100 Thieves is laying off 20 percent of its staff as it focuses on ‘core’ of esports and apparel

Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch

Another big esports brand is making some major changes. 100 Thieves, which already announced layoffs in January, is laying off more staff and spinning out its internal game development studio and its Juvee energy drink, 100 Thieves president and COO John Robinson said in a Thursday thread on X (formerly Twitter). The cuts impact roughly 20 percent of the company’s employees and primarily affect Juvee and the game development studio, Robinson tells The Verge. (Robinson wouldn’t confirm a specific number of employees affected.)

100 Thieves was founded in 2017 by Call of Duty star Matt “Nadeshot” Haag and quickly became known for blending gaming and apparel to become something like the Supreme of esports. (Drake and Scooter Braun are...

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Apple’s iPhone lineup is selling well, but the Mac is in a serious rough patch

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Apple reported a record September earnings quarter on Thursday, with iPhone revenue up year over year — even with just a week or so of iPhone 15 sales factored into the numbers. But all of the company’s other hardware divisions were down, and as CNBC noted, overall sales were down for the fourth consecutive quarter. The company brought in $89.5 billion in revenue overall for the quarter.

CEO Tim Cook told CNBC that the iPhone 15 lineup is showing stronger early momentum than the 14 series. “If you look at iPhone 15 for that period of time and compare it to iPhone 14 for the same time in the year-ago quarter, iPhone 15 did better than iPhone 14,” he said, adding that the Pro and Pro Max devices were both currently supply-constrained.

The...

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HBO head Casey Bloys says he’s sorry for harassing critics on Twitter

Photo by Jerod Harris / Getty Images for Vox Media

During today’s presentation about HBO’s slate of upcoming projects, CEO / chair Casey Bloys could have tried denying recent reports that he and fellow executive Kathleen McCaffrey concocted a scheme to target and harass critics who wrote negative things about some of the network’s recently released series in the early days of the pandemic. Instead, though, Bloys owned up to the allegations of his trying to build a “secret army” of Twitter trolls, apologized, and insisted that he isn’t the kind of person who would do that sort of thing now.

On Wednesday, Rolling Stone published a rather wild report detailing how, for almost a year between June 2020 and April 2021, “Bloys and McCaffrey discussed using what they called a ‘secret army’ to...

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The new Sims expansion lets your Sim be a landlord

Image: EA

Yesterday was the worst day of the month for many people — rent day. And if you really love to torture yourself, I have great news for you.

In the upcoming Sims 4 For Rent Expansion Pack, players can have their Sims relive all the joys and annoyances of renting life. Players can build multiunit housing in a tropical, vaguely Southeast Asian-inspired town called Tomarang, and units can be anything from basement apartments to duplexes.

Aspiring landlords, take note: the game expansion allows you to try your hand at managing rentals by becoming a property owner. Landlord Sims can make money from their savvy investments and can live on-site or have their home on a separate lot away from tenants.

Also, housing insecurity is a thing in The...

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Amazon’s clothing stores are closing down

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon is closing its two Amazon Style clothing stores by next week, according to Bloomberg, marking the company’s latest big change to its retail strategy. The company announced in March 2022 that it would be shutting down most of its physical stores, including all 68 of its Books, 4-Star, and Pop Up locations. And this past March, it said it would be closing eight of its Go convenience stores.

The Style clothing stores didn’t even make it two years. Amazon opened its first Style location in Los Angeles, California, in May 2022, promising that the store would offer customers “a personalized and convenient shopping experience while creating local jobs.” A second location in Columbus, Ohio, opened in October 2022.

“After careful...

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Futurama got renewed, so you can expect 30 more episodes on Hulu

Image: Hulu

More Futurama is headed to Hulu. The streamer has ordered two additional seasons of the quirky sci-fi series, each consisting of 10 episodes.

That’s on top of the 20 Futurama episodes Hulu ordered last year, half of which debuted as part of the reboot’s 11th season in July. The streamer says it will drop the remaining 10 episodes with a season 12 that’s expected to arrive in 2024.

