HMD’s first repairable Nokia wasn’t a one off

Image: HMD

HMD’s Nokia G42 is the company’s latest smartphone designed to be easy for users to repair from spare parts and kits sold in partnership with iFixit. The purple version of the device with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage is going on sale in the UK from today for £199 (around $255), and will be available in Europe for €249. There’ll also be a model with 4GB of RAM sold in select European markets for around €229, but there’s no sign of either model coming to the US for now.

Like the Nokia G22 announced earlier this year, HMD is focusing on making four key components easy to replace if they break or wear out over time: the phone’s battery, screen, charging port, and back cover. HMD plans to make spare parts available from iFixit for five...

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Veloretti Ace Two e-bike review: rarified heir

Belt drive, removable battery, smooth automatic shifting, and built to be serviced anywhere. This Dutch e-bike checks all the boxes.

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Google is laying off employees at Waze

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Google is laying off employees at Waze, CNBC reported on Tuesday. The company is moving Waze over to Google’s ads system, and that change will mean cuts at Waze in “sales, marketing, operations and analytics,” Chris Phillips, VP and GM of Google’s Geo unit, wrote in an email seen by the publication. Phillips’ email didn’t indicate the number of jobs that would be cut at Waze, which has more than 500 staffers, according to CNBC.

Waze confirmed the layoffs in a statement to The Verge. “Google remains deeply committed to growing Waze’s unique brand, its beloved app and its thriving community of volunteers and users,” Caroline Bourdeau, Waze’s head of PR, said in the statement. “In order to create a better, more seamless long term...

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All the news about EV charging in the US

An EVgo charging station that has each DC fast-charging cable option including CCS, CHAdeMO, and Tesla. | Image: Umar Shakir / The Verge

North America has a fragmentation problem when it comes to EV charging. Tesla’s making a bid to solve it and cement the advantages of its Supercharger network — all while EV buyers feel the uncertainty.

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The best Chromebook for 2023

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge

The best Chromebook for anyone who wants Chrome OS on their laptop

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Google has reportedly killed its Project Iris augmented reality glasses

This is a Google prototype, but is it the one Google killed? | Image: Google

Last January, we revealed Google was building an AR headset, too — “Project Iris” would be the company’s bet against the then-yet-to-be-announced headgear from Meta and Apple. But now that its rivals have been revealed, Google is reportedly pulling the plug on glasses-shaped AR: Insider is reporting that Google has shelved its plans for Project Iris, citing three people “familiar with the matter.”

Remember Google’s fancy translation glasses from last year’s Google I/O that we called vaporware? If true, this report would mean those glasses are no more. It would also likely mean the versions with transcription and navigation features, which Google said it would test in public beginning last July, are also no longer in the works.

A...

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Why Brad Pitt’s Plan B is looking to do audio as others pull out

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

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

Hope everyone is gearing up for the dog days of summer. Today’s issue includes a Q&A I did with Chris Morrow, the newly hired head of audio at Plan B — the production company founded by Brad Pitt that has produced films like Women Talking, Blonde, The Big Short, and many others.

The now over 20-year-old Hollywood production powerhouse has undergone a few recent changes. Last year, Pitt sold 60 percent of Plan B to French media conglomerate Mediawan in a deal that is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions. The acquisition is a part of Mediawan’s strategy to expand to English-speaking markets and acquire more IP, of which audio is...

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James Gunn’s new Superman looks just like the old one

David Corenswet in The Politician_._ | Netflix

It remains to be seen what all James Gunn’s Superman: Legacywill bring to the big screen that Warner Bros. Discovery’s previous Superman films didn’t, but we now know who’ll be playing the titular Man of Steel and his journalistically minded better half.

Deadline reports that David Corenswet (The Politician, Pearl) and Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Blacklist) have been cast as Clark Kent / Superman and Lois Lane after a lengthy auditioning process that culminated in multiple actors signing test deals set to expire within business weeks so as to avoid SAG-AFTRA’s potential upcoming strike. Brosnahan and Corenswet’s casting doesn’t tell us all that much about Superman: Legacy aside from some of the names we’re going to...

