Apple’s VR headset might run tweaked versions of iPad apps

Illustration: The Verge

Apple’s long-rumored VR / AR headset might run adapted versions of iPad apps, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The mixed reality device’s new interface will also apparently let users access “millions” of already-available apps on the App Store.

This, in my opinion, is very good news: a bunch of great apps could go a long way in making a compelling case for what’s expected to be a very expensive gadget in a device category that isn’t doing great right now.

Here are some of the apps you can expect, according to Bloomberg:

• Apple is working on “optimized” versions of apps like Safari and many of the core apps you might already be familiar with from an iPhone, including “Apple’s services for calendars, contacts, files, home...

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Twitter made it easier to harass transgender users

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Twitter has quietly altered its Hateful Conduct Policy to remove long-standing protections for its transgender users, as spotted by the nonprofit organization Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). In a section that prohibits attacking other users with “repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category,” Twitter removed a line that specifically includes the “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.”

According to Wayback Machine, the inclusion of misgendering and deadnaming was removed on April 8th — the day after Twitter announced it had updated the policy to clarify how it defines targeted harassment. The...

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Apple HomePods can now listen for your smoke alarms

The new HomePod and the HomePod Mini can now alert you to the sound of a smoke or CO alarm in your home. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

Starting today, Apple HomePod smart speakers can alert you if a smoke or CO detector goes off in your home. The Sound Recognition feature, first announced when the second-gen HomePod was launched earlier this year, listens for the alarm sound and sends a notification to your phone. Apple says the capability is now rolling out on the second-gen HomePod and HomePod Mini, though we haven’t yet seen it in our apps.

For this to work, you’d need to have smoke and CO alarms installed in your home; the speakers cannot detect actual smoke or carbon monoxide. But they don’t need to be smart smoke alarms or have any internet connection, which is good news. Currently, the only smart smoke alarms compatible with Apple Home in the US are First Alert’s...

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New Horizon Forbidden West patch adds thalassophobia mode

Image: Guerrilla Games

The team at Guerrilla Games has released patch 1.21 for Horizon Forbidden West in the lead-up to the release of the Burning Shores DLC. The patch adds some neat quality-of-life updates including a sorely needed auto item pickup feature and the ability to increase subtitle size for increased legibility. But perhaps the most interesting feature coming with this patch is the addition of a thalassophobia mode.

Thalassophobia, simply put, is the fear of deep water. Throughout Forbidden West, Aloy has the opportunity to do some deep-sea diving in the postapocalyptic San Francisco Bay and elsewhere. There’s a point in the story where she can develop essentially a scuba tank for extended periods of underwater exploration. Thalassophobia mode, a...

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GM thinks it can wean you off Apple CarPlay and Android Auto

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

General Motors recently made a decision that, depending on how you look at it, may come back to bite them in the ass.

The company announced that for its future lineup of electric vehicles, it would no longer offer access to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. That means future owners of the Chevy Blazer EV or GMC Sierra EV Denali won’t be able to project their phone’s operating systems onto the infotainment screen of their vehicles.

The backlash was swift. Car shoppers told the Detroit Free Press that the move was “a dealbreaker” and a “huge blunder.” Auto analysts were left scratching their heads, noting that demand for CarPlay and Android Auto was “massive” and that GM was taking a huge risk by cutting off access.

But Scott Miller, vice...

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BMW’s ‘most powerful’ EV is this new 7 Series

Image: BMW

BMW’s 7 Series vehicles have always been about interior space and ride comfort, and now, the newest electric version is the automaker’s “most powerful” EV ever. The new BMW i7 M70 xDrive was handed the title as the vehicle makes its debut this week at the Auto Shanghai international motor show in China.

According to BMW, its bestselling model worldwide last year was the BMW i4 M50 — a performance version of the electric 4 Series sedan. Now, the company has three electric performance models, including the BMW iX M60 SUV (a faster version of an already high-tech beast) and this new i7 M70.

BMW’s i7 M70 has a dual motor all-wheel drive system output of 485kW and 660 horsepower when the car’s M Launch Control or Sport Boost feature is...

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Galaxy Quest, the best Star Trek movie, could be getting a TV series

Look at that exceptional crew of actors and Tim Allen. | Image: Dreamworks

Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie. I’m not trying to start fights here. This isn’t a Picard versus Kirk situation. This is just the facts. There have been a lot of Star Trek movies, and none have managed to blend the whimsy and curiosity of the franchise with the action and grand scale of film as well as Galaxy Quest.

But Galaxy Quest, the 1999 film starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Alan Rickman, also technically isn’t Star Trek; it's a film about the cast of a Star Trek-like series who find themselves stopping actual evil aliens from committing genocide.

