Black Mirror’s sixth season hits Netflix on June 15th

Image: Netflix

Black Mirror’s sixth season will land on Netflix on June 15th. The streamer revealed the release date in a new trailer on Wednesday, which gives us a more detailed look at what to expect from the mind-bending series, as opposed to the teaser we saw last month.

The upcoming installment will consist of five new episodes, including one where a woman realizes that a streaming platform that looks — and sounds — a lot like Netflix created an adaptation based on her life. This particular story is called “Joan Is Awful” and stars Schitt’s Creek’s Annie Murphy as well as Michael Cera and Salma Hayek.

Black Mirror Season 6 premieres June 15 on Netflix…and also on Streamberry, apparently? pic.twitter.com/tTk0QOLdsU

— Netflix (@netflix) May 31,...

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Twitter just closed the book on academic research

The twitter’s logo is pictured on screen reflected by mirrors in Mulhouse, eastern France on May 30, 2023. | Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP via Getty Images

Twitter was once a mainstay of academic research — a way to take the pulse of the internet. But as new owner Elon Musk has attempted to monetize the service, researchers are struggling to replace a once-crucial tool. Unless Twitter makes another about-face soon, it could close the chapter on an entire era of research.

“Research using social media data, it was mostly Twitter-ology,” says Gordon Pennycook, an associate professor of behavioral science at the University of Regina. “It was the primary source that people were using,”

“It was mostly Twitter-ology.”

Until Musk’s takeover, Twitter’s API — which allows third-party developers to gather data — was considered one of the best on the internet. It enabled studies into everything from h...

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TMNT: Mutant Mayhem’s new trailer is a monster party

Image: Paramount Pictures

It’s shaping up to be a good week for slick animation. Just as the next Spider-Verse movie is hitting theaters on Friday, we also get a brand-new trailer for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Like the first glimpse at the film, the new clip is dripping with style — and this time dives a little deeper into who the turtles are (including Raph’s rage problem) and what they’re up against. Basically, it’s lots of big, scary mutants.

Considering how many times we’ve heard the turtle story before, it’s impressive just how fresh Mutant Mayhem looks. Part of that is down to the visuals, but it also has quite the cast with Jackie Chan as Shredder; Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon as the turtle bros; Seth...

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Across the Spider-Verse is an animated masterpiece that upends Marvel’s Spider-canon

Miles Morales and multiple members of the Spider Society. | Image: Sony / Marvel

Sony’s Into the Spider-Verse sequel is a bigger, bolder, more ambitious film than its predecessor — and a powerful deconstruction of Marvel’s Spider-Man mythos.

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Former CD Projekt Red devs found new studio, Blank.

Image: Blank.

A group of former CD Projekt Red developers have formed their own studio, Blank..

No, that’s not me accidentally adding an extra period. The studio’s name is just that — Blank., period included. I don’t know whether to be incensed because of the syntactical headache this will inevitably cause or amused by the name’s novelty. But to save my sanity, yours, and that of our copy editors, we will henceforth drop the extra punctuation.

Blank.

See, I’m not making it up.

“We’re thrilled to announce Blank and to start expanding our incredible team,” said Mateusz Kanik, who worked for the Cyberpunk 2077 developer for 15 years before co-founding Blank.

Blank is one of a number of studios born from former CD Projekt Red...

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Sony’s small but mighty XB100 speaker is cheerful and very cheap

There are smarter and much bigger speakers to choose from, but this tiny little thing offers surprisingly crisp sound for its low price.

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If you want to be bilingual, try this GPT-trained language-learning Discord bot

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

I am willing to bet that, at some point in your life, you have attempted to learn a new language and given up. Perhaps you took a few classes in high school but never continued. Maybe you downloaded the Duolingo app to your phone but never touched it. Maybe you started Rosetta Stone but lost interest. Discord and the language-learning platform Memrise have a possible solution for you: the Memrise Discord app, a new GPT-3-trained chatbot that can teach you new tongues from the comfort of your Discord server.

The problem with many of today’s language-learning methods, in the experience of Memrise co-founder Ben Whately, is that they don’t force students into real-world situations. “If we spoke about cooking like we speak about language...

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Garmin’s Epix 2 and Fenix 7 lineups go ‘Pro’

The Garmin Fenix 7 Pro starts at $799.99. | Image: Garmin

Garmin’s joining the Pro bandwagon. On Wednesday, it’s launching the Epix 2 Pro and Fenix 7 Pro, which both come with a boatload of new mapping and training features, hands-free flashlights, and sensors. The Fenix 7 Pro series starts at $799.99, while the Epix 2 Pro will start at $899.99.

There’s good news if you wanted an Epix 2 last year but were bummed that it only came in one size. Garmin doesn’t believe that less is more, so you can also now pick between three sizes of Epix 2 models: 42mm, 47mm, and 51mm. Both Pro lineups also offer a more durable Sapphire Edition.

