All CVS Pharmacy locations in the US now offer Spoken Rx prescription labels for blind and vision-impaired patients. | Photo by Victoria Arocho/Bloomberg via Getty Images
CVS Pharmacy is expanding its Spoken Rx audio prescription labels to be available in all its pharmacies, after a trial run last year. The feature, developed as part of a collaboration with the American Council of the Blind, is part of the CVS Pharmacy mobile app and can read prescription information — like dosage and directions — aloud in English or Spanish.
To use the spoken labels, CVS Pharmacy patients register for a CVS account, download the smartphone app, and enroll in Spoken Rx. The patient’s future prescription labels will then be tagged with an RFID label. The enrollment process can be done over the phone or in person at a CVS pharmacy. When the patient holds the prescription bottle four inches from their smartphone, the app...
Microsoft is creating its first standalone version of Microsoft Teams for small businesses. Microsoft Teams Essentials will be priced at $4 per user per month and provide access to the core meeting features of Teams without the typical Office app bundling that requires a more expensive Microsoft 365 plan. This standalone version makes Teams even more of a Zoom competitor, as Microsoft is dropping its Slack-like channels functionality in favor of a more simplified chat interface and a focus on meetings and video calls.
“It’s the first standalone offering of Microsoft Teams designed specifically with small businesses in mind,” explains Jared Spataro, head of Microsoft 365. “It brings together features small businesses need to serve...
Vice President Kamala Harris speaking at an event at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center on November 5th, 2021 | Image: NASA/Taylor Mickal
Today, Vice President Kamala Harris’ office released a new framework for US space policy, detailing how the Biden administration plans to approach commercial, civil, and military space activity moving forward. Called the United States Space Priorities Framework, the document keeps many of the same space priorities from the previous administration but adds a new emphasis on using space to help combat climate change and investing in STEM education.
The new framework comes ahead of today’s National Space Council meeting, the first one to be held under the Biden administration. Harris, who chairs the National Space Council, will convene the policy advisory group at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, at 1:30PM ET today.
T...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Reddit is introducing some big changes on Wednesday by adding new real-time features. Perhaps the biggest update is that the number of upvotes, downvotes, and comments will go up or down as they happen. That could give you a more accurate idea of the popularity of a post as you’re reading it, but I could also see people hitting an upvote or downvote in response to seeing others do the same.
Another change is that Reddit will show the number of people reading a post when there are five or more people looking at it. Reddit won’t just show who’s reading, though; it’s also introducing a typing indicator that will pop up when two or more users are typing a comment. And when new top-level comments come in, Reddit will show a new pill-shaped...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Match Group will pay Tinder’s co-founders and original team $441 million to settle a years-long lawsuit over allegations that Match Group purposely undervalued the startup in an effort to avoid paying out billions of dollars in equity. The settlement comes a few weeks after the trial began in the New York Supreme Court, which has included testimony from the plaintiffs, including Tinder co-founder and former CEO Sean Rad, and the defense, including IAC chairman and founder Barry Diller. (IAC owned Match Group up until last year when it spun out into its company.)
The plaintiffs were originally seeking a $2 billion payout. They first filed the lawsuit in 2018, a year after Match Group merged Tinder into its dating app portfolio, resulting...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Shortly after Google rolled out the Android 12 update in October, users started noticing that they’re unable to use any of the apps in the Amazon Appstore, as reported by 9to5Google. Reports of the issue cropped up on the Amazon forum over a month ago, and there’s no timeline for a possible fix (via Liliputing).
“We are aware and working to resolve an issue impactingapp performance and launches for the small number of Amazon Appstore users that have upgraded to Android 12 on their mobile devices,” Amazon spokesperson Troy Edwards told The Verge. “This issue does not impact Amazon Fire Tablets or Fire TV devices.”
One user, Lovingboth, describes their experience with the issue in the thread on Amazon’s forum:
My rain radar app from the...
The front-facing camera on a Samsung smartphone. Next year’s Qualcomm processor will allow these cameras to always scan for your face, even when you’re not using the phone. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
“Your phone’s front camera is always securely looking for your face, even if you don’t touch it or raise to wake it.” That’s how Qualcomm Technologies vice president of product management Judd Heape introduced the company’s new always-on camera capabilities in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor set to arrive in top-shelf Android phones early next year.
Depending on who you are, that statement can either be exciting or terrifying. For Qualcomm, it thinks this new feature will enable new use cases, like being able to wake and unlock your phone without having to pick it up or have it instantly lock when it no longer sees your face.
But for those of us with any sense of how modern technology is used to violate our privacy, a camera on our...
The Samsung Galaxy A13 will be an AT&T exclusive starting December 3rd, 2021, before being available on T-Mobile andSamsung.comin early 2022. | Samsung
With 2022 and CES just around the corner, Samsung is ready to introduce new updates to its popular and budget-friendly A-series, which has helped keep sales strong for the Korean company despite supply woes for the flagship Galaxy S21. This time around, both the Galaxy A13 5G and A03S are getting a bit more expensive while confirming some new hardware and 5G connectivity for the A13.
Samsung Galaxy A13 5G
Unlike the 4G-only Galaxy A12, the new A13 will be able to access 5G networks, specifically, with the sub-6GHz bands available on T-Mobile and AT&T. The A13’s 5G readiness partly explains its new $249.99 price. That’s a whopping $70 increase from its $179.99 predecessor and slightly cheaper than the $279.99 Galaxy A32 5G with similar...
2021 is shaping up to be the year of party games on the Switch. This year, Nintendo has released new entries in the WarioWare and Mario Party franchises, and now it’s completing the party trilogy with Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain. It’s the continuation of a series that started with Brain Age on the Nintendo DS, which, alongside the likes of _Wii Sports_and Wii Fit, helped solidify the company’s “blue ocean” strategy of reaching a nontraditional gaming audience. Each “Brain” game is exactly what it sounds like: a collection of digital brainteasers. The twist in the latest is that its focus is almost exclusively on multiplayer play.
At its most basic, Big Brain Academy is a mini-game collection where each of the games is divided into...
Massive tech companies like Google, Amazon, Netflix, and more have had a huge impact on the way we live our lives, and have had incredible levels of financial success. Another thing many of these companies have in common is that their founders are no longer necessarily in control; they’ve either stepped down, started sharing power with others, or in some cases possibly even been pushed out.
This week alone, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down as CEO, and Salesforce founder Marc Benioff became a co-CEO. They’re not alone.
The last-gen Apple Watch Series 6 is just $299 at Best Buy. | Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Cyber Monday may be over, but Cyber Week continues. If at any point this past weekend you missed out on an Apple Watch deal you were keeping tabs on, fret not, you can still pick up the 40mm, GPS version of the Apple Watch Series 6 for just $299 at Best Buy. That’s a $100 discount on the otherwise $399 wearable, which offers built-in sleep tracking, a blood oxygen sensor, and an always-on display. It’s a more affordable alternative to Apple’s new Series 7, with features you won’t find in the similarly priced Apple Watch SE.
For new subscribers, Best Buy’s also throwing in six months free of Apple Fitness Plus, an exercise service that integrates nicely with the Apple Watch and offers fitness classes. Note, however, this deal is only...
Nuro, a leader in autonomous delivery vehicles, is kicking off a new service in California in partnership with 7-Eleven. The company will deliver convenience store products to customers in its autonomous Toyota Prius vehicles, which will include a safety driver behind the wheel, before eventually shifting over to its fully driverless R2 delivery vehicles.
