its ur expert

The Longview Power Plant, a coal-fired plant, stands on August 21st, 2018, in Maidsville, West Virginia. | Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images The Supreme Court just gutted a major policy tool the US might have used to tackle climate change. Its decision today on West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency essentially says that the EPA shouldn’t be allowed to determine whether the US gets its electricity from clean or dirty sources of energy. That derails previous efforts by the agency to transition the US away from fossil fuels to clean energy sources like wind and solar by regulating the power sector. With the new decision, the agency might be able to push a power plant to install technology to reduce its emissions on-site, but it can’t influence states’ decisions on where they get their energy from in the first place. To make things worse, the premise of the court’s... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/xC4jqrA

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta is warning of “serious times” and preparing for a leaner second half of 2022, according to an internal memo circulated to employees this week. The note comes from chief product officer Chris Cox and outlines the company’s priorities and challenges to its business going forward. “I have to underscore that we are in serious times here and the headwinds are fierce,” Cox wrote in the memo obtained by The Verge and published in full below. “We need to execute flawlessly in an environment of slower growth, where teams should not expect vast influxes of new engineers and budgets.” The biggest revenue challenge comes from privacy changes affecting Meta’s ad business and macroeconomic pressures, Cox says in the memo, which was first reported... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/ZmkTxpX

The first passenger station in the “Vegas Loop” network of vehicle tunnels that’s being built by Elon Musk’s Boring Company was revealed Thursday. The station is situated underneath Resorts World Las Vegas, the first in what is expected to be 55 stops along 29 miles of tunnels. The Boring Company already operates a small version of this “Teslas in Tunnels” system underneath the Las Vegas Convention Center, which opened in early 2021 and involves two 0.8-mile tunnels. Afterward, Musk’s startup proposed a massive citywide expansion that was eventually approved by Clark County officials last year. The system uses human-controlled Model X and Y vehicles to transport passengers, despite Musk’s previous statements about using sleds to carry... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/K4quhMZ

You’ll be able to try out co-op very soon. | Image: 343 Industries Halo Infinite developer 343 Industries is finally going to kick off a public test of its long-awaited network campaign co-op mode in July, the developer announced Thursday ( via Polygon ). The studio is also planning to test the ability to replay campaign missions, which wasn’t in the game at launch . The beta for both features is targeted to take place from July 11th to July 22nd, according to a press email sent to The Verge . If you own the campaign portion of Halo Infinite or are an active Xbox Game Pass member, you can participate by signing up as a Halo Insider . On Xbox, you’ll also need the Xbox Insider app . You’ll be starting the campaign from the beginning If you’ve already played Halo Infinite’s campaign, anything you’ve... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/VA1aPkh

Raspberry Pi has introduced a successor to last year’s Pico , a $4 microcontroller based on the RP2040 chip the company designed itself. The new model is called the Pico W. It’s basically the same hardware, but it adds, as the name suggests, an 802.11n Wi-Fi radio, making it useful for putting together IoT projects and the like. It’s also more expensive than the standard Pico, coming in at $6. A 50 percent price jump isn’t insignificant (especially if you plan on buying a ton of these), but it’s understandable why the W version costs so much more than the original. Raspberry Pi CEO Eben Upton told The Verge’s Nilay Patel that adding radios to products is very expensive. “Just the radio conformance for a modern Raspberry Pi product is the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/qadClQZ

Kristen Radtke / The Verge Warnings to delete cycle tracking apps flooded social media in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and end federal abortion protections. The data those apps contain, people feared, could be weaponized in court. As abortion starts to be criminalized in parts of the country, fears around personal data aren’t unfounded. People who seek abortions in jurisdictions where it is now banned aren’t wrong to worry that their data could be used against them. But experts say that data from period tracking apps probably isn’t the biggest risk in a post- Roe landscape. People should be more worried about more mundane data — things like search history and text messages. Even if they aren’t the primary weapons... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/WhY7HPq

