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Roblox went down Thursday evening | Photo Illustration by Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images After an outage that began Thursday evening, Roblox appeared to be back online Sunday evening. The company said in a tweet at about 4PM ET Sunday that it was “incrementally bringing regions back online.” Quick update as we work to get things back to normal. We are incrementally bringing regions back online. — Roblox (@Roblox) October 31, 2021 The problems began October 28th around 7PM ET, when the platform first reported it was having issues, and said it was “ working hard to get things back to normal .” Some speculated that the outage was caused by a cross-promotion with Chipotle that went live about a half hour before the problems began, but the company said the outage was “not related to any specific experiences or partnerships on... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge An investigation by The Financial Times found that Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube lost around $9.85 billion in revenue following Apple’s changes to its privacy practices. Last year, Apple announced the App Tracking Transparency (ATT) policy that requires apps to ask permission to track users’ data. The policy went into effect in April , barring apps from tracking users if they opt out. Facebook notably criticized the move with a full-page newspaper ad , and thanks to the FT ’s report, now we know why company leaders were so frustrated. According to the report, Facebook lost the most money “in absolute terms” when compared to other social platforms due to its massive size. Meanwhile, Snap “fared the worst as a percentage of its... Continue reading…

Photo by Evan Blass ASUS may be releasing a successor to the ROG Flow X13, the convertible laptop that doubles as a gaming PC. Evan Blass ( @evleaks ), a reliable leaker, tweeted out a photo of the ROG Flow Z13 — at a glance, it looks fairly similar to the new Microsoft Surface Pro 8 . If the leaked ROG Flow Z13 is anything like the X13, we already know how it may perform. The X13, a convertible laptop, can be connected to ASUS’ external graphics card (eGPU) called the XG Mobile , which we found to boost the lightweight convertible’s performance . + ROG Flow Z13 (not to be confused with Flow X13) pic.twitter.com/DLH7fmNHVt — Ev (@evleaks) October 31, 2021 The eGPU also serves as a USB dock with a number of ports, transforming the 13-inch convertible into a... Continue reading…

A leaked image that shows a Lenovo ThinkBook Plus with a second screen next to the keyboard. | evleaks Reliable tech gadget leaker Evan Blass (@evleaks) on Sunday posted an image to Twitter that showed a 17-inch Lenovo ThinkBook Plus with a second screen to the right of the keyboard. The screen looks like it is being used to draw or write on a color image on the laptop’s main screen, and appears that the computer would include a full keyboard and a large trackpad along with an extra-wide display. The image also shows what looks like a pen or drawing stylus, giving further credence to the idea that it’s meant for drawing. Have you guys seen this yet? 17-inch ThinkBook Plus from Lenovo... pic.twitter.com/OElc5ZM3pb — Ev (@evleaks) October 31, 2021 There weren’t any further details about the image, which Blass posted as part of a thread... Continue reading…

Rosamund Pike stars in The Wheel of Time | Amazon Prime Video I’m close to giving up on The Morning Show ; the latest episode spends a lot of time building up to a twist that makes very little sense given the season so far. They only have three episodes left and a lot of plot to push forward. Luckily, Succession is getting good and juicy with the Roy siblings choosing sides, and I’m also getting caught up in Maid , mainly because of Margaret Qualley’s strong performance as Alex. So much to watch, so little time. We’re heavy into the sci-fi and fantasy realms in this week’s roundup, but there’s a little fashion and murder-mystery as well. The Wheel of Time We’ve seen a few glimpses of The Wheel of Time series based on the books by Robert Jordan, but this latest trailer shows us the beginning of... Continue reading…

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images Google Home, the companion app for Google’s smart home products, is changing the way users interact with photos on the app and on Nest Hub devices. 9to5Google first noticed the changes, which include a revamped Photo Frame settings menu. Now, when you use Google Home to change the displayed album while your Nest Hub is idle, you’ll see a carousel-style UI that gives you the option to choose from curated groups of photos, categorized as “Select family & friends,” “Recent highlights,” and “Favorites,” 9to5Google reports. Scroll past that, and you’ll be able to see all the albums that you’ve created. A preview window appears at the bottom of the page, and you can swipe through the preview carousel to see how your pictures will look when... Continue reading…