The service will only be available to residents who live in proximity to the 7-Eleven store at 1905 Latham Street in Mountain View, from 8AM–9PM, seven days a week. Customers can order items like pizza, chips, beverages, and household items through 7-Eleven’s “7NOW” delivery app, although age-restricted items, like alcohol and cigarettes, won’t be available.
Orders will be delivered...
Walnut World is one of the two debut Party Worlds. | Image: Epic
“Party Worlds” are new spaces coming to Fortnite which are designed to focus on socializing over combat, the game’s developer Epic Games has announced. “These are experiences that are designed as places for players to hang out, play fun mini-games, and make new friends,” the developer says, adding that Party Worlds cannot be centered on “combat or damage.”
To kick off the initiative, Epic has collaborated with community members fivewalnut and TreyJTH on a pair of example Party Worlds. One is an amusement park called Walnut World, and the second is called Late Night Lounge and has more of a nightclub vibe. The developer says it’s taking submissions for more community-made spaces. Just use the tag “Party World” for an island, and submit...
The Ear 1 earbuds and case, now in black. | Image: Nothing
Nothing’s Ear 1 earbuds, which launched earlier this year in a fetching white and transparent plastic color scheme, will soon come in black. The new Nothing Ear 1 black edition still features transparent plastic in its construction, but now it’s accompanied by matte black plastic. The new color scheme will be widely available from December 13th at the same price as the original white versions: $99 / £99.
Aside from the new design, these earbuds are functionally identical to what Nothing released earlier this year. You still get up to 5.7 hours of battery life from the earbuds with noise canceling turned off, dropping to four hours if you turn it on. Alongside the case, you get a maximum of 34 hours. The earbuds are also IPX4 water...
Polaris has unveiled the Ranger XP Kinetic, an all-electric side-by-side and the first vehicle to emerge from the collaboration between the Minneapolis-based company and Zero Motorcycles.
Polaris is hoping the electric Ranger will help attract new customers to the world of power sports vehicles, which also include ATVs, snowmobiles, personal watercraft, and heavy motorcycles. The segment, which currently represents over $9 billion in sales globally, is expected to grow to over $12 billion by 2027, according to market researchers. And Polaris, through its partnership with Zero Motorcycles, is hoping to expand its lineup of electric vehicles.
two trim levels, Premium and Ultimate, priced at $24,999 and $29,999
Getty
‘The buck stops with you?’
Image: Microsoft
Microsoft has launched a new Windows software-themed ugly sweater on its Xbox Gear Shop dedicated to the infamous Windows game Minesweeper.
It’s well done: not only is the whole Minesweeper level shaped like a Christmas tree, but it’s also got mines masquerading as snowflakes and “buttons” to minimize the window or exit the game if you so desire, plus the classic wavy Windows logo that hearkens back to Windows 3.1. (If you’re wondering why the sweater has “1990” remaining mines, that’s a reference to the year Minesweeper first came out.)
Whatchu know about Minesweeper? #UglyChristmasSweater#WindowsUglySweaterpic.twitter.com/nWnn42uyw2
— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) November 29, 2021
This is Microsoft’s second year of Windows-themed...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Microsoft is tacking on a “buy now, pay later” extension to Edge that prompts users to use short-term financing service Zip (formerly QuadPay) when making a purchase on the browser.
The option to sign up and use Zip will appear on checkout pages
The company introduced the service earlier this month, and now some users are reportedly seeing it integrated into their browsers after updating to Edge version 96, as noted by Ars Technica. The option to sign up and use Zip will be displayed on checkout pages, appearing in the same area where you’d enter your credit card number on Edge (or access a previously used one), and will sometimes be ingrained in the checkout page itself. Zip will pop up when Edge detects that your purchase costs...
Amazon workers protested outside a warehouse last year | Spencer Platt / Getty Images
Amazon is facing new questions over failed COVID protections in its fulfillment centers, spurred on by New York Attorney General Letitia James. After more than a year of protests from workers and inquiries from legislators, James is now seeking a court order to require Amazon to appoint a monitor to oversee health and safety measures at its warehouse on Staten Island. As part of the same motion, James asked the company to reinstate fired worker Christian Smalls, who led public protests against Amazon last year, accusing the company of failing to keep employees from contracting the virus at work.
According to James, Amazon has rolled back many of its health and safety measures at the warehouse, known as JFK8. The Staten Island warehouse,...
Qualcomm has a new flagship smartphone processor: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, announced at the company’s annual Snapdragon Tech Summit, giving an early preview at the brains behind the most powerful smartphones of 2022.
The successor to last year’s Snapdragon 888, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 is the first chipset to bear Qualcomm’s new naming scheme (which the company had previously teased last week), ditching the triple-digit numbering system that Qualcomm has previously used for new, generation-based monikers.
As is the case every year, Qualcomm is promising some major improvements in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, with better performance, camera technology, AI capabilities, security, and 5G.
20 percent better CPU performance and up to 30 percent...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Twitch is furthering its efforts to reduce harassment with a new tool that uses machine learning to detect people who may be attempting to evade bans. It’s the company’s latest addition to combat things like hate raids, where streamers’ chats are overrun with trolls sending hateful messages.
The new tool, called Suspicious User Detection, can identify users as “likely” or “possible” people who have evaded bans from a streamer’s channel. The machine learning model powering the tool identifies potential evaders by evaluating things such as their behavior and characteristics about their account and compares that information against accounts that have been banned from a streamer’s channel.
Messages from “likely” evaders won’t be sent to...
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
Meta has delivered a new batch of features for Quest headsets in an update rolling out today. The changes include cloud backups, a mixed reality camera mode, and other settings that round out the Quest’s already impressive feature set.
I’m most excited about the cloud backups feature, which gives you a way to restore user-specific data to your apps, including game saves and headset settings, if you need to replace, update, or reset your Quest. This is one of those things that I’m surprised the Quest didn’t support already, and I found out the hard way that it didn’t a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, I’m glad that it’s here now. It can be activated within the “Device” tab in the settings menu.
The mixed reality camera also...
Image: Giulio Zompetti
Apple device collector Giulio Zompetti has photographed a prototype 29W Apple charging brick, and it may be one of the rare instances where the product-in-progress may look better than the final version. What makes it special is that you can literally see Apple’s design process because of the clear plastic shell, unlike the retail version where the internals are hidden by opaque white plastic.
Zompetti also tweeted another clear prototype, a pair of AirPods that live up to the “Air” name. The retro-futuristic look of the densely packed electronics makes me wish Apple would actually sell see-through gadgets again.
#AirPods, translucent prototype earbuds pic.twitter.com/zE4dt47H0J
— Giulio Zompetti (@1nsane_dev) November 30, 2021
29W...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Location tracking can be very handy — it’s convenient when an app can tell you, say, where the nearby restaurants or gas stations are — but it’s also a privacy issue. Do you want all your wanderings registered by Google? Are you comfortable knowing that Mark Zuckerberg’s minions know where you are at all times? (Well, not that Mark Zuckerberg has minions, but you know what I mean.)
In this article, we’ll take a look at how to stop location tracking on your Android phone (and your Google account) and how to delete your location history from your OS and from some of the more popular apps. As always, note that versions of Android can differ, and many manufacturers use overlays as well, which can change the locations of various commands —...
Image: Frank Masi/Netflix
Netflix’s heist drama Red Notice has officially overthrown Bird Box as the streaming service’s biggest movie debut to date, with over 328 million total hours viewed as of today. That beats out Bird Box’s prior record — 282 million hours in its first 28 days — by a good margin, and _Red Notice_still has ample time to expand its debut-month record.
