Twitter’s decentralized alternative Bluesky arrives as an invite-only iOS app

Image: Bluesky

Bluesky, the decentralized project that originated within Twitter, has arrived on the Apple App Store as an invite-only social network, as first reported by TechCrunch. The listing also gives us one of our very first glimpses at the app, which closely resembles Twitter, down to the timeline and profile pages.

The project’s backed by Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, and has been working on an app powered by its open-source social protocol for months now, called the Authenticated Transport Protocol, or “AT Protocol” for short. Bluesky describes it as a “federated social network” where separate networks exist within a single hub.

According to Bluesky, AT Protocol is built based on four main ideals: account portability,...

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The biggest stories from Hot Pod Summit

This is Hot Pod_,_ The Verge_’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry._ Sign up here for more.

I hope you all had a great week! Hot Pod Summit was a lot of fun — it was great to meet so many of you in person and chat about some of the biggest issues in the industry.

We’ll have more on that below, but first, some acknowledgments. Big thanks to our partners at work x work and the whole On Air Fest team for bringing the event together as well as to the Wythe Hotel for hosting us. Also, I absolutely would not have made it through this without the help of my Verge colleagues Kara Verlaney, Esther Cohen, T.C. Sottek, Helen Havlak, and, of course, Jake Kastrenakes. Plus, we were so lucky that the Decoder team was down to put on their...

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I don’t want to log in to your website

No thank u. | Image: The Verge

There is a new trend among websites where they want my email address before I’m allowed to read their free content. While I sympathize with the struggles of the media business, I am just going to point out something obvious: not reading is easier than reading — and way easier than logging in.

I don’t mind that The Atlantic requires an email — it has kept me from hate-reading the astounding churn of bad takes they publish — but just about everyone else has got to knock this off. You hear me, Reuters? I am annoyed with Reuters, specifically, because it’s a wire service, and I can usually find its articles without logging in by avoiding the Reuters website. As for you, The New York Times, I do not want to read your stories in your app! No...

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Why climate credits for solar geoengineering are a bad idea

Views of the sunset and stormy skies on September 9th, 2021 in La Paz, Mexico. | Photo: Alfredo Martinez/Getty Images

Buyer beware: there’s a dubious new kind of climate credit for sale.

Traditional carbon offset credits, say, for planting trees or protecting forests, have a record of failing to actually reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Now, a startup is selling credits for its attempts to manipulate the planet’s ability to reflect sunlight, a controversial response to climate change called solar geoengineering.

A group of prominent scientists published a letter yesterday that warns that this kind of climate intervention is nowhere near ready to be commercially deployed and probably never should be. A big name on the letter is James Hansen, a former NASA scientist who’s now at Columbia University and is famous for sounding the alarm on climate change...

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Jackbox 9 is now available in French, Italian, German, and two types of Spanish

Fibbage 4 has you try to tell a convincing lie to your friends... en Español. | Image: Jackbox Games

Jackbox Games has released a free update that localizes the games in its Party Pack 9 bundle. That means that party games like Fibbage 4, Roomerang, and Quixort are now available in French, Italian, German, Latin American Spanish, and Castilian Spanish.

The translations cover pretty much every aspect of the games, from the intro videos and songs playing in the credits to the actual content of the games themselves. In a post on Monday, the company writes that it chose which translations to focus on based on “existing demand.”

It’s not the company’s first run at localizing the content of its party games. In 2020 and 2021, it released versions of Quiplash 2 and Drawful 2 with extra languages, and the 2022 Jackbox Party Starter includes...

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You can watch Pluto TV in VLC, and the MPA considers this piracy

Ad-supported free TV, but it’s in your browser. What’s the harm? | Screenshot: Chris Person

The Motion Picture Association (MPA) issued a DMCA notice to a GitHub repo that contained a playlist that let viewers watch Pluto TVs streams on their own apps, such as VLC, MPV, and Tvheadend. The move was first noticed by TorrentFreak, and GitHub has complied and removed the repo, which ultimately does nothing. If you still have a tiny text file, you can still do exactly what the MPA tried to stop.

