Binance really loved telling people to use VPNs, allegedly

Nick Barclay / The Verge

So I read through the CFTC complaint against the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, and it seems like the lawyers are having fun with this one. For instance: “Binance’s decision to prioritize commercial success over compliance with US law has been, as Lim paraphrased Zhao’s position on the matter, a ‘biz decision.’” I never get tired of reading these complaints.

Now to be clear, I don’t think Binance is the only entity ever to decide that skirting US law to acquire more customers — after all, US pharma companies have been making billion-dollar settlements over that exact same “biz decision.” But I do think explicitly writing that you are deliberately doing that is a real clown move. A government body can’t hold you...

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Philips Hue is delaying its Matter update

Philips Hue’s lighting bridge will not get updated to Matter this month, as previously announced. | Image: Philips Hue

Delays have been a major part of the Matter narrative, so it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise to hear one of the biggest names attached to the new smart home standard is delaying its rollout. As reported by HueBlog.com, Phillips Hue will not update its bridge to support Matter by the end of Q1 2023 (i.e. now), despite having promised to do so last November.

“As Philips Hue is focused on quality, we will take some extra time before making the software update to the Philips Hue Bridge available to all consumers, to invest in really getting it right and delivering to the expectations of consumers,” Kelly GramugliaofSignify, which owns Philips Hue, told The Verge in an email.

The update, when it arrives, will bridge all of Hue’s...

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Arc is coming to iPhone, but it won’t replace Safari yet, says CEO

Arc, a browser that my colleague David Pierce described as an attempt to be “the web’s operating system,” is getting a companion app for iPhones on March 30th. Josh Miller, the CEO of Arc developer The Browser Company, says the app is “NOT a replacement for your default mobile browser (yet),” but it should let Arc users access at least some of the features they’ve gotten used to on the desktop version.

According to the App Store listing, the iOS browser will let sync your desktop tabs and Spaces (read: groups of tabs, user accounts, and pinned sites), and you’ll be able to view your whiteboard-esque Easels and notes. You’ll also be able to share links to Arc that’ll be saved for you to read later.

This Arc companion app is among the...

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The race for more battery materials could cause ‘irreversible’ damage under the sea

A deep-water fish, called a Rattail, brought up as part of research into the effects of mining in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean. | Image: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

From electric vehicles to renewable energy, the future runs on batteries. That’s driving soaring demand for raw materials used to make batteries, including nickel, cobalt, and copper. By next year, mining companies could start harvesting those materials from the deep sea at an industrial scale for the first time.

But the damage that would do to ethereal ecosystems on the seafloor could be catastrophic and irreversible, a new report warns. Ocean researchers and advocates are intensifying calls for a deep seabed mining moratorium before it’s too late.

Ocean researchers and advocates are intensifying calls for a deep seabed mining moratorium

Heated negotiations over a new “mining code” for the deep sea are underway this week in Kingston,...

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Uber Eats is shutting down thousands of virtual restaurants to make the app less spammy

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Uber Eats is delisting some of the delivery-only restaurants on its app to help weed out low-quality listings, as first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The company has confirmed to The Verge that it’s introducing a new set of standards for virtual restaurants that should help cut down on listings that sometimes contain the same menu.

Virtual restaurants, which are also known as ghost kitchens, don’t have a physical location where you can actually sit down and eat. Instead, they’re often run out of existing restaurants, warehouses, and sometimes even parking lots and exist solely to sell food on delivery apps like Uber Eats, Grubhub, and DoorDash. While some of these locations are independently run, others belong to larger companies...

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — all the latest on Nintendo’s huge sequel

Link in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom_._ | Image: Nintendo

Nintendo’s sequel to Breath of the Wild launches on May 12th.

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Apple is bringing Martin Scorsese’s next movie to theaters before streaming

Lily Gladstone and Leonardo DiCaprio in Killers of the Flower Moon. | Image: Apple

Apple is the latest streamer to discover that theaters are actually kind of useful. Following a Bloomberg report last week, the company has officially confirmed its first wide theatrical release: Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. The movie will premiere with a limited theatrical release on October 6th before opening widely on October 20th, and Apple is partnering with Paramount Pictures for the release. It doesn’t yet have a release date for Apple TV Plus. (Apple’s press site currently lists it as “coming soon.”)

Killers of the Flower Moon is another big get for Apple, which already has one Best Picture Oscar and clearly has ambitions for more. In addition to being helmed by Scorsese, the movie — which is based on the novel...

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President Joe Biden says US can’t buy spyware that other countries have used against it

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

The Biden administration is trying to clamp down on the government’s use of any commercial spyware that could also be used by other countries to harm its interests. The president has signed an executive order saying that federal agencies can’t use spyware “that poses significant counterintelligence or security risks to the United States Government or significant risks of improper use by a foreign government or foreign person.”

