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A do not enter sign has been taped to the door at Bothell High School in Bothell, Washington. It is closed for disinfection after a family member of a staffer was put in quarantine for possible coronavirus | Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images A person in Washington state died after contracting the novel coronavirus, health authorities announced on Saturday . It is the first death attributed to the virus in the U.S. “We are dealing with an emergency evolving situation,” Amy Reynolds, of the Washington state health department, told the Associated Press . A spokesperson for EvergreenHealth Medical Center in King County, Washington confirmed to the AP that the patient died there, but gave no other details. It is a sad day as we learn a Washingtonian has died from COVID-19. Our hearts go out to his family and friends. We are strengthening our preparedness and response efforts to keep Washingtonians healthy, safe and informed. Full statement: https://t.co/F3xn4afjG5 p... Continu

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Samsung’s new Galaxy S20 series of phones will release this coming Friday, March 6th. This leaves you with a whole week to decide whether you want to preorder the S20, S20 Plus, or S20 Ultra . There’s nothing wrong with waiting for release day before you make a decision. But if you’re already planning on buying one, you’ll get looped into some good preorder incentives if you commit this week. No matter which retailer you decide to preorder a phone through, running your receipt through the Shop Samsung app on iOS or Android will get you some gift card credit. Samsung will give S20 buyers a $100 voucher to use at its online store. The S20 Plus will net you a $150 gift card, and the S20 Ultra comes with a $200 credit. The best preorder... Continue reading…

Sports fans don’t have to worry about their local teams disappearing from YouTube TV after all. Not yet, anyway. Last night, YouTube tweeted that it has agreed to a temporary extension with Sinclair Broadcast Group, which now owns many Fox-branded regional sports networks (RSNs) and the YES Network, to keep those channels in its lineup as the two sides hammer out a longer-term carriage agreement. Earlier in the week, YouTube TV emailed customers to notify them that the sports networks would likely be leaving the service on February 29th due to stalled talks on a renewal. “This is a reflection of the rising cost of sports content,” the company said in a follow-up tweet. “You may have noticed several other TV services have also decided to... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon As the leader of The Verge’s Pride & Prejudice (2005) fan group, I obviously went to go see Emma last weekend. It was great! The trailer made me worried that the film would be too stylized and stark, but I was actually really impressed at how it balanced those elements were while still telling the straight story. The film uses a lot of the stylized humor to set up its characters and world, then slowly fades it out as the drama ratchets up. Emma’s father is constantly ridiculous, a key love interest is dressed down before he’s built back up, and a secondary character is annoying to exaggerated lengths, nicely setting up how she later impacts the plot. Finding that balance between stylized humor and natural storytelling always seems... Continue reading…

Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images For years, I have been getting inundated with physical junk mail from my internet service provider (ISP), Charter Spectrum (formerly Time Warner Cable). In huge red capital letters, the envelopes are stamped “OPEN UPON RECEIPT” or “NOTICE” or “IMPORTANT ACCOUNT INFORMATION.” I always open them, just in case there is a legitimate problem and my internet is about to be shut off. Every single time, I get duped. Instead of legitimate account notices, the mailers are ads trying to get me to upgrade my plan or buy more services from Spectrum. In addition to tree-killing paper mailers I can at least recycle, Spectrum often likes to mix in unrecyclable thick plastic cards . It’s not like I can switch internet service providers to get away from... Continue reading…

Between 2006 and now, Disney spent around $100 billion to become the unbeatable giant it is today, snapping up Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm , BAMTech , and 21st Century Fox . While the acquisitions were made as the result of teamwork across a number of divisions, they were mostly led by two people: Bob Iger, who was CEO up until Tuesday, and Kevin Mayer, head of Disney’s direct-to-consumer division and the man in charge of all things streaming . Now, with Iger preparing to leave by the end of 2021, all eyes are on what comes next for Mayer. Mayer helped develop Disney’s current streaming landscape and was largely seen as the company’s heir apparent . So it came as a surprise to many when Disney announced its parks head, Bob Chapek , would... Continue reading…

1More’s earbuds sound great, but the fit might not be for everyone Continue reading…