Image: EA EA announced in 2020 that a new Skate game was on the way , and on Thursday, we got our first look — well, sort of. The company debuted a trailer with what it calls “pre-pre-pre-alpha” footage of the upcoming skateboarding sequel, and even in this early form, the game looks like it has a lot of promise. The footage, unsurprisingly, mostly features skateboarding, though much of it has what’s clearly placeholder graphics and art. A later part of the video has more complete-looking graphics, and it appears this new Skate entry will continue the series’ realism. There are glimpses of a few more outlandish ideas, too, like some hilariously tall ramps and a building that looks inspired by a pachinko board. And many of the shots show a lot of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/MVy6Ygq

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge If you’re an Instagram user, there’s a good chance it isn’t the only social network that you post to. The app makes it very easy to send your post to a few other social networks — including Facebook (which owns Instagram). Here’s how you do it through the iPhone app (the Android app is very similar): Connect your social networks To share Instagram photos to other social networks, you’ll need to link those accounts. From the Instagram home screen, tap your profile icon, followed by the menu icon in the top right. Select Settings > Account > Sharing to other apps. Select the account you want to link and enter your login information. You can link a number of networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. (If you’re linking to... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/64R5qB1

Image: Bungie If you were worried that the real-life foam firing version of the infamous Gjallarhorn rocket launcher from Destiny would be disappointingly kid-sized, you can put those fears to rest: Bungie has just revealed what an actual blaster looks like — and when fans can get it. Preorders for the over 4-foot-long, 1:1 scale blaster will begin July 7th at 10AM PT / 1PM ET, and existing Gjallarhorn owners get dibs. If you’re looking to purchase the prop-grade Nerf LMTD blaster, you need to unlock it in-game in the Destiny 2 Bungie 30th Anniversary Pack before July 7th at 9AM PT before you can join the “virtual waiting room” for your purchase. So, you’ve got just over a week. If there are any left, Bungie will put... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/baIJekO

Xiaomi says it split the $15 million development cost of the new smartphone camera sensor with Sony. | Image: Xiaomi Big-sensor cameras are a bit of a white whale for smartphone imaging engineers. Even the most capable smartphone cameras use relatively puny sensors, and efforts to bring bigger sensors to the mobile form factor have been impractical , niche , or never really materialized . Xiaomi appears to be the latest company to attempt to capture the elusive concept with its upcoming 12S Ultra flagship. According to a post on Weibo spotted by Android Authority , the phone will include a 1-inch-type sensor co-developed with Sony. That’s about 1.7 times more surface area than the 1/1.33-inch-type sensor in the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra’s main camera module. It’s also the same size sensor that’s in Sony’s $1300 Cyber-shot RX100 VII that’s more or less the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/6kTHAIY

Photo by Andrew Hawkins / The Verge The chip shortage and supply chain crisis are doing more than just driving up vehicle prices — they’re also affecting quality. JD Power published its Initial Quality Study for 2022 model-year cars this week, in which it found that new vehicle quality has declined 11 percent year over year, the steepest drop ever recorded by the group. Electric vehicle manufacturers in particular are showing big drops in quality, with Polestar ranking dead last. Tesla, meanwhile, ranks seventh from the bottom, continuing its trend of shoddy manufacturing. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are difficult to understand In this year’s survey, JD Power recorded 226 problems per 100 Tesla vehicles. Combining all non-Tesla EVs, the survey says that 240 problems... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/ARE2915

mobile news

mobile news

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Text discovered in iOS 16 beta code indicated that Apple plans to drop iPad home hub support in the new update, but it turns out that’s not quite the full story. According to the company, the iPad isn’t losing support for what it can already do, but it won’t get an important upgrade that will be available later. “iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 will continue to support iPad as a home hub with no loss in functionality,” Apple spokesperson Catherine Franklin said in a statement to The Verge . While that seems promising on its face, there is a big asterisk. Apple is planning to introduce a new architecture to the new Home app in iPadOS 16 , and the iPad won’t be supported as a home hub with that architecture. Here’s Franklin’s full statement: “Alongside... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/ljoJDNB