But now Paramount Plus, the home of all things Star Trek, is looking to adapt the film into a TV series... so I can understand if you’re confused about its relationship...

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Southwest delayed hundreds of departures Tuesday due to a networking glitch

Photo by Paul Hennessy/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Southwest Airlines has fixed a technical issue that delayed hundreds of flights across the country. In a statement provided to The Verge, Southwest Airlines spokesperson Dan Landson says the company resumed operations after working through “data connection issues resulting from a firewall failure.”

The airline started having issues at around 10:30AM ET, with data from FlightAware suggesting that over 1,700 Southwest flights have been delayed so far. The Federal Aviation Administration paused departures at the request of Southwest Airlines around this time and later unpaused flights at 11:10AM ET.

We’ve resumed operations this morning following a pause in service. Please visit https://t.co/64eTbzR9ph to check your flight status and...

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s second-gen AirPods Pro are $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. Even other Apple earbuds, including the fitness-focused Beats Fit Pro, are on sale right now for as low as $144.95 ($55 off).

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...

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Michelle Yeoh is beaming back into Star Trek

The Emperor Philippa Georgiou has served a lot of good looks. | Image: CBS Television Studios

Michelle Yeoh just won an Oscar and is now back to making movies. This time, she’ll be returning to her Star Trek: Discovery character for a new film based on the Star Trek black ops organization known as Section 31.

Star Trek: Section 31 follows her character, the Emperor Philippa Georgiou. And if you are not very familiar with Star Trek, you might be confused. There are Emperors? Yes, yes, there are. Settle in, folks, as I explain the history of this character.

Philippa Georgiou was the original captain of the ship Discovery but was killed in the pilot episode, and her death creates much of the friction for the surviving characters in the first season. Later in the season, her “evil” Mirrorverse counterpart shows up. The Mirrorverse is...

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Your Instagram ‘Link in bio’ can now have up to five links

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Your Instagram bio can now include up to five links, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on his Instagram channel on Tuesday. “Probably one of the most requested features we’ve had,” he wrote.

You can add links by editing your profile in the mobile app, where you can give them titles and reorder how they’ll appear. However, if you’ve added more than one link, anyone visiting your profile will still have to click through a “[Your first link] and 1 other” message to see that list of links. That means that, if you have more than one link you have to feature on either your Instagram profile or already use a “Link in bio” service like Linktree, people are going to have to do an extra click to see your links no matter what.

Still,...

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Apple’s first store in India is now open

The Apple Store in Mumbai, India. | Image: Apple

Apple has officially opened its first store in India. On Tuesday, hundreds of customers got the chance to step inside the Mumbai-based retail location after years of waiting for the iPhone maker to build a store in the country.

As you can see from the images included in the gallery below, the store has a pretty eye-catching design. It features a glass exterior and a ceiling tiled with triangular pieces of timber that stretch past the building’s walls to form a canopy over the store. Apple says each tile is made from 408 pieces of timber and that there are 1,000 tiles in total.

The energy, creativity, and passion in Mumbai is incredible! We are so excited to open Apple BKC — our first store in India. pic.twitter.com/talx2ZQEMl

— Tim...

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YouTube is cracking down on videos describing eating disorders

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube will remove additional videos related to eating disorders, including content that shows or discusses “imitable behavior,” the company announced today.

Videos promoting or glorifying eating disorders are already banned on YouTube, but this policy update expands the rules to include content that shows or describes eating disorder behaviors that audiences could imitate. Videos that show or describe “weight-based bullying in the context of eating disorders” will also be banned under the new policy.

Image: YouTube

Resources for eating disorders will appear below videos.

YouTube will also begin restricting young viewers from accessing content related to eating disorders, including videos that discuss...

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Prime Video adds new Dialogue Boost feature to make voices easier to hear

You can choose between medium and high settings for Dialogue Boost. | Image: Amazon

It’s a complaint we’ve all heard by now and maybe one you’ve vented about firsthand: voices and conversations are often too difficult to understand when watching TV. I know many people who routinely enable closed captioning — even if they’re not hard of hearing — to be sure they don’t miss anything. Many soundbars and some TVs have added various speech enhancement modes to overcome this, but if you’re stuck with shoddy built-in TV speakers, unintelligible conversation can become very aggravating.

With Prime Video, Amazon has decided to do something about this dilemma at the software level. Today, the company is introducing a new Dialogue Boost mode that can be toggled on from any device that offers the streaming service. “Dialogue Boost...

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BrightDrop isn’t just selling electric vans — it’s redesigning delivery

Photo illustration by Will Joel / The Verge.

CEO Travis Katz is running a sustainable delivery startup from within a century-old car company.

