Here are the best AirPods deals you can get right now

Apple’s second-gen AirPods Pro are $10 shy of their all-time low set during Black Friday.

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. We’re even seeing great deals land on the newer updated AirPods Pro with USB-C.

Here, we’ve curated the best deals currently available on each model, including the entry-level AirPods, the AirPods Pro, the third-gen AirPods, and the AirPods Max.

The best AirPods (second-gen) deals

In 2021, Apple lowered the list price of the second-gen...

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Aqara’s presence sensor can tell when you’re sleeping

Aqara’s Presence Sensor FP2 can now be used as a sleep tracker. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge

The innovative Aqara Presence Sensor FP2 that debuted at CES 2023 is getting three significant new features that could make it more useful and more effective as a smart home sensor.

Sleep Monitoring Mode, AI Person Detection, and People Counting are all coming to the Wi-Fi sensor, which is one of the first to use millimeter wave (mmWave) radar tech to accurately detect a person’s presence even when they’re sitting still, rather than relying on passive infrared motion sensing.

The small puck-shaped device can now be set to monitor and analyze “sleep status, real-time heart rate, and respiratory data,” according to a press release from the company. Sleep monitoring is available via a firmware update (V1.2.3_0002.0059) that’s rolling out...

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Apple’s new iPhone security setting keeps thieves out of your digital accounts

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

Apple is making it harder for iPhone thieves to access your personal information if they get ahold of your device’s passcode. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Apple includes new Stolen Device Protection in its iOS 17.3 beta that, when enabled, would require authentication through Face ID or Touch ID to perform certain actions.

The new feature appears to come in response to the concerns raised in previous reports by The Wall Street Journal describing how thieves watch their victims type in their iPhone passcodes and then steal their devices. This gives thieves access to a trove of personal and financial information stored on the device, allowing them to lock victims out of their iCloud accounts and spend thousands of dollars using...

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Netflix reveals how many hours we spent watching The Night Agent and Queen Charlotte

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Netflix is going to start publishing a new report twice a year that details the most popular shows and movies on the platform. The first report, released today, details the most-watched content from January to June 2023, and it’s perhaps the best look yet at how much people are actually watching Netflix’s gargantuan library of titles.

“What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report” will track three metrics: hours watched, whether a show is available globally, and a show’s release date. In this first report, the first season of The Night Agent tops the list with more than 812 million hours viewed, followed by Ginny & Georgia’ssecond season (665.1 million hours viewed), The Glory’sfirst season (622.8 million hours viewed), Wednesday’s...

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Tim Sweeney on Epic’s victory royale over Google

Photo illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photo by Philip Pacheco, Getty Images

Epic won. What does the lawsuit’s architect think?

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WhatsApp’s new pinned messages make it easy to keep group chats on task

WhatsApp debuts pinned messages. | Image: WhatsApp

WhatsApp is adding the ability to pin a message to the top of your chats for up to 30 days. Meta says that the feature, which its mobile Facebook Messenger app already has, is rolling out to users now, so not everyone will see it right away.

Meta says to do so, users will need to long-press on a message and tap “Pin.” Seven days is the default duration for a pin, but users can choose to change that to either 24 hours or 30 days. Any message can be pinned, so if you want to pin a poll, a picture, or even a video, you can. Group chat admins can make a pin visible only to other admins, too.

Image: WhatsApp

Every messaging app should have this feature.

This feature is begging to be added to all direct messaging...

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The best ebook reader to buy right now

Image: Will Joel / The Verge

From reading in the bath to scribbling notes in the margins, from diving into the Amazon ecosystem to avoiding it outright, there’s an e-reader for everyone.

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The new Doctor Who debut felt like a timey-wimey slap to the face

Image: BBC

Russell T. Davies’ hearts are in the right place, but the introduction of Ncuti Gatwa’s new Doctor Who was marked by a number of questionable decisions and racist tropes.

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Two become one: TP-Link’s two smart home brands finally use one app

Users of Tapo and Kasa smart home devices can now control them both in one app. | Image: TP-Link

Wi-Fi router manufacturer TP-Link is finally uniting its two smart home brands under one app, Tapo. The company has made smart gadgets since 2019, but confoundingly under two separate brands: Tapo and Kasa.

Both brands offer very good smart plugs, switches, lights, connected cameras, and other gadgets for relatively low prices. But confusingly, many of them look and work almost identically while requiring two separate apps to control them. This state of affairs has long frustrated users of these inexpensive devices.

After a recent update (Tapo 3.0), TP-Link is now letting users port their Kasa devices into the Tapo app. This allows you to control all your devices from one app and integrate them into any routines or automations you have...