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ChatGPT on iOS now comes with Bing built-in

Image: OpenAI

The ChatGPT app on iOS now lets paid users access information surfaced by Microsoft’s Bing. In the app’s most recent update, OpenAI says subscribers who pay for its $20 per month ChatGPT Plus plan receive up-to-date information from the web.

Microsoft, which made a multibillion-dollar investment into OpenAI earlier this year, announced Bing would become the default search engine for ChatGPT during its Build event in May.

The integration is already available as a beta to Plus users in the ChatGPT web app, which “knows when and how to browse the internet to answer questions about recent topics and events.” The free version of ChatGPT, on the other hand, is only capable of surfacing information up to the year 2021.

To enable web browsing...

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The best early Prime Day deals on Amazon devices

Amazon’s second-gen Echo Buds with Active Noise Cancellation are down to just $64.99 right now. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

It’s that time of year again. Amazon is once again throwing a Prime Day event on July 11th and July 12th, and already, the deals are starting to trickle in. As an Amazon event, naturally, some of the first — and best — discounts are on Amazon devices. And while it’s likely that we’ll see even more deals arrive as we get closer to the event, Amazon is already offering some pretty good discounts on Amazon-branded TVs, smart speakers, and various Fire tablets.

We’ve rounded up some of the best discounts below, but be sure to bookmark this page because we’ll keep updating it as more deals roll in.

The best Prime Day TV deals

• Amazon’s last-gen Fire TV Omni lineup is also on sale. Right now, for instance, Prime members can buy...

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Caltech’s new ‘Morphobot’ is a little transforming robot that can walk, drive, and fly

Image: Caltech

Caltech has a new RC car-sized robot that can change its shape to drive, fly, and walk to meet the needs of the moment. In its press release, the university compares the M4 — short for Multi-Modal Mobility Morphobot, which sounds like a rejected pitch for a ’90s kids’ show — to a Transformer, and it’s not too far from the truth.

The robot is packed with electronics, motors, and a small computer that lets it decide what form it should take to get around. The team that made it gave the M4 large wheels that can, in seconds, swing up to become something more akin to a drone’s rotors and fly. It can also use its rotors to help it up a steep slope while the back wheels drive it forward from the ground, as described in a paper in Nature...

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Unfortunately, Secret Invasion’s AI credits are exactly what we should expect from Marvel

A still from Secret Invasion_’s opening credits sequence._ | Image: Marvel Studios

Secret Invasion’s AI-generated opening credits aren’t Marvel’s best, but they do feel like a very telling sign of where the studio and the larger entertainment industry are at right now.

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The Verge’s favorite summer gear for 2023

Photo by Micah Singleton / The Verge

Summer is finally here, and we’re hoping that we can, at least for a few days, take a breath (at least, as much of a breath as possible with wildfires blanketing Canada and the US with smoke), step out into the sunshine (hopefully, not too much, what with climate change and all), and enjoy a nice, restful vacation (assuming you’re not attacked by a drug-crazed bear).

Sorry. It’s been that kind of year.

In fact, because the year has been so... interesting, we asked the staff of The Verge to talk about what type of gear they plan to use to slow down and enjoy their summer. Hopefully, you’ll be able to put aside some time to relax and take a break as well.

Hats and packs

A super sun hat

Emma Roth, news writer

Doing yard work in the summer...

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Among Us is being turned into an animated series

Imagine this, but in a TV show. | Image: Innersloth

Among Us, the popular social deduction game, is being adapted into an animated series at CBS Studios, according to a report from Variety.

Here’s the general idea of what you can expect from the show, from Variety — it sounds like, well, an adaptation of the video game:

Per the official logline, the series is based on the premise of the game, namely, “Members of your crew have been replaced by an alien shapeshifter intent on causing confusion, sabotaging the ship, and killing everyone. Root out the ‘Impostor’ or fall victim to its murderous designs.”

