Dragon Age: The Veilguard has fantastic hair tech thanks to FIFA and Madden

Image: BioWare

EA has shared a lengthy blog detailing all the technical work that went into rendering hair in Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

While it used to be, and in some cases still is, a struggle to find a game with a character creator that included a diverse range of hairstyles, newer games are getting better at providing styles to represent folks on the kinky / curly hair spectrum where a lot of people of color reside. However, the new struggle is getting those hairstyles to look and act natural. I remember looking at all the hairstyles in Horizon Forbidden Westand being bemused that the dreadlocks on Varl looked like they were made out of foam, while his beard was simply straight hair without an ounce of kink a Black man like him typically has....

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Starbucks now offers delivery in its own app

Get your red cup delivered straight to your door. | Photo: Starbucks

A new way to spend $10 on a 12-ounce coffee just dropped. Starting today, Starbucks is accepting delivery orders right inside its app. Delivery is handled by DoorDash, and right now, it’s limited to “participating stores” in the US and Canada. But if you’re in the delivery area and willing to pay a small fortune in fees, getting your Starbucks order into your hands has never been easier.

Starbucks has been offering delivery through DoorDash in the US since early last year, but only within Doordash’s app. Previously, order ahead options in the Starbucks app were limited to in-store and drive-through pickup. Now, you can toggle between pickup and delivery. Placing a delivery order brings up an interface identical to the one on DoorDash’s...

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Nintendo’s Black Friday sale has discounts on Switch games and controllers

Image: Nintendo

Nintendo games rarely see big discounts, but the holiday shopping season always proves a good opportunity to save on some contemporary classics. After initially offering special holiday bundles of its Switch consoles, Nintendo has also announced a Black Friday sale on various games and controllers set to begin November 24th and run through the 30th.

Major Nintendo titles like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Pikmin 4, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, and more will be $20 off at retailers like Best Buy, Target, and Walmart once the sale commences. Additionally, Switch accessories like Joy-Con controllers and Nintendo’s Pro Controller will also be $20 off, along with a slick Tears of the Kingdom carrying case getting a $10 discount....

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Turn your smartphone into a playable wind instrument with this USB-C mouthpiece

The Zefiro is a tiny USB-C MIDI controller that can be played like a wind instrument. | Image: Kickstarter

An Italian startup called Artinoise has created an unusual USB-C accessory for mobile devices that turns them into playable musical instruments. The Zefiro looks like a flash drive or a tiny vape, but by gently blowing into one end, it can be used to play simulated instruments with even less skill than what was needed to play those plastic recorders in grade school.

The Zefiro is being made available through a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign looking to raise just over $5,300 to fund production. According to the company, “We have been developing and manufacturing musical instruments for years; now we just need to collect pre-orders for our latest creation and kick off manufacturing!”

Those backing the campaign early can preorder a...

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Here are the best iPad deals right now

If you need the latest and greatest, we’re already seeing (slight) discounts on Apple’s newest iPad Mini. | Photo: David Pierce / The Verge

While the best iPad deals usually land during major sale events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday, many great iPad deals are attainable outside those times. The day-to-day discounts may come and go like changing winds, but there’s often something to be saved, particularly on the more affordable iPads. The most recent iPad Pro and iPad Air are causing prices on older models to drop even further, and now that Apple has a new iPad Mini, we’re seeing regular discounts on the last-gen Mini as well.

It’s difficult to know where exactly you can find the most notable iPad deals unless you’re scouring the major retailers on a daily basis. But that’s often what our deal hunters at The Verge are doing each and every day, so let us help you out....

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VMware Workstation and Fusion are now free for everyone

The “Pro” versions are no longer available for purchase. | Image: VMware

VMware made its Fusion and Workstation software that creates and manages virtual machines free for personal use earlier this year. Now, the company announced that as of Monday, it’s free for everyone, including commercial customers. Also, the Fusion (for Macs) and Workstation (for Windows and Linux) Pro versions are no longer available for purchase.

Broadcom’s $61 billion acquisition of VMware in 2022 was one of the biggest tech acquisitions ever. Since then, it has bundled the company’s products to “simplify its portfolio” and dropped many existing SKUs. It has already announced an end to offering VMware perpetual licensing for standalone offerings to push enterprises towards its Cloud Foundation or vSphere Foundation subscription...