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USDS head Mina Hsiang wants Big Tech’s best minds to help fix the government

Photo illustration by Alex Parkin / The Verge

Ten years after healthcare.gov, the fed’s tech consultancy wants you to help with the next big thing.

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If the Cybertruck is deadly for pedestrians, it’s because all large trucks are

Parker Ortolani / The Verge

The Tesla Cybertruck has been out for a little more than a week, and already people are ready to declare it a safety nightmare.

“Guideless missile” and “death machine” are some of the loaded phrases being tossed around. Safety experts are “raising concerns” about the truck’s crumple zones (or lack thereof). TikTok and other social platforms are abound with videos highlighting the poor sight lines and lack of visibility for drivers and passengers.

But if the Cybertruck is particularly deadly for pedestrians, cyclists, and other vulnerable road users, it’s because it’s a large truck in America in the year 2023. We have lots of data that shows that America’s favorite type of vehicle is also one of the most deadly. We have very little data...

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Google Maps gives you more control from the blue dot

Just tap the blue dot for more control.

Google Maps has gotten some fun updates recently, and now it’s offering some more privacy-forward tweaks as it adds more ways to control your location data. It starts, as so many journeys do with that little blue dot in Google Maps: aka, you... or, your current location at least.

Right now, tapping the blue dot in Google Maps offers shortcuts to save your parking or share your location. This update — which I’m already seeing on my Pixel 8 Pro review unit — adds options for device location and location history. You can see at a glance whether they’re on or off, and you can toggle them with just a couple of taps.

Image: Google

Clicking the blue dot now offers quick control over more settings.

...

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Nomad’s new 3-in-1 charging stand has MagSafe and one oddly specific design flaw

The Stand One Max is a handsome charging station, but I think it could have maintained its good looks even with better spacing to accommodate StandBy mode. | Image: Nomad

After releasing various MagSafe chargers, cheaper MagSafe-compatible Base and Stand chargers, and a 3-in-1 MagSafe Base One Max charger, Nomad is further filling out its lineup by announcing the Stand One Max. Much like its recent charger, the similarly named (and even pricier) Stand One Max is a MagSafe 3-in-1 that simultaneously charges your iPhone, Apple Watch, and a pair of AirPods — all for $180.

But its design has a small miscalculation that prevents me from charging all those devices and simultaneously using my favorite new iOS feature, StandBy mode, which lets a charging iPhone in landscape orientation show you all kinds of fun, customizable widgets. You see, plopping down your phone on the charger’s upright MagSafe stand...

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Developers are wanting more than The Game Awards are delivering

Image: The Game Awards

Developers are upset that The Game Awards featured very few awards or opportunities for winners to celebrate their achievements in favor of ads and celebrity guests.

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The Bose Frames will soon be no more

The Bose Frames Tempo are the only ones still listed on the company’s site — and they’re sold out. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

Bose is discontinuing its Frames line of audio smart glasses, which will no longer be available by the end of this year.

The news was first reported by Digital Trends, which quotes Bose as saying it’s in the process of phasing out the product line. Bose also separately confirmed the news to The Verge. It’s also clear the writing is on the wall if you look at the company’s website. Although Bose originally had multiple styles for the Frames, the only version still listed on the site is the sporty, Oakley-like Tempo. However, the product is technically sold out and marked down 50 percent at that.

According to the report, Bose has sold the majority of its remaining inventory, and while you may see some units pop up from now through the...

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The AirPods Pro and Beats Studio Pro have hit near all-time low prices

The Beats Studio Pro are $170 off in all colors. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

What’s with all of our favorite Black Friday deals resurfacing lately? First, it was the Sonos Era, as we highlighted yesterday. Now, both the AirPods Pro and the Apple-owned Beats Studio Pro are just $10 shy of their Black Friday all-time low price. Right now, you can buy the second-generation AirPods Pro with USB-C support for $199.99 ($50 off) at Amazon and Best Buy, while the Beats Studio Pro are around $179.95 ($170 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.

In case you need a refresher, the latest version of Apple’s AirPods Pro features a new MagSafe case that charges via USB-C instead of a Lightning port along with dust resistance. Otherwise, the earbuds aren’t too different from the original second-gen AirPods Pro, delivering stellar sound...

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E3 is officially over forever

Illustration by Alex Castro

E3 is dead for good.

While the video game industry had already largely given up on E3 — once the largest video game trade show in the industry and the biggest video game showcase event of the year — there was always the chance it would return after multiple years of cancellations. However, in a statement to The Washington Post today, E3’s organizer confirmed that the show is permanently canceled.