That might seem like great news for Netflix: a movie it wanted to be a huge hit was in fact a huge hit. It commanded views up against an eight-hour Beatles documentary as well as big theatrical releases like a Ghostbusters spinoff and multiple titles from Disney. But the film’s success isn’t quite as remarkable as the numbers make it appear. Sure, the hours viewed figure indicates that...
DECEMBER 7: Actors Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley and William Shatner pose for a portrait with writer Gene Roddenberry and director Robert Wise during the filming of the movie “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” which was released December 27, 1979 in the United States. | Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s signature on the show’s first contract with Lucille Ball’s Desilu Productions is now an NFT. Roddenberry Entertainment is calling it the first “Living Eco-NFT,” which seems straight out of science fiction itself.
The NFT’s creators implanted the signature, signed in 1965, into a living bacteria cell in the form of DNA code. As the cell duplicates, it creates new copies of the NFT — over a billion in one night. Even though there will quickly be billions of replicas, the NFT is called “El Primero,” which means ‘the first’ in Spanish. It will be exhibited at the Art Basel Miami Beach art fair that kicks off on December 2nd.
DNA is nature’s way of storing data. But instead of encoding that data as zeros...
Cyber Monday sales were down 1.4 percent year over year, according to a report from Adobe Analytics. Shoppers spent $10.7 billion this year, $100 million less than the $10.8 billion consumers spent in 2020.
“Consumers were not waiting around for discounts on big shopping days like Cyber Monday and Black Friday”
Amazon’s holiday shopping report only backs Adobe’s claims that Cyber Monday sales took a dip — the commerce giant didn’t report that this year’s Cyber Monday was the “biggest” day of shopping as it has done in the past. In 2019, Amazon said that Cyber Monday was the platform’s “single biggest shopping day in the company’s history,” while in 2020, Thanksgiving weekend was described as the “largest holiday shopping season” in...
Illustration by William Joel / The Verge
Facebook cryptocurrency chief David Marcus announced today that he’s leaving the company. The former PayPal executive joined Facebook in 2014 to run Messenger but eventually took over plans to launch a new cryptocurrency and wallet, known at the time as Libra and Calibra, respectively.
After some pre-Meta name changes, the digital wallet launched with a small pilot in October under the name Novi but only in two countries (the US and Guatemala) and support for a single form of crypto, the Paxos stablecoin. The currency that spurred so much ire from regulators and politicians around the world, now called Diem, has yet to appear.
In posts on his Facebook page and Twitter, Marcus says, “While there’s still so much to do right on the heels of...
Image: The Markup
A new browser extension promises to show you which products in your Amazon search results are sold by brands that are either owned by or are exclusive to Amazon, giving you a better idea of who’s selling what you’re buying. It’s called Amazon Brand Detector, and it uses a list of Amazon brands created by The Markup, along with filters and other techniques (detailed here) to detect and highlight products that are a part of Amazon’s Our Brands program.
_The Markup_created this extension after its investigation into how Amazon ranks its in-house brands in search results and says the tool (available for Chrome-like browsers and Firefox) is designed to make searches more transparent. When we tested it, it obviously highlighted Amazon Basics...
The key to the Levels Health system is a device that constantly monitors glucose levels in your bloodstream
Real-time glucose tracking for fitness-based purposes is here, but it’ll cost you
The patch apparently fixes some problems with rain. | Image: Rockstar
Rockstar’s next Title Update for Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition looks to address a huge list of issues with the buggy remasters.
The game has had a rough launch, and many of the fixes appear to clean up some of the more meme-worthy problems with the games. A lot of the fixes are about rain. Many spelling errors have apparently been fixed. I spotted two fixes for “a hole in the game world” in _Grand Theft Auto: Vice City – The Definitive Edition._There are also two fixes for CJ’s face obscuring the camera in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas – The Definitive Edition, which (sadly) may address the absolutely incredible bug shown in this video:
I've changed my mind, the GTA remasters are perfect.
(this is looking...
The BMW Concept XM | BMW
BMW has revealed a new concept plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, the first in its M class to get an electric motor, the company announced. The BMW XM will go into production at the company’s Spartanburg, South Carolina, plant beginning in late 2022, the company said in a news release.
The concept BMW XM has a V8 engine combined with an electric motor to provide 750 horsepower and 737 foot-pounds of torque. BMW spokesman Jay Hanson clarified in an email to The Verge that while the production version of the XM will have a V8 engine paired with a plug-in hybrid system, “horsepower and torque figures should be considered preliminary at this time.”
The company said the unusual front-end design, with two large nostril-shaped openings, shows off...
Netflix still has some big releases in store this year — including Don’t Look Up and the second season of The Witcher — but the streaming service is also looking forward to its 2022 lineup. Today, the company released its slate for genre shows and movies coming next year, and while we knew some of them (last month, Netflix revealed that Stranger Things 4 would be coming out next summer), there were also some new confirmations. Most notably, both the live-action adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman and The Witcher spinoff Blood Origin will debut on the streaming service in 2022.
Outside of those heavy hitters, there are also plenty of shows returning — Alice in Borderland’s season 2, Locke & Key season 3, The Umbrella Academy season 3...
With Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker launching in early access this week and officially on December 7th, Square Enix is warning players that they might face the longest log-in queues and wait times the game has ever seen.
In a blog post, Square Enix stated that while it has optimized servers in anticipation of heavy traffic, the global chip shortage has prevented the addition of new servers that would help alleviate congestion problems. As such, players can expect to wait longer than normal to log into game servers, visit new Endwalker specific areas, and experience instanced content-like duties.
Square Enix also offered tips that players can use to ensure their Endwalker experience is the best it can be. If players are experiencing higher...
Photo by PATRICK PLEUL/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
On Black Friday, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sent an anxious email to his company’s employees, urging them to work over the weekend on SpaceX’s Raptor engine line and describing the production situation as a “crisis.” In the email, a copy of which was obtained by The Verge, Musk argued that the company faces a “genuine risk of bankruptcy” if production doesn’t increase to support a high flight rate of the company’s new Starship rocket next year.
The Raptor is SpaceX’s massive methane engine that will be used to propel the company’s next-generation launch system, called Starship. SpaceX plans to use Starship to take people to deep space, and in April, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to develop Starship as a lunar lander to transport...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Twitter will now let private individuals request takedowns of pictures or videos featuring them. The company announced the change this morning, extending an existing ban on private information to cover media. It’s aimed at preventing harassment or invasions of privacy and includes exceptions for posts that are “shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse.”
“Sharing personal media, such as images or videos, can potentially violate a person’s privacy, and may lead to emotional or physical harm,” reads a Twitter Safety blog post announcing the change. “The misuse of private media can affect everyone, but can have a disproportionate effect on women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communities.” Twitter will...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Three ex-Google employees claim that Google has a contractual obligation to abide by its well-known “don’t be evil” policy, and they are suing the company for allegedly terminating them for calling out Google’s “evil” doings, via NPR.
“Don’t be evil” has been a part of Google’s Code of Conduct since the early 2000s
The former workers Sophie Waldman, Rebecca Rivers, and Paul Duke were fired — in addition to a fourth employee, Laurence Berland — in November 2019 for allegedly violating the company’s data security policies, however, they claim they didn’t leak any confidential information. Earlier this year, the acting head of the National Labor Relations Board said that Google “arguably violated” US labor laws by firing the three...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Qualcomm appears to be collaborating with Razer on a new gaming handheld developer kit built around its upcoming Snapdragon G3X processor. Leaked slides published by VideoCardz call the device a “Snapdragon G3X Handheld Developer Kit,” suggesting it will primarily be aimed at software developers and manufacturers to help them build their own software and hardware powered by Qualcomm’s mobile gaming technology.