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The slim PS5 is getting a price cut for the holidays

Image: Sony

Sony is cutting the price of the “slim” PS5 digital edition by $70, making it more affordable for the holiday season. Typically, that PS5 model costs $449.99, but it will start at $379.99 through December 24th, according to a new ad.

This holiday deal brings the slim PS5 digital edition just under the original $399.99 price of the launch version of the PS5 digital console. The footnote at the end of the ad specifies that this price is only for the disc-free console, so it seems like the model with a disc drive already attached will still start at $499.99. But the holiday pricing also means that by buying a digital PS5 slim and one of Sony’s separate $79.99 PS5 disc drives, you can make your own PS5 with a disc drive and save about $40.

A...

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Hyundai’s touchscreen honeymoon is over because sometimes buttons are just better

The interior of the Hyundai Ioniq 6. | Photo by Patrick George for The Verge

Hyundai, a company that has been just as guilty in the past of spreading the touchscreen scourge in cars as any other, has been course-correcting lately, putting more buttons and knobs into its cars. The reason isn’t surprising: people hate touchscreens, at least for certain essential controls like HVAC systems, and they told Hyundai so.

“As we were adding integrated [infotainment] screens in our vehicles, we also tried putting touchscreen-based controls, and people didn’t prefer that,” Hyundai Design North America VP Ha Hak-soo told Korea JoongAng Dailyin an interview that InsideEVs spotted. He said Hyundai, which was as infatuated with touchscreens as the rest of the industry at first, found that in focus group testing people got...

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Now there’s an ‘anti-AI’ camera app for Android, too

Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

If you’ve been looking to replace your Android phone’s camera app with one that doesn’t overprocess photos to alter lighting and detail in sometimes extreme ways, now there’s an option. Zerocam is a barebones app that promises to “shoot in RAW and process your photos to remove all artificial effects, delivering soft, pleasant-to-eye images.”

We’ve been talking about the definition of a photo for years, and we’re not the only ones complaining about HDR processing that sometimes makes images seem flat because they lack contrast between light and dark.

This app’s approach is similar to the Process Zero feature Halide offers within its iPhone camera app, but Zerocam goes a few steps further. This app doesn’t even have much of an interface:...

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Chrome on your iPhone can search using pictures and words at the same time

Illustration: The Verge

The iOS version of Google’s Chrome browser is getting upgraded with several features from the Android iteration, including simultaneous Google Lens image and text search. Chrome for iOS could already use Google Lens to search for a picture on your iPhone or one taken from the camera, but now you can add words along with it to narrow your search in one go.

For instance, you can upload a picture of a t-shirt design you like into Lens and type the name of a color that you prefer into search, and it will try to find the shirt you want. This update comes as Apple launched its own Visual Intelligence search, which only works on iPhone 16 and 16 Pro.

GIF: Google

Search a picture of a snowboard design you like, but see if...

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Donald Trump’s EPA pick wants to ‘make America the AI capital of the world’

Donald Trump participates in a roundtable discussion with former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) on October 29th, 2024, in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. | Photo by Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Artificial intelligence is top of mind for President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY). Zeldin plans to help “unleash US energy dominance” and “make America the AI capital of the world,” he said in a post on X today.

The EPA regulates emissions that pollute the air and cause climate change, giving it a huge role to play in how much the rise of energy-hungry AI leads to a jump in power plant pollution. From the looks of it, though, the EPA’s incoming leader is prioritizing making sure environmental protections don’t get in the way of doing business — particularly when it comes to expanding AI data centers.

Environmental advocates are already concerned about Trump’s plans...

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Microsoft is killing off Windows 11’s Mail and Calendar apps by the end of the year

The Verge

Microsoft is planning to no longer support the Windows Mail, Calendar, and People apps later this year. The software giant has been moving existing users of these apps over to the new Outlook for Windows app in recent months, and now it has set an end of support date for the Mail, Calendar, and People apps of December 31st.

Once the apps reach end of support later this year, Microsoft warns that users who haven’t moved to the new Outlook app “will no longer be able to send and receive email using Windows Mail and Calendar.”

Microsoft has been rolling out the new Outlook for Windows app for years, with it officially reaching the general availability stage in August. The new web-based Outlook is designed to eventually replace the full...

