The Best Space and Astronomy Photos From May

The Best Space and Astronomy Photos From May Scenes of the cosmos released this month by astronomers, spacecraft and photographers.

Garmin’s Epix 2 and Fenix 7 lineups go ‘Pro’

Garmin’s Epix 2 and Fenix 7 lineups go ‘Pro’

The Garmin Fenix 7 Pro starts at $799.99. | Image: Garmin

Garmin’s joining the Pro bandwagon. On Wednesday, it’s launching the Epix 2 Pro and Fenix 7 Pro, which both come with a boatload of new mapping and training features, hands-free flashlights, and sensors. The Fenix 7 Pro series starts at $799.99, while the Epix 2 Pro will start at $899.99.

There’s good news if you wanted an Epix 2 last year but were bummed that it only came in one size. Garmin doesn’t believe that less is more, so you can also now pick between three sizes of Epix 2 models: 42mm, 47mm, and 51mm. Both Pro lineups also offer a more durable Sapphire Edition.

The vast majority of what’s new will be shared across both the Epix 2 Pro and Fenix 7 Pro lineups. For example, all models will now feature a built-in hands-free LED flashlight. The flashlight was introduced last year but was limited to the 51mm Fenix 7X. The flashlight has variable intensities, a red safety light, and a strobe mode for nighttime training.

Both lineups will also get a new heart rate sensor. Garmin says the new sensor will offer improved tracking for a wider variety of activities. Regarding training features, all the Epix 2 Pro and Fenix 7 Pro models will get a new Endurance Score and Hill Score. The former tells you how easily you can maintain sustained efforts using Vo2 Max and your long / short-term training loads across multiple training activities. The latter also uses your training history and Vo2 Max to gauge your running strength on steep climbs and long ascents.

For mapping, the Pro lineups also get weather map overlays, the Up Ahead feature, and relief shading for topographical maps. The weather map overlays will make it easier for outdoor enthusiasts to view upcoming conditions, while the relief shading is meant to make maps more readable at a glance. Meanwhile, the Up Ahead feature highlights certain points of interest — aid stations, for example — right from the wrist.

Image: Garmin

The flashlight feature is coming to both the Epix 2 Pro and Fenix 7 Pro lineups.

Users also have the option to shell out for Garmin’s Outdoor Maps Plus subscription to get satellite imagery, public land maps, and enhanced topographical maps on the wrist. The subscription costs an additional $49.99 yearly and has been around for a while on Garmin’s other navigational devices and a handful of other smartwatches. Garmin still, however, does not gatekeep any health or training data behind a paywall.

As with the non-Pro versions of the Epix 2 and Fenix 7, the main difference between these watches lies in the display. The Epix 2 Pro has an OLED display, while the Fenix 7 Pro has a memory-in-pixel (MIP) display that supports solar charging. The Epix 2 also has a new red shift mode that changes the display colors to red for easier nighttime viewing — which sounds familiar to what Apple did with one of the Ultra’s watchfaces. That said, the Fenix 7 Pro models will have a spiffier MIP display than the “regular” Fenix 7 lineup. According to Garmin, the pixels, backlight, and solar panel have been redesigned to improve brightness and power efficiency in a number of lighting conditions.

Battery life is also slightly different. The Epix 2 Pro is rated up to 31 days, while the Fenix 7 Pro can get up to 38 days. You should take those estimates with a pinch of salt, however. Battery life is heavily dependent on the size of the watch, your GPS settings, whether you use the always-on display for the Epix 2 Pro, and what mode you’re in. For example, if you didn’t care about using the Fenix 7 Pro as a smartwatch, Garmin says you could theoretically eke out 139 days out of the 51mm 7X Pro. We’ll be putting both through their paces to see what you can actually expect with more real-world testing conditions.

Windows 11 gets some useful widgets for CPU, memory, and GPU monitoring

Windows 11 gets some useful widgets for CPU, memory, and GPU monitoring

Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

The Windows Widgets feature is finally getting some useful additions to let you monitor CPU, memory, and GPU usage. Neowin has spotted that Microsoft’s new release of a Dev Home app includes several new widgets for Windows 11.

