The Stream Deck is getting a paid app store later this year

Image: Elgato

Got a great idea for a Stream Deck plug-in but don’t want to give it away for free? Wish you could buy premium software for the Stream Deck’s handy array of LCD screen-equipped keys?

Either way, it’s officially happening: Elgato general manager Julian Fest says a paid Stream Deck app store is coming later this year.

“We will go live later this year with a platform where people can distribute paid products, whether it’s plug-ins, profiles, icon packs — anything Stream Deck related,” Fest tells The Verge.

Yes, the Corsair-owned Elgato already has a software “store,” but you can’t buy or sell anything there — today, it’s simply a repository of plug-ins and icon packs you can download for free. Those who’ve wanted to start businesses...

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The best fitness trackers to buy right now

Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

From simple fitness bands to rugged sports watches to rings, these are the best trackers you can get.

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The Instagram Threads launch countdown jumped forward and is now targeting 7PM ET

Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge

Instagram’s Twitter competitor, Threads, may launch a few hours earlier than we expected now that the countdown on threads.net has suddenly skipped forward and indicates it will end today at 7PM ET / 4PM PT.

We were expecting Meta’s new text-based social media platform to launch tomorrow at 10AM ET, but maybe something has changed and moved up the launch schedule. The app likely won’t be available in the European Union today, however, as Meta reportedly delayed the launch there over the region’s privacy regulations.

A listing in Apple’s App Store for iPhone and iPad devices (it also appeared on Google Play if you use Android, although the website suggests that version will launch later) indicated the launch would occur on July 6th, and...

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How to choose which Apple Watch to buy

Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Between the Apple Watch Series 8, the Ultra, and the second-gen SE, there are more options than ever. We’ll help you sort through them.

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Instagram’s Threads: all the updates on the new Twitter competitor

Image: Instagram

The Meta-owned social network is the latest to take on Twitter.

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PSA: today is the last day to save on Xbox Game Pass

Even with the small price increase, Xbox Game Pass remains a solid value, especially if you find a deal. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass is arguably one of the best “deals” in gaming right now, but starting tomorrow, July 6th, the subscription service will be slightly pricier. Announced last month alongside a price increase on Xbox consoles outside the US, Game Pass is getting a $1 to $2 price hike. That means today is the last day to lock in a subscription at the current $9.99-per-month base price or $14.99-per-month Ultimate tier.

Starting tomorrow, the base price of Xbox Game Pass will be $10.99 a month instead of $9.99. That entry-level tier allows you to download and play the monthly rotating roster of over 100 games on Xbox Series X / S and Xbox One consoles. The pricier Xbox Game Pass Ultimate tier, which encompasses PC Game Pass (which...

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Microsoft’s Xbox Wireless Headset is half off at Walmart

Microsoft’s official wireless Xbox headset has hit a new all-time low price. | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

It’s not every day you see an excellent gaming headset sell for just under $50, which is why today’s deal on Microsoft’s official Xbox headset is one to jump on. Right now, Microsoft’s Xbox Wireless Headset is half off at Walmart, where you can buy it at a new all-time low of just $49.99. What’s more, shipping is also free.

The gaming headset offers a lot of value for your money, featuring both excellent sound quality and compatibility with a range of devices. That includes the Xbox One and Xbox Series X and S consoles, while Bluetooth support means you can pair it with laptops, tablets, phones, and other devices. The well-designed headset also comes equipped with intuitive dial controls along with an impressive level of customizability...

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How to responsibly get rid of the stuff you’ve decluttered

Graphic by James Bareham / The Verge

If you’re into spring cleaning, you may have taken the opportunity to go through all those tech devices, books, old clothes, and other detritus that has piled up over the years. Or perhaps you’ve upgraded a bunch of your possessions recently and have suddenly realized you don’t have room for the stuff you’ve replaced.

Whatever the reason, if you’ve got bags of tech, clothing, books, and other stuff that you need to get rid of, you want to get rid of them responsibly. Where do you go from here?

As you must know by now, just dumping it isn’t an option. Reusing and recycling old and unneeded stuff has become an important aspect of the push to preserve the world’s environment. Many states and urban areas are mandating the recycling of tech,...

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VW in talks to adopt Tesla’s EV charging plug, but Toyota is staying silent

Image: Getty

Tesla has racked up a series of EV charging wins in recent weeks, with Ford, GM, Volvo, Polestar, and Rivian all announcing plans to adopt the company’s charging connectors for their vehicles. But there are still a number of notable holdouts — although that could shift dramatically in the days to come.

