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John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx in They Cloned Tyrone_._ | Image: Parrish Lewis / Netflix
Director Juel Taylor’s debut feature is a slick and stylish celebration of the Blaxploitation genre and the Black culture that gave birth to it.
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Image: Dotemu
The team over at Capy Games has a real knack for inventive takes on seemingly simple puzzle games. I first realized this when playing the colorful Critter Crunch way back in 2009, and nowadays, I’m reminded of it whenever I squeeze in a few rounds of Grindstone on my phone. Tucked away in between those two releases was Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes — which originally debuted on the Nintendo DS — an often overlooked game that might just be the most engrossing puzzle RPG I’ve ever played. Now it has a new lease on life with a rerelease for modern platforms.
Clash of Heroes is a match-three game, but in practice, it’s quite different from something like Candy Crush or even Puzzle Quest. Basically, the things you are matching are soldiers...
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The iRiver iHP-120 multi-codec jukebox. Nineteen years old and still going.
The iRiver iHP-120 was a gadget nerd’s MP3 player. It had a wired remote, a radio, a voice recorder, two optical ports, and loads of physical buttons. I’ve had it for half my life.
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San Diego Comic-Con 2023 | Image: San Diego Comic Convention
San Diego Comic-Con is one of the biggest comics conventions of the year, though it’s quieter than usual as Hollywood strikes continue.
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Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge
As your console game collection grows, you’re going to need more space to store it — and the internal storage inside your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X / S isn’t going to last forever. That may leave you in a situation where you’re regularly uninstalling and reinstalling games, juggling them around to fit the available space.
You have options. The PlayStation 5 has an internal slot for expanding the onboard storage that’s pretty easy to access by popping off a couple of panels and turning a single screw. On the Xbox side, you can buy storage expansion cards that plug into a designated slot on the back of the console for a quick and easy (if often expensive) upgrade.
Adding external storage drives can help ease the pressure, too, giving...
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Do you ever wonder what the internet would be like if we let Big Tech burn? | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Get in, loser, we’re going back to Web 1.0. We have the opportunity to get out from under the algorithms. So maybe it’s time to think about what a web of people looks like now.
I’ve been thinking about this for a while now — the decay of Google Search and, with it, the findability of archive material; the destruction of Twitter by the coward Elon Musk; the AI glurge polluting the open web; the needless login prompts. The era of Web 2.0 is ending.
One of the key markers of Web 2.0, in retrospect, was not the adoption of mobile, though that is certainly part of it. It was, instead, the intermediation of most interactions by algorithm. Before social media, going viral was much harder; actual people had to pass your site or video along, via...
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The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II have yet to be beat in the ANC department. | Image: Chris Welch / The Verge
The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II, the noise-canceling champs of the wireless earbud world, are once again on sale for $249 ($50 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. Alternatively, you can pick up a refurbished pair from Bose for an additional $50 off, complete with a one-year warranty.
If you really value peace and quiet while listening to music or podcasts, Bose’s latest pair of wireless earbuds are for you. The QC Earbuds II do an impressive job of blocking out the outside world, whether you’re walking on the street or nodding off on a plane. Because of this, they make for a terrific pair of travel earbuds — even if they do lack of wireless charging.
Amazon’s Fire TV Omni QLED TVs are on sale in...
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The Climate Clock in New York City’s Union Square in early July 2023. | Image: Climate Clock
An ominous, 62-foot-long clock looms over New York City’s iconic Union Square, and it’s about to tick past a worrying milestone. It’s called the Climate Clock, and it counts down how much time the world has left to stop climate change from becoming exponentially worse.
As anyone who’s experienced the weather lately knows, the situation is already bad. The world had its hottest week on record at the start of the month, according to preliminary data, with heatwaves still smashing local records across the Northern Hemisphere. And that’s just one way climate change is bringing on dangerous new extremes.
Today, the planet is about 1.1 degrees Celsius hotter than it was before the Industrial Revolution, thanks to carbon dioxide emissions from...