You can use the new widgets to monitor processor utilization and speed, memory usage, GPU temperatures and usage, and Wi-Fi or Ethernet speeds. They’re certainly a lot more useful than the usual widgets or the news feeds full of junk stories from MSN. Microsoft did announce at Build earlier this month that you’ll be able to disable the Microsoft News feed in the widgets board later this year, thankfully.

You can get similar information from the Game Bar, the Windows Task Manager, or apps like HWiNFO64, but it’s neat to be able to bring up the widgets with the Windows key + W shortcut.

Screenshot by Tom Warren / The Verge

The new widgets inside Windows 11.

The widgets do seem to be a little buggy right now, which is probably why the Dev Home app that enables them is still in preview. I noticed my widgets panel freeze up after first installing them, and both the CPU and GPU utilization didn’t track properly until I rebooted. They’ve been running fine ever since, though.

If you’re interested in trying out these new widgets on Windows 11 then you’ll need to head to the Microsoft Store and install the Dev Home Preview app. The widgets will then be available in the Windows Widgets section (Winkey + W) and you can add them using the + button at the top.

Anti-harassment service Block Party leaves Twitter amid API changes

Anti-harassment service Block Party leaves Twitter amid API changes

Recent changes to Twitter’s API access have “made it impossible for Block Party’s Twitter product to continue in its current form.” | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Block Party, an anti-harassment service designed to combat abusive content on Twitter, is the latest third-party app to leave the platform in light of Twitter locking most of its API access behind a paywall. Announced in a blog post last night, Block Party’s anti-harassment tools for Twitter are being placed on an immediate, indefinite hiatus, with the developers claiming that changes to Twitter’s API pricing (which starts from $100 per month) have “made it impossible for Block Party’s Twitter product to continue in its current form.”

Block Party’s services allowed users to automate a great deal of their Twitter moderation, with filtering and block list features that automatically block accounts that like or retweet posts you don’t want to associate with. The company said that everything from its Twitter service — including both free and premium account features — will stop working today, May 31st, and that users will be able to access a read-only archive of their Lockout Folder and block lists until June 30th.

i started block party because it felt unfair & terrible that we were just supposed to accept harassment as the price of being online. the last four years we've shown that another way is possible & absolutely worth pursuing: empowering users to have control over their experience. https://t.co/ECRqi6oKSi

— Tracy Chou (@triketora) May 31, 2023

“We’re heartbroken that we won’t be able to help protect you from harassers and spammers on the platform, at least for now,” said Block Party in the blog post. In an FAQ addressing the hiatus, the company added “We tried very hard to stay on the platform, and still hope to return in the future. We’re so sorry for any impact this disruption may have on your safety or experience on Twitter.”

Block Party notes that while its flagship Twitter product is on hiatus, the company is still developing additional services like its new Privacy Party browser extension. Privacy Party can be used to reduce harassment, cyberstalking, impersonation, and fraud across social media accounts, and is available in alpha today for existing Block Party users.

Block Party and many other third-party Twitter applications relied upon the social media platforms’ free API access, which was limited to 1,500 tweets and effectively replaced by a paid basic tier earlier this year. The new basic tier allows accounts to post 3,000 tweets for $100 a month (which may not be sufficient for many non-profit third-party services) while some enterprise-level plans reportedly cost as much as $42,000 per month.

Earlier this month Twitter had to reverse course and make exceptions for weather, emergency, and transportation services that were forced to leave the platform due to the high cost of the new API tiers.

Google quietly ends support for decade-old Chromecast

Google quietly ends support for decade-old Chromecast

The original Chromecast plugged into an HDMI port. | Image: The Verge

Google has ended support for the original Chromecast, around a decade after the $35 streaming stick launched in 2013. A message announcing the end of support has appeared on several Google support pages. “Support for Chromecast (1st gen) has ended,” the notice brought to our attention by 9to5Google reads. “These devices no longer receive software or security updates, and Google does not provide technical support for them. Users may notice a degradation in performance.”

