Logitech buys Stream Deck rival Loupedeck

Logitech has acquired Loupedeck for an “undisclosed, non-material” sum. | Image: Loupedeck

Logitech has acquired Loupedeck — the company behind the self-titled editing console beloved by streamers and creative professionals — for an undisclosed sum, according to a press release published on Tuesday. It’s one of many recent steps that Logitech has taken to gain some ground in the streaming market against competing companies like Elgato, having similarly acquired Mevo — a camera hardware and software company specializing in livestreaming — in 2021.

According to the press release, the partnership between Logitech and Loupedeck is designed to provide “a more seamless experience for creators,” which could potentially provide Loupedeck hardware with more specialized presets out of the box and better integration with Streamlabs — the...

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Amazon’s in-van surveillance footage of delivery drivers is leaking online

According to Amazon’s privacy policy, surveillance footage is uploaded to a secure portal and is only available to those with approved access. | Photo by Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

An influx of videos taken from Amazon’s in-van surveillance cameras has been published on Reddit in recent weeks, sparking fresh concerns about the privacy of delivery drivers being monitored for their entire shifts.

As first reported by Vice, two off-camera voices can be heard on one video published to r/AmazonDSPDrivers on July 3rd, commenting on an Amazon driver interacting with a customer’s dog. “She had a little guest with her today,” said one off-screen voice. The video is innocent enough, but it violates Amazon’s own privacy policy regarding its in-vehicle camera technology.

This made my day
byu/Ashuriiaa inAmazonDSPDrivers

Drivers have expressed concerns about their privacy since these...

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Billion Dollar Heist doc breaks down the Bangladesh Bank heist in its first trailer

Universal

The story of how a group of security hackers managed to steal $81 million from the Bangladesh Bank while also accidentally letting a typo keep them from getting away with much more is almost too wild to believe. But Universal’s upcoming documentary Billion Dollar Heist from director Daniel Gordon is a reminder of just how real the 2016 shakedown was and why it had cybersecurity experts across the world on such high alert.

Billion Dollar Heist recounts how hackers were able to use the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication banking system — the messaging network banks across the world use to execute transfers between one another — to illegally move $101 million from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to an account at...

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USB 4 docks arrive with enough bandwidth for two 4K 120Hz displays

The dock offers 11 ports total. | Image: Plugable

Plugable’s latest USB 4 dock doesn’t require compromises when using external monitors with your laptop. The USB4 Dual Monitor Docking Station (model number UD-4VPD) contains not one but two HDMI 2.1 ports, allowing compatible laptops to be connected to dual 4K displays running at a refresh rate of 120Hz. Plugable’s press release notes that the UD-4VPD will be available starting today from Amazon for $199.95.

I say “compatible laptops’’ because, in order to get the most out of the UD-4VPD, you’ll need a USB 4 or Thunderbolt 4 port that offers the 40Gbps worth of bandwidth needed by the dock. (Thunderbolt 3 is supported, but Plugable’s press release notes that, in some cases, it’ll offer “reduced display mode options.”) The dock is also...

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Thousands of Call of Duty fans are playing classic Xbox 360 titles thanks to a server fix

Photo by Tim Ireland / PA Images via Getty Images

Activision has fixed matchmaking server issues in some older Call of Duty titles for the Xbox 360. Players have been complaining about matchmaking issues in classics like Call of Duty: Black Ops and the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 over the past few years, as they haven’t been able to get into lobbies for multiplayer modes. Now that the servers are back and working, the player count in Call of Duty: Black Ops (which might not be totally accurate) stands at more than 100,000.

That doesn’t mean thousands of Xbox 360 consoles are suddenly being powered on. It’s all possible thanks to Microsoft’s backward compatibility support on Xbox, allowing Xbox One and Xbox Series S / X owners to play these classic Call of Duty games. All you...