The order spells out exactly what disqualifies spyware — software that steals information and data from a device without the user’s knowledge — from being used by the US government. It’s not allowed if it’s:

• been used by a foreign person or government to target the US government
• sold by an entity that’s interested...

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Ubisoft bails on E3 in favor of its own show in Los Angeles

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Ubisoft is backing out of its planned attendance at the E3 2023 in-person expo in favor of its own show in LA on June 12th, the company confirmed to VGC.

“E3 has fostered unforgettable moments across the industry throughout the years,” Ubisoft spokesperson Heather Haefner says in a statement to The Verge. “While we initially intended to have an official E3 presence, we’ve made the subsequent decision to move in a different direction, and will be holding a Ubisoft Forward Live event on June 12 in Los Angeles. We look forward to sharing more details with our players very soon.” E3 organizer ReedPop didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

With Ubisoft backing out, E3 2023, which runs from June 13th through June 16th,...

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MultiVersus’ open beta is shutting down, but the game is set to return in 2024

MultiVersus. | Image: Warner Bros. Games

Warner Bros. Games is shutting down MultiVersus’ open beta ahead of a full release targeted for early 2024. The open beta for the WB-themed free-to-play Super Smash Bros.-like brawler will be taken offline on June 25th.

While MultiVersus is offline, you can still play the game’s training room and local matches, and you can use any characters and in-game cosmetics you have unlocked. (If you want to be able to mess around with the offline features, you’ll need to download the game from digital storefronts before April 4th.) Any progress you have already made will carry over when the game is available again in 2024. But you won’t be able to get refunds due to the closure, according to an FAQ page, which might be frustrating for players who...

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iOS 16.4 is here, and it brings new emoji like a moose and goose to your iPhone

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

It’s that time of year: new emoji season! Apple’s just-launched iOS 16.4 update adds emoji like a moose, a goose, a pink heart, and importantly for Verge readers, a Wi-Fi symbol. I’m something of an emoji fan, so I’m personally thrilled to have a few more options, though I’m still thinking of a clever use for the jellyfish emoji. Emojipedia has a good overview of the emoji that are being added, if you want to know ahead of time.

The update doesn’t just bring new emoji; there are a handful of other small additions as well. You’ll now be able to get push notifications from Safari web apps on your homescreen, which could make web apps a lot more useful than they currently are. The company is also adding voice isolation for voice calls and...

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The worst Final Fantasy XIV expansion is now free for a limited time

Image: Square Enix

Stormblood, arguably the worst of Final Fantasy XIV’s expansions, is now free for owners or new purchasers of the FFXIV Starter Edition until May 8th. You can get all the details on the promotion here. Now, before you start hollering at me about how Stormblood is actually good, let me explain.

Stormblood featured necessary character development, especially for Zenos yae Galvus. I appreciated that he’s really just a weird little freak unconcerned about being truly evil so much as, “You, Warrior of Light, are the strongest and I will dedicate every fiber of my being to destroy you.” He’s very much a Vegeta-type character if Vegeta were never rehabilitated by the love of a good woman. And your experience with him in Stormblood greatly...

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Levi’s will test AI-generated clothing models to ‘increase diversity’

Levi’s will experiment with Lalaland’s realistic AI-generated models later this year. | Image: Levi Strauss & Co. / Lalaland.ai

Levi’s will begin testing AI-generated clothing models later this year in a bid to diversify the iconic denim company’s online shopping experience. The planned experiment was revealed last week alongside Levi’s partnership with Lalaland.ai, a digital fashion studio that creates realistic AI-generated fashion models.

Currently, most products advertised on the Levi’s app or website can only be viewed on a single clothing model. The AI clothing models created by this partnership could be more body-inclusive, allowing customers to view what an article of clothing would look like on a multitude of models spanning a wide range of body types, ages, sizes, and skin tones. In theory, that should help consumers who are frustrated when clothing...

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Disney’s first of three rounds of layoffs will start this week

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Disney’s planned job cuts that will eliminate 7,000 jobs are about to begin, as the first of three rounds of layoffs will start this week, CEO Bob Iger said in a memo to employees obtained by CNBC.

Staff affected by this first round will hear from leaders “over the next four days,” according to Iger. The second round of cuts, which is set to encompass “several thousands” of people, will happen sometime in April. The third round will happen “before the beginning of the summer.”

Iger first revealed in February that the company was planning the cuts, meaning that employees have been waiting for weeks to know if they’ll still have a job at Disney. And given that rumors of potential layoffs surfaced soon after Iger came back as CEO in...

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Aqara Video Doorbell G4 review: this battery-powered buzzer needs to go back to basics

The G4 is the first and only wireless smart doorbell to work with Apple Home. Its features are impressive, but it lacks some essentials.