Photo by Thomas Ricker / The Verge SpaceX emailed Starlink customers today asking for help in its battle against Dish Network over radio frequencies for its Starlink internet-from-space effort. Some Starlink customers received an email urging them to contact the Federal Communications Commission and members of Congress in order to support SpaceX in the ongoing dispute. “Today we ask for your support in ending a lobbying campaign that threatens to make Starlink unusable for you and the vast majority of our American customers,” the email reads in bold. “Today we ask for your support in ending a lobbying campaign that threatens to make Starlink unusable” Currently, SpaceX and Dish are squabbling over a range of radio frequencies known as the 12GHz band. SpaceX uses these... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/yJdsGKj

Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. | HBO Max Rather than marrying Kite Man (hell yeah) in the season 2 finale of HBO Max’s animated Harley Quinn series , Poison Ivy came to her senses, ditched her fiancé, and finally admitted to Harley that the romantic feelings between them were mutual. After driving off into the sunset with one another, Harley and Ivy are back in the first trailer for Harley Quinn ’s upcoming third season and ready to share their love with the world. Though Harley (Kaley Cuoco) and Ivy (Lake Bell) were able to escape from Kite Man’s botched wedding unscathed, at least some of Gotham’s other villains who were in attendance were captured, like Clayface (Alan Tudyk) and King Shark (Ron Funches). The new trailer finds Harley and Ivy still basking in the glow of being... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/jxA3tVw

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Facebook and Instagram are removing posts from users that offer help accessing abortion pills, saying they violate a policy around pharmaceuticals. Following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade on Friday , social media users have shared posts offering to mail abortion pills to people whose access to abortion has been stripped away or will be soon. But users are finding their offers quickly removed or restricted, as reported by Motherboard and the Associated Press . A test Facebook post by an AP reporter offering to mail abortion pills was removed within one minute. A test by a Verge reporter yielded similar results, with a post offering abortion pills being flagged within two minutes. The sale, gifting, and transfer of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/RNh3LcF

Photo Illustration by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge Facebook Groups are about to get some big changes, and if you’ve used Discord, the new approach should seem pretty darn familiar. Meta is testing a new left-aligned sidebar and channels list for Groups, and the changes are giving me some serious Discord vibes. Meta is even evoking Discord with a purple accent color. Central to the changes is a new sidebar that lists your groups with rounded square icons. Like with Discord and Slack, you’ll be able to pin groups so that they show up first on the list. Individual groups will have a new menu that seems lifted right from Discord. The menu organizes things like channels, Messenger conversations, and events one after another. Image: Meta Stop me if you’ve seen... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/6zf9uC2

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Waymo will deliver home goods for Wayfair using its fleet of autonomous semi-trailer trucks, the company announced Tuesday. The deliveries will take place as part of a pilot that’s being conducted by Waymo and JB Hunt Transport Services to test out self-driving trucks along certain shipping routes in Texas. One of JB Hunt’s customers is furniture and home goods giant Wayfair, which will begin sending out deliveries using Waymo’s fleet for a six-week test this July and August. a six-week test this July and August The deliveries will take place in Texas, with Waymo’s Class 8 autonomous truck hauling goods along Interstate 45 between facilities in Houston and Dallas, which was the route used by Waymo and JB Hunt during the original pilot... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/mHCftJs

mobile news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon may have just revealed the July dates for its Prime Day shopping bonanza , but the company is already prepping a second shopping event for Amazon Prime subscribers for later this year, Business Insider and CNBC report. Information sent to sellers that has been seen by the publications calls it the “Prime Fall Deal Event,” though exactly when in the fall is unclear — CNBC quotes a notice saying it will happen in Q4, while Business Insider reports that “invited sellers say it appears to be scheduled for October.” Last year, Amazon hosted a beauty products event in October , so another sales moment in that timeframe isn’t completely unprecedented. But this year’s fall event sounds like it could be more akin to a Prime Day 2.0, as both... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/YLrOmwi

