Samsung introduces modular camera accessories for the Galaxy S23 series

Both of the Samsung S23 series camera mount accessories are designed to be compact and adjustable for those that need tripod options on the go. | Image: Samsung

Samsung has introduced a pair of camera accessories designed to work with the Galaxy S23 series’ modular Gadget Case. Spotted by WinFuture’s Roland Quandt, the two phone mounts — the Slim Tripod stand and the Camera Grip stand listed on a number of Samsung’s online stores — provide flexible options for photography, video calling, and positioning the phone hands-free. Both accessories connect to the S23 Series Gadget Case, replacing its default PopSocket-like kickstand grip attachment.

The Slim Tripod is an adjustable phone stand that provides flexible options for positioning the device in both landscape and portrait orientations, featuring collapsible tripod legs that can be folded flat against the accessory when not in use. When the...

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Disney’s new Tron action figures put your face and voice into the Grid

Each figurine has a screen in its helmet to show off your face. | Image: Disney

What’s better than a cool Tron action figure? A cool Tron action figure with your face and voice, obviously.

That’s the idea behind the Tron Identity Program, a new piece of merch that Disney will be selling visitors to the Lightcycle attraction that’s opening in Tomorrowland in Walt Disney World Florida on April 4th. The idea is that you get your face scanned, record six lines of dialogue, and then manually customize your character’s look with different helmets, bodies, and team colors, and you’re left with a figurine that feels truly “you.”

It’s a not dissimilar idea to Hasbro’s Selfie Series, which 3D prints your head onto an action figure of your choosing after you scan your face with an app. But while Hasbro is going down a 3D...

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Resident Evil 4 remake is a modern blockbuster with an old-school heart

Image: Capcom

The updated version looks incredible, plays well, and has a level of focus that’s rare in modern games. Also, there are lots of explosive barrels.

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Google says hackers could silently own your phone until Samsung fixes its modems

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Project Zero, Google’s team dedicated to security research, has found some big problems in the Samsung modems that power devices like the Pixel 6, Pixel 7, and some models of the Galaxy S22 and A53. According to its blog post, a variety of Exynos modems have a series of vulnerabilities that could “allow an attacker to remotely compromise a phone at the baseband level with no user interaction” without needing much more than a victim’s phone number. And, frustratingly, it seems like Samsung is dragging its feet on fixing it.

The team also warns that experienced hackers could exploit the issue “with only limited additional research and development.” Google says the March security update for Pixels should patch the problem — though 9...

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Hyperkin’s Xbox 360 controller reissue now has a price and release date

Here’s to hoping Hyperkin fixes one of the worst D-pads of all time. | Image: Hyperkin

Good news for nostalgic millennial gamers: Hyperkin’s remake of the Xbox 360 controller is inching closer to release. The Xenon controller was first announced by Hyperkin back in November, but not much solid info was given outside of some renders and the basic knowledge that this reissue will be a USB-C wired-only reprisal for Xbox Series X / S and PC.

Now, Hyperkin says the Xenon controller is set for release on June 6th, with preorders on its store beginning May 5th. If you have enough love for the old Xbox 360 controller that you want to own a reissue, which eschews wireless connectivity and the classic green LED-surrounded guide buton, the new version will cost $49.99 in white, black, red, or pink.

Photo by Antonio...

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The FCC wants to get satellite-to-smartphone service rolling

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is starting to set up the legal framework that would let companies provide satellite service directly to cell phones, like SpaceX, T-Mobile, AST Spacemobile, and Lynk are trying to do. Today it adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that lays out how companies would get the appropriate licenses, what spectrum they’d be able to use, and a “clear and transparent processes” for the regulator to support their efforts.

The main focus of the proposal is the satellite companies that are planning on working with existing cell carriers, and using parts of the spectrum traditionally reserved for standards like 5G. The benefit to this approach is that it allows phones to talk to satellites without the...

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Pornhub is under new ownership

A Pornhub billboard in Times Square

A Canadian private equity firm has acquired MindGeek, the company behind Pornhub, YouPorn, and other major adult media sites. Financial Times reported that newly formed Ethical Capital Partners acquired MindGeek for an undisclosed amount and that it will continue to operate under an unidentified group of current executives alongside an ECP management team that includes “lawyers and former cannabis investors.” ECP also confirmed the news on its site.

MindGeek is a massive but troubled brand. The company owns some of the highest-trafficked sites on the internet, but it’s also faced persistent criticism that it’s failed to prevent users from uploading or viewing illegal videos, including child sexual abuse material. Its long-standing...