Here we go again. #Futurama has been renewed for two more seasons. pic.twitter.com/Mhtuv5nJB9

— Futurama on Hulu (@futurama_hulu) November 2, 2023

Hulu doesn’t say when seasons 13 and 14 will premiere on the platform, but at least now we know that we can expect a total of 30 new Futurama episodes to hit Hulu in the near future. Hulu first picked up F...

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Max is taking 4K away from its legacy ad-free subscribers

Illustration: The Verge

When HBO Max transformed into Max back in May, Warner Bros. Discovery said that existing subscribers on the ad-free plan would be able to hang onto certain perks (like 4K streaming) for at least the next six months without needing to spend more money. Well, we’re about to hit that six-month mark, and right on cue, the party’s over. That’s all, folks.

Max is emailing affected customers, letting them know that while their monthly price of $15.99 will remain the same moving forward, they’ll be losing a couple of perks on or after December 5th.

Specifically, 4K (and HDR) streaming will be removed for legacy customers; they’ll now be limited to HD quality, just like anyone signing up for Max’s ad-free tier today would be. If they want to...

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Here’s when the big Black Friday sales start at Amazon, Best Buy, and other retailers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Black Friday officially kicks off on November 24th this year, but if you plan to make that the only day you buy gifts this holiday season, you’re missing out. Several prominent retailers, including Best Buy and Target, have already started rolling out their holiday discounts online and in-store. Both retailers are offering price protection through most of the holiday shopping season as well, so if you buy early and the same item drops to a lower price, you can retroactively get that better deal.

Whether you take advantage of the slew of early Black Friday deals or hold off until the day after Thanksgiving, it’s important to know how every major retailer is handling the shopping event this year. If you plan to spend some cash, here are...

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Amazon’s secret pricing scheme made it an extra $1 billion, FTC says

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon’s secret pricing algorithm, codenamed “Project Nessie,” may have generated the company more than $1 billion in extra profits, according to new details released Thursday from the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against the e-commerce giant.

In September, the FTC and more than a dozen state attorneys general sued Amazon, claiming that the company operates an illegal monopoly. Among other claims, the complaint says that Amazon buried listings offered at lower prices from other retailers and charged sellers steep fees in order to inflate product prices.

The existence of Project Nessie was first revealed in a previously redacted version of the complaint. Nessie was allegedly an algorithm that would increase the price of...

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The second season of The Last of Us might be a long ways away

Image: HBO

We might be waiting a while for more of HBO’s The Last of Us. HBO announced in January that a second season of the excellent adaptation was in the works, and on Thursday, HBO and Max content chief Casey Bloys said that the season will enter production in early 2024, according to Variety.

Bloys said that production was delayed because of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes (the latter of which is still going on). The show also wasn’t on HBO’s slate for 2024, Variety says, meaning it might not come out until 2025 at the earliest.

That said, there has already been some preparation done for the new season. “We’ve outlined all of season 2 and we’re ready to go as soon as the strike ends,” show co-creatorNeil Druckmann told Entertainment Weekly in...

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Facebook will let creators test different versions of Reels

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Creators on Facebook are getting a handful of new tools on the platform — including the ability to test how different Reels perform against each other.

The most notable new feature is a Reels A/B testing tool. A/B testing is a common marketing and publishing tactic where elements of a piece of content — say, a newsletter or article — are tweaked to see which drives more engagement. On a news article, for example, publishers often test several different headlines to see which one readers respond to the most.

On Reels, creators will be able to set up to four different thumbnails and captions for a single video in a test. According to images of the feature, different versions will be shown to separate groups of a creator’s audience for 30...

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The Boy and the Heron’s English dub trailer keeps the secret magic intact

Toho

In the months before The Boy and The Heron’s Japanese debut, Studio Ghibli made a point of keeping details about the latest animated feature from Hayao Miyazaki to a minimum. For those who’ve been trying to avoid spoilers, it’s definitely gotten trickier what with all the buzz coming from its run on the film festival circuit. But as much as you might expect the trailer for GKids’ English dub to give away, it’s a surprisingly restrained and tantalizing look at just what has everyone so worked up.