Sony has invite-only restocks more frequently but every once in a while has a public queue. It’s that time again for another chance to buy a PlayStation 5 directly from Sony. While the console maker often sends out emails for invite-only restocks , this one’s for everyone, and it’s starting now. If you’re lucky, you’ll get through the queue and have the chance to buy a standard disc-equipped $499 PS5 or a $399 PS5 Digital Edition , and if Sony’s last console selling events are anything to go by, there should be bundles of both with Horizon Forbidden West included for a total savings of $20 off the cost of the game. Remember that when buying a PS5 from Sony, you must log in to your PlayStation Network account, and each account can only buy one console. These queues can last up to an hour or more, and the estimated time remaining... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/guEiXek

An excellent budget phone without the hassle of buying from a carrier | Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge One of the year’s best budget phones is finally available unlocked in the US. The OnePlus Nord N20 5G launched as a T-Mobile exclusive in April, and that was the only way to get ahold of one — until now. The N20 5G is now up for sale from Amazon, Best Buy, or directly from OnePlus for $299 with 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Take note that the unlocked N20 won’t work on Verizon — not on 5G or 4G. AT&T customers will be able to connect to 4G only, which isn’t too bad of a deal given that the carrier is taking a slower approach to expanding its more meaningful mid-band 5G coverage. T-Mobile subscribers will, of course, get 5G and 4G coverage. This makes the unlocked N20 best suited to AT&T customers who don’t need 5G or someone on a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/p364ybP

Apple’s latest Apple Watch, the Series 7, boasts a larger display and faster charging than its last-gen predecessor. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Thinking about picking up a new Apple Watch? It might be tempting to order one of the Series 7 models , but newer hardware always comes at a premium. And while Apple’s latest wearable offers a slightly larger display and some improvements to durability, it is largely the same Apple Watch we’re familiar with. Thankfully, each Apple Watch model offers ample functionality and has seen its fair share of discounts over the last year. So which ones should you consider if you’re in the market for Apple’s popular smartwatch while trying to shop smarter? There are currently four Apple Watch models to choose from, all of which support watchOS 8. The highest-end is the Apple Watch Series 7 starting at $399 (less when it’s discounted, which happens... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/rNOIR4c

The Supreme Court declined Apple’s bid ( pdf ) for a hearing over two Qualcomm patents (US Patent No. 7,844,037 and US Patent No. 8,683,362) that were part of lawsuits filed in 2017, claiming infringement by Apple’s iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches . Reuters points out that Apple and Qualcomm’s 2019 settlement of a worldwide legal battle over patents largely ended the squabbling in favor of a six-year licensing agreement but allowed a case in front of the Patent and Trademark Office’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board to continue. There, Apple argued the two patents should be invalid, but the board ruled in Qualcomm’s favor. Last April, the Federal Circuit court rejected Apple’s request for an appeal based on the 2019 settlement covering... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2s3LxBw

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Apple’s new 13-inch MacBook Pro M2 base model appears to have slower SSD speeds than its M1 predecessor. MacRumors reports that YouTubers Max Tech and Created Tech have both tested the 256GB base M2 model and discovered the SSD’s read speeds are around 50 precent slower than the M1 MacBook Pro with 256GB of storage. Write speeds are reportedly around 30 percent slower. Testing was completed using Blackmagic’s Disk Speed Test app, and Max Tech even disassembled the 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro and found that Apple is only using a single NAND flash storage chip. The M1 MacBook Pro uses two 128GB NAND chips, and multiple chips can enable faster SSD speeds in parallel. Other 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro models with larger SSD storage don’t appear to... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/hyoTCK5

Apple is expected to launch the AirPods Pro 2 alongside the iPhone 14 series, probably in a September event. But, months ahead of the event, the TWS earphones have appeared in a new leak through a Chinese website 52audio, that not only gives us a look at the design of this Pro-graded AirPods but also shares what to expect in terms of the AirPods Pro 2 features. Let’s dig in. Apple AirPods Pro 2 Features and Specs (Expected) Beginning with the design, the case and the buds look fairly reminiscent of the precursor. They have got the white color with black and gray accents. The cradle seems to have a USB-C socket, something which is doubtful as some major publications believe otherwise. 9to5Mac thinks the Lightning Port is unlikely to leave Apple products until 2025. Under the hood, the AirPods Pro 2 is said to ship with a new System-In-Package (SIP) for the H1 chip. This could bring "higher integration and better manufacturing technology". The key benefit has to be better Ac