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Biosphere’s first trailer turns the end of the world into a bromance

Image: IFC Films

There are plenty of movies about the last people on Earth, but — based on the first teaser trailer — Biosphere might be among the most charming. The directorial debut for Mel Eslyn, Biosphere stars Sterling K. Brown and Mark Duplass as humanity’s sole remaining survivors, who also happen to be best pals living together inside of the titular biosphere. It looks very cozy. They even play video games.

Things are going well until, well, I’ll let the official synopsis do the work:

In the not-too-distant future, Billy (Duplass) and Ray (Brown) are lifelong best friends, brothers from another mother they also happen to be the last two men on earth. Their survival is largely due to Ray, a brilliant scientist who designed the custom biosphere...

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Feds sue crypto giant Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao

Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge

Changpeng Zhao, along with his Binance cryptocurrency empire, is getting sued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) for allegedly violating US trading and derivatives laws. In a complaint filed on Monday, the CTFC accuses Binance of having an “ineffective compliance program” and claims it “knowingly” broke the law.

In addition to suing Zhao, the CTFC also charges Samuel Lim, Binance’s former chief of compliance, for allegedly “aiding and abetting Binance’s violations through intentional conduct that undermined Binance’s compliance program.” According to the CTFC’s complaint, the agency claims Zhao, Lim, and other executives “failed to properly supervise Binance’s activities” and “actively facilitated violations of U.S. law”...

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How to charge your non-Tesla EV at a Tesla Supercharger

I never expected to see a non-Tesla EV charging at a Tesla Supercharger.

The electric vehicle market is growing by leaps and bounds every month in the US, but most of these new EV owners are quickly figuring out they have one big thing in common: our public charging infrastructure sucks very badly.

EV drivers face everything from illogical charging station placement and broken equipment to being forced to use a hodgepodge of payment apps. The fact that America is still in the Wild West days of EV charging becomes readily apparent the moment your range starts dwindling and you’re far from home.

There’s one exception to this, of course: Tesla’s Supercharger network. The automaker claims it’s built the largest public fast-charging network in the world, and there’s no evidence to the contrary. It’s also...

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Hisense’s bright yet affordable U8H Mini LED TV is $100 off

Marble pedestal at the edge of the world sold separately. | Image: Hisense

The Hisense U8H Mini LED TV is a great value if you can’t justify breaking your budget on an OLED, and right now, it’s an even better value at $899.99 ($100 off) at Best Buy and Amazon. Like an OLED, the U8H’s Mini LED panel produces some excellent color contrast and detail, but unlike the pricier displays, a Mini LED better handles brightly lit rooms while running a lower risk of burn-in.

On any given day, I’d say the Hisense U8H is an exceptional midtier option that punches well above its weight class, but today’s price makes it an even easier recommendation — especially if you play lots of console games. The Hisense supports HDMI 2.1 on two of its four ports, reaching up to 4K resolution at 120Hz, and it runs Google’s TV software for...

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The new Microsoft Teams is here with big performance improvements and UI changes

The new and updated Microsoft Teams client. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is overhauling its Teams app today to make it faster and easier to use. Microsoft Teams has been rebuilt from the ground up, with a new preview available today for businesses to try out this radical rework that has been years in the making.

“The new Teams is faster, simpler, and more flexible than ever before,” says Sumi Singh, CVP of engineering for Microsoft Teams, in an interview with The Verge. “We’ve made tremendous strides in performance and usability. The new Teams is 2x faster while using 50 percent fewer resources.”

Installing the new Microsoft Teams app should be 3x faster and launching or joining meetings two times faster. Microsoft says the new Microsoft Teams should also consume 50 percent less memory and 70...

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Microsoft Teams now lets you transform into a 3D avatar during meetings

The new avatars inside Microsoft Teams. | Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is now allowing Teams users to create a 3D avatar to use in meetings instead of being on camera or even needing a webcam. Originally announced in 2021, Microsoft has been testing these 3D avatars over the past year and is now ready to allow Microsoft Teams users to try them out in public preview today.

“Avatars for Microsoft Teams offers an alternative to the current binary option of video or no video,” says Avery Salumbides, a product marketing manager at Microsoft, in a blog post today. “Avatars for Teams gives you that much-needed camera break, while still allowing you to collaborate effectively.”

Image: Microsoft

The avatars are fully customizable.

These new avatars in Microsoft Teams will animate...

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The Nintendo Switch OLED is on sale at Woot

The Nintendo Switch OLED rarely ever is $30 off. | Image: Nintendo

If you’ve been eyeing the Nintendo Switch OLED but stayed away because of its price, good news: you can now buy the popular hybrid console with white Joy-Cons for $319.99 ($30 off) at Woot. The rare deal will be available until 10PM PT today, March 27th, or 1AM ET March 28th, as long as supplies last.