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The Biden Administration is tackling smart devices with a new cybersecurity label

Illustration by Carlo Cadenas / The Verge

The Biden Administration is unveiling a new cybersecurity label for smart devices today. In a press briefing, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the new label, called the US Cyber Trust Mark, will signify that devices bearing it meet security standards based on those established in a report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The voluntary program is expected to be in place in 2024, with the labels hitting devices “soon after.”

The program is meant to cover connected devices commonly found in the home like smart refrigerators, smart microwaves, smart televisions, and smart climate control systems. But the announcement also lists “smart fitness trackers” as a device that...

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VanMoof e-bikes is bankrupt

It’s the end of the road for VanMoof as we know it. | Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge

VanMoof — the independent e-bike maker that once bragged about being the “most funded e-bike company in the world” — has been declared bankrupt in the Netherlands. The company had entered into a so-called “suspension of payment” proceeding with court-assigned administrators just last week.

According to a statement released by VanMoof, the court of Amsterdam withdrew the suspension of payment proceeding of the Dutch legal entities VanMoof Global Holding BV, VanMoof BV and VanMoof Global Support BV, and declared each entity bankrupt. VanMoof legal entities outside the Netherlands are not in insolvency proceedings. Two administrators have been appointed as trustees and are continuing to assess the situation at VanMoof and the possibility of...

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Peacock’s prices are going up in August

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

There are more streaming choices than ever before, and now Peacock has joined the list of services that are getting even more expensive.

A media update reported by Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, and The Streamable confirmed prices for both of its streaming plans are going up, effective August 17th, with the cheaper Premium plan going up by $1 each month, from $4.99 to $5.99, and the Premium Plus package that gets rid of ads on most content and adds downloads for offline viewing along with access to live, local NBC channels is going up by $2, from $9.99 to $11.99 per month.

Customers will be notified of the price change with messages that start going out tonight. However, company representatives could not comment on the record about...

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Google and Taito’s AR Space Invaders game is out now on Android and launching soon on iOS

Image: Google

Google and Taito’s new augmented reality game that lets you wave around your phone to destroy AR Space Invaders aliens is out now on Android and launching at midnight local time on July 18th on iOS, according to a blog post from Google. The two companies announced the game, Space Invaders: World Defense, at Google I/O in May.

The release is coming at a time when many other AR games aren’t doing so well. While Niantic’s Pokémon Go has been a huge success, the studio has shut down games from big brands like Harry Potter, Transformers, and the NBA and laid off employees. And it hasn’t just been Niantic that’s struggled; Microsoft shut down a Minecraft AR game in 2021 and CD Projekt Red just shut down its The Witcher AR game.

I’m not sure if...

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Neopets is promising a ‘new era’ with an improved website and fixed Flash games

Image: Neopets

Neopets, the beloved virtual pet website that launched in 1999, announced a “new era” on Monday. The Neopets Team (TNT) said that it will be launching a new “unified website” this week and fixing some of the old Flash games shortly after, per an extensive blog post on Medium.

The new website, which will launch on July 20th, will “serve as a one stop shop for all brand announcements, links to our different games and products, a repository of Neopets articles and related links, and anything else Neopian you can think of!” TNT says in the post. Neopets.com “isn’t going anywhere,” TNT says, but the team will be giving the site some “extra care” to fix up some issues with the site, “including the Flash games.”

The team is bringing back some...

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Hollywood’s writers and actors are on strike

Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld / Getty Images

Hollywood productions will remain at a standstill until media companies can come to an agreement with the writers and actors who make them.

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The best deals on MacBooks right now

The M2 generation of MacBook Air now comes in two sizes, and both are discounted. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Apple now sells MacBooks equipped with its own M-series chips in a wide range of sizes and price points. The offerings start with the 13-inch MacBook Air from 2020 at $999 and go all the way up to last year’s 16-inch MacBook Pro at $2,499 (not counting anything you can spec out to the stratosphere). And while it’s great to have options, it’s even better to find the right one for you on sale. The good news is that finding a deal on a Mac with an M1 or M2 chip — or a higher-end Pro or Max version — is usually not too difficult.