Xiaomi could launch the Ultra model of the Xiaomi 12 series on July 5, 2022, in China. At least that’s what the rumors (via Trak.in) suggest. Well, the rumor mill has also churned out the possible specifications of the phone such as Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset, 120Hz AMOLED screen, Android 12-based MIUI 13 software, and 120W charging support, among other things. Xiaomi 12 Ultra Specs and Features (Expected)     Xiaomi could arm the 12 Ultra with a 6.6-inch 120Hz curved AMOLED panel on the front, very likely with a punch hole.  On the back, the phone could carry a quartet comprising of a 50MP Sony IMX989 primary sensor, a 48MP ultrawide snapper, and two periscope zoom camera lenses. Inside, the Xiaomi 12 Ultra could bear a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, a 5000mAh battery (with 120W fast charging support), up to 12GB RAM, and 512GB storage.  The software on top could be MIUI 13 based on Android 12.   As for other news, reviews, feature stories, buying guides, and everyth

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Facebook’s app for smart TVs, which lets users tune into various videos, shows, and livestreams on the platform, may no longer be available on Apple TV, as first reported by 9to5Mac . Some users say they’re no longer able to access the app after its most recent update. In a thread on MacRumors , one user shares an image of the notice they received after attempting to open Facebook Watch on their Apple TV 4K: “The Facebook Watch TV app is no longer available, but you can still find lots of videos on Facebook at www.facebook.com/watch.” Several other users report having the same experience. Facebook rolled out its Watch app on Apple TV in 2017 after first launching it on Samsung smart TVs . The app is also available on various other smart TVs... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/N1Stnzu

Image: Riot Games Riot Games, the developer behind the free first-person shooter (FPS) Valorant , will start monitoring players’ voice communications on July 13th (via PCGamer ). The game company says it’s to help train the language models that it will eventually use when evaluating player reports across all its games. Riot initially announced this change in April 2021 after making an update to its privacy policy . The new terms give Riot permission to “record and potentially evaluate voice data when using Riot-owned voice comms channels” with the purpose of combatting hate speech and harassment over voice chat. Riot says it will analyze recordings when a player reports someone for abusive or offensive comments. In turn, this should help the company... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/QTaSd0K

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s poised to release a slew of new devices between this fall and the beginning of 2023, according to a report from Bloomberg ’s Mark Gurman . What Gurman describes as a “deluge” of products will reportedly include four iPhone 14 devices, a set of new iPads, three Apple Watches, several M2 / M3-upgraded Macs, a pair of refreshed AirPods Pro buds, a new HomePod, and a spec-boosted Apple TV model. Let’s break down these predictions. Although Apple announced two new Macs with its flagship M2 processor at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) earlier this month, Gurman expects to find the chip — and its variations — in several other devices. This includes an M2 Mac mini, M2 Pro Mac mini, M2 Pro / M2 Max 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/d6MwCsc

Check out that wear and tear. | Image: Andrew Webster Back in November 2009, I was getting ready to attend the Montreal International Games Summit, and I panicked — it was my first major event as a member of the press, and I had no way to record an interview. This was a problem because I was scheduled to talk with Yoichi Wada, then president of Square Enix, along with several other notable industry people. So I rushed to Radio Shack and picked the cheapest voice recorder I could find, a little grey rectangle made by RCA that was locked up in a glass display case. I have no idea what model it is, but it went on to follow me through my entire professional career to date — now, nearly 13 years later, it’s finally being retired. I hung on to that gadget for one main reason: I trusted it . The... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Cfui65J