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Apple is planning an Apple Home smart security camera

Logitech’s Circle View is one of only a handful of security cameras that work with Apple’s HomeKit Secure Video service. The rumor is Apple is now developing its own. | Photo: Logitech

It appears Apple’s rumored push into the smart home will include an Apple smart security camera. Supply-chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reports the company is planning to start production of a smart home IP camera in 2026 and aims to sell over 10 million units a year.

Kuo also reports that the camera is “designed to integrate seamlessly with other Apple hardware products via wireless connectivity” and speculates it will integrate deeply with Apple Intelligence and Apple’s Siri voice assistant.

Apple’s competitors, Amazon and Google, both have first-party security camera hardware products for their respective smart home platforms and have already started integrating generative AI. Amazon’s Ring launched a new AI search feature in October, and...

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Waymo’s robotaxis are now available to everyone in Los Angeles

Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images

Waymo is ditching its waitlist in Los Angeles, much like it did before in Phoenix and San Francisco, making its fully autonomous vehicles available to anyone who downloads the company’s Waymo One app.

There are still some geographic limitations with which to contend: Waymo only operates within 80 square miles of Los Angeles County, which includes neighborhoods such as Hollywood, Chinatown, Westwood, Marina del Rey, Mar Vista, and Playa Vista.

Still, it was a sign of the company’s growing confidence in its technology, especially after securing a record $5.6 billion investment round, led by its parent company, Alphabet, to help fund its next phase of growth. Waymo recently said it was conducting 150,000 paid trips and driving over 1...

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Fortnite OG is coming back permanently in December

Image: Epic Games

Fortnite is going old school once again. Epic has announced that the throwback mode Fortnite OG, which brings back the battle royale’s original island, will become a permanent fixture of the game starting on December 6th.

OG first launched last November as a limited-time event, which turned out to be a big hit and was designed explicitly to bring back lapsed players to the game ahead of the release of Lego Fortnite. Its return means iconic Fortnite elements like Tilted Towers and the Baller will now be a standard part of the experience.

Epic is currently attempting to replicate the success of OG. Fortnite is in the midst of Chapter 2 Remix, which — as the name implies — takes the game’s second chapter and tweaks it. The big shift this...

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Netflix used to not have ads, now it’s ‘celebrating’ two years with them

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Netflix’s subscription plan with ads has reached a new milestone: it hit 70 million monthly users since its launch two years ago. That’s a big jump compared to the 40 million monthly ad-supported users Netflix reported in May.

Additionally, the streaming service said that the ad-supported plan accounted for 50 percent of all new signups in countries where it’s available. Netflix rolled out its ad-supported tier in the US, Australia, Brazil, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and others in November 2022.

It’s no surprise that the ad-supported plan has seen such growth, as the streamer has started nudging users toward the $6.99 per month option by discontinuing its cheapest ad-free tier. The company has also started to build out the...

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Microsoft Edge is trying to forcefully get your Chrome tabs again

Image: The Verge

Earlier this year Microsoft’s Edge browser automatically started up on my PC and imported my Chrome tabs without consent. Microsoft refused to explain why this behavior had occurred, and then quietly addressed the problem in a Microsoft Edge update. Microsoft hasn’t given up on trying to get your Chrome data though, as a new update is rolling out that automatically starts Edge and offers to import your Chrome tabs.

My colleague Richard Lawler noticed that Edge started automatically on his PC last week at boot and offered up a new prompt to “enhance your browsing experience.” The pop-up has a “bring over your data from other browsers regularly” option ticked by default, and encourages people to confirm and continue with a big blue button....

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Andor is going to war in new look at season 2

Following its announcement that the second season of Andor(now subtitled A Star Wars Story) is set to premiere next April, Disney Plus has dropped a new sizzle reel giving us a proper look at the show and a whole bunch of other things coming to the streamer.

Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona) is going to need a pilot in Andor season two, and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) might just be the man for the job judging from the way the new 2025 preview features footage of him stealing a ship. Cassian’s penchant for taking things that aren’t his seems to be an issue for Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård), but with Stormtroopers mobilizing to attack people elsewhere in the galaxy, the freedom fighters clearly have bigger fish to fry.

The sizzle reel also...

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Third-gen AirPods are cheaper than ever at $94

There’s no better pair of AirPods you can buy for under $100. | Image: Chris Welch / The Verge

If you’re looking for a good opportunity to upgrade from an older pair of AirPods, then some of the early Black Friday sales going on right now are where you want to be. Walmart, for example, has chopped down the price of a pair of Apple AirPods (third-gen) with a Lightning charging case to $94, which is a massive $75 off and easily the lowest price we’ve seen to date.