Alongside it, VideoCardz has also obtained slides detailing Qualcomm’s next flagship smartphone processor, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. The name shows off Qualcomm’s new branding for its mobile chips announced last month. The processor will reportedly be manufactured using a 4nm process, with a CPU that’s 20 percent faster and 30...
Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge
Taking an unconventional route to a conventional business
Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer’s Legacy.
Authorship takes on an all-new meaning in games where the plot is yet to be written
Hello! I’m back from Thanksgiving break and now have mashed potatoes for brains. Really, I’ve eaten mashed potatoes five days in a row. I can stop, but I won’t stop until the leftovers are gone. Anyway, in between mashed potato servings, I did my best to “log off” and not think about audio — no offense — so instead, I binged the entire new season of Selling Sunset and played many crosswords. I’m back for you now, though, and we have a big issue ahead. We’re talking about how a dating app stumbled upon viral audio success, and I chatted with the CEO of podcasting’s latest $100 million-funded company, Podimo. Plus, an update to my RadioPublic story from last week and new Apple charts. Lots! Of! Stuff(ing)! On we go.
EXCLUSIVE: Hinge makes...
The International Space Station | Image: NASA
Early this morning, NASA postponed a spacewalk scheduled to occur outside the International Space Station today, after getting word of a possible safety threat from some nearby space debris. It’s unclear where the debris is coming from, but the delay comes about two weeks after Russia blew up one of its own satellites in orbit, creating thousands of dangerous fragments that threatened the space station.
NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Thomas Marshburn were all set to don spacesuits and leave the confines of the ISS this morning at around 7:10AM ET, in order to replace an antenna on the outside of the station. It would have been the fifth spacewalk for Marshburn and the first for Barron.
NASA says that it didn’t have enough time to...
If you missed out on a few great deals during Cyber Monday or Black Friday, don’t worry, you still have another chance to save big on some popular tech products. It’s “Cyber Week,” meaning that many retailers are still delivering some of the best deals of the year for you to grab all week long. Below, we’ve curated some of the top discounts you can still take advantage of on wireless noise-canceling headphones, earbuds, phones, laptops, TVs, video games, and more. Take a look, and if you like what you see, you may want to buy the product sooner than later. These particular deals could disappear at a moment’s notice.
If they do sell out, fret not. It’s very likely that December will bring some repeat deals, plus new sales because of the...
NBA Top Shot moments are one of the most high-profile NFT successes so far, part of the initial early hype wave for the blockchain-based art that’s become one of the biggest buzzwords of 2021. And thanks to a new partnership with Infinite Objects, Top Shot owners will soon be able to immortalize their favorite clips in the real world with officially licensed looping video frames from Infinite Objects.
Starting today, Top Shot owners will be able to log into Infinite Object’s portal, connect their Dapper account, view all their currently owned moments, and order a “Video Print” of the clip. Only the owner of an NBA Top Shot moment will be able to buy an Infinite Object frame with the associated video clip on it, and each frame will come...
The Roomba j7 Plus, released this year. | Image: iRobot
iRobot has released a holiday-themed update for its latest robot vacuum cleaners to help them handle the cleaning demands of Christmas trees. The j7 and j7 Plus robovacs can also now identify and avoid shoes and socks.
The festive trees, shoes, and socks feature builds upon iRobot’s latest navigation and control software, which first released in August last year. This software uses machine vision to identify furniture and specify “clean zones.” For example, you might have a dining table you want a Roomba to specifically clean under after chaotic family meals. There are also “keep out zones” which a Roomba might suggest avoiding, like the area under a TV stand filled with cables for it to get caught on.
Mapping data can now be...
Rocket League Sideswipe, a mobile version of the popular car-based soccer game, is now available on iOS and Android. The game started rolling out on November 15th in Oceania, but is now available worldwide, albeit in a “pre-season” mode ahead of Season 1’s kickoff at an unannounced later date, according to 9to5Google.
The free to play game, which was first announced in March, is a simplified version of the original Rocket League released in 2015. The biggest change is that the mobile version is played in 2D, rather than offering a fully three-dimensional stadium to drive around. You control your car with a virtual joystick on the left side of the screen, while buttons on the right handle jumping and boost. with touch controls.
Rocket...
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
The BBC is finally bringing its iPlayer app to the PS5 in the UK today, more than a year after the console’s original release. Brits have been waiting patiently for BBC iPlayer on the PS5, especially as the app is already available on more than 15,000 devices, including Xbox Series X / S consoles.
The BBC iPlayer app is now available in the media tab on the PS5 home screen, and it includes support for streaming 4K content from the service. “From today, PS5 owners can add the BBC iPlayer app by going to the Media tab on the PS5 home screen and selecting BBC iPlayer from the All Apps section,” explains Neil Hall, head of product at BBC iPlayer. “This will add BBC iPlayer to the apps library and make it available to use direct from the...
Meta, the company formally known as “Facebook.” | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The UK’s competition regulator has officially ruled that Facebook parent company Meta’s acquisition of Giphy should be unwound, a year and a half after the social media giant first said it was acquiring the popular GIF-making and sharing website. In a press release, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said that it had come to the decision after its investigation found an acquisition could harm competition between social media platforms, and that its concerns “can only be addressed by Facebook selling Giphy in its entirety to an approved buyer.”
The CMA said the acquisition could be used to deny or limit other platforms’ access to Giphy GIFs and drive more traffic to Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. It also raised concerns that...
Photo by Harriet Lander/Getty Images
FIFA, the global governing body of the sport variously known as football and soccer, is trialling new technology that tracks players’ limbs to detect whether they’re in an offside position. The system will be employed at the 2021 Arab Cup, which kicks off today in Qatar, the host of next year’s World Cup.
FIFA calls the system “semi-automatic offside technology.” It involves a camera setup installed on the roof of the stadium, with limb data extracted from the video and sent to the match officials’ operating room so the offside line can be calculated in real time. The BBC reports that 10 to 12 cameras collect up to 29 data points for each player 50 times a second.
Semi-automated offside technology explained ahead of FIFA Arab Cup....
Getty
“I have molded you,” Sunny Balwani texted
Photo by MARCO BELLO/AFP via Getty Images
One day in 2011, Jack Dorsey called an all-hands meeting at Twitter. The company was in the middle of a push to redesign Twitter’s mobile apps, and the effort had led to anger and burnout. Dorsey, who had co-founded the company in 2006 with Ev Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass, was then serving as its executive chairman.
The company prepared for what it assumed would be a pep talk from the most eccentric of Twitter’s co-founders. And they got one, of a sort. As the meeting began, the lights at Twitter headquarters dimmed. An acoustic guitar began playing over speakers. Dorsey encouraged everyone to listen to the lyrics.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting...
Ludwig posted a video announcing the move Monday. | Image: Ludwig (via YouTube)
Ludwig Ahgren, a streamer perhaps best known for his month-long subathon that took place earlier this year, is moving from Twitch to stream exclusively on YouTube Gaming. Ahgren’s first stream on YouTube will take place tomorrow, November 30th.