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Microsoft reportedly working on its own AI chips that may rival Nvidia’s

Microsoft has worked with Qualcomm and AMD on custom chips in the past. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Microsoft is reportedly working on its own AI chips that can be used to train large language models and avoid a costly reliance on Nvidia. The Information reports that Microsoft has been developing the chips in secret since 2019, and some Microsoft and OpenAI employees already have access to them to test how well they perform for the latest large language models like GPT-4.

Nvidia is the key supplier of AI server chips right now, with companies racing to buy up these chips and estimates suggesting OpenAI will need more than 30,000 of Nvidia’s A100 GPUs for the commercialization of ChatGPT. Nvidia’s latest H100 GPUs are selling for more than $40,000 on eBay, illustrating the demand for high-end chips that can help deploy AI software.

W...

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GameStop’s buy one, get one free sale actually features some great games

Elden Ring is just one of the games included in GameStop’s BOGO sale. | Image: FromSoftware

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom will drop in less than a month, but if you need some games to distract yourself until then, GameStop’s latest BOGO sale is here. Right now, you can buy one of the 40 video games listed here and get a second game of equal or lesser value for free. The promo applies to older Nintendo Switch titles like The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD ($59.99)— just in case you want to revisit the series — as well as a plethora of non-Zelda titles.

The list covers newer Switch games like Octopath Traveler II, which is on sale for $44.99 ($15 off) as well as the recent remake of Like a Dragon: Ishin!for PlayStation ($59.99). A number of older games are also part of the promotion, including Xenoblade...

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Adobe Lightroom’s latest AI-powered feature is chin-scratchingly specific

Image: Adobe

Adobe’s latest Lightroom features are designed to make photo editing more accessible to people without professional experience — no matter how specific the task. The company has expanded the AI masking categories for its “Select People” tool to include new options that automatically select a subject’s clothing and facial hair, allowing users to quickly make adjustments to their color and texture.

The update also includes three additional Adaptive Presets for portraits — Darken Beard, Polished Portrait, and Enhance Clothing — allowing users to make predetermined adjustments with a single click. Darken Beard is the most specific, its sole purpose being to make facial hair appear darker so that it stands out more. Meanwhile, Polished...

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Panic says it’s sold more than 50,000 Playdate handhelds

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Panic’s little yellow handheld has sold a lot more than anticipated. Today, the company confirmed that the Playdate has sold 53,000 units, more than double the initial production run of 20,000. However, a large number of those customers are still waiting to crank away: Panic says that it has shipped 27,000 of those orders, and “the team is hard at work on getting customers their Playdates, and fully expect to deliver all pre-orders by the end of this year.”

In a statement, Playdate’s project lead Greg Maletic said, “When we started, we had no idea how big the audience would be for a weird product like this, but we told the factory: build 20,000. To have now sold more than 53,000 (and counting) is heartening. And this, at a time when...

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The Nest Thermostat is getting Matter support starting today

The 2020 Nest Thermostat will get Matter support starting this week. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Matter has had a rough first few months, with barely any devices available and plenty of problems setting up and using those that are. But the new smart home standard may have just gotten the kick-start it needed. The Nest Thermostat is getting updated to support Matter starting today, April 18th. This is the first smart thermostat to support Matter, and the big change for Nest users is that it will now work with Apple Home without needing third-party hardware. (You will need iOS 16.4, however).

An over-the-air update will make the popular thermostat from Google compatible with any Matter smart home platform using Matter over Wi-Fi. The rollout starts today and will be completed over the next few weeks, according to an update to a post...

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Social media is doomed to die

After seven years at Snapchat, I finally learned the truth about why our most important apps seem destined to disappoint us.

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Marvel’s hoping Thor and Loki can convince you to run a 5K in a new running app

Marvel Move arrives later this summer and features immersive, audio-based training plans for runners. | Image: Six to Start; Marvel

Superhero-themed fitness plans and classes have been on the internet for ages, but this summer, Zombies, Run! creator Six to Start is collaborating with Marvel to launch a new fitness app featuring your favorite comic book superheroes. The forthcoming app, dubbed Marvel Move, will feature a series of immersive audio-based running plans starring popular characters ranging from Thor and his mischievous brother Loki to the X-Men. The app will cost $74.99 per year, though you can get a two-year subscription for $99 for a limited time.

The pitch ought to sound familiar if you’ve ever tried the Zombies, Run! app, which is a mix between a running app and a podcast drama set in the Zombocalypse where you star as the main character. Marvel Move...

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Sonos’ exciting new product category is... commercial audio

Sonos Pro is available to businesses starting today. | Image: Sonos

Maybe the long-rumored Sonos headphones aren’t coming this year after all. A few months ago, CEO Patrick Spence announced that Sonos would enter four new product categories over the next few years — with the first coming in 2023. But the company is throwing a curveball of sorts: while the easy assumption was that these would all be new hardware categories, it turns out that the first one is all about software. Software as a service (SaaS), to be more specific.

