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The new see-through Beats Studio buds along with other transparent tech. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Gadget, gaming, and smartphone manufacturers are trading in tired matte and dull metallic designs for transparent exteriors.
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Henry Cavill in season 3 of The Witcher_._ | Image: Netflix
A trend seems to be brewing over at Netflix. After popularizing the binge-watch concept by releasing all episodes of a show at once, lately, the company has been experimenting with different ways of dropping series. The League of Legends spinoff Arcane, for instance, was turned into a three-week-long event, while Stranger Things 4 was split into two when it debuted last May.
Now we have The Witcher season 3: volume one will premiere this week, on June 29th, while the second will hit in July.
According to executive producer Steve Gaub, the decision was made in part due to Stranger Things — but it also wasn’t the plan from the beginning. Instead, during production, the team realized that The Witcher’s third season had a very natural...
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Roblox, the virtual world and game platform, has 66 million daily users who spent 14 billion collective hours on it in just Q1 of 2023. If you have kids, you’ve probably heard of Roblox. If you haven’t heard of it, Roblox CEO David Baszucki wants to change that.
One idea? Aging up the kinds of experiences that are allowed on its platform. Roblox recently introduced 17-plus experiences. It wants to add new AI world-building capabilities. It’s even partnering with advertisers to roll out more immersive ad experiences.
It’s been years since the number of adults gaming outnumbered kids — it seems like that’s driving a lot of growth for everyone, including Roblox. But these virtual world games seem like they all want to expand to be much...
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Lordstown Motors’ Endurance EV pickup. | Image: Lordstown Motors
The electric vehicle startup Lordstown Motors is filing for bankruptcy and suing Foxconn, one of Apple’s top iPhone manufacturers, after a deal between the two companies fell through. In a press release posted on Monday, Lordstown Motors claims Foxconn’s “fraud and willful and consistent failure to live up to its commercial and financial commitments” led to “material damage” to the EV company.
Lordstown blames Foxconn for the bankruptcy filing, alleging that the Apple supplier “had no intention of living up to its commitments.” It also claims Foxconn used its agreements with the company “to maliciously and in bad faith destroy Lordstown’s business — while leveraging resources gained through the partnership to advance its own business...
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The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 is on sale starting at $229.99 at multiple retailers. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Amazon Prime Day is just around the corner, but if you can’t wait until then, July 4th often brings deals on a host of tech. We’re still about a week out from the actual holiday — which seems to commemorate our independence as much as capitalism itself — but you can already take advantage of a few sales right now at Adorama, Amazon, and a number of other retailers. They include discounts spanning a range of popular tech, too, from 4K TVs and speakers to smart lighting and robovacs.
Not every Fourth of July sale is worth shelling out for, though. Fortunately, to make sifting through the sea of lawn chairs and watermelon-laden tablecloths a little easier, we’ve rounded up some of the better deals you can already get. Take a look, and to...
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Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
TikTok is introducing a new way for creators to earn money — or at least take a chance at it.
The new monetization feature is similar to creator funds, except they’re set up by advertisers: A pool of money is set aside and creators are able to submit content for a chance at being selected by a brand. Creators then earn money from the pool based on metrics like views, clicks, and conversions. The program, called Creative Challenge, is open to users 18 years old and up who have at least 50,000 followers.
Videos submitted to the program must be “high-quality, well-edited, original content,” according to TikTok, meaning spammy low-effort content likely wouldn’t cut it. It also means that creators making ads for Creative Challenge are doing...
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You can also opt to just buy the Core for $245. The smart dock uses your iPhone’s cameras to give real-time feedback and workout adjustments. It can also render a 3D full-body composition scan. | Image: Tempo
Fitness tech may have figured out cardio, but strength training is still an area where at-home fitness struggles. The Peloton Guide hasn’t taken off, Lululemon is floundering a bit with the Mirror, Tonal had a bunch of layoffs, and it’s generally easier for city dwellers to go to the gym than store a whole dumbbell rack in their living room. But Tempo is back with a big update to its at-home strength training system, adding full body scans and AI-powered classes that adapt to your performance in real time while providing form feedback.
“Finally, for the first time, we’re able to connect your body and workout to an AI and have them actually talk to each other to optimize your workout in real time,” co-founder and CEO Moawia Eldeeb told T...
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Apple’s latest Mac Pro targets professionals with highly demanding computing workloads. But we talked to those professionals, and they don’t want it — because Apple’s other computers are just too good.
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Ford advertised a $40,000 electric truck, but recent price jumps have forced some customers to cancel their orders.
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Image: Microsoft
Microsoft has been increasingly moving Windows to the cloud on the commercial side with Windows 365, but the software giant also wants to do the same for consumers. In an internal “state of the business” Microsoft presentation from June 2022, Microsoft discuses building on “Windows 365 to enable a full Windows operating system streamed from the cloud to any device.”
The presentation has been revealed as part of the ongoing FTC v. Microsoft hearing, as it includes Microsoft’s overall gaming strategy and how that relates to other parts of the company’s businesses. Moving “Windows 11 increasingly to the cloud” is identified as a long-term opportunity in Microsoft’s “Modern Life” consumer space, including using “the power of the cloud and...