Photo by: Aaron Poole/E! Entertainment/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images New Disney CEO Bob Chapek has only been on the job for a few days , and he’s already got a controversy to deal with. Hilary Duff, whose career was launched by the Disney Channel series Lizzie McGuire , is asking the company to move the in-the-works reboot off of Disney Plus and onto Hulu instead. The actress and singer posted the request on her Instagram on Friday night. “Was incredibly excited to launch ‘Lizzie’ on D+ and my passion remains,” Duff wrote. “However, I feel a huge responsibility to honor the fans’ relationship with Lizzie who, like me, grew up seeing themselves in her. I’d be doing a disservice to everyone by limiting the realities of a 30-year-old’s journey to live under the ceiling of a PG rating.” View this... Continue reading…

Photo credit should read KAZUHIRO NOGI/AFP via Getty Images The Internet Archive, perhaps best known for the extremely handy Wayback Machine you can use to find older versions of webpages, also has free movies, books, software, and music. Yet a little known part of the organization’s media trove includes uploaded recordings from VHS tapes, as I learned today thanks to this Vice article . They live on The VHS Vault , and as of this writing, there are more than 20,000 recordings you can peruse. A lot of the recordings are from the 90s, which is when I was a kid, so I’ve found a lot of stuff that has given me all sorts of nostalgic feels. Take, for example, this collection of Nickelodeon commercial breaks recorded in April 1998 : True 90s kids will also remember the greatest late-90s/early 2000s trend... Continue reading…

This year’s annual Game Developers Conference has been postponed amid growing concern about the international coronavirus outbreaks. The event, which has run since 1988, was expected to take place from March 16th–20th in San Francisco. “After close consultation with our partners in the game development industry and community around the world, we’ve made the difficult decision to postpone the Game Developers Conference this March,” reads a note posted to the official GDC post Friday evening . “Having spent the past year preparing for the show with our advisory boards, speakers, exhibitors, and event partners, we’re genuinely upset and disappointed not to be able to host you at this time.” GDC is postponed after big names like Epic Games... Continue reading…

A researcher works on developing testing for the novel coronavirus at a lab in New Jersey. | Photo by Kena Betancur/Getty Images A second case of COVID-19 with an unknown origin has been identified in Santa Clara county, California on Friday. This indicates to health experts that the novel coronavirus — which causes the disease COVID-19 — is likely spreading through more than one community in the US. The Washington Post first reported news of the second case of community transmission in the US — a 65-year-old woman who had no known history of travel to any of the countries that have been hardest-hit by the disease. So far, more than 84,000 cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed around the world, and more than 2,800 people have died of the respiratory disease. Most of these cases are concentrated in China, where the virus was first identified, but the disease has... Continue reading…

Photo by Avery White for The Ver Two things that grabbed our attention this week at The Verge was Samsung’s Galaxy S20 Ultra and Bob Iger stepping down as Disney CEO. So that’s what took up a lot of discussion on The Verge ’s flagship podcast The Vergecast . Executive editor of The Verge and co-host of The Vergecast Dieter Bohn published his review of the Galaxy S20 Ultra this week, and the podcast expands upon it, focusing mostly on the camera (pun intended, I guess, since this is edited). In the second half of the show, Verge reporter Julia Alexander returns to discuss the news that altered her week significantly: Bob Iger has stepped down as Disney CEO . Julia explains how this will affect Disney’s business and who’s in charge now . There’s a lot more news sprinkled... Continue reading…

Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images United Airlines said it would be suspending routes to Japan as the number of novel coronavirus cases in the island nation continue to rise. It is the first US carrier to make broader cuts to service in Asia because of the virus. Routes between Tokyo and US hubs in Los Angeles and Houston would be temporarily canceled starting March 3rd through April 24th, the airline said. The once-daily Newark to Tokyo route would be reduced to just five times a week starting March 28th through April 24th. And the Honolulu to Tokyo flight will be downgraded from a Boeing 777-200 to a smaller 787-8 aircraft starting in April. “we continue to evaluate our schedule” Flights to South Korea and Singapore are also being downgraded. United is offering to... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google Stadia had a rough launch, with plenty of missing features and unfulfilled promises. But the latest update to the Stadia app hints that some of those features might be coming soon, including the highly anticipated free tier, YouTube streaming, family game sharing, and more, as spotted by 9to5Google . The biggest thing is an indication that Google is gearing up to launch its free Stadia Base tier of service soon. 9to5Google ’s report found strings in the app that allow for registration without a paid Stadia code, along with a free one-month trial for Stadia Pro memberships (which includes several free games, along with other benefits). Also found in the app is an indication that Google may be limiting the number of people who can... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has blocked over a million products from being sold after they made misleading claims about being able to cure or prevent COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, Reuters reports . The retailer also says it has removed tens of thousands of deals due to price gouging, as sellers charge much higher prices for items like face masks as concerns about the virus spread. The reports of items being removed come less than a week after Amazon issued a warning to sellers on its platform to not hike the price of face masks, which are in high demand amid the outbreak. The e-commerce platform’s Fair Pricing Policy forbids price increases that “harm customer trust,” and it says that prices should not be “significantly higher than... Continue reading…

It’s easy if you try Continue reading…

BT Sport and Samsung get ready to host 8K HDR Premier League games Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge In three months, YouTube received nearly 110,000 appeals from creators who were frustrated that their videos were taken down — but less than a quarter were later reinstated. The data comes from YouTube’s new community guidelines report, and it marks the first time that YouTube is sharing information on appeals. One of the more frustrating aspects of working as a YouTube creator is dealing with videos erroneously being taken down by the company and having to go through YouTube’s appeal process . Creators have asked for more transparency regarding the appeals process, and today, YouTube is sharing data for the first time. YouTube says that it removed more than 5 million videos between October 2019 and December 2019. Of those videos, around... Continue reading…

Photo by Sylvain Lefevre / Getty Images Scientists and drug companies are racing to develop and test treatments and vaccines that address COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Work on both is progressing at an unprecedented speed — but researchers are starting essentially from scratch on vaccine development, so the process is going to take a long time. Treatments, on the other hand, were further along when the outbreak started and might be available sooner. “They’re in vastly different situations right now,” says Florian Krammer, a professor and vaccine development expert at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Both treatments and vaccines are important for a robust and effective response to the outbreak. Treatments help people after they already have... Continue reading…

Photo by Andreas Rentz / Getty Images Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is ready to get her voice to the masses again, and in the most 2020 way of doing so, she’s looking to podcasts. Her still-untitled show will be co-produced by iHeartMedia, a radio station conglomerate that has leaned heavily into podcasts, and it will be released this spring. Details on the show format weren’t readily available, but Politico suggests it’ll be interviews with “newsmakers.” Apparently both Conan O’Brien, who also makes a podcast with iHeart, and radio legend Howard Stern inspired her decision. Of course, Clinton isn’t the first politician to turn to podcasts. Ted Cruz most recently launched his show — first to cover President Trump’s impeachment trial and then to discuss... Continue reading…

Unsorted recycling rides up a conveyor belt at a processing plant in Plano, Texas. Rechargeable batteries like the one in your smartphone should never be tossed in the recycling  Continue reading…

Photo by Bill O’Leary / The Washington Post via Getty Images In 2018, a reporter at The Verge was viciously mobbed by bad faith attacks in an attempt to discredit her as she moved to a prestigious job at The New York Times . While we did not say it directly at the time, we were dismayed that the Times partially yielded to the targeted harassment of an incoming reporter by accusing her of “serving to feed the vitriol” of online discourse. As then-managing editor of The Verge , I wrote an editorial note that was signed by our entire leadership team, declaring that our newsroom would not be cowed by the tactics of Gamergate and other malevolent online movements meant to intimidate journalists and their newsrooms. We were glad to see the positive response to our note from others in the industry. But... Continue reading…