To go bags, to go bags everywhere. Chipotle is a pioneer of the fast assembly-line restaurant format, where you get in line and guide a human worker through the process to build your meal while you watch. It’s a foolproof system, or so I thought before I checked out this investigative story by MarketWatch revealing how Chipotle is handling the growth of online orders in a pandemic world. Once I read the accounts of various Chipotle employees interviewed in the MarketWatch article, I was stunned by what they really go through. One employee detailed the struggle with the onslaught of online orders: “People would just stare at us, angry,” he said. “Orders were coming in faster than they could be made. We would frequently see orders of 75, 80, 90 items within a 15-minute... Continue reading…

Photo by Olly Curtis/MacFormat Magazine/Future via Getty Images Apple has apparently pulled its 21.5-inch Intel-based iMac from shelves (via MacRumors ). Its discontinuation doesn’t come as much of a surprise, now that Apple is transitioning from using Intel processors to its in-house M1 chip . The 21.5-inch iMac was still available after Apple’s October 18th Unleashed event — it didn’t appear to go missing until sometime this week, according to MacRumors . The $1,099 21.5-inch iMac, which came with a 2.3GHz dual-core 7th-Gen Intel Core i5 and an Intel Iris Plus Graphics 640, is no longer found on the list of available iMacs on Apple’s online store . A “Buy” button also doesn’t appear for the 21.5-inch iMac on Apple’s product comparison page. We reached out to Apple to confirm the changes, but didn’t... Continue reading…

Image: Throwboy A company called Throwboy is back with another Kickstarter for a collection of pillows shaped like classic Macs, following its 2018 line of Apple-inspired plushes . It’s fittingly called The Iconic Pillow Collection 2, and features pillows shaped like soft versions of Apple’s Lisa, iBook, and both the cheese grater and cube flavors of Power Mac. For Apple history buffs who want to spruce up their living or bedrooms, it may be a campaign worth investigating. In its original collection (which featured pillows shaped like the Finder icon, original Macintosh, and iPods), Throwboy tactfully didn’t mention specific computer names, and it refrained from doing so this time around as well. The Lisa-shaped pillow is called the 1983, the iMac... Continue reading…

An inspired musician can use pretty much anything as an instrument, but this just-in-time for Halloween cover of the Ghostbusters theme song goes in an unexpected direction. Device Orchestra is dedicated to posting music videos recorded solely with the sounds of common household devices. It’s the work of a Finnish YouTuber who’s been creating gadget-powered covers since 2014 (via Wikitubia ). This time, Device Orchestra busted out 14 gadgets for its composition — including electric toothbrushes adorned with googly eyes. One electric toothbrush with pipe cleaners for arms stands front and center, belting out the familiar chorus in a tone comparable to a musically-inclined bumblebee. It might be the star of the show, but it has plenty of... Continue reading…

Nikon’s Z9 pro mirrorless camera has no mechanical shutter, relying solely on an electronic shutter. | Image: Nikon Nikon recently announced its new flagship camera, the Z9 . This camera represents Nikon’s first mirrorless camera fully geared towards professional photographers and hybrid shooters, with a huge spec list designed for use in the demanding fields of photojournalism, sports, nature, birding, and any other use-cases that call for a camera that shoots incredibly fast at high resolution. The $5,500 Z9 is also Nikon’s first camera to omit a traditional mechanical shutter, allowing it to achieve new levels of speed and autofocus performance. Faster speed is great, especially for sports photographers. But it’s interesting to think about where this technology could be used to take traditional-style cameras in the future. This might be the first... Continue reading…