Photo by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Spritz Society Spotify has a brand new original topping its podcast chart, but it would probably prefer if you didn’t know about it. Last week, Spotify launched a new pop culture show, Breaking Bread , on Spotify Live. Breaking Bread ’s recordings now rank at number 11 on Spotify’s top podcast chart after holding the number two spot for most of the week, putting it just behind Joe Rogan. The show’s popularity — and the reason the company might be staying quiet about its new hit — is due to its two hosts: Jackie Oshry Weinreb and Claudia Oshry (aka Instagram’s girlwithnojob ), who come with a huge built-in audience. While the sisters have delivered their massive fanbase to the app, they have a controversial history that could be problematic for Spotify at... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/eXORfKr

It isn’t a fantastic TV or monitor, but it’s a good compromise for people who want both in the same package Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/S71qgsu

It took a while. My review of the M2 MacBook Pro went up last Wednesday. But as soon as I got my hands on the device on the prior Thursday, it was clear that running down the battery — one of the most important things a laptop reviewer needs to do — was going to be a Whole Thing. Reader, I tried. I would use the device all evening and leave it running all night, but it would still have plenty of charge left in the morning, and I’d have to plug it in for testing, abandon it to film, or give it to our video and photo teams for shooting before I could fully drain it down. I did not have a long enough interrupted span of time to continuously use the device. That’s how absurdly long this laptop lasts. But, with the written review and the video review both... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/Ykl946f

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge A sophisticated spyware campaign is getting the help of internet service providers (ISPs) to trick users into downloading malicious apps, according to research published by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) (via TechCrunch ). This corroborates earlier findings from security research group Lookout , which has linked the spyware, dubbed Hermit, to Italian spyware vendor RCS Labs. Lookout says RCS Labs is in the same line of work as NSO Group — the infamous surveillance-for-hire company behind the Pegasus spyware — and peddles commercial spyware to various government agencies. Researchers at Lookout believe Hermit has already been deployed by the government of Kazakhstan and Italian authorities. In line with these findings, Google has... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/OVzQlrw

mobile news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple Music has raised the subscription price of its student plan in the US, UK, and Canada, as first reported by 9to5Mac (via TechCrunch ). While it’s increasing the price from $4.99 to $5.99 / month in the US and Canada, student users in the UK can expect a similar jump from £4.99 to £5.99 / month. Apple hasn’t acknowledged the changes yet, but the new pricing information is currently available on Apple Music’s webpage . Students subscribed to Apple Music have also started seeing the price increase on their iPhones and iPads’ subscription pages. It’s unclear when exactly Apple implemented these changes, but, as 9to5Mac points out, it was likely rolled out sometime between June 21st and the 23rd — an archived Apple Music webpage shows the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/M8DvuV9

T-Mobile knows what apps you’re using. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge T-Mobile’s advertising business is offering a new way for marketers to pry into your app-using habits. Ad Exchanger reports that the un-carrier’s new program is called App Insights, and it’s now fully operational after spending a year in beta . The program allows third-party marketers to buy T-Mobile customer data and centers around a key piece of information that it has unique access to: what apps you use. Customer data is anonymized, and it’s pooled together with others of similar interests and behaviors, so companies can’t buy a specific user’s app history. Still, it’s creepy. The company’s advertising segment touts this offering loud and clear on its website , with the phrase “Apps speak louder than words” splashed across the top of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/K03vdtI

We’re gonna need a bigger desk. | Image: Samsung Samsung is getting ready to release its massive 55-inch curved Odyssey Ark monitor in August, according to a report from Korean outlet ETNews ( via SamMobile ). The monitor, which was announced in January at CES, has reportedly gone through a few certification programs that have to be done before it can go on sale. Details about this monitor are still scant. The company has said that it’ll have a 16:9 4K panel and that the stand will support pivot, tilt, and rotation. It also announced that it would come out in the second half of 2022 (which the reported August window falls squarely in). But let’s be honest, when you show up with a monitor that promises to physically tower over you while you’re using it, people will pay attention even if... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/NyM9K0G

Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is a competitive game for up to four players Cyberpunk 2077 is getting a board game courtesy of a Kickstarter campaign . Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is a strange twist on the high-tech, low-life underbelly of the world brought to life by CD Projekt Red and Mike Pondsmith. The game is being published by CMON Games, which have put together board game adaptations of God of War and Bloodborne in addition to other existing IPs. If the slang-ridden synopsis of the game provided on its Kickstarter page is any indicator, it’s clear that its creators have some serious reverence for the source material: “Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City is a competitive game in which 1 to 4 players take on the role of ruthless gangs vying for control of the underground in the glittering hellhole... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/z4sd0Lg

Earth.fm homepage For people who love discovering new sounds, there’s an intriguing new site that collects soundscapes from around the world. The site, Earth.fm , bills itself as “Like Spotify, but for natural soundscapes.” You can listen to bird species in Malaysia or India or forest sounds in Ghana . The sounds are gathered from numerous contributors who have experience recording the natural world in places including Brazil, Spain, Norway, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The website features sounds from locations like national parks and the everglades. Users can create their own specialized playlists of sounds available on Earth.fm, zipping from Brazil to Egypt in a matter of minutes. You can compile a list of different... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/ukywEPF

Bitcoin mining units in Fort Stockton, Texas, on Friday, April 29th, 2022. | Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images After taking a nosedive in June, the price of Bitcoin has stayed so low that it’s forcing the blockchain’s massive electricity use to similarly dip. Over the past couple weeks, Bitcoin’s energy consumption has dropped by more than a third, according to estimates of annualized electricity use by digital currency economist Alex de Vries on his website digiconomist.net . Bitcoin’s energy hunger, which has alarmed environmentalists and consumer advocates concerned about pollution and utility prices , comes from the process of mining new tokens. Bitcoin miners earn new tokens by validating transactions through an inherently energy-inefficient process , using specialized machines to solve complex puzzles. All that computing by all those machines... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/2W8xsKL

A contractor installs hardware for a Tesla Powerwall battery unit at a home in San Jose, California. | Photo by David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images Tesla and California utility PG&E launched a new program that will pay eligible Powerwall owners to send extra electricity to the grid when it’s vulnerable to blackouts. Working together, the Powerwalls create a “virtual power plant” that can help keep the lights on during emergencies or energy shortages. By signing up, Powerwall owners will receive $2 for every additional kilowatt-hour they feed to the grid during designated “events” when the grid is under a lot of stress. That includes any time the California grid operator, CAISO, issues an energy alert, warning or emergency. Tesla started a similar beta program with PG&E and a couple of other utilities last July, but that was a voluntary program with no payouts. Now, with a monetary... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/CGoprbq

You can save $120 on the AirPods Max. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge With more people working from home than they used to, owning a good pair of noise-canceling headphones has become more appealing than ever. However, they can be expensive and difficult to shop for due to the range of available models, many of which cater to different lifestyles and priorities. Some are better suited for long-haul flights, for instance, while others are ideal for multitasking and marathon listening sessions. That’s why we’ve curated this list of the best deals on noise-canceling headphones. Here, you’ll find sales on all kinds of on-ear and over-ear headphones, all of which are designed to eliminate outside noise but come with their own strengths and weaknesses. And if you want to do even more research before making a... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/U2Pw9Cp

He’s not laughing at them anymore. | Image: Fluf It seems like Keanu Reeves may have had a change of heart around NFTs. In December, the actor was sent into peels of laughter after my colleague Alex Heath asked him about the idea of digital scarcity and digital collectibles. Reeves commented that digital items are easily reproduced. Now, though, he’s joined a project from Non-Fungible Labs, acting as an advisor for a program called the Futureverse Foundation, which aims to improve “the digital and physical worlds through the support of diverse artists and creative communities.” According to The Hollywood Reporter , that involves introducing traditional artists to NFTs and funding their efforts. Reeves, reacting to a question about NFTs. The art connection here... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/xTH3a2t

Solana CEO Anatoly Yakovenko with the Saga smartphone | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge The phone previously known as the Osom OV1 , built by a team consisting of former engineers and designers from Essential, is being renamed and repurposed today, and it’s all in the name of crypto. This afternoon in New York City, blockchain company Solana announced its own mobile phone, called the Saga, made in collaboration with Osom. It’s priced at $1,000, and preorders open today. A $100 deposit is required, and Solana says the Saga will ship in the first quarter of 2023. The phone will have a 6.67-inch 120Hz OLED display, 512GB of storage, and 12GB of RAM. It’ll be powered by Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip and is outfitted with a 50-megapixel primary camera, plus a 12-megapixel ultra-wide shooter. But more than the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/okrzZXy