Volkswagen, one of the world’s largest automakers, with brands like Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Porsche, and Lamborghini under its umbrella, said in a statement that it is in talks with Tesla about installing ports in its EVs compatible with Tesla’s plugs. The statement followed the news that Electrify America, the company’s EV charging station operator, would soon begin adding Tesla charging plugs, also called the North American Charging...

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Billionaire brawl: all the latest on the cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg

Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge; Photos by Nathan Laine and Kevin Dietsch via Getty

The two social media CEOs have agreed to duke it out in a cage match.

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Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s second-gen AirPods Pro are currently $50 off, matching their all-time low.

If you know where to look, there are often some great discounts available on Apple’s ever-popular AirPods. Since Apple launched the third-gen AirPods toward the end of 2021, we’ve seen the starting price of the second-gen, entry-level model slowly dip to around $100. And now that the second-gen AirPods Pro have been on the market for nearly a year, we’re seeing their price fall more often, too.

We’ve curated the best deals currently available on each model, including the entry-level AirPods, the AirPods Pro, the third-gen AirPods, and the AirPods Max. Just bear in mind we might see some even better deals soon given Amazon Prime Day is taking place on July 11th and July 12th, however, so it might be worth waiting if you can.

The best...

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Ubisoft sees ‘major reduction’ in Rainbow Six Siege cheaters thanks to XIM detection

Image: Ubisoft

Ubisoft’s MouseTrap system for detecting cheaters in Rainbow Six Siege is already seeing results. Cheaters use devices like XIM to spoof controller inputs, and MouseTrap has now caused a “major reduction” of more than 70 percent in the amount of mouse and keyboard users on consoles.

The team behind MouseTrap has provided an update on the progress of the detection system, nearly three months after it was first added to Rainbow Six Siege earlier this year. “There has been a 78 percent reduction in the total spoofers (Mouse and Keyboard users) detected in Rainbow Six Siege,” explains Ubisoft in a blog post today. “If we look at Ranked on its own, the reduction is similar; 73 percent fewer spoofers than before.”

Ubisoft had predicted a...

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Sony’s flagship noise-canceling WH-1000XM5 headphones are $100 off

The WH-1000XM5 may not fold up like their prior version, but they’re the best around for performance. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

If you’re feeling the post-Fourth of July holiday hangover today, we’ve got some deals to help distract you. While Amazon’s upcoming Prime Day may bring bigger savings for Prime subscribers in less than one week, here are several great deals today that are open to everyone.

Starting us off, Woot is selling the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones in black for a new low price of $299 ($100 off). That’s the lowest price yet on Sony’s excellent noise-canceling over-ear headphones, which remain our top choice of noise-canceling headphones. However, the one small catch here is that the deal only comes with a 90-day warranty from Woot instead of a one-year warranty from Sony. If that’s okay with you, then you’re getting an excellent value on these...

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The MLB will debut a new ‘virtual ballpark’ this weekend

The MLB virtual ballpark. | Image: Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball (MLB) has a new “virtual ballpark” coming to the web, opening to the public this Saturday for a celebrity softball game. The MLB says it will have a social component, letting fans interact with one another, and will include minigames and avatars that can be customized with MLB team jerseys.

As for what this will actually look like when it launches, it’s... exactly what you’d expect. It’s a big virtual baseball park with stands full of people. The ballpark contains a giant screen where games and other content will be livestreamed. There aren’t any seats for the avatars, but I’m happy to report they appear to have legs to stand on. There’s also a large outdoor area with a city backdrop, though none of the images show...

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Google confirms it’s training Bard on scraped web data, too

Whatever content is publically available on the web, Google has given itself permission to use it to train AI. | Illustration by Haein Jeong / The Verge

On Monday, Gizmodo spotted that the search giant updated its privacy policy to disclose that its various AI services, such as Bard and Cloud AI, may be trained on public data that the company has scraped from the web.

“Our privacy policy has long been transparent that Google uses publicly available information from the open web to train language models for services like Google Translate,” said Google spokesperson Christa Muldoon to The Verge. “This latest update simply clarifies that newer services like Bard are also included. We incorporate privacy principles and safeguards into the development of our AI technologies, in line with our AI Principles.”

Image: Google

These are the most recent changes to Google’s...

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8BitDo’s latest controller is a wireless take on the Neo Geo CD’s gamepad

8BitDo’s NeoGeo CD Wireless Controller. | Image: 8BitDo

8BitDo is releasing a modern version of the Neo Geo CD’s gamepad. The NeoGeo CD Wireless Controller is officially licensed by the Neo Geo CD’s original manufacturer, SNK, and is available to order today for $34.99 with shipping expected August 15th.