Pluto TV, for those who do not watch it, is a service owned by Paramount that allows users to legally stream movies and TV shows free of charge on many devices. They have a mobile app, apps for Xbox and PlayStation, smart TVs, and dongles. Users do not even need to sign up to use it. In turn, Pluto’s business model is predicated on serving...

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How to set up two-factor authentication on your online services

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

Recently, it was announced that Twitter would only offer SMS-based two-factor authentication (2FA) to its Twitter Blue members (those who are willing to pay $8 a month on Android or $11 a month on iOS). To tell you the truth, my first reaction was: just as well. If you want to use 2FA to secure your social media or another account, using text messaging is not the way to go. You’re much better off using either a third-party authenticator app or a hardware security key.

What are security keys?

Security keys, such as the ones sold by Yubico, are the safest method to use. They can connect to your system using USB-A, USB-C, Lightning, or NFC, and they’re small enough to be carried on a keychain (with the exception of Yubico’s YubiKey 5C Nano,...

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Ford F-150 Lightning fire wasn’t related to a design flaw, says battery supplier

A Ford F-150 Lightning caught fire in a holding lot near the automaker’s Michigan factory. | Photo: DR/SP/Andia/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

The Ford F-150 Lightning fire that broke out at a Michigan factory in early February wasn’t caused by a battery defect, according to a report from Bloomberg. In a statement to the outlet, Ford’s South Korean battery supplier SK On calls the incident a “rare” occurrence and says it’s working on a fix.

Ford abruptly halted production of its flagship electric pickup on February 4th after one of the trucks caught fire in a holding lot affiliated with its Dearborn, Michigan, factory and spread to two other vehicles. Both Ford and SK have been investigating the issue for weeks and still haven’t resumed F-150 Lightning production. SK has once again started to build batteries in its Georgia factory, however.

“We believe this was a rare...

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President Joe Biden’s $39 billion semiconductor project is open for business

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

The Biden administration launched its massive effort to outcompete China in semiconductor manufacturing Tuesday, offering $39 billion in funding incentives for companies seeking to build manufacturing plants in the US.

Authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act last year, the Commerce Department opened the application process Tuesday for companies jockeying for a share of the funding. This first round prioritizes applicants seeking to build domestic chip manufacturing facilities that can ensure the billions in taxpayer money are protected and leveraged to advance US national security goals.

“When we have finished implementing CHIPS for America, we will be the premier destination in the world where new leading-edge chip architectures can be...

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Luminar unveils Iris Plus lidar sensor with 300-meter range

Image: Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge

Lidar maker Luminar held an investor day event in Orlando, Florida, during which it unveiled a new version of its Iris sensor that will be included in production vehicles from Mercedes-Benz. The company also announced a series of ambitious expansion plans, including a new factory in Mexico, a semiconductor subsidiary, and the acquisition of a data hardware startup’s lidar division.

Lidar, a key ingredient in autonomous driving, is a laser sensor that uses near-infrared light to detect the shapes of objects. This helps autonomous vehicles “see” other objects on the road, like cars, pedestrians, and cyclists, all without the help of GPS or a network connection.

Luminar revealed its Iris Plus lidar, which it said will further “the mission...

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The grill ignition button is a reminder of happy summer days

It is 28 degrees Fahrenheit on top of this mountain, before you factor in the wind that’s blowing snow sideways into my face. I’m sitting on a rock with my soda can-sized backpacking stove the size of a soda can trying to make lunch and regretting my decision to go hiking in the middle of February. I press a small button on a pen-size rod that I’m holding over the burner, bringing a spark to life for just an instant. The familiar whoosh of gas igniting means I can start heating up ramen — lucky me.

But wait, how did pressing that button cause a spark? My lighter doesn’t have a flint and steel or any batteries. It’s not even solar powered (not that I remember what sunlight looks like; it’s winter in Washington). So how can it start a...

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Pluto TV is dedicating entire channels to the Rocky movies and Sailor Moon

Sylvester Stallone as Rocky Balboa. | Image: MGM

To really appreciate how the Rocky franchise evolved over the years to become the Creedsaga, you kind of have to watch the original Sylvester Stallone features in order. While it’s never been especially hard to stream the Rocky movies online, Pluto TV is about to make it much, much easier to see them all back-to-back.