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Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
Twitter will “soon” implement daily limits on the number of direct messages unverified accounts will be able to send in “an effort to reduce spam,” the company announced on Friday via its Twitter Support account. In other words, to send unlimited DMs, you’ll need to pay for a Twitter Blue subscription.
In its tweet, Twitter didn’t specify what the daily DM limit may be. On a support page, the company said the changes would be implemented beginning Friday.
When reached for comment, Twitter’s press email didn’t auto-reply with a poop emoji; instead, it sent an automated message promising that “we’ll get back to you soon,” a change Twitter owner Elon Musk announced on Thursday.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
T...
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Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge
Spotify is going to raise the price of its Premium subscription plan in the US, according to The Wall Street Journal. The price is “likely” to go up by $1, meaning it would cost $10.99 per month, and the change is “expected” to be revealed next week, the publication says. The price of Premium has remained $9.99 per month since it launched in the US 12 years ago.
While perhaps not the most welcome news, it’s not entirely a surprise. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has been signaling that prices would go up in 2023 and reiterated in April that a price hike would be happening this year. Spotify didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Other music services have also increased prices to that $10.99 amount over the past several months. Apple...
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Illustration: The Verge
Since launching in November, OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool has reached a number of users at a rate that’s astounding for anything outside of Threads — now the company says it’s ready to release an app for Android.
The ChatGPT for Android app is launching a few months after the free iOS app brought the chatbot to iPhones and iPads.
Announcing ChatGPT for Android! The app will be rolling out to users next week, and you can pre-order in the Google Play Store starting today: https://t.co/NfBDYZR5GI
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) July 21, 2023
In a tweet, the company announced ChatGPT for Android is rolling out next week without listing a specific day and linked to a preorder page in the Google Play Store where you can register to get it installed once...
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Tesla Full Self-Driving in action. | Image: Owen Grove / The Verge
Tesla is starting to offer customers a one-time transfer of their purchased Full Self-Driving (FSD) software to a new vehicle, Not A Tesla App reports. Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the company would be offering it as a “one-time amnesty” during an earnings call on Wednesday, though he did not provide full details at the time.
Now, official terms on Tesla’s FSD transfer offer are in the wild thanks to Twitter user @Kdahlenburg, who shared the details sent to them by the automaker yesterday. Those who would like to take advantage of shifting their FSD will need to purchase a new Tesla and take delivery between now and September 30th, 2023.
Tesla says it does not guarantee delivery within the program end date and will not apply this offer...
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The Analogue Pocket is a fantastic way to play Game Boy games, but preorders have taken a long time to ship out. If you’re still waiting for your device, Analogue shared a promising update on Friday: any preorders made before July 20th, 2023, will “begin shipping in August,” according to an announcement from the company.
Note that the quote says the handhelds will begin shipping in August; that language doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll get your Pocket in August. Still, the announcement likely comes as good news for people who have been eagerly waiting for any sort of information on their order. (Based on a thread on Reddit, some people have been in limbo for more than a year.)
The Analogue Pocket launched in December 2021, but...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Disney wants to transition ESPN from linear TV to streaming — and the NBA and NFL might be the partners that help the company do that. According to CNBC, Disney CEO Bob Iger and ESPN leader Jimmy Pitaro held talks with both leagues about bringing them on as minority investors in the sports network.
Sources tell CNBC that ESPN spoke with the NFL and NBA about a “variety of new partnerships and investment structures.” That could involve either sports league owning a stake in ESPN, which could help bolster the package of exclusive content on Disney’s vision of a streaming-only version of the sports network.
In an interview with CNBC last week, Iger hinted at selling some of Disney’s linear TV assets like ABC but noted sports content on ESPN...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
T-Mobile has started charging customers who pay phone bills in-store a new $5 “Payment Support Charge,” plus tax. According to The Mobile Report, the new fee went into effect on July 19th, though prepaid customers will be charged the fee later on.
In a flier shared with The Mobile Reportannouncing the change to its employees, T-Mobile implies the reason behind the fee is to help “enable a digital-enabled future.” Yet, as Droid Life points out, employee time spent processing payments may mean less time for more profitable endeavors — like selling phones or add-ons to plans.