The new controller maintains the same basic design of the Neo Geo CD’s gamepad, with an analog stick on the left, start and select buttons in the middle, and four face buttons on the right. 8BitDo says it has attempted to emulate the original’s “classic click-style joystick” to maintain the same clicky sound and feel that made the original seem so tactile and precise.

Image: 8BitDo

The all-important joystick.

Image: 8BitDo

8BitDo says its...

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The best floodlight camera to buy right now

The Verge

An all-in-one security camera with motion-activated light and continuous power, a floodlight camera is a simple way to add safety and security to your home’s perimeter.

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OnePlus Nord 3 arrives with 80W fast charging and promise of three major Android updates

Image: OnePlus

OnePlus has today announced the OnePlus Nord 3, the latest entry in its midrange Nord lineup and successor to last year’s capable OnePlus Nord 2T. One notable improvement compared to last year’s phone is the length of support that OnePlus is promising: namely, three major Android updates and four years of security updates. That’s a year’s increase for both over the Nord 2T, though it falls short of the up to five years of support the company promises for its top-of-the-line OnePlus 11.

The OnePlus Nord 3 is powered by a MediaTek Dimensity 9000 processor and can be configured with up to 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. It has a 120Hz refresh rate screen this time around, rather than the 90Hz panel found on its predecessor, and the...

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Grand Theft Auto V is back on Game Pass

Image: Rockstar Games

One of the bestselling games in history is back on Xbox Game Pass. As part of the service’s most recent wave of additions, Grand Theft Auto V is available now for subscribers on both console (including Xbox One and Series X / S) and the cloud. The game has had an off and on relationship with Game Pass, though, so it’s unclear how long it’ll stick around this time.

The rest of the lineup for July isn’t quite as exciting but includes Capcom’s upcoming dino shooter Exoprimal, along with the following:

• Sword and Fairy: Together Forever - July 5th (cloud, console, and PC)
• McPixel 3 - July 6th (cloud, console, and PC)
• Common’hood - July 11th (cloud, console, and PC)
• Insurgency: Sandstorm - July 11th (PC)
• Exoprimal - July 14th (cloud,...

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This environmentally conscious smartphone is finally coming to the US

You won’t get the standard Android experience with the Murena version, but that, too, could eventually make its way to the US. | Image: Murena / Fairphone

The Fairphone 4 — a user-repairable smartphone built using ethically sourced materials — is finally coming to the US, almost two years after it first debuted back in September 2021. Well, sort of anyway. Fairphone is partnering with Murena, a company best known for de-Googling Android phones, to launch the US pilot of the Murena Fairphone 4 — a variant of the handset that runs on a privacy-oriented Android-based operating system: /e/OS.

There are two configurations available: one with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage for $599 and another with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage for $679. The storage of both models can be expanded via microSD, and the phone features a modular design that can be easily disassembled using a standard Phillips #00...

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Instagram’s Twitter competitor Threads is already live on the web

The Threads web interface. | Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

Instagram’s new Threads app, a Twitter competitor, isn’t supposed to launch until July 6th but the web interface is live right now for everyone to explore. It provides an early look at what to expect from the full Threads app that will launch on iOS tomorrow and presumably Android too.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has created his first thread (is that what we call them?!) using the app, and many other brands and creators have been given early access — including Netflix, Gary Vee, and Instagram obviously.

Post by @zuck View on Threads

The web interface is fairly basic right now for viewing threads, with options to like, comment, repost, and share — all prompting you to download the mobile app for the time being. If you’re in an...

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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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US Judge blocks Biden officials from contacting social media sites

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

A US federal judge ruled that a slew of Biden administration officials are prohibited from contacting social media companies about moderating posts protected by the First Amendment.

Judge Terry A. Doughty wrote in a 155-page memorandum ruling that he believes the plaintiffs are likely to prove that federal government officials are targeting and suppressing “millions of protected free speech postings by American citizens.”

Doughty:

The Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the Government has used its power to silence the opposition. Opposition to COVID-19 vaccines; opposition to COVID-19 masking and lockdowns; opposition to the lab-leak theory of COVID-19; opposition to the validity of the 2020 election;...