Today, Pluto announced the impending arrival of Pluto TV Rocky, a new channel on the streaming platform that will air the first six Rocky movies — Rocky I–V and Rocky Balboa — on a continuous loop 24/7. Along with scheduled airings of the Rocky movies, Pluto’s users will be able to access each of the features on demand. Along with the Rocky channel, Pluto TV also announced in a press release that it will launch channels...

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Meta’s VR battle royale is going free-to-play

Population: One, Meta’s VR battle royale shooter it acquired in 2021, is becoming a free-to-play game, developers BigBox VR announced on Tuesday. The title currently starts at $30 on the Quest Store, but you’ll be able to play it for free starting March 9th.

Population: One first launched in October 2020, and it’s proven to be a popular title, with a more than four-star average score from an excess of 11,000 ratings on the Quest Store. (It’s also available on Steam, where it has more than 2,000 reviews.) But in going free-to-play, Meta seems to be making a push for the game to attract a much wider audience than it already has. It worked for PUBG: Battlegrounds, after all.

And if Population: One really blows up after moving to...

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Disney’s live-action film Peter Pan & Wendy starts streaming in April

Image: Disney

Disney’s latest live-action adaptation will be streaming later this spring. The company revealed today that Peter Pan & Wendy, billed as a “reimagining” of the 1953 animated film and the original play, will premiere on April 28th. It won’t be hitting theaters, however, and instead will be streaming exclusively on Disney Plus.

The news came alongside the first full trailer for the film, which stars Alexander Molony as Peter, Ever Anderson as Wendy, and Jude Law as Captain Hook. The movie is directed by David Lowery, who was behind the 2016 adaptation of Pete’s Dragon and the fantasy film The Green Knight from 2021. “We wanted to invigorate our retelling with emotional sincerity, an open heart, and a grand yearning for adventure,” Lowery...

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PSVR 2’s No Man’s Sky is an immersive but overwhelming trip to space

Screenshot by Jay Peters / Jay Peters

More than six and a half years after No Man’s Sky was first released, I took my first trip into the game last week, wearing the brand-new PlayStation VR2 headset. It’s probably not the only way I’d choose to play the game, but about three hours in, it’s a mind-bending and overwhelming experience.

No Man’s Sky got optional full virtual reality support back in 2019, letting players navigate its huge procedurally generated universe in PC VR and the original PlayStation VR. But the VR mode got an overhaul last week with the new Fractal update and the launch of the PSVR 2, where it’s one of Sony’s big-name launch titles alongside games like Gran Turismo 7 and Resident Evil Village. No Man’s Sky adds support for things like the new Sense...

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Dish CEO says data was stolen in cyberattack that’s kept systems down for days

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Dish has told employees that it’s “investigating a cybersecurity incident” and that it’s “aware that certain data was extracted” from its IT systems as a result of this incident, according to an internal email sent by CEO Erik Carlson and obtained by The Verge. This comes on the fifth day of an internal outage that’s taken down some of the company’s internal networks, customer support systems, and websites such as boostinfinite.com and dish.com.

The email doesn’t contain any details about whether the data was Dish internal information or customer data, though it does say that “it’s possible the investigation will reveal that the extracted data includes personal information.” The extent of the leak may not be fully known yet, as the...

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The US Marshals Service suffered a data breach and ransomware attack

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The US Marshals Service has fallen victim to a ransomware attack, according to reports from NBC News, The New York Times, and Reuters. On February 17th, hackers gained access to and stole sensitive information related to the agency’s employees and the subjects that it’s investigating.

In a statement to NBC News, Drew Wade, the Marshals Service public affairs chief, called the ransomware attack a “major incident,” while adding that the affected system “contains law enforcement sensitive information, including returns from legal process, administrative information, and personally identifiable information pertaining to subjects of USMS investigations, third parties, and certain USMS employees.”

According to NBC News, the attack didn’t...