The end of support appears to have arrived at the end of April, when a support page listing firmware versions for each Chromecast model was last updated. It doesn’t sound like remaining first-generation Chromecasts will stop working immediately, but their functionality is likely to slowly break over time as the ecosystem around them is updated and moves on.

It was an affordable workaround at the time

The original Chromecast was a tiny, and surprisingly popular, key-sized device designed to plug into an HDMI port on your TV and let you stream video content from your phone, tablet, or laptop to the big screen. Priced at just $35, it was an affordable workaround for getting video streaming apps onto your TV in an era where many people were yet to make the jump to smart TVs.

Google would go on to release several more Chromecasts over the years including a 4K model in 2016. But the most recent model, the 2020 Chromecast with Google TV added its own remote to the equation. The streaming stick had an interface of its own rather than simply relying on being fed content by your smartphone, signaling a big shift for the Chromecast lineup.

Although support for the first-generation Chromecast is officially over, Google hasn’t exactly been updating the device regularly. 9to5Google reports that its most recent update was released last November, which was itself the first update released for the device in over three years.

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Motorola’s third Moto G Stylus 5G might be the charm

Motorola’s third Moto G Stylus 5G might be the charm

The Moto G Stylus 5G (2023) comes with a few upgrades, including a more powerful processor. | Image: Motorola

Motorola hasn’t had a lot of success with midrange devices lately, but it’s trying again with the Moto G Stylus 5G — 2023 edition. It’ll sell for $399 unlocked for a variant with a healthy 6GB of RAM and 256GB of storage (carriers will sell a variant with 128GB of storage and either 4 or 6GB of RAM) and comes with a 6.6-inch screen, updated rear camera system, and Qualcomm’s new midrange Snapdragon 6 Gen 1 chipset for 20 percent faster performance than last year’s model. Oh, and a stylus, of course.

The 2023 G Stylus 5G has a slightly smaller screen than last year’s edition — a 6.6-inch display versus 6.8 inches — though it’s still a 1080p LCD with a top refresh rate of 120Hz. The drop in screen size is actually a good thing: 1080p really isn’t enough resolution for a huge screen, and the bezels on this year’s device are a little smaller. I think it’s a net positive, even if you’re a fan of massive screens.

Image: Motorola

The rose champagne color shown here is one of two options, and it’s the obvious winner.

There’s a new 50-megapixel main camera sensor with larger pixels than the previous generation (good), though it loses the optical image stabilization present in the 2022 version (not so good). But on the bright side, Motorola has done away with useless low-res macro and depth sensors and done the sensible thing here: combined them into one in the ultrawide camera. The 8-megapixel ultrawide doubles as a macro camera and also does the job of depth-sensing to help with portrait mode shots. Bravo, Moto.

In other good news, the Moto G Stylus 5G is one of the last midrange phones to offer a headphone jack, and it now comes with stereo speakers for when you’re listening unplugged. Motorola says that the stylus actions are now “simpler and more natural,” but actual stylus features seem similar to last year. There’s also a MicroSD slot, a huge 5,000mAh battery, 20W fast-ish wired charging, and NFC. Motorola says the G Stylus 5G will get one OS version upgrade and three years of security support — same as last year and a far cry from the five years of security updates you’ll get on Samsung’s midrange Galaxy A54 5G.

All in all, it’s a promising update — and we could use another good option in the midrange class to give Samsung and Google a run for their money. The 2023 Moto G Stylus 5G goes on sale June 2nd at Cricket Wireless first, with availability at AT&T and T-Mobile later on. It’ll be sold unlocked from Motorola, Amazon, and Best Buy starting on June 16th.

Niantic has a new experience for Quest headsets that features an ‘AI-enabled’ owl

Niantic has a new experience for Quest headsets that features an ‘AI-enabled’ owl

Image: Niantic

Niantic, known for augmented reality mobile games like Pokémon Go and Peridot, revealed a new mixed reality experience on Tuesday. Titled “Wol,” it can be played on Quest headsets and features an “AI-enabled” talking owl discussing the redwood forest.