Ludwig leaves behind a significant presence on Twitch. He has 3.1 million followers, and TwitchTracker’s metrics indicate he has more than 27,000 subscribers as of this writing. And by the end of his subathon, he had broken the all-time Twitch subs record — TwitchTracker says he peaked at 283,066 subscribers. But he won’t be starting from nothing on YouTube, where he already has 2.08 million subscribers.
— ludwig (@LudwigAhgren) November 29, 2021
Ahgren is the...
Image: eBay
eBay has bought out sneaker authentication service Sneaker Con, a company that gives sneaker-lovers the peace of mind that the kicks they’re purchasing are real. The acquisition builds upon eBay’s existing relationship with the service, which began back in October 2020 when eBay first launched its sneaker vetting process.
When select sneaker brands are purchased for over $100 on eBay, the shoes go through Sneaker Con before reaching the buyer. There, the sneakers are thoroughly vetted by experts who ensure that the sneakers are authentic and match the description of the original listing.
1.55 million sneakers have been authenticated on eBay
The sneakers are then sent to the buyers with tags showing that they’ve been verified. eBay notes...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
T-Mobile customers have been reporting issues making and receiving calls all afternoon, with problems frequently linked to Verizon numbers. This all started around 2PM ET this afternoon, with hotspots showing in most major metro areas on Downdectector. Initial reports suggested Verizon might be having issues, but Verizon spokesperson Kevin King tells The Verge that its network is operating “business as usual.”
User reports indicate T-Mobile is having problems since 1:49 PM EST. https://t.co/LExjRid785 RT if you're also having problems #TMobiledown
— Downdetector (@downdetector) November 29, 2021
Image by Downdetector
Downdetector map showing T-Mobile outage concentrated along the East Coast and Midwest.
A n...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Microsoft’s new Clarity Boost feature for Xbox Cloud Gaming (aka xCloud) is intended to make your cloud gaming streams a little bit less fuzzy, but it will only be available on the company’s Edge browser.
Clarity Boost “uses a set of client-side scaling improvements to improve the visual quality of the video stream,” Microsoft’s Milena Gonzalez said in a blog post. I tried Clarity Boost in a few games, and I felt that it made a noticeable difference. Games were generally less blurry, and many smaller details like leaves and bricks looked much sharper than they do with Clarity Boost off. It doesn’t dramatically change the way games look, in my opinion, but if you want xCloud games to be a little more clear, I’d recommend flipping Clarity...
Twitter has a new CEO: Parag Agrawal, who’ll be taking over for Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, the longest-serving chief executive in the company’s 15-plus-year history.
Agrawal isn’t the most well-known of names either inside or outside of Twitter. He’s been with the company for over a decade, though, working his way up from an engineer to become its top executive (and a close friend of Dorsey’s). Agrawal first started at Twitter back in October 2011 with a focus on ad products, and he became the first recipient of the company’s “Distinguished Engineer” title. He was later appointed chief technology officer in October 2017, during which time he’s jumped in to address high-profile problems (like a large-scale password security issue)...
Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
On Black Friday, I introduced you to an extremely curated selection of gaming PCs that might actually be good value for the money and deliver serious GPU oomph at a time when those GPUs are incredibly expensive and hard to find. Let’s do it again for Cyber Monday, shall we?
If you’re looking for Nvidia’s top gaming card — because while the RTX 3090 exists, it’s overkill — HP’s Omen 30L is perhaps the best all-around prebuilt deal. There’s one specific system you can nab for $2,399 with the powerful 4K graphics card and a powerful Core i7-11700K chip, and it doesn’t skimp on the memory or storage this time around: you get 32GB of RAM, a 512GB solid-state drive, and a 2TB hard drive, all powered by an 800W Gold PSU.
S...
Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has ordered a new election at Amazon’s Bessemer, Alabama site, a tentative victory for organizers who had sought to unionize workers at the company’s fulfillment locations. The decision, issued by the regional director overseeing the case, builds on a previous recommendation from the hearing officer assigned to the case.
“I agree with the hearing officer’s recommendations,” Monday’s decision reads. “Accordingly, I affirm the hearing officer’s rulings, I adopt her recommendation to sustain certain objections, and I order a second election.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“I order a second election”
No date has been set for the second election, and Amazon will have ten...
Container ships at anchor outside the Port of Los Angeles in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Sunday, Nov. 21, 2021. | Tim Rue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Amazon and Target are playing a big role in the port pollution crisis along the US West Coast, according to a report published today. These retail giants are among the top importers in the US and rely heavily on shipping routes between China and California.
Communities near the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles have some of the worst air quality in the nation thanks in large part to Americans’ shopping habits. Online shopping, which increased during the pandemic, has made the situation worse. So has the supply chain crisis that’s caused traffic jams just offshore of the twin ports, which make up the busiest port complex in the Western Hemisphere.
“It is past time to hold these retailers accountable for their responsibilities at the...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
People have flocked to TikTok in droves over the past few years — but research into the social media giant’s potential health impacts hasn’t kept up. Despite the fact that TikTok now has over 1 billion users, public health researchers know very little about the health effects it might be having on the platform’s (mostly young) users. That’s concerning, because researchers know social media platforms can be harmful, especially to the health of some groups of teens and adolescents.
“The platform is so massive, but there’s almost no scholarly investigation into it,” says Marco Zenone, a health policy researcher at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Zenone believes it’s urgent for researchers to start figuring out if TikTok...
CD Projekt says its GOG games storefront will put more focus on offering “a handpicked selection of games” and transfer some developers to other projects, following ongoing financial losses at the division.
“Regarding GOG, its performance does present a challenge, and recently we’ve taken measures to improve its financial standing,” CD Projekt CFO Piotr Nielubowicz told investors on a quarterly earnings call. “First and foremost, we’ve decided that GOG should focus more on its core business activity, which means offering a handpicked selection of games with its unique DRM-free philosophy. In line with this approach, there will be changes in the team structure.”
“GOG should focus more on its core business activity, which means offering a...
Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
The Miami City Commission voted to end its short-lived ban on shared electric scooters Monday after some new safety measures were put in place.
Early this month, the commission voted 4 to 5 to end the city’s multiyear scooter pilot, citing blocked sidewalks and the risk posed by untrained riders on busy streets. The companies that operate shared scooters, including Lime and Spin, argued that their services helped reduce car usage, connect residents to transit hubs, and bring extra revenue to the city.
That message appears to have gotten through. On Monday, the commission voted 3 to 1 to rescind the ban on the condition that new safety regulations would be implemented.
“Change is coming; it’s going to happen anyway. Regulate it,”...
You want to bring a badass foam blaster to your next Nerf war — or gift one to a very grateful kid or kid-at-heart this holiday. Good news: the Nerf Rival Perses, arguably the best official blaster ever made, is just $50 during Walmart’s Cyber Monday sale.
Normally $100, it’s a fully automatic SMG-style blaster that holds 50 far-flying, bouncy foam rounds in its hopper and dishes them out at up to eight shots per second. Plus, you won’t need to buy big bulky dumb alkaline batteries for this one. It comes with its own rechargeable NiMH battery pack and charger, unlike practically every other Hasbro blaster on the market.
Just know it’s a little too big for small kids. At over five pounds and with big beefy grips, it’ll be a late...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Sonos is likely planning to announce a new, smaller, and cheaper subwoofer to join its home theater product lineup. A Redditor spotted mention of a “Sub Mini” right in the Sonos smartphone app, and based on the text, it’s evident that this is a real product and not some mistake or placeholder text. In the screenshot, Sonos describes the Sub Mini as a “smaller, cylindrical subwoofer” compared to the large, square, and very pricey Sub.