I don’t quite know how that will work in practice — is one of the Among Us beans going to be a main character? What is their name? Am I going to get too attached before they are ruthlessly...

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Volvo’s upcoming EVs join the Tesla Supercharger bandwagon

Volvo’s upcoming EX30 will initially use an adapter to support Tesla’s Superchargers. | Image: Volvo

Volvo is the latest automaker, and the first one from Europe, to announce support for Tesla’s electric vehicle charging standard known as the “North American Charging Standard,” or NACS.

According to the announcement, this arrangement is similar to the ones Tesla recently reached with several other car manufacturers. Volvo owners will get access to 12,000 Tesla Supercharger stations, and Volvo EVs will be manufactured with a NACS port starting in 2025.

By early 2024, existing vehicles may use the Supercharger network with an adapter. In 2025, new Volvos will be equipped with the NACS charge port

— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 27, 2023

For current Volvo EV owners — including XC40, C40 Recharge, and the upcoming EX30 and...

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You can watch the first episode of Apple’s Silo... on Twitter

Image: Apple

No, this isn’t another Mario Bros. Movie situation — this time, Apple has put up the entire first episode of its post-apocalyptic drama Silo on Twitter so anyone can watch for free. The move comes the same week that the series is set to air its season 1 finale, and not long after season 2 was officially confirmed.

You can watch it right here:

3 days until the #Silo finale.

Here’s the entire first episode. pic.twitter.com/lIcTXCQ9D6

— Apple TV (@AppleTV) June 27, 2023

Now, it’s pretty common for networks to release single episodes of shows on YouTube to drum up excitement, sort of like a video game demo. But now that Twitter allows for lengthy video uploads, it seems we might see the trend extend to a new format — even if it’s not...

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Google is giving the Android robot a glow-up, and you may have already seen how it looks

Image: Google

Google is refreshing the way the Android robot logo and wordmark look, as reported by 9to5Google — and you may have already spotted one of those updates.

Perhaps the more obvious redesign is coming to the Android robot head, which is starting to appear in 3D in official Google marketing materials. Google used a bunch of versions of the 3D head in its Google I/O 2023 keynote, and the company appears willing to show them in different colors and textures instead of just the standard Android green. 9to5Google’s article has a gallery of a few other examples, including the 3D Android robot heads at CES and in Google ads.

Image: Google

I kind of love the magenta robot.

But it’s not just the Android head that’s...

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The AirPods Max are getting left behind, so are new Apple headphones coming this year?

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

It was inevitable that despite their hefty $549 price, Apple’s AirPods Max headphones would eventually start to miss out on the company’s latest software enhancements. Headphones are basically computers now and have evolved into their own platform, so just like with any iPhone or Mac, Apple’s ecosystem tricks and new features increasingly require more powerful silicon and revamped components.

We started to see the swan song for the two-and-a-half-years-old AirPods Max earlier this month at WWDC when Apple announced several new features coming this fall that, in nearly all cases, will exclusively apply to the second-generation AirPods Pro — and no other models. The headlining feature is called “Adaptive Audio,” a new sound mode that...

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Nintendo’s CEO says its online accounts are the key to its next console transition

Nintendo Accounts may be key to the transition to a Switch successor. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

At Nintendo’s 83rd annual shareholders meeting last week, president and CEO Shuntaro Furukawa said the company is hoping for a smooth transition from the Switch to its unannounced next game console, pointing to Nintendo Accounts as being key to the generational hand-off.

Nintendo has pointed to its accounts as being integral to future business in the past, as in the Nintendo Account segment of a special report it released at the end of 2021.

In response to an investor asking if the company has any specific measures in place to make the leap to a Switch successor, Furukawa pointed to the difficulty of switching customers from one console to the next, saying in the past, the company had to rebuild a relationship with its customers each...

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Futurama season 11 starts on July 24th, with half the episodes promised

Futurama will be back on July 24th. | Image: Hulu

Sweet mama, it’s Futurama! Hulu finally announced it: Futurama will return for its 11th season on July 24th, 2023, giving us the chance to check back in with Bender, Fry, Leela, and the rest of the Planet Express crew.