It’s difficult to parse where and when The Boy and the Heron’s young protagonist Mahito (Luca Padovan) is in the movie’s new trailer, but it is clear that all of the odd and inexplicable occurrences around him have something to do with a strange...

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Brave responds to Bing and ChatGPT with a new ‘anonymous and secure’ AI chatbot

The base version of Brave Leo is built on Meta’s Llama 2 AI model and is free for all desktop users. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Brave, the privacy-focused browser that automatically blocks unwanted ads and trackers, is rolling out Leo — a native AI assistant that the company claims provides “unparalleled privacy” compared to some other AI chatbot services. Following several months of testing, Leo is now available to use for free by all Brave desktop users running version 1.60 of the web browser. Leo is rolling out “in phases over the next few days” and will be available on Android and iOS “in the coming months.”

The core features of Leo aren’t too dissimilar from other AI chatbots like Bing Chat and Google Bard: it can translate, answer questions, summarize webpages, and generate new content. Brave says the benefits of Leo over those offerings are that it aligns...

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Nomad’s new iPad folios bring back the leather touch

The Leather Folio Plus for the iPad Air and iPad Pro has an extra flap to keep the Apple Pencil secure. | Photo: Nomad Goods

Though Apple has ditched leather across its product lineups, third-party accessory makers are carrying on full steam ahead. Nomad’s latest cases for the iPad Air and iPad Pro, the Leather Folio and Leather Folio Plus, have a similar design and features as Apple’s Smart Folio cases but with a leather finish.

The Leather Folio cases attach to the back of the iPad with magnets and provide a sleeker profile than the company’s other iPad cases. They automatically wake and sleep the iPad when opened and closed, and the front cover can be folded back to use as a stand in landscape orientation, just like Apple’s cases. Inside is a microfiber finish to keep the screen protected.

The Plus model, which costs $10 more than the standard Leather...

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Humanity is on the run in the first trailer for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

20th Century Studios

Things aren’t looking so good for humanity in the first teaser trailer for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. The fourth movie in the modern version of the franchise, Kingdom takes place several generations after the last film — 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes — when a new leader has taken charge of the apes as they assert themselves as the dominant force on the planet. That leaves little room for humans, of course, who spend most of the trailer either cowering or running.

Here’s the official description:

As a new tyrannical ape leader builds his empire, one young ape undertakes a harrowing journey that will cause him to question all that he has known about the past and to make choices that will define a future for apes and humans...

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In Marvel we no longer trust

The Guardians once guaranteed a good time. | Image: Marvel Studios

Marvel should be synonymous with a good time, but increasingly, it’s synonymous with bloat, bad VFX, and poorly scripted film and TV.

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Threads posts don’t have to show up on Instagram and Facebook

Image: The Verge

If you don’t like the idea of your Threads posts popping up on other users’ Instagram and Facebook feeds, Meta may soon add a way to stop this. As spotted by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, Threads appears to be working on a new privacy setting, titled “Suggesting posts on other apps.”

From what it looks like, the setting will let you prevent Threads from recommending your posts on Instagram, Facebook, or both. Currently, Meta may suggest your Threads posts to other users on either platform if you have a public profile, which is why you might have noticed carousels of Threads posts sandwiched within your Facebook and Instagram feeds lately.

#Threads is working on "suggesting posts on other apps" privacy setting p...

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The Invincible strands you on a harsh alien world and doesn’t let up

Image: 11 Bit Studios

For a while there, first-person exploration games — otherwise known as walking simulators — were all the rage. There were titles like Gone Home, Firewatch, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture that were basically FPS games without the guns, allowing players to explore spaces from a first-person viewpoint, uncovering a story as they went. For whatever reason, the genre has been relatively quiet of late. But now, it’s back in a big way with The Invincible, a quiet, desolate trip to an eerie alien planet that starts strong and never really lets up.