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Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
TikTok is killing off its BeReal clone TikTok Now, according to notifications being sent to users. Multiple Twitter users have posted screenshots of the message in different languages, which says that ByteDance is “updating the TikTok experience and [is] discontinuing TikTok Now.” News of its discontinuation comes a little over nine months after TikTok Now was officially announced, although it’s unclear exactly when the feature will disappear for good.
TikTok Now was launched in September with the stated aim of fostering “authentic and spontaneous connections on TikTok.” But it was hard to ignore the fact that its format (asking users to capture a moment once a day using the front and back cameras of their phone) was all but identical to...
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The layoffs are connected to Ford’s growth plan announced back in 2021. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
A new wave of layoffs primarily targeting Ford Motor employees in engineering roles in the US and Canada are expected to take place this week as part of the company’s latest cost-cutting efforts. Leaders of the teams impacted by the job cuts received confirmation on Monday, according to CNBC News, while employees are expected to be notified over the next few days.
Ford declined The Verge’s request to clarify how many employees would be affected by the layoffs. Roles are expected to be cut across all three of Ford’s business units — Ford Blue (the company’s arm for vehicles with traditional combustion engines), Ford Pro (its commercial vehicle services and distribution business), and Model e (focusing on electric vehicles).
“People...
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Leaked renders of the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 5. | Image: SnoopyTech
With about a month to go until the next Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event, we may have a pretty comprehensive idea about what to expect from the next version of the Galaxy Z Flip 5 and the Galaxy Z Fold 5. Several leaks over the last few days have revealed a lot about what the phones may look like — and what’s under their respective hoods — ahead of their official unveiling.
A Twitter leak from Revegnus on July 25th showed a photo of a folded phone that looks to be to be the Galaxy Z Flip 5 in a blocky, black case (via 9to5Google). The case hides a lot of the design, but what you can see backs up previous alleged renders. For instance, the screen on the back may be the same 3.4-inch 720 x 748 cover screen that’s been predicted. You can also...
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Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Microsoft has been sacrificing growing its Xbox Series X / S sales numbers since launch as a tradeoff for investment in cloud and gaming content. In an internal email exchange between Xbox chief Phil Spencer and Xbox CFO Tim Stuart in December 2020, the pair discussed the reasons behind lower Xbox console volumes. The email has been revealed as part of the FTC v. Microsoft hearing.
Spencer admits that Microsoft had a “yield miss for Scarlett,” the codename for Xbox Series X / S consoles, but that it and the delay to Halo Infinite weren’t the “main factors in our console scarcity” during the initial launch period. Microsoft had cut the compute units on its Xbox Series X silicon down to 52 from 56 to improve production yield, but the...
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Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios chief, Matt Booty, was encouraging Xbox CFO Tim Stuart to spend big money on acquiring game content in 2019 to set the company up to battle Sony in subscriptions. The revelation comes in an email thread that’s part of the FTC v. Microsoft hearing.
“We (Microsoft) are in a very unique position to be able to go spend Sony out of business,” said Booty, referencing spending $2 billion or $3 billion in 2020 to avoid competitors getting ahead in content at a later date.
“It is practically impossible for anyone to start a new video streaming service at scale at this point,” said Booty, referencing competitors like Google, Amazon, and Sony. Booty described content as a moat and that only Sony could really compete...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Microsoft was looking at acquiring both Bungie and Sega, according to internal documents from the FTC v. Microsoft hearing. In an email seen by The Verge, Xbox chief Phil Spencer wrote to both Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Microsoft CFO Amy Hood, requesting a strategy approval to approach Sega Sammy over a potential acquisition of its Sega gaming studios.
“We believe that Sega has built a well-balanced portfolio of games across segments with global geographic appeal, and will help us accelerate Xbox Game Pass both on and off-console,” said Spencer in the November 2020 email.
Image: Microsoft
Phil Spencer’s email to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood.
Microsoft believed a Sega acquisition would drive...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Moderators of some of Reddit’s most popular communities have posted open letters to the company with a series of requests regarding many key issues at the heart of the recent protests on the platform. The requests include a way for third-party apps to make an “affordable return,” improvements to moderation tools and accessibility options that “match or exceed” what’s available with third-party apps, and filling a senior-level role of “Moderator Advocate” at the company.
More than 8,000 subreddits went dark earlier this month in protest of the company’s planned API pricing changes that will force apps like Apollo and rif is fun for Reddit to shut down on June 30th. Some subreddits continued to stay dark after the original 48-hour plan,...
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On AlaskaCommons.com, the writer “Chelsea Waller” says she is a “dedicated journalist with a passion for uncovering the truth.” One of her stories reads, “As an AI language model, I cannot predict whether or not John Wick 4 is going to be a finale of a saga that will be remembered for years to come.”
The website is just one of the news sites flagged by NewsGuard filled with low-quality, spammy content generated using artificial intelligence tools, where ads for major brands are now appearing, according to a report by NewsGuard. The study was first reported by MIT Technology Review and includes brands like Citigroup and Subaru.