Today, Sonos is introducing Sonos Pro, a new service targeted at businesses — restaurants, bars, and retail stores — that makes it easy to play music across numerous locations without breaking any licensing rules. Sonos Pro works with all S2-compatible hardware including the Ikea...

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Xiaomi’s 13 Ultra pulls out all the photography stops

Image: Xiaomi

Xiaomi has just announced a new Ultra variant of the Xiaomi 13 that features not one but four 50-megapixel cameras in its substantial rear camera bump. The Xiaomi 13 Ultra will be available in China this month but will eventually release in international markets, according to Lei Jun, the company’s founder and CEO.

Like the Xiaomi 13 Pro before it, the Xiaomi 13 Ultra utilizes a massive one-inch type sensor for its main camera. But new for this version is that the aperture of the Ultra’s main camera is variable and supports an aperture of either f/1.9 or f/4.0. That should give photographers more control in their photography, particularly when it comes to how much depth of field their shots have.

Image: Xiaomi

T...

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The Verge is nominated for three Webby Awards, and you can help us win!

The 27th annual Webby Award season is upon us, and this year, The Verge has been nominated in three categories! This is basically a run for the “Best on the Internet” — and after hearing the Webbys received nearly 14,000 entries, it’s pretty exciting to be nominated.

As nominees, we can win a Webby People’s Voice Award, which is voted online by fans — like yourself! — so we’d love your support. You can vote for The Verge in all three categories, so visit the links below to cast your votes for the following nominations:

• Best in Technology Video: Full Frame with Becca Farsace — VOTE

• Best in Technology Podcasts: The Vergecast — VOTE

• Best in Social Video for Education & Discovery: Seeker By the Verge — VOTE

View...

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WhatsApp, Signal, and other encrypted messaging apps urge UK to rethink ‘flawed’ legislation

Illustration: The Verge

A number of encrypted messaging apps including WhatsApp and Signal have banded together to oppose a proposed UK law they say could undermine end-to-end encryption. Leaders from each company have signed an open letter asking the UK government to “urgently rethink” sections of its Online Safety Bill to ensure it aligns with “the Government’s stated intention to protect end-to-end encryption and respect the human right to privacy.”

The UK’s Online Safety Bill is a new set of laws intended to protect children and adults online by holding social media companies accountable for users’ safety. The bill has been widely criticized for its potential to allow the UK government and its communications regulator OFCOM (Office of Communications) to...

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Outlook for Mac’s new profiles separate work and personal emails with colorful themes

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft has started rolling out a new profiles feature in Outlook for Mac that lets you easily separate out work and personal email accounts with different colored themes. The profiles feature is designed to make it easy to switch between accounts and not send the wrong email to someone or avoid storing calendar entries incorrectly.

If you create profiles for both work and personal you can switch to the personal one and not see notifications from your work account — useful at the end of a work day. A Control + Tab shortcut lets Outlook for Mac users switch between these new profiles. Microsoft has also added automated switching through Siri shortcuts, so you can automatically switch to personal mode at the end of a work day.

...

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All the rumors about Google’s upcoming Pixel hardware so far

Illustration: The Verge

From the Pixel 7A to the rumored Pixel foldable, here’s what we’re expecting out of Google’s hardware division in May and beyond.

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Withings’ latest smart scale features an ‘eyes closed’ mode

The new Withings Body Smart scale features a new “eyes closed” mode. | Image: Withings

Even if your goal is to lose weight, the number on the scale isn’t always the best measure of progress. In that vein, Withings’ new Body Smart scale is adding an “eyes closed” mode. Instead of displaying your weight, the scale will instead show encouraging messages or metrics like step count, air quality, and the weather.

It might seem odd to exclude weight on a scale, but it’s a helpful feature for folks who want to track their health but may have a history of disordered eating, are easily discouraged, or want to focus on other measures of progress like muscle gain. Or you could merely want to keep your weight private and viewable only within the app. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this kind of feature. The QardioBase 2, for...

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Pokémon Go developer Niantic is making a real-world Monster Hunter game

Image: Niantic

Niantic is working with a different kind of monster for its next release. The studio, best-known for Pokémon Go, announced a partnership with Capcom to make a title based on the Monster Hunter franchise. The new game is called Monster Hunter Now, and it aims to take the core of that series — you know, hunting monsters — and transform it into the kind of real-world, augmented reality experience that Niantic is known for.

Gameplay specifics were light (Niantic says more details will be available when the closed beta launches in the near future) but it appears that Monster Hunter Now will follow a somewhat familiar formula. The premise is that the Monster Hunter universe has somehow seeped into our world, and players will be able to...

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