2019 world champions FunPlus Phoenix. | Photo: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games Last month, just a week into the 2020 season, the Chinese League of Legends Pro League suspended play due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus outbreak. More than a month later, the league is finally set to resume — but it’s going to look very different. On Friday the LPL announced that the season would resume on March 9th, but the league is understandably taking some precautions. To start, all players will be required to complete a 14-day monitored quarantine period and “meet all local health requirements” before they can participate. The biggest change, however, is that matches will no longer be played in studios and arenas in front of fans. Instead, the LPL is shifting to an online format. Most teams will play based out of their... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple produced the two top selling phone models in the world last year, the iPhone XR and iPhone 11, according to reports by Counterpoint Research and Omdia . The iPhone 11’s second place position was particularly impressive, given the phone was only on sale for just over three months in 2019. However, there were large disparities regionally, with a Samsung phone winning Europe, and an Oppo holding the top spot in China. The disparity between the top sellers in North America and Europe is particularly striking. In the former, Apple completely dominated. Each one of the top five selling phones in the region was an iPhone, ranging from the budget iPhone 8 to the premium flagship iPhone 11 Pro Max. That’s not much of a surprise with Apple... Continue reading…

In celebration of Pokémon Day, there’s a new raid battle for Mewtwo, which is perhaps the most legendary of all of the legendary pokémon, in Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield . I was excited for the chance to take on one of my favorite monsters in the series — though sadly, the game doesn’t let you catch it. But even when I brought my best pokémon to the battle, I consistently got my clock cleaned. Mewtwo has always been very powerful in the Pokémon games, but this iteration is particularly strong. It’s also incredibly fast, so it usually gets a move or two in before any of me or my fellow raid partners can attempt to attack. And more often than not, those first attacks knock out one or two of the pokémon participating in the raid. The... Continue reading…

The third-party Brydge keyboard Good morning and congratulations on making it through another week. I had been planning on writing about some of the issues I had while writing my Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra review — specifically my bafflement that Samsung is once again asking reviewers like me to be beta testers . It’s inconceivable that the company didn’t realize there were issues with the camera and also very strange that it didn’t so much as hint at a software update to me until the day before yesterday. I’ll say it again: never buy anything on the hope that future software updates will fix it. Wait. But we covered it pretty well in The Vergecast coming out later today, so please give it a listen . Instead, to the surprise of absolutely nobody given my obsession with... Continue reading…

Citroën’s Ami, the tiny two-seater electric car that was first revealed as a concept last year , will be released this spring . The Ami is absolutely tiny at just 2.41 meters (7 feet, 11 inches) long, and is technically classed as a “light quadricycle” similar to the Renault Twizy , which means it can be driven by teenagers as young as 14-years old in France and 16-years old in the rest of Europe. It also doesn’t require a driving license to operate. Citroën will sell the car outright, but it also hopes to rent them out like electric scooters and other micro-mobility solutions. Citroën says the cars will be available to rent on both a monthly and minute-by-minute basis. You’ll be able to rent the Ami for €19.99 (around $22) a month after... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram is a social networking app with a difference: it concentrates primarily on images instead of words. Photos, visual art, and videos are all fair game for those who contribute to or browse Instagram’s huge variety of posts. If you’re tired of the constant sniping on Twitter and don’t want anything to do with Facebook, Instagram (although admittedly owned by Facebook) is a good place to try. In The Verge Guide to Instagram, we offer advice and tips for both beginners and experts. If you’re just starting to experiment with the social network, we tell you how to get started with Instagram and how to find accounts to follow. If you’re an experienced Instagrammer who wants to try some interesting and intricate features, we explain how... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As sentiment about big tech companies has worsened, emerging conventional wisdom has held that social networks are primary causes — and accelerants — of polarization in the United States. The rise of social networks has been roughly correlated with the rise of authoritarians here and elsewhere. Surely social networks, with their algorithmic feeds pushing the most emotional posts to the top of our attention, are warping our politics? New research suggests that this may not be the case. In a working paper published this year , Levi Boxell, Matthew Gentzkow, and Jesse Shapiro found that polarization had increased faster in the United States than anywhere else — but that in several large, modernized nations with high internet usage,... Continue reading…

Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge The 2020 Geneva Motor Show will be canceled after the Swiss government banned gatherings of 1,000 people or more on Friday due to concerns over the coronavirus. The ban is effective immediately and runs until mid-March. The 90th edition of GIMS was scheduled to start next week. The Geneva Motor Show isn’t the biggest car show in the world, but it’s the one where automakers typically like to announce their flashiest, most future-facing vehicles and concepts. Last year we saw the debut of “megacars” like the Koenigsegg Jesko , VW’s electric dune buggy concept , and the Pininfarina Battista, one of the fastest electric vehicles on the planet . Geneva is the latest trade show to get the axe following the coronavirus outbreak. In the tech... Continue reading…