More than 140 brands were running ads on sites NewsGuard defines as unreliable artificial intelligence-generated...
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Image: Square Enix
With Final Fantasy XVI’s new, action-focused combat scheme comes a new suite of tools that assist with making that combat easier. These tools were billed as the game’s accessibility features but weren’t tied to a menu setting; rather, they were special rings you could equip that were already in your inventory at the game’s start. When equipped, each of the five rings assisted with one facet of the game’s combat.
I loved this approach to Final Fantasy’s combat. Though the series hasn’t featured turn-based combat since Final Fantasy X, a lot of players — myself included — have been slow to adjust to the series’ action-RPG pivot. These rings, then, feel like not only an assistive tool to help players with different levels of abilities but...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Gamers didn’t want to download Ubisoft’s terrible PC game launcher, so the company overhauled it to see if it can change their minds.
Ubisoft is releasing an update to its PC game launcher that has a fresh interface and is loaded with more features. Currently in beta, the updated Ubisoft Connect client for PC adds enhancements to game library navigation that includes larger and wider icons, along with extra information that can tell you at a glance if the game is downloaded or installed.
The Ubisoft Connect update comes after the company streamed its summer showcase earlier this month, which included the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Connect, like a few first-party publisher-owned launchers, is disliked for its terrible performance,...
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Image: Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic has revealed the crew members who will be aboard the upcoming “Galactic 01” mission on June 29th, the company’s first fully commercial crewed spaceflight. Announced on Monday, Colin Bennett, Virgin Galactic’s lead astronaut instructor, will be joined by Walter Villadei and Angelo Landolfi — two senior members of the Italian airforce — and Pantaleone Carlucci, a pilot and technical engineer from the National Research Council of Italy.
If the mission is successful, Virgin Galactic could soon start competing with rival companies offering commercial passenger flights into space, such as SpaceX and the Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin.
Image: Virgin Galactic
Crew members from the Italian Air Force and the...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Time really does fly, doesn’t it? Prime Day, the period when Amazon (and, probably, a significant number of its competitors) will be dropping prices on a lot of its products for Prime members, is coming up soon. It is scheduled for July 11th and 12th, but there are already a bunch of pre-Prime Day sales hitting.
If you’re interested in the goodies being offered but haven’t signed up for Amazon Prime, don’t worry — Amazon makes it very easy. (Not surprisingly — after all, it would be the sorry vendor who would make it difficult for people to become new customers.)
If you’re attracted by the goodies being offered but haven’t signed up for Prime, Amazon makes it very easy
Besides giving access to Prime Day bargains, Amazon has come up with...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
On Monday, the House set up new rules around how congressional offices can use ChatGPT and declared that any non-ChatGPT chatbots are not yet authorized, according to a new report from Axios.
In a Monday memo, House Chief Administrative Chief Catherine L. Szpindor said that lawmakers and staff were now limited to using ChatGPT Plus, the paid version of the chatbot, due to its enhanced privacy features. Offices can only use the product for “research and evaluation” with privacy settings enabled and are forbidden from pasting “any blocks of text that have not already been made public” into the service.
A number of private companies, including Samsung and Apple, have restricted or banned employees from using generative AI tools like...
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Image: The University of Texas at Austin
John B. Goodenough, a professor who played a critical role in the development of the lithium-ion batteries that are now ubiquitous in the devices we rely on every day, died on Sunday, The University of Texas at Austin announced. He was 100 years old.
Goodenough’s key battery breakthrough happened more than 40 years ago. “He and his research team found that by using lithium cobalt oxide as the cathode of a lithium-ion rechargeable battery, it would be possible to achieve a high density of stored energy with an anode other than metallic lithium,” according to the university’s blog post.
But even though lithium-ion batteries are everywhere — you can find them in things like smartphones, tablets, laptops, video game consoles, and even...
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The Pixel Fold can split-screen between two apps, but that’s where its multitasking abilities end. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Google’s Pixel Fold is the first real competition for Samsung in the US folding phone market. But it doesn’t make up for Samsung’s multiyear head start.
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Bluetooth trackers come in all shapes and sizes. | Photo by Victoria Song / The Verge
For those of us who can’t ever seem to know where our keys, wallets, and remote controls have disappeared to.
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Netflix is deep into video games.
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Air condition units at an apartment complex during a heatwave in Austin, Texas, US, on Tuesday, July 19th, 2022. | Photo by Sergio Flores / Bloomberg via Getty Images
Two-thirds of North America could face electricity shortages when temperatures spike this summer. The warning came from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) today, which cited an analysis by the nonprofit North American Electric Reliability Corporation.
Most of the Central and Western US, New England, and Ontario, Canada, are at elevated risk, according to the analysis. Energy shortages are a problem when hotter-than-normal summer temperatures cause electricity demand to skyrocket. People crank up their air conditioning, putting greater pressure on the grid. At the same time, extreme heat can make power plants, as well as solar and wind farms, less efficient when it comes to generating electricity. That mismatch in supply and...
The VergeThe Pixel Fold is a powerful device with an entertainment-friendly inner screen, but it feels like it’s at least one generation away from greatness.
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Image: Netflix
The end of an era.