As the premium model in the Switch lineup, the Nintendo Switch OLED offers a number of improvements over the standard Switch. For one thing, it features a larger and more vibrant seven-inch 720p OLED display that’s richer in color quality and contrast. For another, its wider and adjustable kickstand is much more stable and is therefore actually useful, unlike the one the original Switch sports. The console can also store more games thanks...

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The TikTok ban is a betrayal of the open internet

Image: Becca Farsace / The Verge

There’s cause for alarm with TikTok — but is it enough to justify building America’s own Great Firewall?

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Nintendo is showing off ‘roughly 10 minutes’ of Tears of the Kingdom gameplay on March 28th

Image: Nintendo

Quite possibly the biggest game of the year is getting an appropriately large gameplay reveal. Nintendo announced that will be releasing a presentation featuring “roughly 10 minutes of gameplay” from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, the much-anticipated sequel to the defining Breath of the Wild.

The presentation will be led by longtime series producer Eiji Aonuma, who has worked on Zelda since Ocarina of Time. It’ll be available on YouTube on March 28th at 10AM ET, and it sounds like the video will be entirely focused on the new Zelda.

Join The Legend of #Zelda series producer, Eiji Aonuma, for roughly 10 minutes of gameplay from The Legend of Zelda: #TearsOfTheKingdom on 3/28 at 7:00 a.m. PT on our YouTube channel.

▶️ h...

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Lucid Motors recalls Lucid Air sedan for a defect that could cause a loss of power

Image: Tim Stevens for The Verge

Lucid Motors issued a recall for 637 of its luxury Air sedans over a faulty switch in its electrical motor that could lead to a loss in power.

The issue is with electrically activated switches called contactors that “close at vehicle startup to transfer energy to and from the drive units, and open at vehicle shut down.” In a “small population” of contactors, the spring force may overcome the magnetic holding force, which could result in the switch unexpectedly opening, cutting off power to the electric motors. The connectors for 2022 and 2023 Lucid Air sedans are supplied by Sensata Technologies.

In a “small population” of contactors, the spring force may overcome the magnetic holding force, which could result in the switch...

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Zoom’s new AI features help you catch up on meetings you’re late to

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Zoom has become the latest productivity app to expand its use of artificial intelligence. In a blog post published on Monday, the company announced a partnership with OpenAI that brings AI-generated summaries, message drafts, and more to the video conferencing app through its Zoom IQ AI-powered assistant.

While Zoom IQ can already do things like create chapters and highlights for recorded meetings, Zoom’s giving the assistant even more features, including a way to catch up on meetings that you may have been late to. That means you’ll be able to ask the tool to summarize what you’ve missed as well as “ask further questions.”

Image: Zoom

Zoom IQ will soon let you generate responses to colleagues.

Additionally,...

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FTC bans scammy companies from ‘calling about your car’s extended warranty’

The proposed court order follows a lawsuit opened by the FTC last year that sought to charge operators of an “extended vehicle warranty” telemarketing scam. | Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Regulators in the US are cracking down on operators of an “extended vehicle warranty” telemarketing scam with action that could see the responsible parties face a lifetime ban from the vehicle warranty industry. Under proposed court orders drawn up on March 23rd, three companies — American Vehicle Protection Corporation (AVP), CG3 Solutions, and Tony Gonzalez Consulting Group — and their owners would be permanently banned from both the extended automobile warranty industry and all outbound telemarketing.

In February 2022, the FTC charged AVP and the two affiliated companies with violating the FTC Act and the Telemarketing Sales Rule. In its complaint, the FTC alleged that AVP falsely claimed to represent dealers and manufacturers,...

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The swagged-out pope is an AI fake — and an early glimpse of a new reality

The original viral image (left) and another AI-generated fake from the same batch (right). | Image: via Reddit / u/trippy_art_special

AI-generated images have gone viral before, but none have spread so far and wide as a picture of the pope wearing what can only be described as a swagged-out puffy jacket. Call him the Supreme pontiff. The Balenciaga bishop. The vicar of drip.

The picture seems to have been first posted online on Friday, submitted to a subreddit for the AI image generator Midjourney. Over the weekend, it spread on Twitter and other social networks, first as a meme and then as the subject of debunking. By Sunday, Chrissy Teigen was tweeting about it — a reliable indicator that an internet joke has gone mainstream.

“I thought the pope’s puffer jacket was real and didnt give it a second thought. no way am I surviving the future of technology,” Teigen...

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Sonos Era 300 review: too ahead of its time

When you find a good spatial audio song, Sonos’ new speaker can blow your mind and sounds like nothing else. But it trails the Sonos Five at stereo playback and suffers from the wildly inconsistent state of Atmos mixes.

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Sonos Era 100 review: the new default smart speaker

The more affordable Era speaker improves upon the Sonos One by nearly every measure and will likely find the same success and popularity among Sonos customers.

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