“We know it’s difficult to say goodbye to such a beloved event, but it’s the right thing to do given the new opportunities our industry has to reach fans and partners,” Stanley Pierre-Louis, the CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, the nonprofit trade organization that ran E3, told the Post.

pic.twitter.com/y6dtVkBvNI

— E3 (@E3) D...

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Beeper vs. iMessage is a fight about how tech works — and who’s really in charge

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Sometimes there’s the world you wish existed, and there’s the world as it is.

Over the last week, Apple and the messaging app Beeper have been locked in a battle for users’ souls and security. The bones of the story are this: Beeper released a new app, Beeper Mini, that cleverly made use of Apple’s iMessage protocols to allow you to send blue-bubble, encrypted messages from an Android phone. Apple swiftly shut it down. Beeper spent a few days getting a somewhat less impressive version of Beeper Mini running again. It probably won’t last.

What’s odd about this story is that you have two sides completely at odds, both saying entirely correct things. Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky has been telling anyone who will listen that SMS is insecure,...

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GM’s hydrogen ‘power cubes’ will be used to power massive mining trucks

Komatsu’s 930E mining truck | Image: Komatsu

General Motors announced a new partnership with Japanese construction vehicle manufacturer Komatsu to build heavy-duty mining trucks powered by the automaker’s hydrogen fuel-cell technology.

The company will work with the Japanese firm to install its Hydrotec-branded “power cubes,” each containing 300 individual hydrogen fuel cells with an output of 80 kW of new power, into the mining trucks.

The amount of power needed for each truck will be immense. Komatsu’s 930E mining trucks weigh over 500 tons, are capable of generating 3,500 horsepower, and can carry a nominal payload of 320 tons.

The amount of power needed for each truck will be immense

Hydrogen fuel cells use compressed hydrogen as their fuel, releasing water vapor as its only...

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The great scrollback of Alexandria

This is a preservation effort, attempting to capture the funniest, weirdest, and most memorable posts before Twitter completely burns down.

Buttons break, functions disappear, power users flee, site errors abound: Twitter fell apart faster than even the pessimists anticipated. By the time we arrived on the scene, the damage was already irreversible: many of the tweets that made Twitter so iconic were already deleted, removed, or made private. It happened so quickly, we could barely comprehend what it was that we actually lost.

Not all of this information decay is the result of the Twitter acquisition. The famous Zola thread only exists in screenshots; the same goes for all-time great “four eels.” As more and more users delete their...

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How Twitter broke the news

Illustration by Erik Carter for The Verge

Here is a very dumb truth: for a decade, the default answer to nearly every problem in mass media communication involved Twitter. Breaking news? Twitter. Live sports commentary? Twitter. Politics? Twitter. A celebrity has behaved badly? Twitter. A celebrity has issued a Notes app apology for bad behavior? Twitter. For a good while, the most reliable way to find out what a loud noise in New York City was involved asking Twitter. Was there an earthquake in San Francisco? Twitter. Is some website down? Twitter.

The sense that Twitter was a real-time news feed worked in both directions: people went on Twitter to find out what was going on, and reporters, seeing a real-time audience of people paying attention to news, started talking directly...

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Figma’s colorful macro pad aims to make life easier for designers

The Creator Micro is designed to be used alongside traditional peripherals like a mouse and keyboard. | Image: Figma

Design software company Figma is launching its first dedicated piece of hardware. The Figma Creator Micro is effectively a small mechanical keyboard (aka, a macro pad) equipped with 12 keys and two dials for quick access to your most commonly used Figma tools and shortcuts. It’s up for preorder for $139 starting today, with shipping expected in the first half of next year.

The Creator Micro isn’t an entirely original Figma creation. The design company has collaborated with Work Louder on the peripheral, which is a rebranded version of the existing Creator Micro. But this isn’t just a Creator Micro with a Figma-branded coat of paint. Figma product manager Rob Bye tells me the company has worked to preconfigure its version of the Creator...

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Goodbye to all that harassment

Sarah Jeong @Sarah Jeong

I’ve had a really good time on here. I’ve also had a really bad time on here lol

The first tweet was already unsettling. It was a composite image of things I’d said — largely dug up from five years earlier — screencaps of posts with tiny archive links appended to each one. Out of context, some of my old posts looked bad. The bulk were obviously jokes. Most of them were about white people.

Then came another tweet. And another. It became a flood of tweets, nearly all with the same composite image being tweeted and retweeted. It was a coordinated online harassment campaign, the kind that Twitter was uniquely good at powering.

I was fair game because The New York Times had just announced that I was being hired as a...

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The year Twitter died: a special series from The Verge

Twitter was so many things.