Photo Illustration by Thiago Prudêncio/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images Roblox has been down for more than a day, with the game and its related website offline for millions of players. The hugely popular game-creating platform first started having issues more than 30 hours ago, at 7PM ET on October 28th. Roblox said it was “ working hard to get things back to normal ,” and that it has identified “the root cause as [an] internal system issue.” It’s not clear exactly why Roblox is still down, but some players have been speculating the outage could be related to a Chipotle promotion in the game. Chipotle is giving away $1 million worth of free burritos on Roblox as part of Halloween event in the game. The experience went live at 6:30PM ET on October 28th, just before the widespread Roblox outage. Still making... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Just as the FDA officially approved Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for kids between the ages of five and 11, Meta, Facebook’s brand new identity , announced that it’s rolling out stricter policies for vaccine misinformation targeted at children (via Engadget ). The platform previously put restrictions on COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in late 2020, but didn’t have policies specific to kids. Meta says in a new blog post that it’s partnering with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) to take down harmful content related to children and the COVID-19 vaccine. This includes any posts that imply the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe, untested, or ineffective for children. Additionally, Meta will... Continue reading…

Climate activists “set fire” to George Square, Glasgow, with an art installation of faux flames, smoke, and banners, and giant fire extinguishers, creating a field of climate fire to welcome world leaders to Glasgow for the Cop26 conference. Picture date: Thursday October 28, 2021. | Photo by Andrew Milligan/PA Images via Getty Images One of the most anticipated rounds of international climate negotiations this decade will go down at a United Nations summit in Glasgow over the next couple weeks. But many representatives from the frontlines of the climate crisis won’t be there: people from islands that may be lost under rising seas, representatives of indigenous tribes, and activists who typically turn high-level negotiations into boisterous events with their demonstrations. The 26th annual United Nations Conference of Parties, or COP26, is the five-year anniversary of the Paris climate accords. Signatories, which included nearly every country on Earth, agreed to limit global warmin

Feds say a Minnesota man illegally streamed major league sports games | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Federal authorities have accused a Minnesota man with trying to extort $150,000 from Major League Baseball after hacking into its computer system. The US Attorney’s office for the southern district of New York and the FBI have charged Joshua Streit, 30, with illegally streaming content from MLB, as well as from the National Hockey League (NHL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), and the National Football League (NFL). The law enforcement agencies said in a news release that between 2017 through August of 2021, Streit operated a website where he illegally streamed the sports leagues’ live games for profit. He gained unauthorized access to the leagues’ websites, and misappropriated login credentials from legitimate subscribers,... Continue reading…

Okay, Deathloop isn’t scary, but the deal on it is scary good. It’s the spooky holiday this weekend, but you probably already knew that since Halloween decorations have likely been up in your town for the last month and a half. But what hasn’t been around as long (and will disappear faster than those decorations) are the deals below. To match the mood, we’re going to share special discounts on scary video games that you need to play if you’re trying to get in the holiday spirit this weekend. Just so you know, Steam’s Halloween sale ends Monday, November 1st, likely at 1PM ET / 10AM PT. Following that gaming-centric section, you’ll find deals on tech gadgets that we think you’ll enjoy. Gaming deals Okay, so Deathloop is far from being a scary game at its core (though it can become quite tense when... Continue reading…

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge ‘It might well be unsolvable’ Continue reading…

Mastodon has sent former President Donald Trump’s company a formal notification that it’s breaking the rules by using Mastodon’s open-source code to build its social network, named Truth. This news comes from a blog post by Mastodon’s founder Eugen Rochko , but others have previously pointed out that the organization behind Truth, the Trump Media and Technology Group (or TMTG), was violating Mastodon’s software license by not providing the source code for the site built on top of it. Trump’s group has 30 days from when the letter was sent to comply with the license or stop using the software, or it could lose the right to do so. While Truth hasn’t officially launched yet, internet users discovered that a test version basically had the... Continue reading…

Photo by Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The Food and Drug Administration authorized the Pfizer / BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for five- to 11-year-olds , opening up the shots to a new age group and ending an anxious wait for families of children in that bracket. Children are less likely to have severe symptoms if they contract COVID-19, but they can still catch and spread the disease. Cases and deaths in children peaked in September, which was the worst month for that age group — there were over a million new cases in that group. The authorization makes vaccination available to 28 million new people in the US. Polling in September showed that around a third of parents say that they wanted to vaccinate their five- to 11-year-old children “right away” after authorization. The... Continue reading…

Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) called Facebook a “cancer to democracy” in a tweet on Thursday shortly after the company announced that it was changing its corporate name to Meta to better represent its focus on building the metaverse . “Meta as in “we are a cancer to democracy metastasizing into a global surveillance and propaganda machine for boosting authoritarian regimes and destroying civil society… for profit!” said Ocasio-Cortez on Thursday . Meta as in “we are a cancer to democracy metastasizing into a global surveillance and propaganda machine for boosting authoritarian regimes and destroying civil society… for profit!” https://t.co/jzOcCFaWkJ — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 28, 2021 Ocasio-Cortez is one of... Continue reading…

Swiping into new ideas | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Google’s Project Jacquard touch-sensitive fabric technology, first revealed at Google I/O in 2015, now has a way for interested third-party developers to integrate the tech with their own software via the new Jacquard SDK . Previously only a handful of companies signed up for Jacquard, including Levi’s, Samsonite, and Yves Saint Laurent . Now developers can use the SDK to integrate the Jacquard tag, connecting its sensors with their apps to communicate touch and motion data. Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Samsonite’s Konnect-i backpack is one of very few products to integrate the touch-sensitive fibers. Google’s ATAP (Advanced Technology and Projects) team announced its first partnership with Levi’s in... Continue reading…

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge Don’t you love standards? I do, for the most part, particularly when they’re fixing things, and the new VESA Embedded DisplayPort 1.5 (or eDP 1.5 for short) looks likely to do that in future fancy-screened laptops. It’s promising more power savings with adaptive-sync screens, OLED panels, and displays that come with their own embedded memory for the battery saving Panel Self-Refresh (PSR) feature. eDP is the standard for cables and ribbons that connect your high-res screen to the rest of your laptop or tablet, and technically it’s supported all those things before — but they haven’t necessarily played nicely together. For example, I had to turn off PSR when I reviewed the OLED-equipped Dell XPS 15 in 2019 because the screen was... Continue reading…

Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for BAFTA LA Amy Hennig, a former creative director at Naughty Dog who currently leads Skydance New Media, will be working on a new Marvel video game. Skydance describes the game , which is its first, as a “narrative-driven, blockbuster action-adventure game, featuring a completely original story and take on the Marvel Universe” but hasn’t said which superheroes will be featured in the game. The studio also hasn’t shared a release date (or even a release timeframe) and hasn’t said which platforms the game will be available on. Despite how little we actually know about the game, Hennig’s involvement in a story-driven Marvel project is an intriguing proposition. Hennig served as a writer and creative director for the first three Uncharted games, so... Continue reading…

If on a Winter’s Night Four Travelers. Indie developers are turning pixels into scares Continue reading…

There’s Someone Inside Your House. | Image: David Bukach / Netflix When Stephanie Perkins sat down to write her first horror novel, There’s Someone Inside Your House , she looked somewhere very specific for inspiration: slasher movies. “I loved those movies as a teenager, and they had a huge influence on me,” she says. “There actually aren’t a ton of slashers in novel form, and I learned while trying to write one that there’s a pretty good reason for that: it’s a really visual and auditory medium.” The book tells the story of a killer in a small Nebraska town who loves a gruesome murder and centers on high school student Makani, who recently moved from Hawaii for a fresh start after a tragic incident. The book has since been turned into a slasher movie itself, which debuted this month on Netflix. There’s... Continue reading…

Toyota released new details about its upcoming electric compact SUV, the BZ4X, which includes an optional solar roof and a steering yoke similar to the one featured in the latest version of the Tesla Model S . The steering yoke, which Toyota describes as having a “wing-shape,” employs a steer-by-wire system, where there is no mechanical connection between the steering wheel and tires. The yoke only needs to turn up to 150 degrees from side to side and the driver doesn’t ever need to remove their hands. This will eliminate the need to change grips when steering, which the company argues will make U-turns and other maneuvers easier. Toyota first revealed the BZ4X earlier this year at the Shanghai Auto Show , along with an electric vehicle... Continue reading…