Most conventional subwoofers are hefty squares or rectangles that people often try to keep out of sight. But cylinder-shaped subwoofers aren’t unheard of. The Sub Mini could resemble something like the below subwoofer from OSD.
Image: OSD
This example of a cylindrical subwoofer is...
Photo by ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images
Mobile kitchens that cater solely to food delivery services, like Uber Eats and DoorDash, sound like a great idea in theory, as dedicated delivery kitchens can push out food faster without having to worry about passing meals along to servers. But a report from The Wall Street Journal details some of the mishaps associated with one trailer-bound ghost kitchen company, Reef, which involves third-degree burns and regulatory violations.
Just this April, the WSJ reports that one Reef kitchen in Houston, Texas experienced two fiery accidents in just four months. One involved a blast that erupted from the kitchen’s propane burners — and by a stroke of luck, the cook came out unscathed.
While the cook escaped harm — she happened to open a...
A screenshot from Cyberpunk 2077. | Image: CD Projekt Red
_Cyberpunk 2077_developer CD Projekt Red assured investors and players during its latest quarterly earnings that the already-delayed next-gen update for the game is “on track” for the first quarter of 2022. CDPR originally announced a late 2021 target launch for the update in September but said in October that the release would slip into next year.
_Cyberpunk 2077_had a famously rocky launch, and CDPR has released multiple updates and hotfixes to address many of the game’s issues. But it’s seen a recent surge in popularity; it was one of the top sellers on Steam last week, according to SteamDB, possibly buoyed by a 50 percent price cut as part of Steam’s Autumn Sale. (It’s currently 50 percent off on the PlayStation and Xbox stores as...
Photo by Thierry Monasse/Getty Images
House Democrats announced that Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen will testify before Congress a second time on Wednesday to discuss possible legislative changes to tech’s controversial legal liability shield, Section 230.
The House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on communications and technology will hold the upcoming hearing to discuss what Democrats are referring to as “targeted reforms” to Section 230. Several committee members have already introduced bills that would create carve-outs in the law that would make big tech companies like Facebook and Google legally liable for algorithms that amplify content that leads to offline violence.
Haugen will testify alongside Color of Change president Rashad Robinson, according to House...
Embrace the silence
Whether you’re overdue for a new pair or are just trying to cancel out the usual onslaught of holiday music, Cyber Monday is a great time to invest in some noise-canceling headphones. You’ll find significant discounts on many of our favorite headphones featured in our noise-canceling headphones buying guide. These include picks from Sony, Bose, Apple, Sennheiser, and others. In some cases, these deals will save you $100 or more.
Aside from the steep discounts, another good thing about buying headphones during the holidays is the extended return period at many retailers. That gives you plenty of time to try out your new cans and make sure the sound quality, ANC, comfort, and other factors are all to your liking before you’re stuck with...
Illustration by The Verge
We’re rattling off the best Cyber Monday tech deals as we find them
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Confirming rumors first reported this morning by CNBC, Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey announced his departure. The company confirmed that CTO Parag Agrawal will succeed him and says Bret Taylor is taking over as the new chairman of the board.
Dorsey returned to lead the company as CEO in 2015 despite being forced out of the post in 2008. He continues to serve as the CEO of Square, and last night tweeted “I love Twitter.”
In the company’s official statement, Dorsey says, “I’ve decided to leave Twitter because I believe the company is ready to move on from its founders. My trust in Parag as Twitter’s CEO is deep. His work over the past 10 years has been transformational. I’m deeply grateful for his skill, heart, and soul. It’s his...
Nissan is the latest automaker to announce a plan to spend gobs of money on an ambitious electrification strategy. The company said it will spend 2 trillion yen (around $17.6 billion) over the next five years to accelerate the roll-out of electric vehicles. And to emphasize that point, Nissan unveiled a pack of delightful EV concepts, including an adorable pickup truck, an outdoorsy SUV, and a sleek sports car.
It’s an impressive commitment, but Nissan notably stopped short of making the same promise that other automakers have to phase out the production of gas-powered vehicles. For example, Volvo and General Motors have vowed to become EV-only companies by 2030 and 2040, respectively.
Nissan said it will produce 23 new electrified...
Halo Infinite is currently suffering from an influx of hackers and cheaters. Halo Infinite players have been reporting multiple instances of cheaters over the Thanksgiving weekend, with recordings showing people clearly using aimbots and wallhacks to cheat. It’s the latest game to be hit by an increase in cheating across the world’s biggest PC games.
Reddit and Twitter users have been posting clips of cheaters, where you can clearly see them snapping to players and getting killing sprees, or tracing rival players through walls. Most of these cheaters are clearly using third-party software on PC, and it has led many players to call for an option to disable crossplay.
H...
Spider-Man: No Way Home is set to wrap up the current trilogy of Marvel Cinematic Universe Spider-Man movies soon, but Tom Holland’s incarnation of the web-slinging hero isn’t hanging up his suit just yet: Sony producer Amy Pascal has confirmed in an interview with Fandango that Holland will return for a future trilogy of Spider-Man movies that will continue to be set in the MCU.
“This is not the last movie that we are going to make with Marvel — [this is not] the last Spider-Man movie. We are getting ready to make the next Spider-Man movie with Tom Holland and Marvel, it just isn’t part of… we’re thinking of this as three films, and now we’re going to go onto the next three. This is not the last of our MCU movies,” Pascal said.
“Marvel...
Photo by MARCO BELLO/AFP via Getty Images
Jack Dorsey is expected to step down as CEO of Twitter “in the near term,” according to CNBC’s David Faber, who cited “a number of different people familiar with the situation.” Faber said he doesn’t “know much else” beyond that and wasn’t sure who might be brought in to replace him. _The Verge_has reached out to Twitter for comment.
Dorsey has been CEO of Twitter since 2015, presiding over a rocky but relatively successful run for the company. During the past couple years, Twitter has started to rapidly roll out new products and features. And while not all of them have been hits, they’ve suggested a transformation into a far more nimble company ready to adapt to its users interests.
BREAKING: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is expected to step...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Walmart is back with a Cyber Monday console drop. Starting at 12PM ET / 9AM PT, you can have a go at snagging a PlayStation 5 (both the $499.99 disc-based version and $399.99 digital version are available) or the $499.99 Xbox Series X console.
To get this early access to boost your chances of getting a console (though it’s no guarantee), you’ll needto be a paying member to Walmart Plus, starting at $12.99 per month. To reiterate, members sampling the free trial will notget early access.
Here are the links, with more details about this restock beneath them.
Hey, if you miss out on a chance to get the Series X, it might help during the holidays that the smaller, less-powerful Series S is more readily available and costs less at...
Black Friday is technically over, but many of the same deals have carried over into Cyber Monday — plus a few new ones, of course. We’ve adapted our coverage to make sure that you’re only seeing the latest and best deals on tech that you want, and that we recommend, on wireless earbuds, TVs, games, phones, and more. The occasional Nerf blaster might find its way in here, too.
If you’re hoping to get the majority of your holiday shopping done ahead of mid-December, now is a good time to do that. Though, don’t despair if something you’re looking for either isn’t available, or isn’t as cheap as you were hoping. December always brings more deals, and we’ll do our best to give you every opportunity to score on tech deals before the holidays.
K...
As part of its annual fashion awards, the British Fashion Council is adding a new category for 2021: an award for “metaverse design.” As broad as that might sound, the award was actually created in partnership with Roblox, and as such, the shortlist is limited to five Roblox creators. The winner, cSapphire, operates an in-app clothing boutique.
