The Verge
All the announcements from Nintendo’s fall Indie World event
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Nintendo’s showcasing all the indies you can expect to see on the Switch in late 2023 and 2024.
The VergeThe VergeHere are the best AirPods deals you can get right now
Apple’s second-gen AirPods Pro are often on sale.
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 has been on the market for a year, we’re also seeing their price fall more often, too.
With Black Friday quickly approaching, we’re starting to see a number of great deals trickle in — including those on the new AirPods Pro with USB-C. We’ll likely see even steeper discounts as we get closer to the main event, too, which is why we’ve started tracking the best early Black Friday deals. In the meantime, however, here are the best deals...
The VergeSamsung’s cloud gaming hub is now available on some of its older TVs
Boosteroid is the latest cloud gaming service to come to Samsung’s Gaming Hub. | Image: Samsung
Many older Samsung smart TVs can now run cloud gaming apps like Xbox Game Pass, GeForce Now, and more — allowing users to play modern games like Starfield, CyberPunk 2077, and more without a console. The news comes after Samsung promised in August that it would bring the option to millions of living rooms worldwide by sending an update to 2020 model-year TVs.
Samsung’s supported cloud gaming services (part of the company’s “Gaming Hub”) include Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass, Nvidia’s GeForce Now, and Amazon’s Luna. It also includes the smaller and less known services Utomik, Antstream Arcade, and Blacknut Cloud Gaming. Samsung is also announcing today that it’s adding another cloud streaming service called Boosteroid to its Gaming Hub....
The VergeGoogle’s CEO is about to drop into the Fortnite trial
Photo illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Philip Pacheco, Bloomberg, Getty Images
We have spent five days in a San Francisco courtroom watching witness after witness in the Epic v. Google trial. We’ve heard a lot about Google’s app store dealings, mostly from people who aren’t widely known to outsiders. But today, November 14th, we’re expecting to hear from Google CEO Sundar Pichai as he defends Google’s Android empire against antitrust claims from the publisher of megahit game Fortnite.
Precisely 1,188 days ago, Epic sprung a legal trap and accused both Apple and Google of creating illegal monopolies with their respective app stores. It’s a fight that could shape the future of the Play Store, particularly if Epic gets its way.
I’ll be bringing you Pichai’s testimony live from the courtroom right here. Before it...
The VergePolestar makes the rear window obsolete with its new crossover coupe
The new Polestar 4 is the Swedish EV brand’s first crossover coupe, slotting between the compact and midsize segment. It features the quickest acceleration yet from a Polestar vehicle, a completely new Google-based infotainment system, lots of fresh designs, and the lowest carbon impact of any Polestar. But by far the most controversial feature is the Polestar 4’s lack of a rear window.
Instead, the 4 uses a roof-mounted camera system that projects its view to the digital rearview mirror, which is positioned in the normal place in the cabin. This has been decried by many as being dangerous and silly, especially coming from such a safety-forward brand, with naysayers saying Polestar is needlessly sacrificing visibility for the sake of...
The VergeNothing is bringing iMessage to its Android phone
Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge
Nothing Phone 2 owners get blue bubbles now. The company shared it has added iMessage to its newest phone through a new “Nothing Chats” app powered by the messaging platform Sunbird. The feature will be available to users in North America, the EU, and other European countries starting this Friday, November 17th.
Nothing writes on its page that it’s doing this because “messaging services are dividing phone users,” and it wants “to break those barriers down.” But doing so here requires you to trust Sunbird. Nothing’s FAQ says Sunbird’s “architecture provides a system to deliver a message from one user to another without ever storing it at any point in its journey,” and that messages aren’t stored on its servers.
But you’re giving them...
The VergeIs E Ink finally ready for prime time?
I’d be willing to bet that when you think of E Ink, you’re picturing an Amazon Kindle. But E Ink has come a long, long way in the past few years. Outside of e-readers, there are E Ink tablets, laptops, desktop monitors, signs, dresses, color-changing cars, smartwatches, and a whole gaggle of devices that utilize the tech. You might say that there’s been a bit of an electronic paper renaissance.