The thing about concept cars is that even though they’re never going to be sold, car makers do actually have to build and present them. Otherwise, who’s going to understand the difference between a true concept and an absent-minded idea? Pity Vivo, then, which had planned to unveil its latest Apex concept phone at Mobile World Congress, but due to the event’s cancellation now has to settle for telling everyone about it in a press release. Perhaps the Apex 2020 will see the light of day in a future event. For now, though, all I can do is tell you about what Vivo says it was expecting to show off and take the company at its word that the phone does actually exist somewhere in Shenzhen — because if it’s real, it does sound pretty... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge WeWork was 2019’s soap opera of a company , and its story was so wild that it will be the focus of a second TV series, Variety reports . The second series will be developed by Apple and the showrunner of Apple TV Plus series Little America , according to Variety . (Disclosure: Little America is adapted from a series by Epic Magazine , which is owned by Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.) The series will be based on David Brown’s WeCrashed podcast from the podcast network Wondery. WeWork’s story should make for good TV Variety’s report doesn’t indicate when the series might be released. But if or when it does, WeWork’s story should make for good TV. Last summer, WeWork was gearing up for massive initial public offering. Shortly after its... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The popular horror story subreddit r/nosleep has set itself to private until Monday to protest YouTube creators stealing stories and turning them into videos without permission from their original creators ( via Tubefilter ). R/nosleep, which hosts an array of short stories and other horror-related writing, is in the top 50 most popular subreddits, with nearly 14 million subscribers, according to the website Reddit Metrics . So it draws a lot of readers for the scary stories users submit. (The term “nosleep” comes from the idea that if you read the stories, they’re scary enough that they’ll keep you from going to sleep.) Some YouTube creators will take those stories and make dramatic readings of them on their YouTube channels, like this... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A coalition of some of the largest labor unions in the US have formally petitioned the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Amazon for anticompetitive practices. The petition, filed Thursday, is a 28-page document with nearly 150 footnotes, and it asks the FTC to conduct a study exploring Amazon’s effects on the economy and whether the structure of its sprawling empire gives it unfair advantages in the marketplace. The collective union members total more than 5.3 million. The groups participating include the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which includes 1.4 million truck drivers and other transportation-related workers; the Communications Workers of America, a media labor union including millions of telecommunications and... Continue reading…

Image: Amazon The merch machine can’t be stopped, even for coronavirus or COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. Coronavirus merch has arrived, and it’s somehow worse than I anticipated. The themes generally seem to be: jokes about China; the idea of survival against the virus; and general stock imagery of viruses with corona branding. The stores that sell the merch through Google Shopping are smaller sites, like Zazzle and Spreadshirt, although Etsy also sells some clothing, as does Amazon. The existence of these shirts isn’t surprising. Whenever there’s an event, celebrity death, or meme, shirt shops spin up things to sell. It’s what they do. The same thing happened when disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein killed himself in jail. In... Continue reading…

Image: Spotify Starting today, Spotify is rolling out a new look to its iPhone app. The changes prioritize universal icons and visual indicators over written words, which Spotify says makes the app a more accessible experience for users all over the world. First, Spotify has ditched the word-based “shuffle play” button that appears on an artist or playlist page. Now, it’s a simplified green button that contains both the play and shuffle icons. Other familiar icons have stayed the same but appear in new locations. For premium users, the “like,” “play,” and “download” icons will now be grouped together in one row in the central part of the screen. There’s also a new icon for downloading for listening without Wi-Fi; it’s the same one Spotify already has... Continue reading…

