Foundation’s second season kicks off in July

Image: Apple

One of Apple TV Plus’ biggest series is coming back for a second season this summer. Today, the streamer announced that season 2 of Foundation — the sci-fi epic based on the stories of Isaac Asimov — will premiere on July 14th. The new season will be 10 episodes long, with new episodes dropping on Fridays, and you can get a brief taste in the debut teaser trailer above.

Foundation debuted back in 2021 and was notable in particular for its complexity, with a story that spanned multiple centuries. The second season will continue that tradition by taking place quite a long time after the first. Here’s the description:

More than a century after the season 1 finale, tension mounts throughout the galaxy in Foundation season 2. As the Cleons...

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Asus ROG Ally review: it’s time to stop pretending Windows is the answer

A big step forward for Windows handhelds — but is Windows the way forward at all?

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Nintendo’s big year is about more than games

Photo by Zeng Hui / Xinhua via Getty Images

Nintendo is a company whose success ebbs and flows. The glory days give way to lean periods, but things inevitably rebound. It happens in cycles. The quiet times of the GameCube gave way to the breakout mainstream popularity of the Wii. The humbling days of the Wii U are what paved the way for the transformative success of the Switch. And now, on the eve of the launch of what could be the biggest game of the year, we might just be seeing Nintendo at the peak of its powers.

What’s notable about this particular moment is how it extends beyond video games. It started earlier in the year when Nintendo launched Super Nintendo World in Los Angeles, a theme park attraction at Universal Studios Hollywood. (It followed a similar attraction in...

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My early hours in Tears of the Kingdom were a comedy of errors

Image: Nintendo

Let me tell you about the time I got stranded on an island floating in the sky.

Much like its predecessor, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom begins in a sort of training area. In this case, it’s a series of interconnected islands high up in the sky, where you’re able to not only unlock your initial abilities but also learn the basics of how to use them. There are even helpful ancient robots around to give you tips.

It’s here that I first got access to Ultrahand, an ability that lets Link magically pick up objects, including stuff much too big for him to hold, and fuse them together. It looks something like this:

Image: Nintendo

One of the first and most obvious uses for this skill is to build bridges. You...

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The best entertainment of 2023

Image: Lucasfilm Ltd.

Right now, we are absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to entertainment. TV shows, movies, and games all come out at such a fast and furious pace that it’s hard to keep up. Not all of them are worth your time, of course — which is where we come in.

Our team spends a lot of time immersed in the various realms of pop culture so that we can handpick our favorites for you. That could mean a hot new indie game you might’ve otherwise missed or the streaming series that will become your new obsession. Either way, if you’re finding it hard to sort through the flood, this is the place to find a curated selection of the best stuff.

And like last year, this page will be updated regularly throughout the year — so make sure to check back in...

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Tears of the Kingdom is a legend retold with slightly less wonder

Image: Nintendo

Tears of the Kingdom doesn’t quite live up to its predecessor, but it’s still a fantastic new approach to Hyrule.

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Sony’s new Xperia 1 V features upgraded camera hardware in a familiar design

The Xperia 1 V. | Image: Sony

Sony has announced its latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia 1 V. At first glance, it doesn’t look too different from the Xperia 1 IV that proceeded it, with its tall 21:9 display, vertical row of rear cameras, and sensible squared off design. But internally it’s using a new “Exmor T for mobile” sensor for its main camera, which Sony describes as a “2-layer Transistor Pixel stacked CMOS image sensor” that’s 1.7 times larger than the sensor in last year’s model. Sony claims this makes for double the low-light performance versus the Xperia 1 IV, helping to produce images with “rich colors and textures.”

Like Sony’s other recent flagships, the Xperia 1 V is priced at the premium end of the spectrum. In the US, preorders open today for...

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Google’s Find My Devices network adds key and wallet trackers from Chipolo

Image: Chipolo

Google’s freshly expanded Find My Device platform has two new trackers coming from Chipolo: the One Point key finder and the Card Point wallet finder. While these trackers are dedicated to Google’s location tracking service, Chipolo also offers similar One Spot and Card Spot trackers for Apple’s Find My service.

The names here are fairly self-explanatory. The new One Point wallet finder resembles a thick credit card that slips into your purse or wallet, while the key finder is a puck-shaped keyring. The latter is small enough to use in other circumstances though, such as keeping tabs on your luggage, bike, or even on a pet collar.

Image: Chipolo

The Card Point tracker doesn’t look too bulky compared to a standard...

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Fairbuds XL review: modular headphones designed to go the distance

With readily available spare parts and a modular construction, Fairphone’s first over-ear headphones are a suitable companion to its repairable smartphones. I just wish they sounded better.