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge One thing researchers have used to track the spread of viral stories on Facebook — including ones that spread misinformation — is a tool that Meta owns called CrowdTangle. Based on anonymous sources, Bloomberg reports what many have suspected — that Facebook has largely removed development support from CrowdTangle and is making plans to shut the tool down. Removing CrowdTangle would pull access that people like Kevin Roose have used to surface data showing high engagement with right-wing news sources on Facebook, listing results that sometimes appear to be at odds with Facebook’s curated official reports. In an article last July for The New York Times , Roose described internal “data wars” about how much information the company should... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/cSq1bTZ

mobile news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Netflix is cutting around 300 jobs today as part of a second round of layoffs. The company previously laid off around 150 employees and dozens of contractors in May. The layoffs impact “many different teams” and mostly workers in the US, though international roles are being cut as well, Netflix spokesperson Bao Nguyen said in a statement to The Verge. Variety first reported on the job cuts. “Today we sadly let go of around 300 employees,” Nguyen said. “While we continue to invest significantly in the business, we made these adjustments so that our costs are growing in line with our slower revenue growth.” It’s the latest round of job cuts after Netflix’s rough Q1 earnings report, where it announced that revenue growth was slowing and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/fh5vrP6

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Mark Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday that Facebook Pay has officially become Meta Pay, but his post is mainly focused on what the company hopes to build in the future — “a wallet for the metaverse.” While Meta Pay is essentially the same tool as it was before, just with Meta branding, Zuckerberg says the company is working on something that will let users manage their identities, items, and payment methods while making their way through the digital world that Meta bets will be the future. The company has hinted at these plans before — its May announcement of the Meta Pay rebranded also mentioned that it was “scoping out what a single wallet experience might look like” with regards to making payments and storing your identity and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/frgxwdt

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge For the first few years of Instagram’s existence, it was a pain to hide Stories from people. You had to dig into an individual Story’s settings and select followers to hide it from. Then, if you wanted to let those followers see the next Story, you had to go into that Story’s settings and undo the block. But in 2018, Instagram launched the close friends feature , which makes it much easier to share content with a limited group. Once you’ve created a close friends list, you’ll have the option to share a Story with just that list. If you’re posting content that could be controversial, personal, or NSFW, the option can save you some stress. In case you don’t know how to add folks to your close friends list, we’ll show you how to get... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/DyZ8ufc

General Motors is bringing artificial intelligence into the vehicle inspection process. The automaker is making an undisclosed “strategic investment” in Israeli startup UVeye , which makes vehicle diagnostic systems that use sensors and AI to quickly identify damaged parts or maintenance issues. The investment in UVeye was made by GM Ventures, the automaker’s venture fund, which also has investments in a variety of other AI-themed startups . GM will sell UVeye’s technology to its dealer network to upgrade their vehicle inspection systems As part of the collaboration, GM will sell UVeye’s technology to its dealer network to upgrade their vehicle inspection systems. (The company’s systems are already being trialed at a small number of GM... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/4VjDCIM

Image: eBay eBay made its biggest move yet into the world of digital collectibles with news today of the company acquiring NFT marketplace KnownOrigin . The online auction company is keeping lips sealed on the deal’s value but confirmed in the press release that the deal is closed as of June 21st. “This partnership will help us attract a new wave of NFT creators and collectors,” said KnownOrigin co-founder David Moore. KnownOrigin describes itself as “one the world’s first, and largest, NFT Marketplaces,” and it currently ranks No. 12 on all-time trading volume for Ethereum-backed NFTs at $7.8 million, according to DappRadar . Higher ranked, more popular marketplaces include OpenSea (No. 1) with an all-time trading value at $30.43 billion and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts https://ift.tt/PjZTJd7