Elon Musk killed Twitter. First, he did it figuratively: firing most employees, destabilizing it as a technology and a business, leaving the platform virtually unusable for those who remained. Then, he killed it literally: renaming it X, giving Twitter a final ending after 15 years of chaotic existence.

But in death, there is understanding — now that it’s over, we can reckon with what Twitter really was: a news cycle accelerator, a tool of mass harassment, an idealistic money-losing workplace, and an infinite joke machine.

2023 will go down as…

THE YEAR TWITTER DIED

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• Haunted moon
• Blue check
• Jack Dorsey with Death and Bitcoin
• Unicorn
• Macaulay Culkin
• Really big beet
• Karen
• T...

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Extremely softcore

In the early ’10s, Twitter was at the height of its power. The company had yet to turn a profit, but it had played a crucial role in the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, which was nearly as effective for recruiting. While it would never reach the scale of its competitors, the platform dominated in terms of cultural and political relevance. Twitter was fast, its reach was far, and its influence was shaping the world in ways that seemed progressive.

Menotti Minutillo, an engineer from Long Island with dark hair and a warm smile, was working as an analyst at Goldman Sachs when he decided to apply for a job at Twitter. At Goldman, there was no illusion about what employees were there to do. The company’s mission was to make money....

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The Apple TV app now looks more like an all-purpose streaming hub

Image: Apple

Apple rolled out a revamped Apple TV app as a part of its suite of new software releases on Monday. The tvOS 17.2 update includes a new sidebar for the TV app, which is designed to better showcase non-Apple TV Plus offerings and let users easily jump to other Apple content like MLS Season Pass. It also makes for a quick shortcut to apps like Disney Plus, Max, Prime Video, or Apple’s store, where you can purchase or rent digital titles to stream.

Prior to the update, it was easy for live sports and other streaming sources to get buried under Apple’s TV Plus original programming. The new interface does more to highlight this third-party content, which is part of the tech giant’s rumored plan to make the Apple TV app a streaming hub for...

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Netflix is down for many people right now

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Over the last hour or so, people worldwide have reported trouble connecting to Netflix and a strange “tvq-pb-101” error message as the app says it’s checking network connection but fails. Given the service’s global availability and massive subscriber base, small outages are common, but what we’re seeing on Monday evening is different. Here at The Verge, some of us can stream just fine, while others are getting the same error message and code other users have complained about.

Netflix has confirmed that engineers are working to restore service, as its status page has now been updated to mention that “You may have problems streaming titles on any device” after insisting things were okay during the first two hours of the outage.

However,...

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Epic win: Jury decides Google has illegal monopoly in app store fight

Illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge

Three years after _Fortnite-_maker Epic Games sued Apple and Google for allegedly running illegal app store monopolies, Epic has a win. The jury in Epic v. Google has just delivered its verdict — and it found that Google turned its Google Play app store and Google Play Billing service into an illegal monopoly.

The jury unanimously answered yes to every question put before them — that Google has monopoly power in the Android app distribution markets and in-app billing services markets, that Google did anticompetitive things in those markets, and that Epic was injured by that behavior. They decided Google has an illegal tie between its Google Play app store and its Google Play Billing payment services, too, and that its distribution...

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Netflix’s Blue Eye Samurai is coming back for a second season

Netflix

Netflix’s Blue Eye Samuraianimated series from co-creators Amber Noizumi and Michael Green has turned out to be one of this year’s surprise hits, and the streamer already has plans to keep the momentum going with a second season.

Blue Eye Samurai’s season 1 finale made it fairly obvious that Noizumi and Green still have plenty of stories left to tell with Maya Erskine’s Mizu, a biracial samurai who takes it upon herself to rid Japan of white foreigners during the nation’s Edo period. Today, though, Netflix officially announced that it has renewed the series for a second season that will presumably follow Mizu as she and her captive Fowler (Kenneth Branagh) make their way to London in pursuit of the men she intends to kill.

In a...

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Ford will cut weekly production of F-150 Lightning in response to slowing demand

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge

Ford told its dealers that it was reducing weekly production of its F-150 Lightning pickup truck next year in response to slowing customer demand, Automotive News reports.

According to a memo viewed by the outlet, Ford told its dealers to prepare for an average production volume of 1,600 electric trucks from its Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn, Michigan, starting next year. The company currently churns 3,200 trucks out of that factory each week.

Emma Bergg, a spokesperson for Ford, declined to comment on the numbers published in the report. “We will continue to match Lightning production to customer demand,” she said in an email.

“We will continue to match Lightning production to customer demand.”

EV sales are continuing to...

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