Nothing Phone 2’s upgraded glyph interface explored in new video

The Nothing Phone 2 (right) next to its predecessor (left). | Image: MKBHD

Nothing is upgrading its signature Glyph interface for its upcoming Phone 2 smartphone, which is due to be officially announced on July 11th. YouTuber Marques Brownlee has put out an early hands-on video with the new smartphone that offers a thorough look at the flashing light interface built into the back of the phone, and the changes Nothing has made to it compared to last year’s Phone 1.

Although the Glyph interface uses roughly the same pattern, it now includes more zones of LED lighting, which should allow it to offer more granular control of the phone’s lighting effects. There are almost triple the number of zones this time around, with the Phone 2 including 33 zones versus 12 on the Phone 1.

More zones means the phone can show...

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Leaked Pixel 8 Pro photos give first real look at Google’s upcoming flagship

The design featured in the new testing images is near-identical to the version that Google accidentally leaked (pictured) earlier this year. | Screenshot: 91mobiles (YouTube)

Poor Google doesn’t have much luck with keeping its unreleased Pixel devices under wraps, and the Pixel 8 Pro is no exception. Two leaked photos of Google’s upcoming Pixel flagship were posted to Reddit on Monday, giving us our first look at the front and rear of what appears to be a real Pixel 8 Pro out in the wild. Those original pictures were swiftly removed from Reddit, but thankfully, not before Droidlife could grab a copy.

The design is recognizably that of a Pixel device, though there are a few notable differences compared to its predecessor, the Pixel 7 Pro. The photo of the back of the Pixel 8 Pro gives us a clear view of the new triple-camera setup, which is now housed entirely in a single glass oval, unlike the 7 Pro’s...

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The hunt for the next Twitter: all the news about alternative social media platforms

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

Where will we all hang out next?

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Meta’s Twitter competitor launches on July 6th, according to the App Store

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

Meta’s Twitter competitor, Threads, is expected to launch on July 6th, according the App Store listing for the app. Threads had showed up on Google Play on Saturday with screenshots and some initial details, and a listing I saw on Google Play didn’t have a release date, so this date from the App Store appears to give us our first official date for when we might be able to download the app.

Here is the official — and brief — description of the app, from the App Store:

Say more with Threads — Instagram’s text-based conversation app

Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what’ll be trending tomorrow. Whatever it is you’re interested in, you can follow and connect directly...

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Tweets aren’t showing up in Google results as often because of changes at Twitter

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Google can’t display tweets and pages from Twitter in search results as effectively as it usually does because of changes at Twitter, according to a statement given to The Verge. “We’re aware that our ability to crawl Twitter.com has been limited, affecting our ability to display tweets and pages from the site in search results,” spokesperson Lara Levin said. “Websites have control over whether crawlers can access their content.”

Over the past few days, Twitter has made some major changes to the visibility of tweets on the site. On Friday, it started blocking unregistered users from being able to browse tweets, and on Saturday, it introduced “temporary” limits for the number of tweets people can read in a day. Given Levin’s statement, it...

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Twitter is going to force TweetDeck users to switch over to the ‘new’ version

Image: Twitter

Twitter is going to force everyone who uses TweetDeck to switch over to the “new” version to help mitigate some of the issues TweetDeck has been experiencing lately. I used quotes around “new” because the experience has been in preview for nearly two years, but according to a Twitter employee, “recent changes” have broken the legacy version of the app and will mean that the company will migrate everyone to the updated experience.

Twitter employees have also shared some slight clarifications about what’s going on with TweetDeck at the moment. For many on the old interface, TweetDeck is largely useless right now; all of my columns are just spinning with a “Loading...” message, and my colleagues saw something similar as well.

While the...

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Suicide Squad is getting an anime adaptation

Image: Warner Bros. Discovery

Suicide Squad is the next franchise to get an anime adaptation — and it looks pretty good. The new series, Suicide Squad Isekai, was revealed at Anime Expo 2023, according to IGN, and you can watch a trailer for the new anime right now.

The trailer is brief, and it prominently features anime-styled versions of Harley Quinn and the Joker. It also hints at how the series will live up to its Isekai name and transport the characters to another world: one shot features a close-up shot of a flying dragon, for example, and there are some brief glimpses of floating islands throughout. (The series seems like it could be a new entry in James Gunn’s “Elseworlds” strategy for DC movies and shows that aren’t directly tied to the mainline DC Universe,...

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Tidal’s prices are going up, like nearly every other music service

Image: Tidal

Music streaming service Tidal is increasing the pricing of its HiFi tier by one dollar from $9.99 to $10.99 a month on August 1st, the company is announcing in emails to subscribers, Billboard reports. Similar price increases appear to be coming for international subscribers as well, according to reports on Reddit, with users in markets like the UK, Germany, Spain, Mexico, and Argentina all saying they’ve been contacted.

