language of Mordor (which I will not utter here) — with a special version of Drop’s ENTR keyboard. It’s available to preorder now, with shipping expected mid-April.

Tolkien’s Black Speech didn’t have a written form, and the one example in the Lord of the Rings — the inscription on the One Ring, found here on the space bar — used an Elven script. The Black Speech keycaps use the same Tengwar lettering and Sindarin modifiers as...

Continue reading…

Can mailing your kitchen scraps to this startup tackle climate change?

Mill’s waste bin turns food scraps into food grounds. | Image: Mill Industries

The numbers on food waste are staggering. Globally, about a third of the world’s food production is lost or wasted — roughly 1.3 billion tons each year — and most of it ends up rotting in landfills leaking methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it first enters the atmosphere.

One way to tackle those problems is to reuse that food waste, turning it into more food. It’s an option that’s even more effective than composting when it comes to tackling climate change, but it’s not always so easy to do at home. So a newly launched startup called Mill Industries wants to change that.

“I just started getting obsessed”

“I just started getting obsessed with waste. It’s like this problem that once you start thinking...

Continue reading…

VW recalls nearly 21,000 ID.4s over faulty battery software

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Volkswagen issued a recall notice for nearly 21,000 of its ID.4 electric SUVs, citing faulty battery software that could lead to a “loss of propulsion” without warning. The recall affects model year 2021 vehicles that were produced between May 26th, 2020, and January 20th, 2022.

The automaker said it first received reports from Europe of a potential “software issue” with its high-voltage battery management system back in July 2021. Some owners in the US alleged that the battery software issue could lead to the vehicle stalling out.

After an analysis, VW determined that the software’s programming “may cause the high voltage (HV) battery management control module to reset or the pulse inverter to deactivate.”

A potential reset of the...

Continue reading…

How HBO’s creatives survived corporate chaos

Photo by Carter Mathisen; Photo illustration by Will Joel / The Verge

Authors Felix Gillette and John Koblin explain how your favorite shows kept HBO afloat.

Continue reading…

Nintendo announces first Direct of 2023

Image: Nintendo

As rumors swirled that a Nintendo Direct was on the horizon, surprise, one is! Announced early this morning, the Direct will be prime time February 8th on the East Coast starting at 5PM and lasting around 40 minutes.

Tune in at 2 p.m. PST tomorrow, Feb. 8, for a #NintendoDirect livestream featuring roughly 40 minutes of information mostly focused on #NintendoSwitch games launching in the first half of 2023.

Watch it live here: https://t.co/8ce3reaEig pic.twitter.com/Pmf41dQWIw

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) February 7, 2023

According to the announcement tweet, the Direct will focus on games slated for the first half of 2023. That should cover games like Octopath Traveler II (not that Square Enix has reminded anyone about...

Continue reading…

OnePlus 11 5G review: a great phone that’s a tough sell

The price is right for the OnePlus 11 5G — $699 to be exact — but after a tumultuous few years for the company, is anyone buying?

Continue reading…

Microsoft’s Adaptive Accessories are a tradeoff

Like many people, I have invisible accessibility needs. I’m not in constant barely bearable pain these days (I used to be!), but certain movements come at a physical cost: sustained reaching, hunching over a laptop — things like that.

The complicating factor is that I hate using computer accessories marketed for “accessibility.” Too many accessibility tools have a user experience tradeoff — either in functionality, comfort, or simplicity.

Too many accessibility tools have a user experience tradeoff in functionality, comfort, or simplicity

Consequently, I’ve become set in my ways when it comes to my work setup. I use a well-placed touchpad (with a wrist rest) in lieu of a mouse, and I keep a keyboard in my lap so I can sit back in my way...

Continue reading…

How to watch President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address

Image: Saul Loeb - Pool/Getty Images

President Joe Biden is set to deliver his second State of the Union address at the US Capitol on Tuesday, February 7th.

Biden is expected to tout his administration’s most recent achievements as he prepares to announce whether he’ll run for reelection next year. While Biden will likely touch on the Russia-Ukraine war and a variety of economic issues, he’s also expected to call on Congress to better regulate some of the US’s largest tech companies, like Apple, Amazon, Meta, and Google, according to a Washington Post report Friday.

Biden has ramped up criticism over Silicon Valley and its alleged abuses in recent weeks. Last month, he penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed demanding that Republicans and Democrats “unite against Big Tech...

Continue reading…

Hot Wheels: Rift Rally is a mixed reality R/C car for PS4, PS5, and iPhone

The collector’s edition of the Chameleon, an R/C car with a first-person view camera that connects to your PlayStation or iPhone. | Image: Velan Studios

Hot Wheels don’t drift. Hot Wheels don’t jump. They don’t have flaming rocket boosters, either, unless you’re playing a video game. But Velan Studios, the company that brought Mario Kart to life with a camera-equipped R/C car for your Nintendo Switch, is about to do the same for Hot Wheels.

For $130, Hot Wheels: Rift Rally gives you a kid-football-size R/C car with a first-person view of your living room on your iPhone, iPad, or PlayStation-connected TV screen — a view the game combines with graphics to create the illusion you’re playing something far more dangerous and exciting.