Plus, it’s a sneaky way to encourage more customers to sign up for AutoPay, which conveniently also offers a $5 per line discount if you pay your bill online — and...
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Photo by Kevin Dietsch / Getty Images
Seven of AI’s top companies attended a White House summit Friday, reaching a deal with the Biden administration to roll out new guardrails to enhance the safety and security of their systems and users, like watermarking AI-generated content.
“These commitments are real, and they are concrete,” President Joe Biden said in remarks at the White House Friday following the meeting. “Artificial intelligence is going to change the lives of people around the world. The people here will be critical for shepherding that innovation with responsibility and safety by design.”
Earlier in the day, the seven companies — including Amazon, Anthropic, Meta, Google, Inflection, and OpenAI — made voluntary, sometimes vague, commitments to invest in research...
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Image: Metacore
Have you ever been doomscrolling on a weeknight and see a weird ad for a mobile game that has you match three to fight off zombies or move sticks so a guy can reach treasure? Then, with your judgment impaired by late-night social media brain-poison, you download the game only to find it barely features that kind of gameplay at all?
Well apparently, the developers at Monkeycraft (the developers behind the Katamari Damacy and Klonoa remasters) know this feeling intimately and have decided to do something about it. Yeah! You Want “Those Games,” Right? So Here You Go! Now, Let’s See You Clear Them! (yes, that is the full legal title) is a collection of those mobile ad games all in one place. Help a guy get to treasure by moving sticks, fill...
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Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
Reddit added more space to the r/Place collaborative canvas on Friday, giving users additional room to collaboratively draw pixelated art. Almost immediately after the space was added, users started to write in their protests against the site and CEO Steve Huffman.
The expanded canvas now stretches further to the right. As I write this, there’s a massive land grab taking place, including a spot already memorializing the YouTuber Technoblade, the continuation of the German flag at the top of the canvas, a vertical French flag on the right side, and many iterations of the phrase “fuck spez,” a reference to Huffman’s username.
r/Place launched on Thursday, and some of the earliest art was also cursing the CEO. Reddit users have been unhappy...
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Here are the best cheap Chromebooks and laptops you can buy. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales
You can get a good laptop on a budget; you just have to know which one to pick. Here are what we recommend for those looking to spend anywhere from $300 to $800 on a new laptop for school, work, or play.
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Image: The Verge
OpenAI’s head of trust and safety, Dave Willner, is stepping down from the company as the AI industry faces more scrutiny around privacy and security from policymakers.
Willner has been working in trust and safety for nearly a decade. Before joining OpenAI, Willner was head of trust and safety at childcare startup Otter and led trust and community policy at Airbnb.
The FTC launched an investigation into OpenAI last week to determine if its training data collection methods violated consumer rights. The Securities and Exchange Commission also expressed concern that large AI models could centralize data and decision-making in finance, leading to a sort of groupthink akin to the events preceding the 2008 financial crisis. OpenAI, Meta,...
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Telegram’s new Stories feature that lets users share time-limited videos and photos is now live after CEO Pavel Durov shared last month that the feature was in testing (via 9to5Mac). For now, the company is only allowing its paid Premium subscribers to post Telegram Stories.
The Telegram Stories launch comes after rival messaging apps WhatsApp (with statuses) and even Signal have launched their own versions. Durov admitted there was some internal skepticism on whether Stories is a good idea — but shared that the team now “can no longer imagine Telegram without it.”
Snapchat popularized the Stories format before Meta swiped the idea, building them into Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. The NBA, TikTok, and, for a while, T...
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Image: Amazon
Amazon is spending $120 million to build a new facility for its Project Kuiper satellites in Florida. On Thursday, the company announced it will use the 100,000-square-foot building to prepare its internet satellites for their launch into space.
The building will be located at Space Florida’s Launch and Landing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, where NASA once landed its Space Shuttle missions. In addition to its large square footage, the facility will also feature a 100-foot-tall bay, giving Amazon plenty of room to integrate its satellites with rockets from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and the United Launch Alliance (ULA).