Tidal is just the latest music streaming service to have increased its subscription pricing in the past year. Apple Music’s monthly price went from $9.99 to $10.99 last October, while Amazon Music followed suit in January.

If recent comments by CEO Daniel Ek are to be believed, Spotify might not be far behind. In an...

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Pornhub blocks access in Mississippi and Virginia over age verification laws

Photo Illustration by Adrien Fillon/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Pornhub is now blocking people in Mississippi and Virginia from visiting its website over laws that would require the service to verify their age. The company says it’s blocking users to protest unfair enforcement of these new laws, claiming that sites enforcing the new rules will lose traffic to “irresponsible platforms” that “don’t follow the law, that don’t take user safety seriously, and that often don’t even moderate content.”

Traffic dropped by 80 percent for Pornhub after it began enforcing age verification in Louisiana earlier this year, the company writes. After that experience, it decided to start taking its sites offline instead of enforcing an age gate. In May, it blocked access to users in Utah over a similar law. Techdirt...

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So where are we all supposed to go now?

Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images

An era of the internet is ending, and we’re watching it happen practically in real time. Twitter has been on a steep and seemingly inexorable decline for, well, years, but especially since Elon Musk bought the company last fall and made a mess of the place. Reddit has spent the last couple of months self-immolating in similar ways, alienating its developers and users and hoping it can survive by sticking its head in the sand until the battle’s over. (I thought for a while that Reddit would eventually be the last good place left, but… nope.) TikTok remains ascendent — and looks ever more likely to be banned in some meaningful way. Instagram has turned into an entertainment platform; nobody’s on Facebook anymore.

You could argue, I...

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Netflix is now streaming Insecure, and more HBO shows are coming

A still from Insecure season 5. | Image: HBO

Some big HBO titles are heading to Netflix — just not the absolute biggest.

Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery have reached a deal to start streaming select HBO series on Netflix’s platform. All five seasons of Insecure, which ran on HBO between 2016 and 2021, are now available, and others are on the way.

Deadline reports that Band of Brothers, The Pacific, Six Feet Under, and Ballers will come to Netflix, too, and True Blood will stream on Netflix outside the US. The shows will all remain available on Max, as well. The list includes some classic HBO series — but notably not the network’s big recent titles, like Game of Thrones and Succession,or some of the biggest titles from its past, like The Sopranos or The Wire.

The agreement comes...

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Biosphere is a buddy comedy about the last two dudes on Earth

Image: IFC Films

It’s always nice when the end of the world can have some levity. Biosphere, from director Mel Eslyn, manages to mash up a post-apocalyptic story with a buddy comedy for a movie about two best pals who just so happen to be the last remaining people on the planet. It’s a high concept told at a small scale, with the entirety of the film taking place inside of an apartment-size biosphere home to lifelong friends Billy (Mark Duplass) and Ray (Sterling K. Brown). Their incredible chemistry propels the film forward, but it’s a major twist mid-way through that makes this strange, funny, and at times uncomfortable movie worth checking out.

We don’t know much about what actually happened to end the world. We do know that the movie appears to...

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TweetDeck is falling apart after Twitter’s rate-limiting fiasco

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Twitter’s power-user focused TweetDeck interface is experiencing major issues after owner Elon Musk announced limits on the number of tweets users can view daily. The Verge has experienced these issues first hand with our publication’s Twitter accounts, and multiple users across the platform (including at least one Twitter Blue subscriber, spotted by TechCrunch) are reporting seeing an empty interface that would normally be filled with tweets. Users are reporting varying aspects of the interface being broken, with notifications, mentions, likes, and lists failing to load.

While users have been reporting issues with Twitter throughout the weekend, problems with TweetDeck are likely to create issues for professional and power users of...

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Cowboy Cruiser test ride: a more comfortable e-bike for daily use

Cowboy makes some subtle changes to create an e-bike that will likely have even broader mainstream appeal. | Image: Cowboy

Boutique Belgian electric bicycle maker Cowboy just added a new more upright and comfortable commuter e-bike to its portfolio. The so-called Cruiser takes the grips, wide saddle, and more relaxed riding position of the company’s C4ST (step-through) model and adds a top bar and a wider swept-back handlebar. It’s the Dutch-style e-bike you buy if you already liked the C4 but disliked its aggressive forward riding position, skinny saddle, and narrow handlebars.

I had a chance to test ride the new 19.3kg Cruiser against the original C4 (now renamed Classic) and step-through C4ST (now known as the Cruiser ST) in Amsterdam at one of Cowboy’s new retail partners — an initiative that launched in May with independent bike shops across Europe.