When I hold down the accelerator button and look at the actual plastic car, it just pokes around doing basic turns. It seems slow! But when I look down at the...

Continue reading…

The OnePlus 11 and its black hole-inspired cameras are coming to the US for $699

The OnePlus 11 in black and green. | Image: OnePlus

OnePlus has announced international pricing and availability for the OnePlus 11 today following the phone’s launch in China in early January. The OnePlus 11 will cost $699 (£729) for the version with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage and $799 (£799) for 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It’ll go on open sale on February 16th.

Given the phone has already been available to buy in China for a few weeks now, today’s launch doesn’t contain many surprises about the OnePlus 11’s hardware. But the international launch means it’s now available in the West with Google’s all-important apps and services. You should check out my colleague Allison Johnson’s full review for a complete rundown.

Image: OnePlus

Three rear...

Continue reading…

OnePlus is officially getting into the tablet game with the OnePlus Pad

The tablet’s eye-catching camera bump. | Image: OnePlus

OnePlus’ debut tablet, the OnePlus Pad, has been officially announced… sort of. Today, the Oppo subbrand is detailing the tablet’s specs alongside the OnePlus 11 smartphone, OnePlus Buds Pro 2 earbuds, and OnePlus Keyboard, but it’s not ready to announce pricing just yet. It’ll be available to preorder in North America, Europe, and India in April.

In terms of hardware, perhaps the most interesting part of the OnePlus Pad is its LCD display, which is 11.6 inches in size, has a 2000p resolution, and has a refresh rate of up to 144Hz for compatible apps. It also has an unusual aspect ratio of 7:5, which, in practice, should mean it’s a little taller in landscape than a comparable 3:2 display of the same width but not quite as tall as a 4:3...

Continue reading…

OnePlus brings flagship Buds Pro 2 to the US with support for head-tracked spatial audio

The earbuds are available in a choice of black or green. | Image: OnePlus

A little over a month after launching in China, OnePlus is bringing its flagship Buds Pro 2 true wireless earbuds to international markets alongside the OnePlus 11. The new earbuds cost $179 (£179 / €179) and will go on open sale on February 16th.

One of the more interesting features of these earbuds is support for head-tracked spatial audio when used with the OnePlus 11. That means the earbuds can track the movement of your head in an attempt to make it sound like audio (either stereo or surround) is coming from a fixed point in space. Similar features have previously been available for Apple’s AirPods and Samsung’s Galaxy Buds Pro and are also coming to Google’s Pixel Buds Pro.

OnePlus follows Apple and Samsung in supporting spatial...

Continue reading…

OnePlus’ first mechanical keyboard looks like a rebadged Keychron

OnePlus’ debut keyboard. | Image: OnePlus

Following months of teases, OnePlus has officially revealed its debut mechanical keyboard today. It’s called the OnePlus Keyboard 81 Pro, and the company says it’ll be available to order in April at a price that’s to be announced. News of the keyboard came during the company’s international launch for its OnePlus 11 smartphone and OnePlus Buds Pro 2 earbuds.

OnePlus says it’s partnered with mechanical keyboard manufacturer Keychron to produce the Keyboard 81 Pro, which bears a striking resemblance to the Keychron Q1 Pro. That just so happens to be the wireless mechanical keyboard I have in front of me right now (expect a full review of the Q1 Pro in the coming weeks). Both keyboards use a 75 percent laptop-style layout that is...

Continue reading…

Biden administration acknowledges it can force Bitcoin mines to disclose pollution

Mining units at a Bitcoin mining facility while under construction in Fort Stockton, Texas, on Friday, April 29th, 2022. | Photo by Jordan Vonderhaar / Bloomberg via Getty Images

Federal agencies have the authority to force crypto mining companies to divulge how much energy they use and greenhouse gas emissions they create, according to letters between the agencies and Democratic lawmakers shared exclusively with The Verge.

Bitcoin miners have flocked to the US over the past couple years, triggering concerns about electricity usage and greenhouse gas emissions. Despite the proliferation of crypto mines across the US, there hasn’t been solid data on what impact they each have on the power grid and national climate goals.

That could soon change as Democratic lawmakers pressure federal agencies to speed up plans to require crypto mining companies to report their emissions and energy consumption. That kind of...

Continue reading…

Microsoft and Google are about to Open an AI battle

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

After six years of peace, the two tech giants are on course to butt heads again over the future of artificial intelligence.

Continue reading…

Tuesday’s top tech news: a new era for Microsoft’s Bing

Image: The Verge

Plus two new Eras for Sonos

Continue reading…

Here are the best Apple Watch deals right now

The flagship Apple Watch Series 8 is currently on sale starting at $329 ($70 off). | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

In September, Apple launched its latest batch of smartwatches, introducing the first-ever Ultra ($799) alongside the Series 8 ($399) and a new Apple Watch SE ($249). Each wearable has its own pros and cons associated with it, but the introduction of the high-end Ultra also means there are now more Apple Watch models on the market before than ever before — and a lot more deals to be had.

But with all of those options, which one should you pick? Generally speaking, you want to buy the newest watch you can afford so that it continues to receive software updates from Apple. The latest update, watchOS 9, launched on the Apple Watch Series 4 and newer models in September, though no one can say with certainty whether the Series 4 will get the...

Continue reading…