Why now? Well, E Ink — the company behind the tech — and companies that build its electronic paper into consumer devices, like Onyx and Dasung, have made bigstrides in challenges like contrast, refresh rates, and color. The price to enter the market has also dropped. The tech itself also has some specific benefits over traditional LCD and OLED...
The VergeInstagram’s close friends feature now applies to posts and Reels, too
Image: Instagram
Instagram’s latest feature lets you limit your posts to just close friends. You could already share Stories and Notes with only the users on your close friends list, but including posts and Reels could drastically change how Instagram works.
Since you no longer have to share posts with your entire follower list, and other users can do the same, your Instagram feed could start to feel like it’s filled with posts from a more close-knit community. You see a green star next to the accounts of close friends, and expanding that “green list” to Reels could go a long way toward making the app feel more private.
Instagram took a stab at a close friends-only platform with the launch of its original Threads app in 2019, but now, it seems like it’s...
The VergeVolvo CEO Jim Rowan thinks dropping Apple CarPlay is a mistake
Photo Illustration by The Verge | Photo by Bloomberg, Getty Images
As cars become computers on wheels, the former BlackBerry and Dyson executive is approaching Volvo’s EV transformation with a consumer electronics mindset.
The VergeLogitech’s webcam with articulating arm launches on Indiegogo
Logitech has launched a crowdfunding campaign for its latest webcam, the Logitech Reach. Prices range from a discounted $259 Black Friday deal to $399, with shipping expected in July 2024.
At first glance, it seems unusual to see a large brand like Logitech on Indiegogo, a platform normally associated with small startups that need the preorder money to put their projects into production. But Logitech said that the crowdfunding campaign would allow it to “gain invaluable insights into the use cases for Logitech Reach in various environments” when it announced its decision to use Indiegogo Enterprise when it first promoted the webcam in early September.
Indiegogo advertises that its Enterprise service is a way to “de-risk and accelerate...
The VergeX continues to suck at moderating hate speech, according to a new report
This follows earlier reports that verified X users are “superspreaders of misinformation” regarding the Israel-Hamas war. | Illustration: The Verge
The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) released a new report on Tuesday that suggests X (formerly Twitter) is failing to remove posts that violate its own community rules regarding misinformation, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and other hate speech. Researchers in the CCDH study reported 200 “hateful” posts about the Israel-Hamas war that breached platform rules to X moderators on October 31st, finding that 98 percent of the posts still remained live after allowing seven days to process the reports.
According to the CCDH, the reported posts, which largely promoted bigotry and incited violence against Muslims, Palestinians, and Jewish people, were collected from 101 separate X accounts. Just one account was suspended over their...
The VergeSnapchat and NYX launch new beauty filter that’s also a stealth shopping tool
Snapchat and NYX Professional Makeup launched a new AR filter and shopping tool called Beauty Bestie. | Image: Courtesy of Snapchat
Snapchat just launched a new AR makeup filter that links to products that users can buy to recreate their looks in the real world. It’s a partnership with cosmetics brand NYX Professional Makeup that they’re calling it Beauty Bestie.
AR beauty filters are nothing new, but Snapchat and NYX have turned this filter into a marketing tool for products consumers would typically find in a local pharmacy. With struggling pharmacy chains shutting down a lot of locations lately, this is one way NYX might be able to nab more customers online.
Snapchat and NYX have turned this filter into a marketing tool for products consumers would typically find in a local pharmacy
Users can find the filter by searching ‘NYX Beauty Bestie’ or visiting the makeup...
The VergeOpal’s second camera is the Tadpole, a tiny webcam for laptops
The Tadpole is meant to just clip right over top of your laptop’s webcam. | Image: Opal
Two years ago, Opal launched a camera with a tweet. (They were still called tweets back then.) It was the middle of a global pandemic, a work-from-home revolution, and a truly brutal time to start a hardware company — and Opal suddenly had tens of thousands of people signed up for the webcam that Alexis Ohanian, the Reddit co-founder and Opal investor, promised was “mind blowing.” Opal at the time had four employees, CEO Veeraj Chugh tells me, and it took all the company’s time and attention just to ship cameras as fast as it could.