Photo by Michele Crowe / CBS via Getty Images Coverage of climate change on network news programs was up 68 percent in 2019 after a dip in 2018, according to an annual study by the nonprofit watchdog group Media Matters for America. But even though broadcast TV networks spent more time talking about climate change, they didn’t interview very many scientists, women, or people of color. Just 10 percent of guests were people of color, 27 percent were women, and 22 percent were scientists. Protests, fires in the Amazon rainforest, elections, and the Green New Deal drove the rise in climate coverage last year. Nightly and Sunday morning news shows spent 238 minutes reporting on climate change in 2019, compared to 142 minutes in 2018. People are beginning to see and experience the... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge There aren’t many spanking-new deals to share today, but a few that we’ve shared over the past week are still up for grabs. If you haven’t checked them out yet or they passed you by the first time, they’re worth considering. The OnePlus 7T is $499, which is $100 less than this 2019 flagship phone usually costs. For your money, you’ll get a phone with a Snapdragon 855 Plus processor, a big OLED screen with a 90Hz refresh rate, 8GB of RAM, and 128GB of fast UFS 3.0 storage. The seventh-generation iPad with 128GB of storage is $100 off at Amazon. This tablet usually costs $429, but you can get it today for $330 (the price that the 32GB version usually sells for). Amazon is the only retailer running this deal at the moment, and unless stock... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Peloton and a group of music publishers have settled a series of lawsuits that alleged the fitness company used thousands of songs without permission . Peloton also reached an agreement with the trade group that represents those publishers, the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA), to “optimize” its music licensing process, theoretically meaning it will end up properly paying for music rights going forward. In total, 14 members of the NMPA ended up suing Peloton last year over claims that it used more than 2,000 songs without a license. Those songs allegedly included tracks from Lady Gaga, Ed Sheeran, Justin Timberlake, St. Vincent, and many more and were said to be used in one or more fitness videos over the preceding three... Continue reading…

Earlier this month, The Pokémon Company International announced that it would hold a vote to determine the pokémon of the year. The polls, held via Google, allowed fans to tally in their favorite once a day, from one region at a time, until February 14th. With all of the series’s creatures at their fingertips, who would fans decide was worthy of the top spot, let alone top 10? Would it be the bravest ? The most beautiful ? The most huggable ? Nay. None of these, declared fans with the gusto of a true ding-dong. Instead, after a respectable list that included formidable foes like Gengar, Rayquaza, Charizard, and Mimikyu, the top spot was revealed as... Greninja. Greninja? You know, the angry toad-man wearing a scarf? Pokémon of the year,... Continue reading…

A new-generation camera with first-generation problems Continue reading…

Image: Timex Timex, the company that made those plastic watches you probably wore when you were a kid, has announced a new addition to its lineup of Ironman GPS trackers. The Timex Ironman R300 GPS is available now on Timex’s website for $120. Image: Timex Timex is touting the R300 as its first smartwatch, but it has sold fitness trackers with smart features — including a touchscreen, GPS, speed and distance tracking, phone calls, and the ability to upload workout data — in the past. Still, labels aside, it’s fair to say that this is Timex’s most advanced smartwatch to date. It provides guided workouts from “top athletes and coaches,” an always-on display, and sleep tracking. It also sports a whopping 25 days of battery life,... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Uber has announced two new features that are meant to improve communication between riders and drivers and make pickups less stressful. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Uber is constantly tweaking its app and rolling out new devices in its crusade to perfect those pesky pickups. The first change is a series of notifications meant to give riders greater insight into the progress of their driver. These notifications include how many minutes remain before a driver arrives, where you should meet a driver, which direction to walk, and helpful instructions on navigating big, chaotic areas, like an airport, arena, or event venue. The next change is a translation feature for communications with your driver. Uber is a global business and... Continue reading…

Whether you’re heading to Tokyo for two weeks or simply doing a few days in Montreal, a crossbody bag is a very practical thing to pack for a trip. Unlike a slippery tote , a crossbody will stay on your shoulder while you remove your shoes and simultaneously scramble for your boarding pass at security. And once you reach your destination, a crossbody feels like a slightly more secure way to carry around important items, like, say, your passport. While the words “crossbody travel bag” might bring to mind a stodgy nylon number with a few too many zippers, that doesn’t have to be the case. We talked to nine travel editors, trip planners, and a documentary photographer to hear about their go-to bags, including an ultra-secure, gorpcore-esque... Continue reading…