The fourth-gen AirPods are out now — with slight audio quality and comfort improvements, plus the option to get them with active noise cancellation and a wireless charging case bearing its own speaker — but the third-gen AirPods are still rock solid for routine music, podcasts, calls, and other listening needs. The charging case adds 24 hours of playtime to the earbuds’...

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Apple receives EU warning to end ‘discriminatory’ geo-blocking practices

Cath Virginia / The Verge

The European Union has accused Apple of unlawfully discriminating against EU customers after finding the Cupertino company’s geo-blocking measures may be violating the bloc’s consumer protection rules.

Announced via a press release on Tuesday, the European Commission and the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) said a joint investigation had identified “several potentially prohibited geo-blocking practices” that Apple applies to its App Store, iTunes Store, Arcade, Books. Podcasts, and Apple Music services. Issues include restricting consumers to payment methods issued in the same country where their Apple account was registered, preventing app downloads offered in other EU/EEA countries, and having restrictive, region-specific...

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23andMe is ending its cancer research program and slashing over 200 jobs

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

23andMe is laying off 40 percent of its employees, or over 200 workers, as the company attempts to recover from last year’s massive data breach and reverse its plummeting stock price. The genetic testing company also announced that it will shut down its therapeutics business.

Though 23andMe says the restructuring plan will cost it around $12 million, it expects to save more than $35 million as a result, while “substantially” lowering operating expenses. 23andMe’s therapeutics division, which studied potential cancer treatments using its database of genetic material, will end all clinical trials, as the company considers licensing agreements or asset sales to “maximize” the program’s value.

23andMe has had a turbulent past year, with the...

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Smart sleep is worth the cost

Image: Alex Parkin / The Verge

A better night’s sleep, every night, and you don’t have to do anything to make it happen. Sounds like the, ahem, dream, right? Also sounds like a line you might hear from some infomercial salesman at 4 in the morning when you can’t sleep and are willing to try anything. Turns out, the promise is real. It’s just really, really, really expensive.

On this episode of The Vergecast, The Verge’s Victoria Song tells us about her adventures in sleep gadgets. We talk for a while about the Eight Sleep Pod 4 Ultra, a mattress pad that costs $4,700 and requires a subscription. And might just be worth it, if a better night’s sleep is worth it to you. We also talk about the Oura Ring 4, the whole sleepmaxxing trend, the Ozlo Sleepbuds, and other ways...

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LG Display’s stretchable screen is now even stretchier

LG Display’s stretchable screens can now stretch up to 50 percent. | Image: LG Display

LG Display has recently announced a new version of its unique stretchable display with improved elasticity and durability. The 12-inch prototype can now be stretched up to 18 inches without being destroyed in the process, opening up new possibilities for where screens can potentially be installed.

The company first demonstrated a prototype of the display in 2022, but at the time it could only be stretched from 12 to 14 inches, or about 20 percent of its length. The latest prototype features a “new wiring design structure” and an improved silicon substrate — similar to the material used to make contact lenses — to expand the panel’s stretchability to up to 50 percent.

Built using micro LEDs, the new prototype is capable of displaying full...

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Apple AI notification summaries exist; rarely useful, often hilarious

Apple Intelligence is just doing the best it can. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge

iPhones, iPads, and Macs with Apple Intelligence now have a unique AI feature that summarizes notifications for you. Starting with iOS / iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1, when multiple notifications pile up for a given app, the tiny LLM that Apple has crammed into our stuff tries its hardest to algorithm up a brief overview for you. (Part of a group text with lots of people? It’ll try to tell you what they’re discussing.) This is sometimes good. It is very often funny.

I like the way the summaries handle some of my Apple Home notifications — like when I read “Garage changed status multiple times; recently closed” in lieu of a stack of messages about my garage door. The wording changes, but without fail (so far), it’s been right about whether...

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Particle is a new app using AI to organize and summarize the news

You can customize Particle, but AI does most of the work. | Image: David Pierce / The Verge

It is, you might say, a complicated moment for news online. There are the efforts to erode the First Amendment, the dominant platforms that aren’t sending traffic like they used to, the complexities of an ever-changing ad business, and on and on the list goes. Maybe most of all, there’s the rise of AI, and platforms that ingest an internet’s worth of news, abstract it away into a mush of semi-true information, and then serve it up to anyone who asks their chatbot what’s new. Into that fray comes Particle, a long-in-the-works new platform from a couple of former Twitter product leaders that is designed to help people find and make sense of the news a little more easily. With a lot of AI.