The process of developing its second camera, which is called the Tadpole and is launching today, has apparently been much smoother. Opal has a real hardware team and supply chain now; it was able to go back...
The VergeNotion’s new Q&A feature lets you ask an AI about your notes
Q&A tries to both answer your questions and cite its sources. | Image: Notion
The first killer app of AI for businesses, it appears, is a simple thing: to be able to find information in the morass of files, folders, attachments, incompatible enterprise software apps, and everything else that constitutes modern knowledge work. Notion, which aims to replace most of those things in a single tool, is launching a feature it thinks can help. It’s called Q&A, and CEO Ivan Zhao describes it to me as essentially an all-knowing AI executive assistant that knows everything about everything and can find it in a second or two.
Notion Q&A is available to all Notion users, whether you use it alone or through work, and it’ll cost between $8 and $10 per person per month. The tool has a lot in common with Microsoft’s Copilot and G...
The VergeVenmo Groups aims to make it easier to split up and track expenses
Venmo groups debuts today and will roll out over “coming weeks.” | Image: Venmo / Crop: The Verge
Venmo has started rolling out a new “Venmo Groups” feature that aims to make it easier to organize and share common expenses with others. The company says the feature will let people track, split, and manage group expenses.
Basically, the company is appealing to anyone who has had to deal with spreadsheets or turned to other apps like Splitwise or SettleUp to manage group expenses like dinner with your friends or that big group trip to Disney World. With this new groups feature, users can do it all right in Venmo, and it’s something that probably should’ve been added a long time ago, considering the app’s sort-of social media nature.
Image: Venmo
Venmo Groups.
Like other standalone expense-sharing apps, Groups...
The VergeHow to electrify your life when you rent
Illustration by Nico H. Brausch for The Verge
Two years ago, Caroline Spears was finally living on her own, roommate-free, in a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, where the cost of living continues to go up. She was drawn to its affordability and space. “It was a great work-from-home spot,” Spears said. She didn’t foresee, however, the high energy bills that would result from cranking up the gas heater when her apartment would turn into an icebox in the winter.
The pollution from using a gas heater was also a major concern. Spears, founder of the Climate Cabinet, a national climate organization dedicated to winning elections, saw this challenge as a new project. So she got to it.
She hired a contractor to test the apartment’s energy efficiency. Despite the evidence, Spears’...
The VergeIs AI the answer to sustainable farming?
Illustration by Nico H. Brausch for The Verge
What happens when a robotics expert and a sixth-generation farmer decide to start a company together? They spend most of their time grappling with one looming problem: climate change.
In 2020, Gilwoo Lee, the robotics expert, and Casey Call, the farmer, founded Zordi, an agricultural platform that blends AI and robotics with greenhouse growing. A recent graduate of the University of Washington, Lee was stuck at home during the wildfires. “That was just a very strong signal of climate change happening. I was already committed to starting my own company with something where my robotics and AI can make a big difference when it comes to impact,” Lee said.
Call, who is the head grower and an agronomist at Zordi, says he’d seen the impact of...
The VergeUber is testing a service that lets you hire drivers for chores
I guess that means your Uber driver can collect you from Ikea and then build your furniture when you get home. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Uber is experimenting with a new service that allows users to hire drivers from its app to complete everyday household chores and projects, in a bid to expand beyond its existing ridesharing and courier business. The service, called Uber Tasks, will launch as a “small pilot” in the coming weeks in Fort Myers, Florida and Edmonton, Alberta.
The news, first reported by Bloomberg, confirms an earlier report from the publication in September that found evidence for a new “Chore” option within the Uber app’s code. Uber Tasks is essentially an online marketplace for freelance laborers, much like TaskRabbit or Thumbtack — only you’d be advertising tasks specifically to Uber drivers and couriers who can opt-in to the program.