In keeping with the virtual nature of 2021, the award will be presented by an avatar of Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele (pictured above) inside a Roblox experience. Players will also be able to explore a virtual recreation of Royal Albert Hall to watch the awards. “This unique metaverse space BFC has created in collaboration with Roblox represents the future of fashion, and it’s been...
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
In a recent memo, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has told the company’s employees to not sprint to make deliveries by the end of this quarter, and to instead focus on minimizing costs, CNBC reports. In the November 26th memo, Musk wrote that he doesn’t want the company “spending heavily on expedite fees, overtime and temporary contractors just so that cars arrive in Q4.”
“What has happened historically is that we sprint like crazy at end of quarter to maximize deliveries, but then deliveries drop massively in the first few weeks of the next quarter,” said Musk. “In effect, looked at over a six month period, we won’t have delivered any extra cars but we will have spent a lot of money and burned ourselves out to accelerate deliveries in the last two...
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison is introducing new defamation laws that would force online platforms to reveal the identities of trolls, or else pay the price of defamation. As ABC News Australia explains, the laws would hold social platforms, like Facebook or Twitter, accountable for defamatory comments made against users.
Platforms will also have to create a complaint system that people can use if they feel that they’re a victim of defamation. As a part of this process, the person who posted the potentially defamatory content will be asked to take it down. But if they refuse, or if the victim is interested in pursuing legal action, the platform can then legally ask the poster for permission to reveal their contact information.
...
Backbone One for the iPhone | Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge
The Backbone One is the best mobile gaming controller for the iPhone and you can get it from Amazon today for $70, $30 off of its regular price. In addition, it includes a month of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which lets you play over a hundred Xbox games right on your iPhone.
If you’re looking for other Cyber Monday deals, be sure to check out our roundup of the best Cyber Monday offers from around the internet.
Similar to other gaming controllers, the Backbone One slots an iPhone in between two hand grips, complete with analog sticks, multiple buttons, and shoulder triggers. It’s compatible with any iPhone that can run iOS 13 or later, and works with hardware dating back to the iPhone 6S.
In his review earlier this year, Cameron Faulkner...
The OnePlus 9 Pro and OnePlus 9 are on sale at Best Buy. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
Several retailers started early with Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals in advance of the hectic, no-holds-barred weekend that kicks off right after Thanksgiving. Best Buy is one of a few — aside from Amazon, Walmart, and Target — that got things started particularly early this year. If you’ve been paying attention to our Black Friday / Cyber Monday coverage, you’ve likely noticed dozens of deals peppered in, but that’s just a sampling. There’s more where that came from.
Before we get into it, we’ve included some resources below that should make your Cyber Monday shopping experience a little better. And to make things more fun, you can also enter our sweepstakes for a chance to win a mystery bag filled with stuff from The Verge’s tech...
Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Online sales during Black Friday took a bit of a tumble this year, marking the first time that spending has dipped lower than the previous year, as noted in a holiday shopping report by Adobe Analytics. Online shoppers reportedly spent a total of $8.9 billion this year, falling a little short of the $9 billion that was spent in 2020.
Adobe suggests that the trend downward might’ve been caused by an uptick in early spending
Adobe suggests that the downward trend might’ve been caused by an uptick in early spending, as some stores started sales and promotions as early as October. And when shoppers did make online purchases during Black Friday, Adobe found that 44.4 percent of those sales were made from a smartphone, a 10.6 percent increase...
Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 3 is the company’s lowest-priced foldable yet at its normal $999.99, but today you can get the trendy phone for way, way less than that. In an early Cyber Monday 2021 deal, the unlocked Z Flip 3 is available from Best Buy for $599.99 if you activate service on the device with your purchase.
That’s a colossal $400 discount from the Flip 3’s regular price and brings it on par with something like the Pixel 6. Google’s phone is terrific, but it certainly doesn’t have the cool factor of a folding screen. Verizon and AT&T customers can both get that price for a limited time.
In certain cases, you can save even more. Activating a new line of service on T-Mobile / Sprint brings the price down to $499.99 for the unlocked...
Welcome to the in-between of deals. Black Friday has come and gone. There were tons of great discounts, many of which even began well before the day after Thanksgiving, and our _Verge Deals_team worked to cover as many of them as possible. We even did a liveblog to bring you the latest up-to-the-minute updates. There have been deals on wireless earbuds, headphones, video games, 4K TVs, pre-built PCs, and even the occasional Nerf blaster. With so many savings already happening across the world of tech, it’s hard to believe Cyber Monday is still approaching.
That brings us to today, where we find ourselves between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Plenty of deals are continuing on, and fresh ones have cropped up to join the fray. If you...
Photo by Erik Romanenko\TASS via Getty Images
Cryptocurrency miners in Kazakhstan are facing widespread electricity shortages amid a surge in mining, as reported by the Financial Times. Kazakhstan has been grappling with an overloaded energy grid as miners flock in from China, which cracked down on crypto earlier this year and banned crypto-based transactions in September.
Over 87,849 “power-intensive” mining rigs have made their way from China to Kazakhstan
According to the Financial Times, Kazakhstan’s demand for electricity has risen about eight percent since the beginning of 2021, a sharp increase from the one or two percent annual growth that the country typically experiences. The _Financial Times’_research also estimates that over 87,849 “power-intensive” mining rigs have made...
Microsoft-owned GitHub is down, affecting thousands or potentially millions of developers that rely on its many services. GitHub started experiencing issues at around 3:45PM ET, with Git operations, API requests, GitHub actions, packages, pages, and pull requests all affected.
“We’re investigating errors affecting most GitHub services,” says an incident update on the GitHub status page. “We’re actively investigating and will provide an update as soon as possible.” The status page lists problems with Git operations, API requests, webhooks, pull requests, GitHub actions, GitHub packages, and GitHub pages. Codespaces still seems to be operational, though.
GitHub is now home to more than 73 million developers that rely on the service for...
Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge
India has instructed the public not to preorder Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite-based internet service, according to a report from Reuters. As the report notes, the Indian government says that the company needs to obtain a license to operate in the country before it starts deploying its services.
Accordingly, the Government of India has asked the company to comply with Indian regulatory framework for rendering the satellite based communication services and refrain from booking/rendering the satellite internet services in India with immediate effect.
— DoT India (@DoT_India) November 26, 2021
“Public is advised not to subscribe to Starlink services being advertised,” a tweet from India’s Department of Telecommunications (DoT) reads. The...
Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
Update November 27th, 2:20PM ET: Amazon has sold out of PlayStation 5 consoles. We’ll be sure to keep you up to date when we hear of another round of restocks.
Sony’s latest gaming console, the PS5, is one of many gaming gadgets that are hard to find in stock right now due to mostly online-only sales. If you are trying to get your hands on one, Amazon has restocked PS5 consoles right now, while supplies last (these links will help you add it directly to your cart — Disc, Digital). The consoles are only available for Amazon Prime subscribers, continuing a trend of retailers restricting access to consoles for paying subscribers only. If you can’t add it to your cart, keep trying, occasionally the sites restock over a period of a few...
Photo by Oliver Berg/picture alliance via Getty Images
Owlet has stopped selling its lineup of smart baby monitoring socks, which are supposed to track a baby’s vital signs and sleep patterns, after receiving a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). First reported by Deseret News, the FDA’s letter states that Owlet’s Smart Socks are considered medical devices, as they provide heart rate and oxygen level notifications, and that the company has been selling them without the proper “marketing approval, clearance, or authorization” from the FDA.