At this point, we don’t recommend buying any older Intel-based Macs. They’re just completely outclassed by all the newer models unless you have some super-niche Windows Boot Camp needs.

Alternatively, purchasing...

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TikTok is now supporting passkeys on iPhone

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

The next TikTok trend is passkeys on iPhones. The social media app is announcing support for the logins that try to make password-stealing phishing attacks impossible by allowing users to sign in with either Touch ID or Face ID instead of entering passwords. The initial launch includes iOS device support and uses Apple’s native implementation of passkeys that saves them to the iCloud Keychain so that once it’s set up, it will also work on your other Apple devices.

Once the feature is available, TikTok users can enable a passkey for their account by going to the app’s settings and selecting the new passkey menu item. Then users can follow a couple of steps: tap Set up, hit Continue on the iOS system prompt to save a passkey, and you're...

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SEC is worried chatbots could fuel a market panic

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has expressed concern about generative AI’s impact on financial markets.

In a speech given to the National Press Club on Monday, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said recent advances in generative AI increase the possibility of institutions relying on the same subset of information to make decisions.

Gensler said the large demand for data and computing power could mean only a few tech platforms may dominate the field, narrowing the field of AI models companies can use. If a model provides inaccurate or irrelevant information, financial institutions may end up using the same flawed data and making the same bad decisions — creating the risk of something like the 2008 financial crisis, where banks...

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How to use the new StandBy mode on iOS 17

We love to see older phones learning new tricks. | Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

With iOS 17, your iPhone will learn a useful new trick: StandBy mode.

It’s simple — StandBy turns your iPhone screen into a little smart display while it’s charging. We’ve only been using it for a little while, but it’s already a staff favorite. It’s especially handy with the iPhone 14 Pro models since it remains visible at all times thanks to that always-on display, but you don’t need a top-of-the-line iPhone to make it work; it’s supported by all models eligible for the iOS 17 update.

Here’s how to get started using StandBy — we followed these steps on an iPhone 14 running the iOS 17 public beta.

Tap through an onboarding screen and you’re on your way to StandBy mode.

• Step one is easy: put your screen to sleep,...

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The Chosen is reportedly still shooting during the SAG strike because it’s a ‘truly independent’ production

Jonathan Roumie as Jesus Christ. | Vidangel Studios

While the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America’s ongoing labor strikes have brought production on most of Hollywood’s movies and shows to an indefinite stop, filming on the fourth season of The Chosen — Dallas Jenkins’ historical drama series about Jesus Christ — is reportedly continuing because it is not associated with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

Deadline — the entertainment industry trade that recently came under fire and subsequently apologized for aggressively misrepresenting an actor’s thoughts about the strike — reports that SAG-AFTRA has granted The Chosen an exemption allowing it to keep shooting its forthcoming fourth season due to its being a “truly independent” production.

On Thursday,...

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Apple can delay App Store changes to file Supreme Court plea

Illustration: The Verge

On Monday, Apple was granted a motion putting a hold on the appeals court ruling that would push the company to undo its “anti-steering” rules and let outside developers link to third-party payment mechanisms. The mandate is stayed for 90 days so Apple can file its request that the Supreme Court take up the case.

Apple’s anti-steering rules limit how developers can direct users to subscription or in-app purchase payments outside Apple’s App Store ecosystem, where it takes a cut of revenue. A district court found that Apple had not generally violated antitrust law with its “walled garden” approach to iOS, but it ordered it to drop rules against letting developers include “calls to action” for outside payment methods.

Once that petition is...

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Wix will let you build an entire website using only AI prompts

Wix’s new AI Site Generator tool lets you build a whole site with a few prompts. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge

Template-based website builder Wix has announced that, soon, it’ll let you create entire websites by typing a description into a box and answering a few follow-up questions. Everything, from the design to text and images, will then be automatically generated for you, and from the looks of things, it’ll be pretty fast.

In the past, companies like Wix and WordPress.com have let you create websites using templates you can tweak to your liking. But Wix says its new AI Site Generator feature goes beyond templates, using AI and algorithms to create a “unique” website.