(From L to R) ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer, along with NASA astronauts Tom Marshburn, Raja Chari, and Kayla Barron during a dress rehearsal ahead of flight. | Image: NASA/Joel Kowsky SpaceX is launching another crew to space this weekend, sending four astronauts to the International Space Station for a six-month-long stay in orbit. Traveling inside SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft, the crew will get an early start on their mission, with liftoff scheduled for 2:21AM ET on October 31st out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. The mission is called Crew-3, and it will carry NASA astronauts Thomas Marshburn, Raja Chari, and Kayla Barron, as well as European Space Agency astronaut Matthias Maurer. This will be the first trip to space for Maurer, Barron, and Chari — the mission’s commander. For Marshburn, this will be his third flight to space, and for each of his missions, he’s flown on a different vehicle. His first flight was on... Continue reading…

The Witcher ’s second season has gotten its official, full-length, real trailer today, giving the best look yet at the monsters, magic, and mayhem that await Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill), Ciri (Freya Allan), and Yennefer of Vengerberg (Anya Chalotra) when the show arrives on Netflix on December 17th. The new trailer teases a lot more about what to expect from the upcoming second season, including the upcoming war with the Nilfgaardian Empire, Ciri’s training to become a witcher, Geralt’s usual monster hunting, and the long-awaited return of everyone’s favorite bard, Jaskier (Joey Batey). It’s also the latest salvo in Netflix’s marketing bombardment for the show, which has so far included the teaser trailer , first look... Continue reading…

The new JioPhone Next is a collaboration between Google and Indian telecom Jio Platforms. | Jio Platforms Google and Indian telecom company Jio Platforms finally unveiled their budget smartphone for India on Friday, the JioPhone Next. The phone is designed as an affordable 4G device to serve “the unique needs of the Indian consumer,” Android India engineering lead Ram Papatla said in a blog post. India won’t be getting Google’s new Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, and those phones’ premium prices put them out of reach of many smartphone consumers in the country. But Google and Jio have designed this new device as a more affordable 4G option. It’s priced at 1,999 Indian rupees, or $87, and is available at Jio Mart retailers in India or on Jio’s website . The JioPhone runs Pragati OS, which Google says is an optimized version of Android, and can access apps... Continue reading…

Photo by JOSEP LAGO/AFP via Getty Images Cricket Wireless suddenly has several more options if you’re looking for access to 5G on a prepaid wireless plan. That’s because starting today, it will offer nationwide 5G access across all of its plans , which launched a year ago with support for only one device and only on its more expensive unlimited plans. Cricket Wireless also revealed it’s added 2 million customers in the last two years and is now serving some 12.4 million subscribers. The other big change for Cricket Wireless is removing an 8Mbps speed cap on its cheaper $30, $40, and $55 plans . How much bandwidth Cricket Wireless can reliably provide — using AT&T’s network — after the caps go away is something we’ll only find out as people try it out. Reading the fine print at... Continue reading…

Apple’s new pro laptops right the wrongs of the past half decade Continue reading…

Photo by Sam Byford / The Verge Microsoft has acquired Two Hat, a content moderation provider that’s helped keep harmful content off Xbox. Founded nearly 10 years ago by a former Disney Interactive security specialist, Two Hat uses AI to classify and filter billions of human interactions across messages, images, usernames, videos, and more. Microsoft has been working with Two Hat for the past few years to improve its Xbox communities, but the terms of the deal were not disclosed. “For the past few years, Microsoft and Two Hat have worked together to implement proactive moderation technology into gaming and non-gaming experiences to detect and remove harmful content before it ever reaches members of our communities,” explains Dave McCarthy , head of Xbox product... Continue reading…

You can pick up the second-gen Apple Pencil today at Verizon for $100 instead of $130. | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The latest 11-inch iPad Pro with an M1 processor is more affordable than ever before today at Amazon. The retail giant is currently selling the Wi-Fi version with 1TB for $1,299 (the space gray color sadly costs $1,429). As noted in our review , we loved the 2021 iPad Pro’s blazing-fast M1 processor, its smaller form factor, and Apple’s Center Stage feature , which tracks you in the frame while on video calls to keep you centered. It compensates for the fact that Apple still puts its selfie cam at the top of the tablet instead of along its side bezel. Read our review. If you want a capable stylus that’s compatible with the latest iPad Pro , iPad Mini , or iPad Air , you can find the second-gen Apple Pencil for $100 instead of $130 at Amazon ,... Continue reading…