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Amazon stops selling magazines and newspapers through Kindle Newsstand

I guess Amazon would prefer that you buy books instead. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Amazon is no longer selling magazine and newspaper subscriptions through Kindle Newsstand and will stop delivering current Kindle Newsstand subscriptions in September, according to an announcement from last week. Kindle Newsstand let people read Kindle-specific versions of publications right on their device, and the change will likely come as a disappointment for people who were used to getting their subscriptions that way.

But Amazon isn’t just stopping subscriptions on Kindle Newsstand; the company has also halted sales of print magazines and newspaper subscriptions. Here’s the timeline for how things will be phased out:

• On March 9th, Amazon stopped selling the subscriptions.
• After June 5th, you won’t be able to manage print...

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Ugreen’s Nexode 140W charger is for 16-inch MacBook Pro trekkers

The Ugreen Nexode 140W charger is one of few all-in-one charger options for on-the-go video editors rocking powerful PD 3.1-capable laptops. And it’s a good one.

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Quick fix: get rid of Android’s Discover page

Illustration: Samar Haddad / The Verge

Issue

Google’s Discover page, which is the leftmost page on many Android phones, can be a useful source of news, or it can be an irritating list of clickbait headlines and repetitive articles. And because it is an intrinsic part of the OS on many phones, unless you actually installed it yourself, you probably can’t uninstall it.

You can try to adjust the content by selecting the two dots at the bottom right of each article and letting the algorithm know you’re not interested, but that doesn’t always work. Or you can simply get rid of it.

Sometimes, you’ve seen enough rats.

You can try to tweak the Discover page algorithm; it doesn’t always work.

Quick fix

Long-press on any homepage screen...

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Great, tweets are showing another metric now

Another addition to a tweet’s report card — this bar is getting full.

Twitter is adding yet another public metric to measure posts by. There’s now a counter for how many bookmarks a tweet has gotten that lives beside the retweet, quote retweet, and like numbers. The counter is currently only showing up for iOS users who visit the tweet details page, but a help document says there are “plans to expand.”

Unlike other metrics, you can’t tap the bookmarks counter to see who’s added it to their list. According to the Twitter Support account, “bookmarks are still private” and the company will “never display which accounts have added a Tweet to their Bookmarks.”

We love Bookmarks for saving Tweets to revisit later. Starting today on iOS, you’ll now see the total number of times a Tweet has been bookmarked on...

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California’s drought has eased, but the state isn’t out of the woods yet

Flooded strawberry fields in Pajaro, California, on Wednesday, March 15th, 2023. | Image: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images

An extremely wet winter has lifted much of California out of drought, and more rain is on the way. The deluge of rain and snowfall this season has “wiped out exceptional and extreme drought in California” for the first time since 2020, according to a spring outlook published today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The agency forecasts more improvement throughout spring, with even more regions potentially seeing their drought conditions end. Even so, California’s recovery will be patchy, and it’ll take years to replenish some crucial water sources. And as recent storms have already shown, the state will continue to face new dangers from flooding.

“Climate change is driving both wet and dry extremes”

“Climate...

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Clip Studio Paint 2.0 update improves color blending and 3D toolkit

V2 of Celsys’ art and animation software provides new features for automatic illustration adjustments and referencing. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Celsys has released Clip Studio Paint 2.0, the first major update for its popular digital illustration app that introduces new 3D referencing tools, brush effects, and additional language support.

Some of the most notable additions for the update build on the app’s existing support for 3D models, which can be imported into the app and used as drawing references. Version 2.0 of Clip Studio Paint introduces a customizable head model within the 3D section of the Material palette that can be freely positioned to find the desired angle. There are nine preset faces to choose from that cover realism, anime, ultra-masculine superhero, and more. Head size, shape, lighting, and facial features are all adjustable.

Clip Studio Paint Ver. 2.0 is...

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Kia’s EV9 has big Soul energy for when you start a family

The 2024 Kia EV9 electric SUV has been revealed. | Image: Kia

Remember those real hip hamsters that starred in Kia’s Soul commercials? If they finally grew up and started a family, the EV9 is exactly the electric vehicle they’d be looking to buy.

Kia this week revealed the production version of the EV9 SUV in South Korea, and it’s looking like a three-row Telluride in size but a Soul in appearance. The center row is particularly interesting in the EV9, as the automaker highlights swiveling seats for a six-seater version of the SUV.

The two center seats in the six-seater Kia EV9 can be rotated to face the two rear seats for maximum face-to-face children-screaming action. The seats can also be rotated toward the doors, too, which looks like it could make it easier to situate your kid without...

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YouTube TV raises subscription to $72.99, inching closer to cable pricing

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube TV is getting more expensive again, as its pricing inches closer toward what the cable providers it was supposed to replace are charging. The company announced today that its service is going from $64.99 a month to $72.99 a month, an $8 increase. Anyone starting a new subscription today will have to pay the new price, while current subscribers will be subject to it starting April 18th.