...

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The best robot vacuum you can buy right now

Image: Hugo Herrera / The Verge

I’ve tested close to 50 robot vacuums. Here are the best, from budget robot vacuums to vacuum / mop hybrids with and without auto-empty docks and other fancy features.

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Apple may be planning a new, more independent Mac display

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Apple may be planning a new display with a custom Apple silicon chip — similar to the A13-powered Studio Display — that would allow it to be gain behavior that’s completely independent of the Mac, such as the ability to act as a smart display when not in use, said Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in the subscriber-only version of his Power On newsletter today.

Rumors have swirled about Apple’s display plans for a little while. For instance, the company may be working on a 27-inch mini-LED display and a follow-up to the pricey Apple Pro Display XDR, with the ability to summon Siri built into the displays themselves, possibly.

The new smart display capability sounds a lot like the StandBy feature coming in iOS 17 later this year. StandBy lets...

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Apple considered a finger-worn controller for the Vision Pro

The Vision Pro almost had a dedicated controller. | Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple’s new Vision Pro headset, which is coming later this year, will use hand-tracking and eye-tracking for control, but at one time, Apple considered a finger-worn input device, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter.

Gurman said that early in the Vision Pro’s development cycle, Apple tested third-party virtual reality controllers from companies like HTC. Later, it looked into the finger-worn device — indeed, in 2015 a smart ring patent from the company emerged, though at the time seemed more intended as a general wearable device, not something specific to a mixed reality headset.

Apple Vision Pro first look.

In the end, Gurman says, the company decided that using eye-tracking and hand motions to...

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Apple’s next AirPods Pro may check your hearing health and take your temperature

AirPods Pro may be getting new hearing health features. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Some AirPods will be gaining a new hearing health feature, supported by iOS 17, that can check yourself for potential hearing issues and may be able to determine your body temperature via your ear canal, according to Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter. He also says all of Apple’s new headphones will include USB-C, and that the company is planning new AirPods Pro and AirPods Max models — but he doesn’t think new hardware is coming soon.

AirPods already support audiograms — audio profiles that tell the AirPods where your hearing may be weakest so that they can tune themselves to your hearing abilities. Right now, you can generate an audiogram using the app Mimi, which Apple would be Sherlocking — an infamous Apple...

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Bluesky temporarily halts sign-ups because so many people are joining from Twitter

Image: Bluesky

Bluesky, a decentralized Twitter-like social network, is pausing new signups “temporarily” to try and resolve performance issues it’s been experiencing after Twitter introduced limits on the amount of tweets you can see in a day. Even though you still need an invite code to be able to join Bluesky, it seems that the influx of new users has been a problem.

“We will temporarily be pausing Bluesky sign-ups while our team continues to resolve the existing performance issues,” Bluesky wrote in a post. “We’ll keep you updated when invite codes will resume functionality. We’re excited to welcome more users to our beta soon!”

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

An image of Bluesky’s post.

Bluesky’s status page...

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Valve won’t approve Steam games that use copyright-infringing AI artwork

Image: The Verge

On Thursday, various outlets reported on a June Reddit post from user potterharry97 saying that Steam would no longer be publishing games with AI-generated content. Later in the month, another game dev penned a similar post. Valve says that’s not quite right.

In a statement emailed to The Verge, Valve PR representative Kaci Boyle said the company’s goal is “not to discourage the use of [AI] on Steam; instead, we’re working through how to integrate it into our already-existing review policies.” She went on to say that the company’s current review process takes into account current copyright law, and that “while developers can use these AI technologies in their work... they can not infringe on existing copyrights.”

Boyle added that Steam...

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The Reddit moderators who coordinate many celebrity AMAs will no longer do so

Bill Gates has done many AMAs. | Photo by Saeed Adyani / Netflix

The moderators of Reddit’s IAmA community will no longer solicit and coordinate ask me anything (AMA) conversations with celebrities and high-profile individuals, they wrote in a post on Saturday.

Reddit’s AMAs featuring notable people have become an iconic aspect of the platform, giving regular users the chance to ask questions of people they may otherwise never have a chance to speak with. (Bill Gates has done 11 of them.) The AMAs are usually a fascinating mix of interesting perspective and personal anecdotes, even if the person being featured is usually doing some sort of self-promotion. And sometimes, the entertainment is reading how the AMAs go south.

r/IAmA has more than 22 million subscribers, so the subreddit offers a...

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The entire story of Twitter under Elon Musk

Image: Laura Normand / The Verge

Forget Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company — Elon Musk is now the owner of Twitter.