Old snake hips, Mick Jagger, has met his robotic match. Boston Dynamics has released a tribute to The Rolling Stones’ iconic music video for their 1981 hit “Start Me Up,” with band members replaced by the company’s quadrupedal Spot robots. It is, as with most things Boston Dynamics, either: cool creepy a harbinger of a terrible future in which people are hunted in the streets by robot dogs armed with knives a harbinger of a wonderful future in which people, I don’t know, go to a dance party with robot dogs? Just take your pick and please don’t mention that Black Mirror episode. You know the one I mean. At this point, everybody has made the same comparison and nobody cares. More prosaically, this video is both a demonstration of... Continue reading…

The Arctis 7P Plus is available in white or black. | SteelSeries SteelSeries’ new Arctis 7 Plus and 7P Plus wireless headsets have two key improvements over their predecessors: better battery life, going up to 30 hours per charge from 24 hours with three hours of use from a 15-minute fast charge, and USB-C charging. Most other major headset makers have used that connector for years now, but SteelSeries has been oddly slow to adopt it, even though it has shipped its clever USB-C audio transmitter with select headsets since 2019. With previous SteelSeries wireless headsets, you always needed to make sure that an archaic Micro USB cable was never too far away. But not anymore with these new headsets. SteelSeries also touts that both headsets are compatible with the Oculus Quest 2, adding another platform... Continue reading…

Microsoft is updating its PowerToys for Windows with new UI changes for Windows 11, a universal video conference mute, and a find my mouse feature. The software maker has been gradually improving PowerToys ahead of the Windows 11 launch, with a settings interface to match the OS and now changes to its PowerRename feature that better match the Windows 11 design improvements. PowerRename, a feature to make it easier to rename files, no longer looks like it has a dialog box from the Windows 7 era. Microsoft has updated PowerRename with a far more modern interface, and easier to find options for renaming files in bulk. Old vs. new UI for PowerToys Rename! Go get it now in #PowerToys 0.49.. https://t.co/x7xLB6YZyg pic.twitter.com/YjIL2vavfZ —... Continue reading…

LG + Prime Video + Filmmaker Mode. | Image: LG LG’s 2020 and 2021 4K and 8K TVs can now turn on Filmmaker Mode automatically when you’re watching content from Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service, LG has announced . Filmmaker mode was launched in 2019 as a convenient way to turn off picture processing features like motion smoothing and image sharpening, which can create a horrid unnatural look often referred to as the “soap opera effect.” LG calls Prime Video’s ability to automatically trigger Filmmaker Mode an “industry first.” It delivers on a promise the company made when it first introduced the setting to its TVs back at CES 2020 , when it said it would be offering an API to streaming apps to enable the mode automatically. Although it’s previously been possible to manually turn... Continue reading…

Parents take a lot of photos of their kids, but who wants to be constantly lingering on the fringes of family gatherings with their phone out? That’s the problem Canon’s new PowerShot PX is trying to solve. It’s essentially a home surveillance camera for happy memories. Stick it somewhere near you and it will automatically snap photos and videos, using built-in “subject recognition” to frame and select shots that you can browse later. It’s not exactly a new concept. Google promised similar functionality with its Clips camera in 2018 (though the company leaned more heavily than Canon on the promise of machine learning to select the right moment). But reactions were mixed, to say the least. Some thought Clips was creepy or invasive, while... Continue reading…

Jupiter’s Great Red Spot | Image: NASA NASA’s Juno spacecraft is revealing the massive structure of Jupiter’s iconic Great Red Spot, a gargantuan storm that’s been raging on the gas giant for centuries. By passing over the circular storm a couple times, Juno helped scientists confirm that the spot doesn’t just exist on the upper surface but extends hundreds of miles into the planet itself. We’ve long known just how great the Great Red Spot is. The storm’s diameter is about 10,000 miles, or more than 16,000 kilometers, wide, meaning that our planet Earth could fit completely inside the wild tempest. But scientists never fully understood how deep the Great Red Spot was. Was it just a surface-level event, or did it reach deep into Jupiter? Now, thanks to two science instruments... Continue reading…