At the moment, the company uses a mix of ChatGPT and its own tools to accomplish all of this. ChatGPT will handle text creation, with the company’s own AI models doing the rest....

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YouTube is testing a new way to let you easily watch videos at 2x speed

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

YouTube is experimenting with a way to help sickos like me watch videos as fast as humanly possible. The test, which YouTube Premium subscribers can opt in to, lets you long-press on the video player to set the playback speed to 2x, according to YouTube’s experiments page (via 9to5Google).

To me, this sounds like a huge upgrade; currently, moving up the playback speed on YouTube can take a few annoying steps. On the mobile app, you need to tap the video, tap the three dots menu, tap playback speed, and then you can pick from the different options. It’s a similar set of steps on the mobile and desktop web. (Though, on desktop, you can use Shift and the less than or greater than keys to speed up or slow things down without digging into the...

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 hits Disney Plus in August

Image: Disney

Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 is coming to Disney Plus. You can start streaming the movie on the service on August 2nd.

The third and final installment in the Guardians series first came out in theaters in May. It follows Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and co. in the aftermath of the events that took place in Avengers: Endgame. It joins the first and second films in the Guardians franchise already on Disney Plus, along with several Disney Plus-exclusive spinoffs, like The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special.

Crank up the volume, the Guardians are coming home. ❤️ #GotGVol3

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is streaming August 2 on #DisneyPlus. pic.twitter.com/trQ2IwBSSf

— Disney+ (@DisneyPlus) July 17, 2023

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol....

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Reddit search is a little broken right now

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Reddit search is having some issues right now and has been for at least 12 hours, according to posts from some frustrated Reddit users.

The problem I’m having right now is that doing any search while logged in doesn’t return any posts. For example, if I search “iPhone” in r/Apple while logged in on Old Reddit, I’d expect to see a lot of posts about Apple’s smartphones. But instead, I see a message that “there doesn’t seem to be anything here.” When I search on the app, I don’t see any posts, either.

Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge

You’d think Reddit’s Apple community would have some posts about iPhones.

That said, searches aren’t totally broken. When searching terms from reddit.com on Old Reddit, I can...

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Hayao Miyazaki’s How Do You Live is a beautiful relic — and the end of an era

Image: Studio Ghibli

The mysterious new Studio Ghibli film has finally debuted in Japanese theaters, with a North American premiere due later this year under the name The Boy and the Heron.

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Samsung’s Galaxy Buds 2 Pro flagship earbuds are comfy, light, and now $42 off

The Buds 2 Pro are small but mighty. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

After Samsung’s entry-level Buds 2 wireless earbuds took center stage last week on a great deal, it’s now the Pro’s turn to shine with a deal of its own. The Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro are selling for $187.99 ($42 off) at Amazon or $189.99 at Best Buy. The deals at both retailers have all three color options on offer, including that lovely bora purple color that really pops.

While even the base model Buds 2 offer noise cancellation, the fancier Buds 2 Pro are better all around and feature various extras like 24-bit audio support with Samsung phones. Even though that higher bit-rate audio is limited to use with Galaxy devices, the Buds 2 Pro are great to use with any Android phone. They have excellent sound quality, and their stemless fit...

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Facebook pivots back to video with more Reels and HDR

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Meta announced a bunch of new updates to its video features on Facebook, including improved editing tools, the ability to upload videos in HDR, and a new Video tab.

Let’s start first with that Video tab, the new name for the tab formerly known as Facebook Watch. Meta says that the tab is now “the one-stop shop for everything video on Facebook, including Reels, long-form and Live content.” You’ll be able to scroll vertically through a “personalized feed” of videos, and as you’re scrolling, there will also be Reels sections with shortform video. The tab will begin appearing in the shortcut bar “soon,” Meta says.

GIF: Meta

Here’s what the Video tab looks like.

If you want to post a video, Meta says that it’s...