I packed a lot into that sentence, so let’s break it down. While you can check out this experience on your phone, it differs from Niantic’s AR mobile games because you can also try it using the passthrough video feature on VR headsets like Meta’s Quest 2 and Quest Pro. To use it, you visit a URL — MeetWol.com — meaning you don’t need an app to try it. In the experience itself, a large portal into a virtual redwood forest will appear in front of you, and then Wol will fly over and start talking to you about what you can see.

Wol’s AI is powered by Inworld, which Inworld itself describes as a “developer platform for AI characters,” and although you can talk to Wol and its AI underpinnings will help to create a reply, it seems as if Wol will have some fairly strict conversational bounds. “Wol keeps within the context of the redwood forest,” Tom Emrich, director of product management for the 8th Wall platform at Niantic, says in an interview with The Verge. “While you’re able to ask Wol anything, Wol will always keep you within the context of the story.”

I chatted with Wol for about 15 minutes on my Quest 2, and it was a smoother experience than I expected. Our conversation started after Wol flew onto a virtual tree next to my desk and asked my name and where I was from. I told it the correct answer — “Jay, from Portland” — and we were off, chatting about things like Wol’s favorite aspects of forest life, its youth, and its best friend (a bat, apparently). The strangest part was that Wol kept calling me “Jay from Portland” instead of just Jay, but that wasn’t too bad in the scheme of things; Wol generally answered my questions in a natural way with a minor delay, and it was very kind. I think a young child would have a lot of fun with this.

The Wol experience isn’t intended to be the next Pokémon Go-level phenomenon; Emrich says that the optimal amount of time within it is five minutes, and Niantic has no plans to update it. Instead, Wol was created more as a way to demonstrate Niantic’s 8th Wall technology that lets developers make web-based AR apps. (Niantic acquired 8th Wall in 2022.)

It might also be a preview of the types of apps you’ll see built with Niantic’s technology down the line, which could be especially interesting with headsets like Meta’s Quest 3 and Apple’s rumored mixed reality headset expected in the future. But that all being said, Wol is just a tech demo; we’ll have to wait and see if other developers create full-fledged mixed reality experiences that take off in a meaningful way.

Would Large Language Models Be Better If They Weren’t So Large?

Would Large Language Models Be Better If They Weren’t So Large? Teaching fewer words to large language models might help them sound more human.

Apple’s original cloud photo sync service shuts down this summer

Apple’s original cloud photo sync service shuts down this summer

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge

I have two pieces of news for you this morning. The first is that My Photo Stream, the free cloud-based photo syncing feature Apple launched in 2011, is still up and running in 2023. That’s despite it being effectively superseded by iCloud Photo Library roughly eight years ago. Now that you’re up to date, the second piece of news is that My Photo Stream is shutting down in a couple of months’ time on July 26th, according to an Apple Support page spotted by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman.

The end of My Photo Stream won’t come as too much of a surprise. Although it was free, it came with a long list of restrictions on the amount of photos you could upload, and these were only saved on Apple’s servers for 30 days. Photos saved in the cloud then had to be manually saved locally if you wanted to keep them on a secondary device and, perhaps worst of all, 9to5Mac notes that high-quality photos weren’t synced in their original resolution.

iCloud’s free storage may be relatively limited at just 5GB, but at least it acts like a modern cloud storage service with photos and videos stored in their full resolution.

Apple’s support page notes that new photo uploads to My Photo Stream will come to an end on June 26th, and that the feature will disappear entirely a month later. “The photos in My Photo Stream are already stored on at least one of your devices,” Apple’s page notes, “So as long as you have the device with your originals, you won’t lose any photos as part of this process.”

If you’d like to take this as an opportunity to explore an alternative for transferring your photos between devices, we’ve got a guide to a variety of photo storage services right here.

A.I. Poses ‘Risk of Extinction,’ Industry Leaders Warn

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Would Large Language Models Be Better If They Weren’t So Large?