The vast majority of what’s new will be shared across both the Epix 2 Pro and Fenix 7 Pro lineups. For example, all models will now feature a built-in hands-free LED...

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Windows 11 gets some useful widgets for CPU, memory, and GPU monitoring

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

The Windows Widgets feature is finally getting some useful additions to let you monitor CPU, memory, and GPU usage. Neowin has spotted that Microsoft’s new release of a Dev Home app includes several new widgets for Windows 11.

You can use the new widgets to monitor processor utilization and speed, memory usage, GPU temperatures and usage, and Wi-Fi or Ethernet speeds. They’re certainly a lot more useful than the usual widgets or the news feeds full of junk stories from MSN. You can get similar information from the Game Bar, the Windows Task Manager, or apps like HWiNFO64, but it’s neat to be able to bring up the widgets with the Windows key + W shortcut.

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

The new widgets inside...

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Anti-harassment service Block Party leaves Twitter amid API changes

Recent changes to Twitter’s API access have “made it impossible for Block Party’s Twitter product to continue in its current form.” | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Block Party, an anti-harassment service designed to combat abusive content on Twitter, is the latest third-party app to leave the platform in light of Twitter locking most of its API access behind a paywall. Announced in a blog post last night, Block Party’s anti-harassment tools for Twitter are being placed on an immediate, indefinite hiatus, with the developers claiming that changes to Twitter’s API pricing (which starts from $100 per month) have “made it impossible for Block Party’s Twitter product to continue in its current form.”

Block Party’s services allowed users to automate a great deal of their Twitter moderation, with filtering and block list features that automatically block accounts that like or retweet posts you don’t want...

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Google quietly ends support for decade-old Chromecast

The original Chromecast plugged into an HDMI port. | Image: The Verge

Google has ended support for the original Chromecast, around a decade after the $35 streaming stick launched in 2013. A message announcing the end of support has appeared on several Google support pages. “Support for Chromecast (1st gen) has ended,” the notice brought to our attention by 9to5Google reads. “These devices no longer receive software or security updates, and Google does not provide technical support for them. Users may notice a degradation in performance.”

The end of support appears to have arrived at the end of April, when a support page listing firmware versions for each Chromecast model was last updated. It doesn’t sound like remaining first-generation Chromecasts will stop working immediately, but their functionality is...

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Riot delays competitive League of Legends season after players voted to walk out

Photo by Liu YiCun / Riot Games

Riot Games announced Tuesday that it’s delaying the start of the summer season for competitive North American League of Legends after players recently voted “overwhelmingly” for a walkout. The League Championship Series (LCS) summer split was set to kick off on Thursday, but the start of the season is being pushed back by two weeks.

The players, who are represented by the LCS Players Association (LCSPA), voted to walk out following Riot Games’ announcement that LCS teams wouldn’t need to field an amateur group in the North American Challengers League (NACL) starting with the summer season. In the days after, many teams said they wouldn’t field an NACL teams, with some citing the economic challenges of doing so. Players protested those...

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Trial of Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes: news, updates, and more

Photo by Kimberly White/Getty Images for Fortune

The former billionaire is now serving her prison sentence after it was revealed that her blood-testing company hadn’t achieved the breakthroughs it claimed.

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The Pixel Watch 2 might kiss Samsung chips goodbye to improve battery

The next Pixel Watch might be saying goodbye to Samsung chips. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

All the first Pixel Watch had to do was not suck. That won’t be good enough for its successor, which is rumored to debut later this fall and be called the Pixel Watch 2. Its one job is to last longer than 24 hours, which is why it’s both surprising and not so surprising that the next-gen smartwatch will reportedly be leaving Samsung processors behind.

According to 9to5Google, the Pixel Watch 2 will sport Qualcomm’s Snapdragon W5 Plus chip. The 4nm processor was announced last summer and promises double the performance and enable multiday battery life. On the one hand, this makes a ton of sense. The current Pixel Watch runs on Samsung’s last-gen wearable chip, the 10nm Exynos 9110, and its battery life stinks compared to the competition....

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Nvidia’s new ultra-low motion blur tech lets PC gamers have high refresh rates, too

Image: Nvidia

Nvidia is updating its Ultra Low Motion Blur (ULMB) technology, which could make gaming even smoother on high-end monitors. In an announcement on Sunday, Nvidia says its upgraded ULMB 2 feature is capable of providing over 1,000Hz of effective motion clarity with “practically zero” crosstalk — but only on 1440p 360Hz G-Sync monitors for now.