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‘Millions’ of sensitive US military emails were reportedly sent to Mali due to a typo

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

For over 10 years, millions of emails associated with the US military have been getting sent to Mali, a West African country allied with Russia, due to a typo, according to a report from the Financial Times. Instead of appending the military’s .MIL domain to their recipient’s email address, people frequently type .ML, the country identifier for Mali, by mistake.

Johannes Zuurbier, a Dutch entrepreneur contracted to manage Mali’s domain, tells the Financial Times that this has been happening for over a decade despite his repeated attempts to warn the US government. When Zuurbier began noticing requests for nonexistent domains, like army.ml and navy.ml, he set up a system to catch these misdirected emails, which the Financial Times reports...

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The birth of id Software

Before Wolfenstein and Doom_,_ Commander Keen was id Software’s breakthrough series — here’s how it began. | Image: My Abandonware

In 1990, John Romero, John Carmack, and Tom Hall were working at Louisiana software maker Softdisk. There, they had an idea that would change PC games forever.

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Ford cuts F-150 Lightning prices, taking the cheapest model under $50,000

Image: Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Ford announced price cuts for its F-150 Lightning truck that will reduce the listed price on some trims by almost $10,000. The company’s most affordable “Pro” trim is reduced from its previous MSRP of $59,974 to $49,995, and its highest “Platinum” with extended-range battery has dropped from $98,074 to $91,995.

The new prices aren’t the lowest the F-150 Lightning has been. At launch, the base Pro trim was announced at $40,000, but only a few were made at that price. And opting for an extended-range battery added $10,000 to the original $52,974 price of the XLT edition. Now, the same model’s MSRP starts at $69,995.

News of the price drops comes after we reported last month that many Ford F-150 Lightning reservation holders canceled their...

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Corsair acquires mechanical keyboard specialist Drop

Image: Corsair

Corsair is acquiring Drop, an online retailer best known for its lineup of mechanical keyboards and keyboard accessories like keycaps. The deal only includes “certain assets” from Drop, but the CEO of Drop, Jef Holove, put the terms of the deal more simply: “Drop has been acquired by Corsair,” the CEO wrote in a post.

Neither company specifies exactly which of Drop’s assets Corsair is acquiring, but Corsair’s press release focuses on Drop’s custom keyboards business and desktop accessories. “Personalized Keyboards that can be modified by the consumer is one of the fastest growing trends in the gaming peripheral space,” Corsair CEO Andy Paul said in a statement. “Drop has proven to be one of the leaders in this space and with Corsair’s...

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Microsoft’s new Xbox Game Pass Core will replace Xbox Live Gold in September

Image: Microsoft

Microsoft is launching a new Xbox Game Pass Core subscription to replace Xbox Live Gold. This new Game Pass Core offering will include the usual Xbox online console multiplayer support, deals and discounts, and a new small catalog of more than 25 games — including Gears 5, Forza Horizon 4, and Psychonauts 2.

Existing Xbox Live Gold members will be automatically transferred across to Xbox Game Pass Core on September 14th, with the service priced at the same rate of $9.99 per month (or $59.99 per year) as Xbox Live Gold.

As part of this replacement subscription, Microsoft is discontinuing Games with Gold on September 1st, the perk that has allowed Xbox owners to grab free games monthly for a decade and add them to their content library....

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Samsung prices its 27-inch 5K monitor at $1,599 — just like Apple’s Studio Display

The ViewFinity S9 is a 27-inch 5K display. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Seven months after announcing the 27-inch ViewFinity S9 desktop monitor at CES 2023, Samsung is finally circling back around with pricing and availability details. Let’s get right to it: the 5K display, which is being positioned as a prosumer option meant to rival monitors from LG and Apple, will cost $1,599.99 and you’ll be able to purchase it from Samsung and other retailers in August.

$1,599 is the same starting MSRP as Apple’s Studio Display — also a 27-inch 5K monitor. It’s rumored (though not confirmed) that these two screens could be using near-identical panels if not the exact same component. A 5K display is incredibly sharp at 27 inches, but by the rest of today’s standards, this display feels a bit dated: there’s no local...

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