Uber drivers and...
The VergeYouTube is going to start cracking down on AI clones of musicians
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
YouTube will have two sets of content guidelines for AI-generated deepfakes: a very strict set of rules to protect the platform’s music industry partners, and another, looser set for everyone else.
That’s the explicit distinction laid out today in a company blog post, which goes through the platform’s early thinking about moderating AI-generated content. The basics are fairly simple: YouTube will require creators to begin labeling “realistic” AI-generated content when they’re uploading videos, and that the disclosure requirement is especially important for topics like elections or ongoing conflicts.
The labels will appear in video descriptions, and on top of the videos themselves for sensitive material. There is no specific definition...
The VergeThis smart lock is the first with Matter-over-Thread baked in
The Nuki 4.0 comes in a Pro and Standard version; both work with Matter over Thread and are designed for European-style doors. | Image: Nuki
After teasing it for over a year, Austrian smart lock maker Nuki has launched its Matter-over-Thread smart lock. The Nuki Smart Lock 4.0 is the company’s fourth generation of its retrofit smart lock for European-style doors and is the first built from the ground up to work with the new smart home standard. “We are the world’s first smart lock to fully integrate Matter into the product. No bridge or module is required, and parallel use with manufacturers’ apps is possible without limitations,” Chief Innovation Officer Jürgen Pansy said in a press release.
As with previous models, the Nuki Smart Lock 4.0 comes in two versions: a standard €169 (about $181) model that requires a separate bridge to connect to Wi-Fi and a Pro version with...
The VergeLatest US climate assessment shows the extreme toll taken by climate change
Homes and businesses in Lahaina, Maui, are in ruins on August 16th, 2023, after a devastating wildfire swept through town. | Photo by Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Climate disasters are costing the US billions of dollars a year, and the damage isn’t spread out evenly, according to a new national climate assessment.
The assessment, produced about every four years, lays out the toll climate change is taking across every region in the United States. This is the fifth one — but for the first time, this year’s report includes chapters dedicated to economic impact and social inequities. As floods, fires, heatwaves, and other calamities tied to climate change intensify, households pay the price with higher costs and worsening environmental injustices.
As floods, fires, heatwaves, and other calamities tied to climate change intensify, households pay the price with higher costs and worsening environmental...
The VergeThreads finally lets you delete your account separately from Instagram
Image: The Verge
Meta is rolling out a way for you to delete your Threads profile without having to delete your Instagram account, too. You’ll be able to access the new feature from the settings menu in a new “Delete or Deactivate Profile” section, according to a post from Instagram boss Adam Mosseri. I don’t have the feature yet myself, but I suspect Meta will make it available to everyone soon enough.
This new ability to delete just your Threads profile addresses an early complaint with the app, which currently requires that you sign up with an Instagram account. However, shortly after the app’s launch, Mosseri said the company was “looking into” a way to be able to delete a Threads account on its own. (And if you don’t want to permanently delete your...
The VergeRick and Morty’s Dan Harmon and Scott Marder are trusting the process for season 7
Image: Adult Swim
Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon and executive producer Scott Marder say that being in a healthier space personally is a big part of what’s making the new season so sharp.
The VergeEinride’s drone truck has its first full-time job moving GE appliances around
There is no calling shotgun in this truck because there are no seats for humans. | Image: Einride
The Swedish autonomous trucking company Einride is using its cab-less electric delivery vehicles in Selmer, Tennessee, to move items from GE Appliances’ manufacturing plant to a warehouse. This operation can run up to seven shuttles per day, Monday through Thursday, the press release states. In an email to The Verge, a PR representative for Einride, Matthew Klein, wrote that the distance for each trip is 0.3 miles (or 0.48km) and is all on private roads owned by GE.
Einride first ran controlled operations at GE’s Appliance Park headquarters in 2021. Later, the company moved on to a public road test with National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approval in 2022, the “first public road pilot in the US for a purpose built autonomous,...