New Twitter Spaces recording option. | Image: Twitter Twitter is now allowing hosts of Twitter Spaces chats to record and share their broadcasts. The feature is starting to roll out to a limited number of Twitter Spaces hosts on iOS and should be available to all hosts “within a few weeks.” The feature lets hosts record a Twitter Spaces conversation and share the recording in a tweet. The new functionality also means that anyone who was late to a Twitter Spaces broadcast will now be able to replay the broadcast once it’s finished if a host has enabled recording. That means tweets that are typically shared to promote Twitter Spaces broadcasts will now include a link to a recording, rather than a note that the Spaces broadcast has ended. Participants will be notified with a new icon that a... Continue reading…

Facebook is announcing a new, “more social” home space for Oculus users. Called Horizon Home, it looks a lot like the virtual home that people already have in their virtual reality headsets. But users will be able to invite friends to hang out and watch videos or start multiplayer games together, and they’ll eventually be able to customize their space, although that’s “a little further out.” Horizon Home will launch in an Oculus update soon. Home joins Horizon Worlds and Horizon Workrooms — as well as events app Horizon Venues, previously known as Venues — as part of Facebook’s “metaverse” hub. A video shows users getting pop-up messages inside VR games, as well as on their phones outside VR, then popping into the same virtual space. In... Continue reading…

Facebook Reality Labs Facebook is adding 2D apps from third-party developers to its Oculus Quest virtual reality platform. The new feature is aimed at giving people more tools to work in VR using the Progressive Web App (PWA) framework. It’s starting with Facebook, Instagram, collaboration app Smartsheet, and email client Spike, then adding Dropbox, Monday.com, Mural, My5, Pluto TV, and Slack in the future. Oculus has supported a 2D browser (which opens as a flat window in virtual space) for some time, and you could sideload 2D apps on the Quest, which runs a version of Android. Some Oculus apps also blur the line between VR and 2D apps: Horizon Workrooms, for instance, will support Zoom calls in the future . Facebook Messenger launched on Quest earlier this... Continue reading…

At this year’s Facebook Connect , the platform revealed something called the Presence Platform, a new way for developers to create mixed reality experiences for the Oculus Quest virtual reality headset. It includes a suite of AI tools for developers that makes the mixed reality experience more immersive, helping to combine the virtual world with physical reality. The system includes three main tool sets: Insight SDK, Interaction SDK, and Voice SDK. Insight, which builds on the the Passthrough API that launched this summer, lets developers overlay virtual objects on the Oculus Quest’s passthrough video feed. Facebook is also adding a system called Spatial Anchors that will let developers “lock” a virtual object to a specific physical area... Continue reading…

Image: EA In the years since Respawn and EA launched Apex Legends , the shooter has carved out its place among a crowded field of contenders. Other games have tried to enter the market and failed to make much impact alongside the other battle royale titans like Call of Duty: Warzone , PUBG , and Fortnite . Still, despite a healthy player base and competitive scene, a new update, dubbed Escape , arrives following one of the roughest seasons since the debut , and it might be exactly what the game needs. Last season’s new character, Seer, drew criticism from many players until Respawn nerfed his special abilities. Then that change led to its own controversy, as players accused the developers of intentionally releasing heroes with overpowered abilities to... Continue reading…

A lock icon will appear in the Phone app when a call is end-to-end encrypted. | Image: Google In the coming weeks, Google is rolling out end-to-end encrypted phone calls on its Google Fi MVNO, the search giant announced today . When enabled, the feature means that no one, not even Google, can listen in on the contents of a call. Although it’s possible to have end-to-end encrypted audio calls through services like FaceTime and WhatsApp, Google Fi’s new feature makes it the default for regular phone calls. The feature is a little limited in its current form. Google’s end-to-end encryption will only kick in for calls between two Android phones, where both users are Google Fi subscribers. So, for now, at least, iPhone Google Fi subscribers won’t benefit. Google says you’ll know when a call is end-to-end encrypted because it’ll play a... Continue reading…