In a tweet, the company says the extra cost comes down to content being more expensive and an investment in service quality. To help soften the blow a little, it also announced that it’s cutting the price of the 4K addon from $19.99 a month to $9.99 a month. If you were already paying for it, that technically means that you’ll come out $2 ahead...

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VW beats Tesla to the punch and unveils an affordable electric vehicle

Image: VW

Volkswagen unveiled its affordable, mass-market electric vehicle in the form of a concept called the ID. 2all. With a starting price of 25,000 euros ($26,600) and an estimated range of 450 kilometers (279 miles), the Golf-looking electric hatchback is intended to be that most elusive thing: a plug-in vehicle for the people.

VW revealed the ID. 2all during an investor event in Germany — calling to mind Tesla’s own investor day event, in which Elon Musk was expected to show off his own affordable EV but didn’t. Tesla’s share price dropped after the event as investors griped about the absence of the promised EV. And less than two weeks later, VW has responded with its own spin on what an EV for the mass might look like.

The Golf-looking...

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The Steam Deck is on sale for the first time ever

Valve’s Steam Deck portable gaming PC. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

It’s been just over a year since Valve launched its Steam Deck portable gaming PC — and it’s just now going on sale.

Until March 23rd at 10AM PT, you can get a Steam Deck for 10 percent off — in the US, that translates to $359.10 for 64GB, $476.10 for 256GB, or $584.10 for the 512GB model, before tax. Shipping is free.

Prices for the Steam Deck with the 10 percent discount.

Why now, instead of exactly at the one-year mark? It might be that it coincides with Valve’s Spring Sale or that it took some time to put together this Happy Birthday video...

It also might be that sales of the always-improving portable have finally begun to drop.

While the Steam Deck has spent staggering nonconsecutive weeks atop Steam’s...

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Epic’s Unreal Editor for Fortnite is finally launching on March 22nd

Image: Epic Games

Epic Games is finally sharing more details about the Unreal Editor for Fortnite, which will let creators use tools from Unreal Engine to build games and experiences specifically for Fortnite.

“Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) is a new PC application for designing, developing, and publishing games and experiences directly into Fortnite,” Epic said in a description of the tools on the Epic Games Store. “With many of Unreal Engine 5’s powerful tools and workflows at your fingertips, including custom asset import, modeling, materials and VFX, Sequencer and Control Rig, you’ll have a whole new world of options for producing and publishing games and experiences for Fortnite that can be enjoyed by millions of players.” Epic will also introduce...

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Microsoft Business Chat is like the Bing AI bot but as a personal assistant

Microsoft Business Chat | Image: Microsoft

One of the new Copilot AI features coming to Microsoft 365 apps and services is dubbed Business Chat. It’s a chatbot experience that’s able to summarize information pulled from meeting transcripts, recent contacts with customers, entries in your calendar, and more that you can plug into emails for the team or as slides in a presentation.

According to Microsoft, by using grounding to focus the AI on your business’ trove of data, it can create relevant, accurate responses to natural language prompts, like “Did anything happen yesterday with [customer X]?” The bot is accessible from Microsoft365.com, Bing when signed in with a work account, or via Microsoft Teams.

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft Business Chat

The...

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The best floodlight cameras

The Verge

An all-in-one security camera with motion-activated light and continuous power, a floodlight camera is a simple way to add safety and security to your home’s perimeter.

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The best magnetic chargers to buy for your MagSafe iPhone

The Verge

Making sense of Apple’s messy MagSafe charging ecosystem, where the first-party options are far from the best ones.

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Twitch CEO Emmett Shear is resigning

Image: Lawrence Sumulong/Getty Images

Twitch CEO Emmett Shear is resigning, effective immediately, he announced in a blog post on Thursday.

Shear has been at Twitch since before it was Twitch. He was a co-founder of Justin.tv, the platform where Justin Kan streamed his life 24/7. That became Twitch in 2011 to focus on popular gaming livestreams, and just three years later, the platform was acquired by Amazon for nearly a billion dollars.

In October 2006 we started working on live video for the internet. That became Twitch. More than 16 years later, I'm now a father and ready to move to my next phase of life. I wrote a blog post, but the short version is: thank you so much to everyone who built this with me.

— Emmett Shear (@eshear) March 16, 2023

“With my first child...

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The Symfonisk picture frame speaker from Ikea and Sonos drops to an even lower price

The artwork itself may not be for everyone, but Ikea sells easy drop-in, drop-out alternates. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Maybe Ikea is feeling buoyed by the hype around the new Sonos Era 100 and 300 speakers, especially now that the speakers are up for preorder; the flat-pack furniture maker has dropped the price even further on its art-like smart speaker you can hang on your wall.