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Seven big tech companies say they’re platform gatekeepers under EU law

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge

An important deadline just passed for the biggest tech platform companies in the world to notify the European Union (EU) that they are gatekeepers under the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Seven companies have officially acknowledged they meet the criteria: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, ByteDance (TikTok), Meta (Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp), Microsoft, and Samsung. Companies on the list have a market capitalization of over €75 billion ($82 billion) and own a social platform or app that has at least 45 million monthly users or 10,000 active business users.

The statement published by EU commissioner Thierry Breton says it “will now check their submissions and designate the gatekeepers for specific platform services by 6 September,” and...

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The best Fourth of July sales happening now

Sony’s ultra-comfortable Linkbuds S are down to just $129.99 right now at Best Buy, matching their best price to date.

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. And now that the holiday is officially here, you can pick up a wide range of deals at Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and a number of other retailers. What’s more, the discounts span a range of popular tech categories, from 4K TVs and speakers to smart lighting and robot vacuums.

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 get. Take a look, and to save even more money, be sure to check out our guide to the best early Prime Day deals.

...

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There’s a lot of sci-fi streaming this summer

Cassian Bilton and Lee Pace in season 2 of Foundation. | Image: Apple

It’s already been a pretty eventful summer for science fiction fans. Last week saw the finale of Apple’s post-apocalyptic series Silo, Strange New Worlds season 2 is keeping Star Trek going through August, and Disney Plus is still in the midst of Secret Invasion, its alien conspiracy offshoot of the MCU. Oh, and there’s the return of Black Mirror. On top of all of that, there are also a number of series making their debut in the coming weeks and months — so many, in fact, that you might need a little help plotting out your precious free time. So here’s a handy list to make life a little easier.

Foundation season 2

Apple TV Plus - July 14th

Apple’s attempt at adapting Foundation got off to a slow start, but by the end of season 1 the...

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The space telescope surveying the entire universe to understand dark matter and dark energy

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Euclid space telescope launches on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on July 1, 2023. | Photo by GREGG NEWTON/AFP via Getty Images

This weekend saw the launch of the European Space Agency (ESA)’s Euclid mission: a space telescope which aims to uncover the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy. The 2.2 ton spacecraft with its 1.2 meter telescope was carried into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and is now on its way to its orbit around the sun.

The mission had originally been slated to launch using a Russian Soyuz rocket from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana, but following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine cooperation between ESA and Russia was halted. So instead, the telescope launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, lifting off at 12:11AM ET on Saturday July 1st.

The telescope is headed for an orbit called L2, the second Lagrange point, which...

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Microsoft seems to think we’re getting a PS5 Slim this year

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Microsoft thinks we’re getting a PS5 Slim model later this year that might be priced at $399.99. The software giant is currently waiting a ruling in the FTC v. Microsoft hearing and as part of the case Microsoft has filed documents which reveal it thinks a PS5 Slim is on the way “later this year.” Here’s exactly what Microsoft says:

PlayStation likewise sells a less expensive Digital Edition for $399.99, and is expected to release a PlayStation 5 Slim later this year at the same reduced price point.

Insider Gaming reported last year that Sony was preparing for a PS5 with a detachable disc drive for September 2023. The console is rumored to be sold on its own without the disc drive or in a bundle, which suggests Sony could be considering...

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Fortnite’s summer event has ice cream cones and cute lizards

Image: Epic Games

It’s summer in Fortnite, which can only mean it’s time for ice cream. Epic has kicked off the battle royale’s annual summer event, called Summer Escape, which means a handful of changes to the game, including a number of freebies players can unlock. It runs from now until July 18th.

The only major gameplay tweak appears to be the addition of ice cream cones, which, as in the past, grant you various abilities when you eat them. The in-game flare guns have also been replaced with ones that shoot fireworks for a festive touch.

As per usual, the real meat of the update comes in the form of quests that have some nice unlockables in addition to some useful experience points. New quests will be added every few days during the event, and players...

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Netflix teases Japanese lineup full of zombies, robots, and pokémon

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead. | Image: Netflix

Anime Expo took place over the weekend, and Netflix used the opportunity to show off some of its upcoming slate of Japanese programming. It wasn’t all anime either; in addition to animated series, we also got a look at the live-action zombie flick Zom 100 and some new details on the streamer’s One Piece adaptation, which headlined Netflix’s recent Tudum event.

Here are the biggest announcements you might have missed.

Zom 100: Bucket list of the Dead

August 3rd

Billed as a comedy and a horror flick, Zom 100 — an adaptation of the manga of the same name — is about a guy named Akira (Eiji Akaso) who wakes up one day to find his town has been overrun with the undead. Instead of being scared or sad, though, he’s just happy he doesn’t have to...

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