Unfortunately, we aren’t getting all of the 20 episodes promised when the season was announced in February last year. Hulu didn’t say why that is, but we can speculate. The ongoing Writers Guild of America strike is a possibility, and we’ve asked Hulu about that; we’ll update if we receive an answer.

Anyway, here’s a teaser:

And now, a full trailer:

The new Futurama series will be available for streaming every Monday over its 10-episode run, and Hulu says it’ll hit series tropes like Fry and Leela’s romance, Nibbler’s...

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Star Wars: The Old Republic has a new developer

Image: BioWare

The Star Wars MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic is changing development studios. In a developer blog on the BioWare website, BioWare general manager Greg McKay wrote that while EA will remain the game’s publisher, active development will move from BioWare to Broadsword — the studio known for its work on Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot.

“Players will continue to enjoy the SWTOR they know and love,” McKay wrote. “There are also exciting new features planned that the team is not quite ready to talk about yet, but suffice it to say that players can expect improvements and new content into the future.”

SWTOR’s studio move was long rumored. Earlier this month, IGN reported that EA and Broadsword signed a letter of intent indicating that S...

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Nanoleaf designed its latest smart lights to amplify entertainment

You can now preorder the Nanoleaf 4D Screen Mirror & Lightstrip Kit for TVs that the company showcased at CES 2023. | Image: Nanoleaf

Nanoleaf has unveiled a batch of new, addressable smart lighting and gaming products designed to jazz up your home entertainment experience, including an integration with Overwolf gaming software, the 4D Screen Mirror & Lightstrip Kit, and an expansion to the Ultra Black line of lighting panels. Nanoleaf Shapes Ultra Black Hexagons were announced during the company’s annual Nanoleaf Live event on Tuesday and are available to preorder today from the Nanoleaf webstore.

A nine-piece Smarter Kit is priced at $219.99, while a three-pack expansion is available for $69.99. As the name suggests, these are effectively an all-black version of the company’s iconic interconnecting hexagonal LED panels (albeit slightly dimmer if previous Ultra Black...

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The SAE is standardizing Tesla’s EV charging plug as it racks up more wins

SAE support for Tesla’s charger could mean stations like this will only need one kind of plug soon. | Photo by Umar Shakir / The Verge

The standards organization known as SAE International is announcing support for Tesla’s EV “North American Charging Standard” or NACS port. SAE’s adoption will make it easier for electric vehicle charging station manufacturers and operators to implement the port while also making charging for EV owners more consistent and reliable. Tesla’s formerly proprietary charging port was opened up last year in a bid to become the de facto EV standard in the US.

The US Joint Office of Energy and Transportation has worked with Tesla and the SAE in an effort to expedite the Tesla plug as a standard to improve the country’s charging infrastructure.

BIG NEWS from SAE International!

Frank Menchaca, President of SAE's Sustainable Mobility Solutions...

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Nintendo’s new Switch party game lets you play with up to 100 people

Image: Nintendo

Do you have 100 friends? If not, time to find some to play Everybody 1-2-Switch!

Way back in 2017, the Nintendo Switch launched with 1-2-Switch, a party game that showed off the capabilities of the then-new Joy-Cons. Despite selling a million copies in its first month, 1-2-Switch was largely forgotten mostly because the Switch also launched with a little game you might have heard of called The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Now, 1-2-Switch is back with a sequel, Everybody 1-2-Switch, that may actually have a little bit more staying power than its predecessor (despite once again launching within the same window as yet another Zelda game, lol).

Everybody 1-2-Switch features more super simple mini-games that might remind people of...

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Paramount Plus just increased the price of its cheapest plan

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Paramount Plus is raising the price of its ad-supported plan today. Instead of $4.99 per month, the service’s essential plan will now cost $5.99 per month or $59.99 per year.