This means you no longer have to choose between having a more responsive refresh rate or reducing motion blur, both of which affect gameplay. Now Nvidia says the effective motion rate for a 360Hz monitor with ULMB 2 enabled is 1440Hz. “That means in order to obtain the same level of motion clarity without ULMB 2, gamers would need a classic panel capable of 1440 Hz,” Nvidia notes. You still can’t use...

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The Metal Gear Solid 3 remake will reuse the original game’s voice lines — with no changes

Image: Konami

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, the recently announced remake of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, will reuse the voice lines from the original game with no changes, according to Tommy Williams, Konami’s head of communications for the Americas.

Konami revealed the game last week, and its language about how the original voice cast would be featured has been murky. The company’s press release said that the remake will “star the original voice characters,” and a tweet said that the “story and character voices” in Delta would “remain the same from the original game.”

That language left some room for interpretation. Would the same voice actors be back but with new lines? Recent remakes like Resident Evil 4 and Final Fantasy VII Remake put...

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Twitter is adding crowdsourced fact checks to images

Image: Twitter

Twitter is expanding its crowdsourced fact-checking program to include images, shortly after a fake image went viral claiming to show an “explosion” near the Pentagon.

Community Notes, which are user-generated and appear below tweets, were introduced to add context to potentially misleading content on Twitter. Now contributors will be able to add information specifically related to an image, and that context will populate below “recent and future matching images,” according to the company.

Raters and readers will see notes that authors marked as “about the image” slightly differently, so it’s clear to everyone that they should be interpreted as about the media, not the specific Tweet. Ratings can help identify cases where a note may...

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Smart door lock maker Level is bringing a new video doorbell to apartment dwellers

Level offers a single doorbell camera for entire apartment buildings. | Image: Level

Level has announced it’s releasing a single doorbell camera that can be used for entire apartment buildings as part of an overall smart home platform for multiunit dwellings. The video doorbell wouldn’t be available generally but instead comes to a smart home market for multifamily buildings that could benefit from a retail smart lock maker moving into the space.

Level says residents can use the Level app to peer through the doorbell camera and speak with visitors on the other side. The press release adds that the camera includes “package identification intelligence” to notify residents when deliveries have arrived. Assuming the company brings the same level of creativity to its doorbell camera that it did the Level Bolt — its “...

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Overwatch 2 celebrates its first in-game Pride event

Image: Blizzard

The event includes a short story confirming two new queer heroes: Baptiste and Pharah.

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Rivian teases its next-generation R2 SUV that’s smaller than the R1S

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe and lead designer Jeff Hammoud stand in front of the body of the R2 SUV. | Image: Rivian

A year ago, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said the company was on track to launch its next-generation R2 electric vehicle platform in 2025. Now, Scaringe is giving Rivian fans a teaser of the new compact SUV that’s expected to be much more affordable than the R1S, which currently starts at $78,000.

During an Instagram Q&A session hosted by Scaringe over Memorial Day weekend, the CEO took a moment to link up with Rivian lead designer Jeff Hammoud to show a glimpse of the R2’s shape. The two stood in front of a clay model of an R2 covered with a black cloth, outlining a vehicle that seems boxy like an R1S but smaller.

Scaringe also revealed in the session that the R1T electric truck will no longer be getting the “Tank Turn” four-wheel turning,...

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The future of podcasts is getting written in print

Image: Good Tape / Dane Cardiel

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

Hope everyone is well rested after the holiday weekend. Today, I have a Q&A with two of the founders behind Good Tape, a new biannual print magazine that is aiming to tell the untold stories within the podcast industry. The publication hopes to feature a mix of journalism and cultural criticism about audio storytelling — with a focus on lesser-known creators and independent modes of production. The first issue is scheduled to be released in the fall.

There are precious few outlets focused on the podcast industry (this obviously being one of them), so I wanted to find out what the founders hope Good Tape can add to the current...

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Apple’s rumored VR headset could have ridiculously high-end screens

Illustration: The Verge

Apple’s rumored mixed reality headset might have extremely pixel-dense and bright displays, according to a tweet from Ross Young, CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants, who has shared accurate information about Apple products in the past. Young says that the AR / VR headset will be equipped with two 1.41-inch Micro OLED screens, each with 4,000 ppi, and they’ll be able to go beyond 5,000 nits of brightness. You should also be able to see 4K resolution per eye, he said in a follow-up tweet.

Based on previous reporting, it already seems like the headset could be a monster device, and displays like these could make it even more of a high-end product. Meta’s Quest 2 offers 773 ppi and 100 nits of brightness, and while that’s not a totally...

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Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard deal heads to a summer showdown with regulators

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Microsoft’s appeal of the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) decision to block its proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition will head to a hearing the week of July 24th. The appeal sets Microsoft up for two summertime battles with regulators: one against the CMA and the other against the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which commences with an evidentiary hearing on August 2nd.