Based on the novel of the same name by Polish author Stanisław Lem and developed by Starward Industries, The Invincible puts you in the role of Yasna, an...

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Microsoft is overhauling its software security after major Azure cloud attacks

Illustration: The Verge

Microsoft has had a rough few years of cybersecurity incidents.It found itself at the center of the SolarWinds attack nearly three years ago, one of the most sophisticated cybersecurity attacks we’ve ever seen. Then, 30,000 organizations’ email servers were hacked in 2021 thanks to a Microsoft Exchange Server flaw. If that weren’t enough already, Chinese hackers breached US government emails via a Microsoft cloud exploit earlier this year.

Something had to give.

Microsoft is now announcing a huge cybersecurity effort, dubbed the Secure Future Initiative (SFI). This new approach is designed to change the way Microsoft designs, builds, tests, and operates its software and services today. It’s the biggest change to security efforts inside...

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Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s second DLC arrives this December

The Hidden Treasures of Area Zero: The Indigo Disk key art. | Nintendo / The Pokémon Company

If the first half of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet’s Hidden Treasures of Area Zero DLC felt a little short and left you hankering for more ninth-generation adventures, worry not, because the second half is just a few short weeks away.

Today, Nintendo and The Pokémon Company announced that The Hidden Treasures of Area Zero: The Indigo Disk is slated to debut on the Nintendo Switch on December 14th. Similar to The Teal Mask, The Indigo Disk will transport trainers from the Paldea region to a distant part of the larger Pokémon world as part of a school / cultural exchange program.

Pokémon Scarlet or Pokémon Violet The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero Part 2: The Indigo Disk launches on December 14!

Adventures await you at the Blueberry Academy,...

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The Beatles’ final song is now streaming thanks to AI

Image: Apple Corps

Today marks the release of the first “new” song by the Beatles since 1995. “Now and Then” is available on streaming services (with an Atmos mix where supported), and the story behind the song’s production is one that’s drawn a lot of interest from fans of the iconic rock band. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr turned to breakthrough technology and machine learning to piece together a finished track from an old lo-fi John Lennon recording.

The Beatles first attempted to make something from Lennon’s “Now and Then” demo in the mid-‘90s, when McCartney, George Harrison, and Starr reunited to work on “new” songs that would appear on the group’s Anthology albums. They successfully completed “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love,” layering full-band...

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HHKB Studio review: the trackpoint is the whole point

This keyboard has everything: trackpoint, gesture pads, real thick keycaps, Bluetooth — everything but Topre switches.

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Mint is shutting down, and it’s pushing users toward Credit Karma

Image: Mint

Mint, the budgeting app owned by Intuit, is shutting down. Intuit announced on Tuesday that Mint will get absorbed into Intuit’s other service, Credit Karma, when it officially goes away on January 1st, 2024 (via Bloomberg). But it’s still not clear whether Credit Karma will get the budgeting features that Mint is known for.

Intuit first acquired Mint in 2009, an app that has offered a free way for users to track their budgets, manage expenses, negotiate bills, and keep tabs on subscriptions. Now, Intuit is inviting users to Credit Karma, a service that the company acquired in 2020.

While Credit Karma offers similar features, like credit score checks, information on how to build credit, and credit monitoring, it still doesn’t come with...

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The Xbox Elite Series 2 is on sale for a new low price

It’s hard to not dig the Elite Series 2’s stealthy looks if you’re into all-black hardware. | Photo by Antonio G. Di Benedetto / The Verge

Microsoft’s Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 is a very cool controller for those who want to game on an Xbox or PC with something a little fancier and a whole lot more premium than standard gamepads, and it’s now dropped to a new low price. You can pick up an Elite Series 2 for $122.49 (around $58 off) at Walmart or $122.99 direct from Microsoft. That’s the kind of price the cheaper Elite Series 2 Core sells for, but the standard Elite 2 in black comes with all the included extras: a protective zip-up case with passthrough USB-C charging, four removable rear paddle buttons, and swappable D-pad and stick toppers.