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Meta’s Twitter competitor, Threads, briefly showed up on Google Play

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Alessandro Paluzzi, a developer who routinely digs into app code to expose unreleased features, tweeted early this morning that Meta’s Twitter clone, Thread, had been released into the Google Play store. It appears as though that was a mistake, however, because the app is nowhere to be found now.

Paluzzi included screenshots that showed off some of the UI elements, including the login screen, which lets users sign in with their Instagram accounts, and another screen with a list of their followed accounts from the image and video site, so they can choose who to follow on Threads. Check out the screenshots in this gallery:

It’s not surprising that Threads looks... a lot like Twitter. From the screenshots, a new post will show character...

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Elon Musk blames data scraping by AI startups for his new paywalls on reading tweets

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Twitter CEO Elon Musk continues to blame the social media site’s new limitations on “data scrapers & system manipulation” as he announced new “temporary” limits on how many posts people can read. Musk tweeted late Friday that the “drastic & immediate action was necessary” because of AI companies “from startups to some of the biggest corporations on Earth” scraping “vast amounts of data.”

Now unverified accounts will only be able to see 600 posts per day, and for “new” unverified accounts, just 300 in a day. The limits for verified accounts (presumably whether they’re bought as a part of the Twitter Blue subscription, granted through an organization, or verification Elon forced on people like Stephen King, LeBron James, and anyone else...

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The TSA will use facial recognition in over 400 airports

The TSA will expand its facial recognition program to over 400 airports. | Image: Getty Images

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will expand its facial recognition program to around 430 US airports over the next several years following what it calls “extremely promising” results in its pilot program, according to Fast Company. The agency reportedly said its program yielded 97% effective results across all demographics, including those with dark skin. The program is currently in use in 25 airports.

As pointed out in Fast Company’s story_,_ a 97% effectiveness rate across more than two million airline passengers per day means that, for over 60,000 of those people, the biometrics won’t work properly if it’s used in every airport in the country.

At the moment, the pilot program is officially voluntary. It uses 1:1...

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Smart lights, smart mugs, and a handful of other weekend discounts

Nanoleaf only manufactured a thousand units of its Ultra Black Triangles light panels, but they’re still available at some retailers. | Image: Nanoleaf

Whether you celebrate the “Fourth” or not, Independence Day weekend is oft considered one of the best times of the year to save on everything from TVs and laptops to the humble Toyota Camry. That’s still the case, however, with Amazon Prime Day kicking off in a little over a week, we expect many of this weekend’s best discounts to hang around just a bit longer than they might have otherwise.

Take our first deal of the day, as an example. Right now, you can pick up Nanoleaf’s Shapes Ultra Black Triangles at Amazon and Best Buy for $199.99 ($20 off), which matches the lowest price we’ve seen on the nine-panel kit since it made its debut last year. The modular light panels are nearly identical to the originals aside from the fact they...

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How one British actor landed starring roles in two of 2023’s biggest video games

Image: Square Enix / Blizzard / The Verge

Even if you’ve never heard of Ralph Ineson, you’ve heard Ralph Ineson.

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The Dial of Destiny is a ruminative, remedial Indiana Jones history lesson

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. | Image: Lucasfilm / Disney

The newest Indiana Jones movie isn’t trying to reinvent the classic Lucasfilm formula, but it is trying to make you think about what it really means to obsess about the past.

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The Reddit app-pocalyse is here: Apollo, Sync, and BaconReader go dark

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

After a month of outrage, protests, and unrest from the community, Reddit has finally flipped the switch to shut down some third-party apps.

Apollo, an iOS app that became a rallying point for the recent protests against Reddit’s imminent API pricing, no longer loads any content from the platform. When I open it up, all I see is a spinning wheel. Developer Christian Selig confirmed to me that Reddit is the one that turned things off, not him: “would have been nice to have been given a time,” he says in an email to The Verge.

Well, looks like Reddit pulled the plug a little early. Apollo started crashing, but I just manually revoked my token and it looks like it fixes the crashing, but no more Reddit access haha. Those folks are fun to...

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The Game Boy that survived the Gulf War has been removed from Nintendo New York

Photo by Sean Hollister

Ever heard the urban legend about how the original Nintendo Game Boy survived a bomb? I have reason to believe that’s not true. But until recently, the flagship Nintendo Store at New York City’s Rockefeller Center housed an original Game Boy that, it claimed, was damaged in a bombing during Operation Desert Storm.

We just confirmed with Nintendo New York that, after many years on display, the Gulf War Game Boy is no longer there. VideoGameArt&Tidbits was the first to report the news; they say a worker told them it was returned to Nintendo’s US headquarters in Washington state.

We spoke to the store... and the owner

If it’s true, and if it’s not coming back, we’re hoping that Nintendo will display it somewhere else. But just in case it...

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