Microsoft is focusing on the CMA’s decision to block its $68.7 billion deal largely because of cloud gaming concerns. The CMA estimated that Microsoft controls around 60 to 70 percent of global cloud gaming services, and it determined that adding control of _Call of Dut_y, Overwatch, and World of Warcraft would give Microsoft an alarming advantage in the...

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Motorola’s next Razr foldable specs revealed in leaked slide

Image: @_snoopytech_

The specs for Motorola’s upcoming flagship foldable have leaked. A marketing image posted by leaker SnoopyTech indicates that the premium Razr 40 Ultra could come with a massive 3.6-inch pOLED outer display at 144Hz, as well as a 6.9-inch inner pOLED display when the device is unfolded.

The leaked image, which contains Italian text that we translated with the help of Google, suggests that the device will come with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip. That’s the same component that comes in Samsung’s flagship Galaxy device and the one that Motorola added to its 2022 version of the Razr, which was only released in China and Europe.

Razr 40 Ultra official specs pic.twitter.com/p5t7qZmu7C

— SnoopyTech (@_snoopytech_) May 30, 2023

With...

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The Idol’s latest trailer feels pretty tryhard

Lily-Rose Depp as Jocelyn and Abel Tesfaye as Tedros. | Warner Bros. Discovery

The Idol co-creators Sam Levinson and The Weeknd have spent the past few months insisting that their upcoming Max series is really a provocative piece of heightened commentary about the perils of fame rather than the self-indulgent piece of “torture porn” it’s been accused of being. The Idol’s latest trailer makes it seem like it might be a little from column A and quite a bit more from column B — all the while trying very hard to show you how willing it is to “go there.”

Sex is an important part of the twisted power dynamic that exists between The Idol’s spiraling superstar Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), and Tedros (Abel Tesfaye), the manipulative, new age cult leader who comes into her life after she has a very public mental breakdown....

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Wyze’s Cam Floodlight Pro lights up when it recognizes vehicles and people

Image: Wyze

Smart home company Wyze has announced the Cam Floodlight Pro, a security camera with built-in lighting and object sensing that serves as the next-gen successor to the original Wyze Cam Floodlight. The wired $149.98 Cam Floodlight Pro bumps its predecessor’s 1080p camera resolution to 1440p (2.5K) and features a 180-degree field of view to help reduce blind spots.

The company claims its new AI “computer vision” can more accurately detect movement at greater distances and can recognize objects selected by the user to avoid things like blowing branches from triggering the lights and sending unwanted alerts to your phone. Users can opt to trigger the lights and notifications only when people or vehicles are detected, for example. It’s a...

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Apple’s classical music app is now available on Android

Illustration by Will Joel / The Verge

Apple Music Classical is now available on Android devices, and you can download the app from the Google Play Store, as first spotted by 9to5Mac.

After Apple acquired the classical music streaming service Primephonic in 2021, the company announced plans to roll out a classical music app by the end of last year. However, Apple missed its target by a few months and didn’t release the standalone app on the iPhone until March.

You can gain access to Apple Music Classical through a subscription to Apple Music or Apple One. The app offers ad-free recordings of classical music with up to 192 kHz / 24-bit lossless audio, along with thousands of recordings that support spatial audio. It also retains Primephonic’s detailed music metadata, making...

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Tesla is off the hook for allowing gaming while driving

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Tesla won’t have to issue a recall for its vehicles after the federal government closed an investigation into the company’s “Passenger Play” feature that allowed games to be played on the infotainment screen while the vehicle was in motion.

The investigation was first opened in December 2021 after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) received customer complaints that said live games and internet web searching — which were supposedly restricted to passenger use only while the car was in motion — could be played by anyone in the vehicle at any time. Over half a million cars were included in the scope of the NHTSA’s investigation.

Over half a million cars were included in the scope of the NHTSA’s investigation

When T...

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WWDC 2023: all the news from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Virtual reality, a bigger MacBook Air, updated OSes, and more are on the docket.

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I’m a Virgo’s new trailer has its head in the clouds and its feet on the ground

Jharrel Jerome as Cootie. | Amazon

As wild as the premise of Amazon Prime’s I’m a Virgomight sound at first, the series’ newest trailer makes clear just how perfectly all writer-director Boots Riley’s ideas fit together to tell a story that’s more grounded than it initially seems.

Equal parts fairytale, superhero origin story, and coming-of-age drama, I’m a Virgo chronicles the life and times of a 13-foot-tall, 19-year-old boy named Cootie (Jharrel Jerome) who’s spent the bulk of his life hidden away in secret by his family who fears what the world might do to him. As the people who’ve raised Cootie from birth, Lafrancine (Carmen Ejogo) and Martisse (Mike Epps) understand well what sort of dangers a boy like their son might face if the public knew about him, and it’s...

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