The FDA didn’t “identify any safety concerns about the Smart Sock”
Owlet has since pulled its family of Smart Socks, as well as any bundles that include the device from its site. “The Owlet Sock family of products is currently...
The best deals under $50 | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
What can $50 get you these days? Turns out, quite a lot; you just need to know where to look. We’ve already rounded up all the best Black Friday deals still available for getting your shopping done early at retailers like Amazon, Target, and Walmart. But if you’re on a tight budget or looking for some gifts that won’t break the bank, you’ve come to the right place.
Have a Nintendo Switch, a Go Pro, or phone/tablet/laptop that features a microSD slot? Treat it to a massive boost in storage capacity with SanDisk’s 400GB microSD card at Amazon for just $45. This card usually costs around $50.
Amazon’s latest streaming stick is a solid alternative to both Roku and Chromecast devices. The Fire TV Stick 4K Max is currently enjoying a $20...
HBO mistakenly added the censored version of Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) to its streaming service, but said it will replace it with the R-rated version soon, as reported by CBR.
Or… counterpoint. We have a version of the film that airs on broadcast cable and the unedited version of the film for streaming which has been up for a year (which the original post on CBR noted). Will be updated on Max.
— Johanna Fuentes (@jfuentes) November 27, 2021
Johanna Fuentes, the head of communications at HBO’s parent company WarnerMedia, confirmed there are two versions of the film: a clean one for broadcast cable, and an unedited version for streaming. Fuentes notes that the Birds of Prey will be “updated on...
The AirPods Pro with the MagSafe charging case are on sale for just $190 at Amazon. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Ironically, if you’re looking for Apple discounts ahead of Cyber Monday, you won’t find them at Apple, even if the retailer is bundling Apple gift cards with almost all of its latest products. Don’t fear, however, as there are plenty of reliable third-party retailers like Amazon, B&H Photo, and Best Buy that do.
Many of these retailers started discounting some of the most popular Apple products ahead of Cyber Monday, dropping prices on everything from the latest MacBook Pro to the Apple Watch Series 7. Below, we’ve rounded up the best deals we’ve found by category, and we’ll continue to update this piece as more deals are published.
Also, if you’re looking to save even more, make sure to check out our detailed guide to the best Black...
The first-gen Echo Show 8 is on sale at Amazon in the lead-up to Black Friday. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge
If you’re looking to score a great deal on an Amazon device ahead of Cyber Monday, you’re in luck. Amazon is offering up to 50 percent of some of its most popular products, including the latest Echo Show 5 and Fire HD 10. The company is also offering a number of deals across several categories, ranging from Kindles and Fire TV sticks to Blink devices and even the Halo View, which has yet to be released.
For your convenience, we’ve curated a list of the best deals currently to be had on Amazon devices. We’ll be continuously updating this post as well as more deals arrive, so be sure to check back. And, of course, if you want to save even more, check our coverage of the best Black Friday deals still available.
Still plenty of savings to be had
Black Friday may be over, but the memory — and deals — remain. Right now, there are still a ton of great discounts to be had on 4K TVs, noise-canceling headphones, and gaming accessories. Some of these deals are likely to expire soon or run out of stock, but we’ll be doing everything we can to keep this page updated with all the deals left standing, many of which will likely carry over to Cyber Monday. Also, if you’re looking for more great gift ideas, make sure you take a look at our 2021 holiday gift guide for a few suggestions.
Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
Years after its failed Steam Machines, Valve is slowly but surely improving the state of Linux gaming. The company’s upcoming Steam Deck handheld runs atop Linux, and its Proton compatibility layer lets it — and other computers — play Windows games as well. Now, Valve has officially added support for Nvidia’s DLSS machine learning temporal upscaling technique to Proton, potentially bringing big FPS boosts and less flicker in games that support the technology.
As Phoronix reports (via Tom’s Hardware), Proton 6.3-8 is the first stable release to include support for DLSS, after the feature previously hit experimental builds in October, though it appears you’ll still need to set PROTON_ENABLE_NVAPI=1 and dxgi.nvapiHack = False to turn it...
You could set Car View to activate when connected to your car via Bluetooth. | Image: Mitchell Clark / The Verge
Spotify says it’s retiring its Car View feature, which was introduced at the beginning of 2019 as a way to make the app less distracting and easier to control while driving (via 9to5Google). It’s currently unclear if the feature is going away on all platforms or just Android, and while some userswon’t miss it, many others are unhappy it’s being removed without a reasonable replacement.
Confirmation of the change actually came back in October, when a Spotify moderator responded to a post on its community forum asking why the feature was missing. The moderator wrote:
We can confirm that we’re retiring the car view feature. This however doesn’t mean we don’t want to improve on how our users listen to Spotify while driving. On the...
Photo by Tom Warren / The Verge
Good gaming GPUs are still selling for ridiculous sums on eBay, because they’re practically impossible to find at retail — particularly for anything close to their MSRP. But if you’re willing to buy an entire prebuilt gaming PC instead, there are four specific Black Friday deals I think are worthy of bringing to your attention.
RTX 3080
You can get this true 4K graphics card in one specific configuration of the HP Omen 30L (GT13-1380z) for just $1,611, paired with an AMD Ryzen 5600X and, admittedly, a paltry 8GB of RAM and a very small 256GB SSD that you’ll probably want to upgrade later.
You won’t see that GPU or that price when you first click the link; you’ll need to add the $40 premium for the case with the 800W power supply first,...
The Samsung Galaxy A03 Core has a 6.5-inch display. | Photo by Samsung
Samsung has quietly added two new devices to its entry-level A-series lineup: the Galaxy A03 and Galaxy A03 Core. And while both devices don’t yet have a set price, we can predict that they’ll both be pretty affordable, considering how Samsung prices the rest of its A-series devices.
Photo by Samsung
The Samsung Galaxy A03 has a dual rear camera with a 48MP main sensor.
An infographic posted on Samsung’s site outlines the A03’s specs (via 9to5Google). The device comes with a dual rear camera with a 48MP main sensor and a 2MP depth sensor, which helps the camera focus on the main subject of the photo rather than giving you a different ultrawide or zoomed in perspective. Meanwhile, the front of the device comes...
Today through November 30th (next Tuesday), some of our favorite virtual shopkeepers are having a “Nook Friday” sale in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (via Eurogamer). If you’ve been drawn back in by the game’s recent update, it could be a chance to save 30 percent on items for your island or on in-game gifts — I’m currently trying to decide whether my wife would rather have a virtual train set, or a real-life air fryer.
In the spirit of the holidays, you could also pick up some virtual presents for friends, particularly if Timmy and Tommy stock items you know would fit _perfectly_in their kitchen (a room they may actually use now thanks to the new cooking mechanic). You can check out our sister site Polygon’s full guide to mailing gifts...
Razer’s BlackShark V2 headset is on sale at GameStop and Amazon right now for $70, a $30 discount.
If you’re looking to expand your armory of gaming peripherals, you’ve come to the right place. Several retailers have a wide variety of gaming peripherals available at a deep discount, some of which are seeing their lowest prices ever. This list isn’t about price breaks on gaming PCs or componentry, but if it's something you can connect, attach, or plug into your computer, you’ll find it here.
There are a ton of mice, keyboards, and headsets on sale, as well as monitors, speakers, and a handful of other accessories you can save on. And if you’re in the market for a new machine, be sure to take a look at our guides to the best Black Friday laptop deals and best Black Friday gaming deals.