Steve Metayer, Amazon’s vice president of Kuiper production operations, tells CNBC that he expects to finish...
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Image: The Pokémon Company
It makes a lot of sense that Pokémon Sleep is a simple game — it’s something that you play in part by sleeping, after all. There’s only so much complexity you can embed in an experience where players aren’t conscious much of the time. Even still, after spending most of the past week with the gamified sleep tracking app tucked under my pillow, I can’t help but wish there were something more beyond looking at dozing Eevees and feeding berries to a Snorlax. It’s neither encouraging me to sleep more nor giving me much to do. It’s a bit of a snooze.
The premise in Pokémon Sleep, as with pretty much every other game in the series, is centered on research. Early on, you’ll meet a charmingly rumpled professor named Neroli who is researching...
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The MTA is cracking down on subway fare evasions after revealing the issue cost the authority $285 million last year. | Photo by Gary Hershorn / Getty Images
The persistence of fare evasion on the New York City subway system has prompted the Metropolitan Transit Authority to install AI-powered surveillance software at several subway stations to track riders who avoid paying for a ticket. As reported by NBC News, the MTA disclosed in a fare evasion report that the tracking software was being used at seven undisclosed subway stations and eight physical fare barriers in May 2023, with plans for “approximately two dozen more stations” by year’s end and “more to follow.”
The MTA estimates it lost $285 million to subway fare evasion in 2022, according to the report, which didn’t contain the name of the third-party tracking software being utilized by the authority. MTA spokesperson Joana Flores...
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Photo by John Lamparski / Getty Images
For the first time in over 60 years, the unions representing actors and Hollywood writers are staging a strike at the same time, protesting low pay and studios’ proposals for using artificial intelligence tools in production. More than 175,000 union members are out of work until a deal is made.
But the ripple effects of the strikes are also reaching another group: influencers and digital content creators who are far from a household name but work in an industry that is, at times, synonymous with fast-track fame. Most of them are non-union influencers, leading to confusion. How can creators keep making money while their peers in Hollywood strike? What rules are they required to follow? What’s their role in all of this?
This guide will...
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It’s no OLED, but Hisense’s midrange TV still offers phenomenal picture quality for the price. | Image: Hisense
Things are looking up if you were thinking about picking up a new 4K TV. The price of an OLED has fallen dramatically in recent years, with newer standouts like LG’s last-gen C2 and A2 having recently sold for as little as $800 and $600, respectively. However, if you’re looking for a larger model in that price range that still manages to impress, Hisense’s 65-inch U8H QLED is on sale at Amazon for just $799 ($101 off) — $40 less than the price we saw during Prime Day just over a week ago.
On the hardware front, Hisense’s Mini LED TV brings together Google TV and a host of great specs. The midtier option offers terrific color and peak brightness levels, making it a great option for brighter homes, along with several gamer-friendly...
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Office Ladies hasn’t posted an episode since the SAG strike began. | Image: Earwolf
Also, has SAG-AFTRA answered anyone’s emails?
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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Here’s all the news from Samsung’s second Unpacked event of the year.
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Who’s running this thing, anyway? | Photo illustration by William Joel / The Verge | Photo by Greg Doherty / Variety via Getty Images
Can’t wait for the S-1!
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Prices be droppin’ faster than a 6,900 MB/s write speed. | Illustration: The Verge
If you’ve seen our daily deals coverage or the recent Amazon Prime Day sales fervor, you might have noticed we’re witnessing the lowest solid-state drive prices we’ve ever seen.
It wasn’t that long ago that choosing an SSD over a hard disk was a pricey endeavor best left to deep-pocketed PC builders and hardcore enthusiasts. Now? You’ll find an SSD in every PS5, Xbox Series X, and most computers, and if this price trend continues, I won’t be surprised if they start getting thrown in as free gifts when you buy a desk or bookshelf from Ikea.
How much of a price drop are we talking? Consider this: the bestselling internal SSD on Amazon is a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro, which is selling for around $120 and has fallen 60 percent in price just since...