The VergeA Google witness let slip just how much it pays Apple for Safari search
Illustration: The Verge
Google gives Apple a 36 percent cut of all search ad revenue that comes from Safari, according to University of Chicago professor Kevin Murphy. Google had fought to keep the number confidential, but Bloomberg reports that Murphy shared the figure while testifying in Google’s defense today at the Google antitrust trial.
Google has long paid to be the default search engine in Safari and other browsers like Firefox, spending $26.3 billion dollars in 2021 alone for the privilege. $18 billion of that went to Apple, but the specifics of where the number came from remained secret until now. Google has been trying to keep such details under wraps as the trial goes on, but bits and pieces have seeped out anyway. According to Bloomberg, Google...
The VergeNetflix says the cloud will let it expand beyond mobile games
A mobile version of Hades is coming to Netflix in 2024. | Image: Supergiant Games
As Netflix’s foray into cloud gaming expands, so, too, will the kinds of games the company offers. “We feel like there is a real big opportunity with cloud to create a certain type of game experience that really is tailored to Netflix on TV,” says Leanne Loombe, Netflix’s head of external games.
Netflix’s cloud gaming efforts are still very early and follow nearly two years of releasing games exclusively on mobile. Right now, only two titles are available as part of a cloud beta test on TVs and PCs, including Oxenfree. But as the service grows to include more titles, Netflix says that the kinds of games offered will differ based on platform — meaning there will eventually be titles on Netflix designed to play only on your television or...
The VergeAmazon is getting rid of its gaming content channel amid larger games layoffs
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Amazon is cutting “just over” 180 jobs in its games division and making some changes to its games initiatives, according to a memo sent to employees by VP of Amazon Games Christoph Hartmann. The changes include shutting down its Crown channel that streams on Twitch, closing its Game Growth effort that helps game makers market their products, and “refocusing” the work it does with its free games offered through Prime Gaming.
“We are proud of the work the teams have been doing, pushing into new areas with weekly content on Crown Channel, and finding more ways to help publishers reach new audiences with Game Growth,” Hartmann wrote. “But after further evaluation of our businesses, it became clear that we need focus our resources and...
The VergeHow to choose which Apple Watch to buy
Photo illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Between the Apple Watch Series 9, the Ultra 2, and the second-gen SE, there are more options than ever. We’ll help you sort through them.
The VergeAmazon’s latest Fire TV Stick 4K Max is on sale for a new low price
The new Fire TV Stick 4K Max looks just like any old streaming stick from Amazon, but its upgrades are most prominent on the inside. | Image: Amazon
As Black Friday deals continue trickling in early, more recent devices are going on sale for the first time or for new lows. One example is Amazon’s new Fire TV Stick 4K Max, which came out just a couple of months ago and is now on sale for $39.99 ($20 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.
The new flagship 4K streaming stick from Amazon is a lot like the last-gen model, but it packs better specs with Wi-Fi 6E support and 16GB of storage instead of 8GB while maintaining HDR support that includes HDR10 and HDR10 Plus. The last-gen model was one of our top recommendations for streaming devices, and the new model is just more of the same formula — a great streamer, especially if you want voice commands via Alexa. So if you want pretty much all the...
The VergeExxonMobil is a lithium company now
Image: Getty
ExxonMobil is getting into the lithium production business. The company announced on Monday that it’s going to become a “leading producer of lithium” by opening its first drilling operation in southern Arkansas.
The demand for lithium has grown in the past couple of years, with the metal serving as a key ingredient in the rechargeable batteries that power electric vehicles, phones, laptops, and other tech. ExxonMobil plans to start producing lithium in 2027 and says it could make enough lithium to supply over 1 million electric vehicles per year by 2030.
Earlier this year, ExxonMobil purchased 120,000 acres of lithium-rich land spanning a geologic formation — called the Smackover Formation — in Arkansas. To access the lithium, the...