Image: Microsoft Microsoft’s Your Phone app for Android can route photos, incoming notifications, and text messages to your Windows 10 PC. Its latest feature update added something even more useful: the ability to make and receive calls on your PC without reaching for your phone. The app can even let you seamlessly transfer calls between your PC and phone in case you need to go mobile. Getting things set up isn’t difficult, although there are a few requirements to note before you dive into the steps below. You’ll need a PC (any kind, desktop or laptop, x64 or ARM-based) running Windows 10 version 1803 or higher and any phone running Android version 7.0 or higher. Download the Your Phone app on your phone and PC To get your Android phone and PC talking... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge My Instagram profile probably reveals more personal details about me than any other social network page. As a result, I started to get creeped out after I realized just how many people were following me I didn’t actually know. Locking down your privacy on Instagram can be as simple as setting your profile to “private.” But you can get a lot more granular than that, and there is a range of other protections you can put in place. You can keep your account public but make it a little more protected, or even add stricter protections than simply flipping the private profile switch gives you. If you really want to keep your account safe, here’s what you can do. Set your account to private Setting your account to private is the simplest thing... Continue reading…

In warehouses, call centers, and other sectors, intelligent machines are managing humans, and they’re making work more stressful, grueling, and dangerous Continue reading…

Ikea’s new plant ball is made with plant-based proteins. | Image: Ikea Ikea’s plant-based meatballs will be available in its roughly 290 European stores starting this August, the company has confirmed to The Verge , with other markets set to follow a couple of months later. The so-called “plant ball,” which may or may not be the name on the menu, is designed to both look and taste like meat, but it’s made out of a combination of pea protein, oats, apples, and potatoes. Ikea says the plant ball has a climate footprint that’s 96-percent smaller than its traditional pork-and-beef meatballs. Last year Ikea sold over 1 billion meatballs. This is not the first meat-free meatball that Ikea has introduced. It began selling a veggie meatball in 2015. However, it says that the new plant ball is designed for customers... Continue reading…

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Hello to everybody, but especially to new subscribers — one of whom pointed out that I had a typo in my introductory email. Mortifying, but also fitting for my personal brand. You’re reading Processor , a newsletter about computers, but “computers” defined very broadly and with a wink. I’m Dieter Bohn, noted typoist and reviewer of Samsung phones since 2006’s Samsung Blackjack Windows Mobile smartphone. Today’s newsletter is fairly short because in a few hours I’ll be publishing my review of the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra, a massive phone that is just as interesting and noteworthy as any iPhone, if not moreso. Samsung is doing so many new things with this phone that even if you’re not interested in Samsung or Android, it’s worth paying... Continue reading…

Illustration by William Joel / T Yesterday I chatted here with author Steven Levy about his new book, Facebook: The Inside Story . Today I wanted to share some of my favorite parts of the story, focusing on Levy’s considerable original reporting. While I’m sharing my favorite parts here, I’m still leaving a ton out. This book is 527 pages, and a memorable event takes place on more pages than not. I highly recommend it for anyone who wants a comprehensive, reality-based account of the company’s first 16 years. The moments below span the company’s history, and so by necessity this account is going to feel a bit all over the place. I decided to structure this piece as an interview with myself, because no one else I know has actually finished this book yet. Let’s dive in —... Continue reading…

Image: Spin Spin, the dockless electric scooter company purchased by Ford in 2018 , is expanding beyond the US. TechCrunch reports that the company is launching its electric scooter rental service in Cologne, Germany this Spring, with launches in other German cities planned to follow. Until now Spin has operated exclusively in the USA. Its website says that it currently operates in 62 cities and 20 campuses across the country. The scooter sharing company will face stiff competition when it launches in Germany. In Cologne alone, TechCrunch notes that Spin will be competing against three other ride-sharing companies; Bird, Lime, and Circ. As of last December , there were seven micromobility startups operating in cities around the country . Beyond... Continue reading…

Google is opening up its web-based version of Earth to browsers like Firefox, Edge, and Opera today. The search giant originally launched Google Earth on the web back in 2017 , and axed its desktop apps at the same time. Google says “we are big supporters of open web standards,” but Earth launched on the web with Chrome-only Native Client (NaCl) technology as there wasn’t a standard available to support what it wanted to do. This resulted in Earth becoming one of the first of many Chrome-only sites from Google. NaCI allowed Google to bring its native C++ app code and run it directly in a Chrome browser, with all the performance required to let you zoom in and out of locations on a virtual globe. Google has spent the past three years... Continue reading…