Particle’s plan is to use AI to do two particularly...

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Countries are ramping up renewable energy plans, but not fast enough

UN climate chief Simon Stiell delivers a speech during the opening of the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, on November 11th, 2024. | Photo by Alexander Nemenov / AFP via Getty Images

Governments around the world agreed to triple renewable energy capacity by the end of the decade during pivotal United Nations climate talks at a summit in Dubai last year. As the annual climate negotiations kick off again this week, there’s been some progress on that goal — but not nearly enough.

An assessment of national energy plans says that countries are on track to double global renewable energy capacity by 2030. There’s a lot of opportunity for growth with the falling cost of wind and solar, but whether policymakers are ready to ditch fossil fuels is a trickier question.

“Renewables markets have moved, but governments’ ambitions have not.”

“Renewables markets have moved, but governments’ ambitions have not,” Katye Altieri,...

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Cadillac officially debuts three-row Vistiq electric SUV with 300 miles of range

Image: Cadillac

Buoyed by a bustling EV business, GM is ready to take the wraps off its next offering. On Tuesday, Cadillac officially announced the 2026 Vistiq SUV, a three-row SUV with 300 miles of range and a starting price of $80,185.

The Vistiq joins the Lyriq, Optiq, and Escalade IQ, as well as the ultra-luxury, bespoke Celestiq, in Cadillac’s growing family of electric vehicles. And it comes as GM’s EV sales have surged thanks to an improved production cadence and a more diverse lineup than many of its rivals.

Cadillac’s growing family of electric vehicles

The Vistiq will slot in at the high end of GM’s plug-in vehicles, with a starting price of $78,790 plus a $1,395 destination charge. The electric SUV will be built starting early next year at...

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A Pixel 9 Pro Fold screen replacement costs more than a MacBook Air

Here’s everything you get in iFixit’s $1,207 inner screen replacement kit for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. | Image: iFixit

iFixit has started listing repair parts for Google’s Pixel Pro 9 Fold, but it’ll be cheaper to buy a regular brand-new phone than pay for a screen replacement. The inner display specifically, which includes the frame, hinge, side buttons, and OLED screen itself, will set customers back $1,199 for “Part Only.” The full kit that also includes iFixit’s repair tools bumps that up to $1,207.

With prices starting at $1,799, the Pixel Pro 9 Fold is one of the most expensive smartphones on the market. iFixit’s inner screen replacement for last year’s Pixel Fold was also costly at $899, but this is still an alarming jump for the latest model. For context, $1,199 is the same price as an iPhone 16 Pro Max, and more expensive than a 13-inch M3...

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Nvidia’s new app replacement for GeForce Experience is now out of beta

Image: Nvidia

Nvidia is officially launching its Nvidia app on PC today, designed to overhaul and replace the GeForce Experience app. The Nvidia app originally went into beta earlier this year, and it’s now feature complete enough for the beta label to be removed and for the app to soon be bundled with GeForce drivers.

The Nvidia app includes a redesigned and improved overlay, with support for 4K 120fps AV1 video capture, Nvidia’s AI-powered RTX game filters, and an improved customizable statistic overlay.

Image: Nvidia

The new Nvidia app also gives you access to a bunch of other Nvidia apps.

Just like GeForce Experience before it, the Nvidia app includes optimal playable settings for games and it even includes a number of...

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Apple Music made a $450 coffee table book celebrating its top 100 albums

A pretty book that costs a pretty penny. | Image: Apple Music / Assouline

You can now buy a physical version of the 100 Best Albums list that Apple Music released this year — if you have some serious cash to burn, that is. Apple Music: 100 Best Albums, a 208-page coffee table book produced by luxury print company Assouline, is available to preorder today for $450, with an estimated shipping date of November 25th. Shipping itself is thankfully free.

One explanation for the high price tag is that availability is extremely limited — only 1,500 copies are up for grabs, each numbered on the rear and inside the book. The design of the book itself is also very luxurious, featuring a “custom-designed translucent acrylic slipcase etched with the Apple Music logo” that protects the white linen hardcover, and gold...

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