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Fairphone is applying its repairability smarts to headphones

The headphones are designed to be modular and can be disassembled for repairs. | Image: Fairphone

The Fairbuds XL are a pair of modular, repairable headphones that are designed to be easy to dismantle, easy to repair, and easy to keep using for longer.

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The EPA tightens pollution standards for power plants, with a big loophole for coal and gas

A coal power plant in Texas in 2017 that became the first in the US to add carbon capture technology. | Photo by Luke Sharrett / Bloomberg via Getty Images

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed new rules for power plants today that are supposed to clean up pollution. But instead of encouraging more renewable energy growth, the proposal would actually help keep polluting coal and gas plants online.

The proposed mandate requires existing power plants to start limiting their carbon dioxide emissions in 2030, introducing restrictions that would become more stringent over time. Any new gas power plants would have to comply with pollution caps as soon as they’re built. A fact sheet from the agency says it decided not to update rules for new coal plants since it doesn’t anticipate new coal facilities to come online, which are more expensive and polluting than gas plants.

The proposed rules...

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Canon’s PowerShot V10 is a vlogging-centric callback to old Flip Video cams

It’s actually kinda cute for a simple black-and-silver design. | Image: Canon

Canon is finally stepping into the vlogging camera arena, and it’s doing so with a quirky new point-and-shoot geared toward a mindless “set-it-and-forget-it” crowd I’m not sure exists. The $429.99 Canon PowerShot V10 is an adorable little camera about the size of an extra-thick deck of cards that packs a fixed 19mm equivalent f/2.8 lens and marries it to a 20.9-megapixel one-inch-type sensor.

It records 4K at up to 30 fps and is geared toward filming yourself with an articulating screen, front and rear record buttons, stereo mics with a 3.5mm mic jack, a Micro HDMI port, digital image stabilization, and a kickstand for propping it up. It’s expected to launch in June.

More YouTube than TikTok

What makes the V10 interesting is its...

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The Verge’s 2023 Mother’s Day Gift Guide

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

From transparent chargers and TikTok gems to the latest wearables, we’ve curated a batch of unique gifts fit for any mom worth celebrating.

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Twitter launches encrypted DMs behind a paywall

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

In a new support document, Twitter has detailed what you can expect from the first version of the platform’s encrypted direct messages. Perhaps most notably, to be able to send and receive encrypted messages, you’ll have to pay Twitter for the ability to do so. Platforms like WhatsApp, Messenger, Signal, and iMessage already offer encrypted messaging for free, so having to pay for the feature on Twitter might be a hard pill to swallow.

According to the document, encrypted DMs are only available if you are a verified user (somebody who pays for Twitter Blue), a verified organization (an organization that pays $1,000 per month), or an affiliate of a verified organization (which costs $50 per month per person). Both the sender and...

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Google and Taito are teaming up on an AR Space Invaders game

Image: Google

Google and Taito are partnering on a new augmented reality version of the arcade classic Space Invaders. The new game, Space Invaders: World Defense, will use Google tools like ARCore and newly-announced Geospatial Creator to let AR Space Invaders aliens fly around real-world locations.

Based on a GIF in a Google tweet, it appears you’ll play the game kind of like a shooting gallery. In the GIF, a handful of aliens appear near and around a static city image, and a reticle appears so that the player can blast the aliens out of the sky. I get the sense this footage might not be fully representative of the final game, though — it kind of looks like the aliens have just been animated over a stock photo.

Just announced at #GoogleIO!

...

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Here’s how the new Google Pixel Fold stacks up to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4

Do you like your Fold long or tall? | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Google’s taken a page from Samsung’s book and made itself a foldable phone. In fact, the newly announced Google Pixel Fold, shown off at Google I/O 2023 alongside the Pixel 7A and Pixel Tablet, looks as if it borrowed a few chapters from Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4. The foldables share a fairly striking resemblance since Google opted for the phone-unfolds-into--tablet method of design philosophy and an equally lofty $1,799.99 starting price. However, when you look just a little closer, you notice some stark differences.

Here, we’re pitting the two folding ultra-flagships up against one another to compare their specs and features on paper. While Samsung is on its fourth iteration of the Galaxy Fold, Google will be a first-time player in...

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Google’s new Pixel Tablet is a $500 slate for the home

The Pixel Tablet comes with a speaker dock that provides a place to store and charge the tablet when it’s not in use.

Google is officially back in the tablet business. After teasing it a year ago, the company has now announced the Pixel Tablet, a $499 slab that’s available for preorder starting today, May 10th, and will begin shipping on June 20th.

Google’s history with tablets has been, well, fraught. The only real success it’s had was with the Nexus 7, a cheap, small tablet that was beloved when it came out back in 2012. The subsequent years saw the company try lots of ideas on portable touchscreen computers, launching new tablets with either Android or ChromeOS and then abandoning them shortly after. None ever recaptured the success of the Nexus 7. It even got to the point where Google’s head of hardware said it wouldn’t bother making new tablets...