While the Elite Series 2 has had some shortcomings when it comes to reliability (which Microsoft has tried to address by e...

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Redwood Materials is recycling its first stationary storage substation

Image: KUIC

Redwood Materials has recycled e-bike batteries and Tesla batteries. Now, it’s ready to go up a few sizes.

The electric vehicle battery recycling and manufacturing venture founded by the former chief technologist of Tesla announced today that it will help decommission and recycle a 4MWh stationary storage substation in Kauai, Hawaii, as part of a massive solar array.

It will be Redwood’s first battery energy storage system and an important step in the company’s broader effort to prove that lithium-ion batteries and energy storage products of all sizes can have a new life beyond their current ones.

For JB Straubel, former Tesla CTO and founder of Redwood, it’s a project that has come full circle. Straubel was involved in the initial...

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Two former Google engineers have a product and a plan to fix robot vacuums

The Matic is an $1,800 home robot that claims to be the first fully autonomous floor-cleaning robot. | Image: Matic

The Matic is a new robot vacuum with a different approach to cleaning your floors. Built by two former Google Nest engineers, it’s designed to move around your home in the same way most humans would, processing things visually instead of spatially. It uses five RGB cameras to navigate, rather than the sensors, bumpers, and lidar tech found on most of today’s robot vacs. In theory, this makes it less prone to common robot vacuum pitfalls —such as high-pile rugs, cables, and tight spaces — because it can actually see where it’s going in real time rather than relying on a preprogrammed map. It also operates locally — with no cloud component at all. Mapping is done on the device, and it doesn’t require an internet connection to run, so your...

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HTC’s Vive Focus 3 has a new, far-out mission: astronaut mental health

Testing the HTC Vive Focus 3 during a European Space Agency parabolic flight. | Image: Novespace

HTC is going to space. The company announced today that on a planned November 7th NASA resupply launch, a tweaked, microgravity-friendly version of its Vive Focus 3 VR headset will be sent to the International Space Station. Once it’s there, Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen will test the Focus 3’s viability for helping alleviate the mental stress that NASA says comes from the “lack of privacy, high and variable workloads, and separation from loved ones” inherent to work in space.

HTC partnered with a virtual reality therapy company called XRHealth to work on a “virtual assistance mental balance initiative” by aeronautics R&D company Nord-Space ApS to try to meet astronauts’ unique needs. HTC believes its tweaked headset Vive Focus 3...

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The best drawing tablets to buy right now

Our top picks for the best drawing tablets, with or without a built-in display. | Image: The Verge

Whether you’re new to digital art or a seasoned professional designer, these are our top picks for the best drawing tablets on the market.

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To protect teens, YouTube’s limiting some video recommendations

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Starting November 2nd, YouTube will impose restrictions on how often teens receive repeated video recommendations related to sensitive topics like body image, the company announced on Thursday.

YouTube says the new safeguards are the result of its partnership with the Youth and Families Advisory Committee, which consists of psychologists, researchers, and other experts in child development, children’s media, and digital learning. For years, the committee has advised YouTube on the potentially harmful mental health effects repeated exposure to certain content online can have on teenagers.

“A higher frequency of content that idealizes unhealthy standards or behaviors can emphasize potentially problematic messages—and those messages can...

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Bitwarden begins adding passkey support to its password manager

Bitwarden has added support for the more secure passkey login method. | Image: Bitwarden

Bitwarden, one of our top picks for free password managers, is adding support for passkeys in the latest version of its browser extensions. Passkeys can use your device’s pin, face, or fingerprint for authentication, and are a more secure and convenient alternative to traditional passwords that are also more resilient to phishing attacks.

Although the company has announced that passkey support is coming in the new 2023.10 release, the update appears to be in the process of rolling out — I’m still seeing the previous 2023.9.2 version listed on the Chrome Web Store as of this writing. But I’ve verified that it’s working on Safari with the latest version of Bitwarden’s Mac app and extension. The rollout of the feature follows support from A...

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