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Waymo’s driverless cars were involved in two crashes and 18 ‘minor contact events’ over 1 million miles

Image: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Waymo announced recently that its fully driverless vehicles in California and Arizona have traveled 1 million miles as of January 2023. To recognize this milestone, the Alphabet-owned company pulled back the curtain on some interesting statistics, including the number of crashes and vehicle collisions that involved its robot cars.

Waymo operates a fleet of driverless cars in Phoenix, San Francisco, and the Bay Area. Some of those trips include paying customers. The company also recently started testing its driverless vehicles in Los Angeles.

Over that 1 million miles, Waymo’s vehicles were involved in only two crashes that met the criteria for inclusion in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s database for car crashes,...

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Google’s Chrome browser now squeezes more battery life out of MacBooks

When tested on a MacBook Pro 13 (M2, 2022) the new Chrome optimizations provided 17 hours of web browsing and 18 hours of video playback on YouTube. | Image: The Verge

Google has announced several changes to its Chrome web browser that can boost the battery life on MacBooks, extending how much usage users can get out of a single charge. By optimizing systems like memory compression and JavaScript timers, MacBook users can now browse the web via Chrome and watch YouTube videos for longer, with tests conducted on a MacBook Pro 13 (M2, 2022) achieving 17 hours of web browsing and 18 hours of video playback on YouTube.

Google didn’t provide figures for the device’s battery life prior to this update, so we can’t make a direct before and after comparison, but The Verge managed to drain the battery of the same MacBook in 16 hours and 30 minutes running a variety of everyday tasks. Google’s performance tests...

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Lee Jung-jae on making his directorial debut with the spy thriller Hunt

Lee Jung-jae in Hunt_._ | Image: Magnolia Home Entertainment

Lee Jung-jae has had plenty of success in front of the camera, first spending years as a star in Korea and then capturing the attention of the rest of the world with his leading role in Squid Game. Soon, he will even be in a Star Wars project. Now, he’s trying his hand at directing as well. The spy thriller Hunt marks Lee’s directorial debut — and he also stars in the film and co-wrote the screenplay.

Hunt made its debut at the Cannes Film Festival last year; I caught it at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the bombastic action and plentiful twists made it one of my favorite films of the festival. Set in 1980s Korea, the movie uses real-world events — like political protests and even an assassination attempt — as a backdrop...

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The Super Mario Bros. Movie is coming a little early

The Super Mario Bros. Movie_’s release date is April 5th._ | Image: Illumination / Universal Pictures

While The Super Mario Bros. Movie is still slated to debut at the beginning of April, it’s hitting theaters a bit sooner than we initially thought.

Today, Universal announced, by way of The Super Mario Bros. Movie’s Twitter page, that the feature’s release date in the US (and 60 other markets including China, France, the UK, Italy, Germany, and Mexico) has been moved to Wednesday, April 5th, from Friday, April 7th.

Wahoo! The #SuperMarioMovie is moving from April 7 to April 5 in the US and in more than 60 markets around the world. The movie hits theaters in additional markets in April and May, with Japan opening April 28. pic.twitter.com/CjlikfC3cu

— The Super Mario Bros. Movie (@supermariomovie) February 28, 2023

This latest...

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Podcasting? Radio? It’s all one big opportunity for iHeartMedia Digital CEO Conal Byrne

Photo illustration: William Joel / The Verge

Amid layoffs and a looming recession, folks are concerned about the audio industry. iHeart’s podcast head Conal Byrne is not worried. Here’s why.

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Realme’s ridiculous 240W fast-charging phone is getting an international release

The Realme GT3. | Image: Realme

The Realme GT3, the latest smartphone to make me ask myself whether phones can ever charge too quickly, is being officially announced today at MWC Barcelona. It supports 240W SuperVOOC charging, which Realme says is capable of completely filling its 4,600mAh battery in just nine and a half minutes.

The Realme GT3 will be available in select markets starting at $649 for a version with 8GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. It’ll be available to buy internationally in May and June this year, Realme vice president of global marketing Chase Xu confirmed in a Q&A session after the event.