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Here’s how the new Pixel 7A compares to the rest of Google’s Pixel 7 lineup

Unlike the Pixel 6A, the Pixel 7A offers 7.5W wireless charging. | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

The new Pixel Fold wasn’t the only smartphone Google introduced during this year’s Google I/O keynote. The budget-friendly Pixel 7A, a phone that essentially functions as a stripped-down version of last year’s Pixel 7, is already available at multiple retailers for $499.

At 6.1 inches, Google’s latest Pixel phone is just as small as its predecessor, the Pixel 6A, but this year, it comes with a few extra perks not present on the last-gen model. That includes support for wireless charging, a new chipset, and a higher-refresh display for smoother scrolling — factors that surely play into the phone’s $50 price increase.

Of course, despite the extra features, there are some tradeoffs you’ll still have to make if you plan on buying the Pixel...

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Disney will bring Hulu content into Disney Plus and raise its ad-free prices

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Disney is combining Hulu and Disney Plus into a single streaming app. During Disney’s Q2 earnings call on Wednesday, CEO Bob Iger announced that the company is going to create a “one-app experience” within the US and said that it’s raising the price of its ad-free plan, which currently costs $10.99 per month.

“While we continue to offer Disney plus Hulu and ESPN plus as standalone options, this is a logical progression of our DTC [direct-to-consumer] offerings that will provide greater opportunities for advertisers, while giving bundle subscribers access to more robust and streamlined content, resulting in greater audience engagement and ultimately leading to a more unified streaming experience,” Iger said.

He continued, “Meanwhile, the...

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LG’s giant new curved gaming monitor is up for sale in the US

Another big ultrawide curved gaming monitor has entered. | Image: LG

LG has put its latest massive curved gaming monitor up for sale in the US, and it’s here to undercut Samsung’s standard Odyssey G9 by $200. The company’s new UltraGear 49-inch costs $1,299.99 on LG’s online store and includes the important gaming features like 240Hz refresh rate and 1ms response time on deck, along with the crucial RGB lighting on the rear to kick-start your picturesque gamer nightclub vibe.

Now, this new LG UltraGear isn’t supposed to be cutting-edge in display technology like the company’s 45-inch OLED offering or Samsung’s QD-OLED and “8K” Mini-LED Odyssey gaming monitors. And it doesn't have the bending gimmicks of the LG Flex. Instead, this new LG is here to compare to Samsung’s immersive and already-proven regular...

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Google’s new Project Starline prototype isn’t a giant booth

Image: Google

Google has revealed a new, smaller version of its Project Starline 3D telepresence technology as part of its bevy of updates announced at Google I/O.

In the past, I’ve described Project Starline as a video chat booth because it was a booth you could actually sit in to talk to lifelike holographic projections of another person. I got to sit in a Starline booth last October, and I thought it was really impressive. But this new Starline prototype looks more like a big TV that I can more reasonably imagine fitting in an office or conference room.

In addition to the smaller size, the updated Starline apparently doesn’t require the special array of infrared light emitters and cameras used by the version of the technology that I saw. Instead,...

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The Babylon 5 animated movie is B5: The Road Home, and here’s what it’s about

Image: Warner Bros. Animation

Babylon 5 is coming back as an animated movie, series creator J. Michael Straczynski revealed last week, and today The Hollywood Reporter has the exclusive on what it’s about: Sheridan traveling through the multiverse in search of a way home.

The basic synopsis, via THR:

“Travel across the galaxy with John Sheridan as he unexpectedly finds himself transported through multiple timelines and alternate realities in a quest to find his way back home. Along the way he reunites with some familiar faces, while discovering cosmic new revelations about the history, purpose, and meaning of the Universe.”

As Straczynski hinted, many of the original surviving cast members are returning, including Bruce Boxleitner (Sheridan), Claudia Christian...

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Google is bringing YouTube, Waze, and Zoom to cars with native Android software

Image: Google

Google announced a slew of new features that will be available to cars with native Android software, including YouTube, Waze, and video conferencing apps like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Webex by Cisco. Video games are coming to Android-equipped cars. The company also announced plans to create an “Android for Car Apps Library” for third-party developers to build their own apps for Android-equipped cars.

But the announcement that streaming video and virtual meeting tools are coming to infotainment screens is sure to pique the most interest among Android users.

Google teased the ability to watch YouTube videos while sitting in your parked vehicle last year. Now, the company is saying the feature will be available “in the coming weeks”...