The Ikea Symfonisk picture frame Sonos speaker is now on sale for $169.99 ($90 off) direct from Ikea until May 29th or “while supplies last.” We don’t know if that means the unusual speaker is on its way out or that a new one is coming, but we do know this is a great deal. Now, I know I said the Symfonisk was a screaming deal last month at $194.99, but surprisingly, it is now another $25 cheaper. Don’t worry if you bought one last month — Ikea offers a 90-day price protection if...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s second-gen AirPods Pro are on sale for $50 off, matching their all-time low.

If you know where to look, there are often some great discounts available on Apple’s ever-popular AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods toward the end of 2021, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model slowly dip to around $100. And now that you can buy the second-gen AirPods Pro at most retailers, we’re seeing even better discounts on the last-gen Pro and other models.

Below, we’ve curated the best deals currently available on each model, including the entry-level AirPods, the AirPods Pro, the third-gen AirPods, and the AirPods Max.

The best entry-level AirPods (second-gen) deals

In 2021, Apple lowered the list price of the second-gen AirPods — now the entry-level model — from $159 to $129. It...

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Microsoft announces Copilot: the AI-powered future of Office documents

Microsoft’s new Copolit is an AI assistant for Office apps. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is announcing a new AI-powered Copilot for its Microsoft 365 apps and services today, designed to assist people with generating documents, emails, presentations, and much more. The Copilot, powered by GPT-4 from OpenAI, will sit alongside Microsoft 365 apps much like an assistant (remember Clippy?), appearing in the sidebar as a chatbot that allows Office users to summon it to generate text in documents, create PowerPoint presentations based on Word documents, or even help use features like PivotTables in Excel. Microsoft’s Copilot leaked earlier today.

“It works alongside you, embedded in the apps millions of people use everyday: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more,” said Microsoft 365 head Jared Spataro....

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The night sky is always getting faked

Venus beside a crescent Moon on July 15th, 2018. | Image: NASA / Bill Dunford

We’ve been getting fooled by photos of the night sky for years; now, tech is making it even easier.

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Microsoft isn’t happy with a UK regulator’s math on its Activision Blizzard deal

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft’s proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition is at the messy stage. After recruiting Nvidia, Nintendo, and two other cloud gaming companies to help convince regulators to approve its $68.7 billion deal, Microsoft is now criticizing the UK’s Competition and Market Authority’s (CMA) math calculations.

The CMA published a financial model that calculated Microsoft could turn a profit by withholding Call of Duty from PlayStation to draw former Sony fans to Xbox, basing its calculations on profits and losses from Xbox hardware, subscriptions, and games over a period of five years.

Microsoft argues that the CMA’s financial modeling is flawed. The CMA’s model compares gains on a five-year basis to losses on just a one-year basis, and...

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Slay vampiric gods in Redfall’s new story trailer

Image: Bethesda

Redfall, Arkane Austin’s co-op vampire shooter, has a new story trailer that gets to the heart of just what happened to Redfall, Massachusetts. Apparently, some bloodsucking scientists at the mysterious Aevum Therapeutics did a bit of medical malpractice and accidentally (or purposely) summoned ancient vampire gods in their quest to attain immortality. As a result, Redfall got flipped turned upside down by the ravenous gods, and it’s up to our four heroes to slay the gods and save the city.

The trailer starts with a voiceover of a woman explaining how her blood was supposed to be the cure for everything. If that sounds familiar, maybe Redfall’s trying to capture the waning energies of The Last of Us season finale.

It won’t be too long...

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‘The Goliath is Amazon’: after 100 years, Barnes & Noble wants to go back to its indie roots

Illustration: Alex Parkin / The Verge

CEO James Daunt explains how Barnes & Noble is different than Amazon.

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The new Camo app makes even your crappy webcam look pretty good

Image: David Pierce / Camo

I have tried every webcam solution you can imagine. Built-in webcam: mushy, blurry mess practically no matter what device you’re using. Cheap webcam from Logitech: slightly better, but basically the same. Fancy webcam from Opal: looks great, infuriatingly finicky. DSLR on a tripod: looks even better, often even more finicky. More recently, I’ve settled on using Apple’s Continuity Camera, which lets you use your iPhone as a webcam. It works great! So long as you have a way to prop up the camera just so and can deal with the not-so-occasional moments where the camera just doesn’t appear in Google Meet’s settings.

But I’m here to tell you there’s a solution, or at least a salve, for all our webcam problems. It’s called Camo, and it’s an app...

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