The price increase comes as Paramount Plus simplifies its subscription options with its new Paramount Plus with Showtime tier. Before this change, Paramount Plus had two separate ad-free premium plans: one without Showtime for $9.99 per month and another with Showtime for $11.99 per month. The new Paramount Plus with Showtime tier replaces the $9.99 per month plan, leaving the service with just two subscription options.

Unlike Paramount Plus with Showtime, the service’s ad-supported essential plan comes only with access to content from Paramount Plus, including...

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Five Nights at Freddy’s is an animatronic nightmare in new trailer

Image: Universal

The video game adaptations just won’t stop, and now they’re getting pretty spooky. Case in point: we just got a new trailer for Universal’s Five Nights at Freddy’s movie. Just like the games, the movie is an animatronic nightmare about possessed mascots at a pizza place. The movie version stars The Hunger Games’ Josh Hutcherson as a security guard struggling to deal with this reality. (If the premise sounds familiar, it might be because of the conceptually similar Nicolas Cage film Willy’s Wonderland from 2021.)

It’s directed by Emma Tammi, with Blumhouse — the horror imprint behind recent releases like The Black Phone and M3gan — producing. Five Nights at Freddy’s joins a frankly ridiculous number of video game adaptations in the works...

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Apple says proposed UK law ‘poses a serious threat’ to end-to-end encryption

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Apple has become the latest operator of an encrypted messaging service to raise concerns about the UK’s Online Safety Bill, BBC News reports. “End-to-end encryption is a critical capability that protects the privacy of journalists, human rights activists, and diplomats. It also helps everyday citizens defend themselves from surveillance, identity theft, fraud, and data breaches,” a statement reads. “The Online Safety Bill poses a serious threat to this protection, and could put UK citizens at greater risk.”

With its statement, Apple joins the likes of WhatsApp and Signal in opposing a provision that would allow communications regulator Ofcom to call on tech companies to use “accredited technology” to identify child sexual abuse content...

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Insta360’s Go 3 is a tiny camera for vlogging or putting on your cat

The Go 3’s “Action Pod” allows for a remote live view while detached or longer battery life while magnetically docked.

The Go 3 is Insta360’s latest pill-shaped action camera, and it’s got a neat trick — the camera’s detachable case now includes a flip-up screen for a live view of what you’re recording.

Instead of relying on a smartphone to see what you record (or estimate your composition), the Go 3’s case gives a real-time live view whether the camera is inserted or remote. Like the previous Go 2, the case also charges the camera, extending its battery life from 45 minutes on a single charge to 170 minutes. Though, the capabilities of the Go 3’s case and other refinements also mean it costs more than its previous model, with the base 32GB configuration available now for $379.99 (the Go 2 cost $299.99 at launch).

An $80 price increase over its...

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Meta rolls out expansive new parental controls for Instagram and Messenger

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Meta is launching a suite of new parental controls for both Instagram and Messenger, the company announced on Tuesday. The new tools give parents the ability to see how much time their child is spending on Messenger, as well as gain more insight into how well their teen really knows the people they’re following on Instagram (and who follows them).

The company says parents and guardians can now check into their child’s Messenger contacts list, along with their privacy and safety settings from the Meta Family Center. Parents will also get notified if their child reports someone on the app — so long as their teen enabled that setting, in addition to seeing who can and can’t message them.

Image: Meta

On Instagram,...

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Roku’s first free live sports stream will be Formula E racing

Formula E has signed a streaming deal with Netflix. | Image: ABB FIA Formula E World Championship

Streamers are gobbling up major sports deals — YouTube has NFL Sunday Ticket, and Apple has Major League Soccer — so why not Roku? In its first live sports streaming rights get, Roku’s signed up to broadcast 11 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship races in the 2024 season. At the same time, five races that will air live on CBS Television Network will be simulcast on Paramount Plus, which can be accessed in the Roku Sports Experience, starting in January.

Formula E’s current season has about a month left to go. A race this past weekend garnered our attention when the DS Penske team was caught installing an RFID scanner that could “collect live data” from all other cars before the day’s race began, a move the FIA Stewards said was...

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