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Google’s new image search tools could help you identify AI-generated fakes

Image: Google

In a world increasingly filled with photorealistic images that have either been altered with AI editing tools or created using a generative AI bot like Midjourney or Stable Diffusion, how do you know if a picture is real? One thing that could help is a new tool Google is rolling out this summer for English-language searches in the US called “About this image.”

It’s similar to the “about this” drop-down that appears on links in regular search results but is now available in Google image searches. When you perform a “reverse image search” by uploading an image of unknown provenance, you’ll now see a menu option that lets you find out when that picture and others similar to it were first indexed by Google — as well as where on the web it...

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Google launches an AI coding bot for Android developers

Screenshot: Emma Roth / The Verge

Google is launching a new AI-powered coding bot for Android developers. During its I/O event on Wednesday, Google announced that the tool, called Studio Bot, will help developers build apps by generating code, fixing errors, and answering questions about Android.

According to Google, the bot is built on Codey, the company’s new foundational coding model that stems from its updated PaLM2 large language model (LLM). Studio Bot supports both the Kotlin and Java programming languages and will live directly in the toolbar on Android Studio. There, developers can get quick answers to their questions or even have the bot debug a portion of their code.

Screenshot: Emma Roth / The Verge

While Google notes that developers...

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Google will help Play Store developers build out their listings with generative AI

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google is making generative AI tools available to Play Store developers in an attempt to make it easier for them to build out their app listings. It’s one of a pair of AI-powered features Google is announcing for its Android app store at its I/O developer conference today, alongside a new review summary feature that will use AI to summarize app reviews. Other features include a machine translation feature for listings and new options for promoting apps.

The search giant is characterizing the generative AI tool as an experimental feature that’s designed to make drafting a listing easier. “Just open our AI helper, enter a couple of prompts like audience and key theme, and it will generate a draft you can edit, discard, or use,” its blog...

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How to preorder the Google Pixel Fold and Pixel 7A

Suddenly, June can’t come soon enough. | Image: Google

After the rumors, leaks, and an early tease, Google has now properly introduced both its new flagship foldable and midrange slab phone offerings: the Pixel Fold and the Pixel 7A. These were some of the showcase device announcements at the tech giant’s Google I/O 2023 keynote, accompanied by other Android and AI-related news.

The Pixel 7A continues Google’s formula of taking some of the best features from its latest generation of flagship phones, leaving out extras that cost a premium and dropping the cost to a more budget-friendly price. And speaking of premium, the Pixel Fold is a new ultra-flagship addition to the Pixel lineup, one that represents Google’s first attempt at a foldable phone and takes a page from Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold...

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Where to preorder the new Google Pixel Tablet

Google’s forthcoming slate starts at $499. | Image: Google

After teasing it at last year’s Google I/O, Google finally confirmed at this year’s developer conference that it’ll release its first-gen Google Pixel Tablet on June 20th. Pricing starts at $499, and if you want to be one of the first to get your hands on the new Android tablet, you can preorder it starting today, May 10th, from Google.

Powered by the same Tensor G2 processor found in Google’s Pixel 7 phones — including the new Pixel Fold and Pixel 7A — you can use the tablet for a range of tasks, from making 1080p video calls to sharpening blurry images. With the Google TV app and Chromecast built in, you should also be able to easily cast content from your Pixel phone to the tablet. The forthcoming slate comes with 8GB of RAM, too,...

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The nine biggest announcements from Google I/O 2023

Screenshot: Emma Roth / The Verge

Google just finished up its I/O keynote, where it announced some pretty major updates to its Pixel lineup and showed off its latest advances in AI. If you didn’t get a chance to watch the event live, we’ve rounded up all of the biggest news that came out of the Google I/O keynote.

Three new additions to the Pixel lineup

Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

Google’s Pixel hardware took center stage during the keynote, as the company launched three new products: the Pixel Fold, the Pixel Tablet, and the budget-friendly Pixel 7A.

The $1,799 Pixel Fold marks Google’s first entry into the foldable scene, featuring a 5.8-inch OLED outer screen that unfurls to reveal a larger 7.6-inch display that also is an OLED panel with a...

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Frank Ocean fans are getting scammed with fake AI-generated songs

Image: ANGELA WEISS / AFP via Getty Images

Fans of Frank Ocean lost thousands of dollars after a scammer sold them fake AI-generated songs, according to a report from Motherboard. It was only a matter of time.

The scammer made off with around $13,000 CAD by selling a collection of bogus “leaked” tracks by the artist to a Discord server of his fans. To build trust, the scammer reportedly shared one real unreleased Frank Ocean song on Discord and then jumped at the opportunity when they saw that fans couldn’t tell the difference between the real track and a fake one.

“We now live in a world where nobody knows if a song is made by the artist or by a robot,” a member of the Discord told Motherboard.

This is one of the most urgent problems with AI-generated songs for artists and...

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