Nintendo is now offering a free demo of Metroid Dread , meaning you can try one of the best games of the year at no cost before plunking down the cash to buy the full game. You can grab the demo from Nintendo’s website (click the “Download Demo” link) or on the eShop on your Switch. If you’re on the fence about Metroid Dread , I really recommend you download the demo to give the game a shot. If you’ve played a 2D Metroid , you’ll probably feel right at home, as Dread is an excellent evolution of action and exploration the games are known for. But the game mixes up the formula a bit with tense chase sequences where you’re fleeing from powerful robots called E.M.M.I. The boss fights are also quite good, though there are a few too many of... Continue reading…

You can now buy Google’s newest Pixels, pending availability. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Google’s new Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro have been announced , reviewed , and are now up for order. These Pixels promise new designs, new cameras, a uniquely designed Google Tensor CPU, and more. This year’s Pixel phones come in two sizes: the standard Pixel 6 and the larger, triple-camera equipped Pixel 6 Pro . The base Pixel 6, with 128GB of storage, starts at $599, while the Pixel 6 Pro runs $899 and up if you prefer to go above the base 128GB. What’s new The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro look mostly nothing like prior iterations, with a metal-and-glass design highlighted by a rear camera bar that is slightly reminiscent of the classic Nexus 6P . The smaller Pixel 6, which cannot truly be considered small by any stretch of the imagination, has a... Continue reading…

The new Pixels are the best phones Google has ever made Continue reading…

Sony’s PlayStation games on Steam are now published by PlayStation PC LLC instead of PlayStation Mobile. Forum posters at Resetera noticed the change yesterday, and it appears the PlayStation PC company was formed earlier this year . It could mean we’ll see Sony use more PlayStation PC branding in the future. Sony has been gradually growing its presence on PC over the past year, after Horizon Zero Dawn arrived on Steam in August 2020, followed by Days Gone in February. Sony is also bringing God of War to PC on January 14th and the remastered Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection at some point in 2022. Days Gone is now published by PlayStation PC. Sony’s head of PlayStation Studios, Hermen Hulst, revealed in June... Continue reading…

Brendan Hunt, Cristo Fernández and Jason Sudeikis in “Ted Lasso” | Image: Apple Comcast’s X1 platform has slowly added apps to its library over the years, and this morning on the company’s earnings call , CEO Brian Roberts announced that the Apple TV app would join the roster soon, while Comcast’s Xfinity Stream app will launch on Apple TV devices. Comcast’s tech platform, which already has apps for Netflix , Amazon , YouTube, and Disney+ in the US, isn’t just on its cable boxes anymore. It underpins the Xfinity Flex streaming platform, the XiOne streaming set-top box, and new XClass 4K TVs that recently launched from Hisense. Image: Comcast XClass 4K TV Two models of the TV are available, in 43- and 50-inch sizes, for $298 and $348, respectively. Like other smart TVs in their price range —... Continue reading…

‘Shadow Planet’ was made by Robin Sloan and Jesse Solomon Clark, aka The Cotton Modules, using OpenAI’s Jukebox AI music model. The scare is over and the fun can begin. That’s how I tend to think of creative endeavors involving artificial intelligence these days. We’ve moved past, I think, hyperbolic claims about AI making human art redundant and can now enjoy all the possibilities this technology affords. In that light, Shadow Planet — a new album made as a three-way collaboration between two humans and AI — shows exactly what sort fun can be had. Shadow Planet is the creation of writer Robin Sloan , musician Jesse Solomon Clark , and Jukebox , a machine learning music program made by OpenAI. After an off-the-cuff Instagram conversation between Sloan and Clark about starting a band (named The Cotton Modules), the two began exchanging tapes of music. A seasoned... Continue reading…

One of the core promises of the Nintendo Switch — the ability to easily play multiplayer games on the go — has long been undone by a flimsy piece of plastic. While the original Switch model technically made it possible to whip out the tablet for some impromptu Mario Kart , the terrible kickstand made this impractical at best and dangerous (for your Switch’s screen) at worst. The latest iteration of the hardware finally fixes that — along with the showcase feature, a much-improved OLED screen — and makes the dream of spontaneous Mario Party tournaments a reality, at last. This week Nintendo is releasing Mario Party Superstars , a sort of greatest hits collection for the digital board game series. It includes boards from the early Nintendo... Continue reading…