Well, I say “announced,” but in truth, the phone has been available in China for a couple of weeks now as the Realme GT Neo 5. Realme is a smartphone manufacturer...

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Redmi’s latest 300W charging feat powers your phone in under five minutes

Image: Redmi

Redmi’s fast-charging technology just got even more ridiculous. In this post on Weibo, the Xiaomi-owned phone maker shows off its new 300W fast-charging technology that can power up a phone in justfive minutes flat, as spotted earlier by Android Authority.

If you don’t believe it, you can see it here for yourself. Redmi hooks up a modified version of its Note 12 Discovery Edition, which comes equipped with a 4,100mAh battery instead of a 4,300mAh one, to its superfast charger.

The dual GaN device manages to charge half of the phone’s battery in just a little over two minutes, and by the time the five minutes are up, it reaches 100 percent. That’s barely enough time to finish eating your breakfast cereal or even unload your...

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OnePlus is launching a foldable later this year

The Oppo Find N2 Flip pictured here might give us some clues as to what sub-brand OnePlus’ foldable will look like. | Image: Jon Porter / The Verge

This year’s Mobile World Congress is shaping up to be a real fiesta for unconventional form factors, and OnePlus is the latest company to join the celebration. At a panel discussion today, the company announced its intentions to launch a foldable phone in the second half of 2023. That’s about the extent of the details we have for now, though it seems like a safe assumption that the device will look a lot like one of the existing foldables on the market from Oppo — OnePlus’ parent company.

With companies like Apple and Google yet to enter the foldable market, Oppo is now on its second round of folding phones — though they’ve mostly been limited to China. The Find N was a tablet-style foldable released in 2021 with a surprisingly refined...

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LastPass reveals attackers stole password vault data by hacking an employee’s home computer

The attacker stole credentials from a senior DevOps engineer to gain access to shared cloud storage containing the encryption keys for customer vault backups. | Illustration: Beatrice Sala

LastPass says that a threat actor was able to steal corporate and customer data by hacking an employee’s personal computer and installing keylogger malware, which let them gain access to the company’s cloud storage. The update provides more information about how the series of hacks happened last year that resulted in the popular password manager’s source code and customer vault data being stolen by an unauthorized third party.

Last August, LastPass notified its users of a “security incident” in which an unauthorized third party used a compromised developer account to access the password manager’s source code and “some proprietary LastPass technical information.” The company later disclosed a second security breach in November, announcing...

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Bellabeat Ivy review: wellness in a pretty package

The casual wearable is great for those who find trackers anxiety-inducing but could, ironically, be better at reproductive health tracking.

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The Google Pixel 6A is on sale for its best price yet

The Google Pixel 6A remains our favorite phone under $500. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Want an excellent phone but don’t want to fork out close to $1,000 on the latest and greatest flagships? Depending on your needs, the Google Pixel 6A could be a good alternative. Right now, the unlocked phone is on sale at Amazon in the white colorway with 128GB of storage for $299 ($150 off), matching its lowest price to date.

The 6A, our favorite Android phone for under $500, shares a few features typically reserved for flagship devices, including a 6.1-inch 1080p screen, a good camera array, and stellar performance that’s on par with the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro. Plus, you can rest easy knowing the phone’s due to receive five years of security updates, making it a good investment you can use for many years to come. You won’t get wireless...

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Final Fantasy XVI casts dark for a grittier RPG

Image: Square Enix

‘One game that is close to how the whole game cycle works is the most recent God of War.’

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Microsoft’s Phone Link app now lets you use iMessage from your PC

The Phone Link app now supports iPhones. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is bringing access to iMessage on Windows through its Phone Link app. A preview of the updated app will be available for Windows Insiders today. The Phone Link app allows iPhone users to connect their devices to a Windows laptop or PC and, with the update, will let iPhone users send and receive messages via iMessage, make and receive calls, and see their phone’s notifications inside Windows 11.

Microsoft is using Bluetooth to link Windows devices to iPhones, passing commands and messages to users’ Messages (iMessage) app. That means you’ll be able to message contacts that also have iPhones straight from your PC, but there are some limits. You won’t be able to send pictures in messages or participate in group messages. As you...

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