Would Large Language Models Be Better If They Weren’t So Large? Teaching fewer words to large language models might help them sound more human.

MSI is trying hard to be a premium laptop brand

MSI is trying hard to be a premium laptop brand

Here’s the new Prestige 16. | Image: MSI

MSI — a brand traditionally known for gaming hardware — has announced a bunch of laptops at Computex 2023, and there’s an interesting lack of gamery among them. Instead, the company appears to be focusing hard on the premium lifestyle space with its mid-2023 offerings.

Notable among these releases is the new Commercial 14 series, a line of business laptops intended to compete with high-end enterprise PCs — the likes of the ThinkPad. I conclude this from the fact that MSI’s press release highlights its “tailor-made solutions to enterprises through a series of optional security measures, NFC (near-field communication) and built-in Smart Card Reader.” If that’s not a word-for-word ThinkPad pitch, I don’t know what is.

MSI has attempted business lines in the past, namely in its Summit Series, which we haven’t heard much about for a hot minute. These were solid, functional devices, but they didn’t have the build quality (or laundry list of enterprise security features) to compete with the established top players in that space, and they certainly weren’t priced to do that. The Commercial, which rolls out in the second half of this year, looks like it could be a few rungs up that ladder.

Image: MSI

I won’t lie, it has Summit Series vibes.

The other release that’s catching my eye is the Prestige 16 Studio Evo, also slated for release in the second half of this year. This is another product laser-focused on the high-end enterprise space. I’ve traditionally thought of the Prestige line largely as productivity devices that also have the chops for some gaming here and there. But this version, as the Studio moniker indicates, is for creative professionals, featuring Thunderbolt 4, a 99Whr battery, and Nvidia’s Studio platform (and RTX discrete GPUs, of course). I’m always on the lookout for powerful devices in the 16-inch space that don’t weigh ten thousand pounds, since big-screened-but-still-portable workstations are a need I hear about from video editors all the time. This Prestige Studio could be a nice get for those folks (if it’s good).

Another big professional product, the Creator Z17 HX Studio, was actually announced earlier this year. It’s geared towards workers across the creative space, from video professionals to digital artists, and it’s compatible with an absolutely bonkers stylus that doubles as a mechanical pencil. MSI has that prominently on display at Computex as well, further pushing the idea that it’s not just a gaming brand, everyone, we promise.

The Creator starts at $2,999 (yeah, it’s not cheap), but MSI hasn’t revealed pricing for the Prestige or the Commercial yet. Those numbers will give us a better idea of where MSI thinks these products fit in the current market and how high-end it thinks they really are.

The Witcher is officially one of the most successful game series of all time

The Witcher is officially one of the most successful game series of all time

Image: CD Projekt Red

The Witcher is a juggernaut, and thanks to new data from The Witcher game developer CD Projekt Red (CDPR), we have a better idea of just how huge it really is. The studio revealed Monday that The Witcher video games have sold more than 75 million copies, with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt alone responsible for more than 50 million of those sales.

Those sorts of numbers mean that series is one of the biggest video game franchises of all time. For comparison, this new data puts The Witcher 3 in spitting distance of smash hits like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Red Dead Redemption 2, which have both sold more than 53 million copies, and both of those are among the top-selling games ever.

Those Witcher sales numbers will probably grow by quite a bit in the coming years. CDPR just released a next-gen update for The Witcher 3 in December, and it has a bunch of other Witcher games in the works, including a remake of the first Witcher game, a new Witcher trilogy, and a spinoff codenamed “Project Sirius” (though CDPR recently announced that it’s reassessing the game).

Let’s just hope those new titles fare better at launch than Cyberpunk 2077, though CDPR has largely turned that game around and released a next-gen patch for it in February 2022. We’ll be hearing a lot more about Cyberpunk 2077 very soon: Phantom Liberty, the game’s upcoming major expansion that stars Idris Elba, will be at Summer Game Fest’s invite-only Play Days event in June, CDPR also announced on Monday.

Netflix is also betting big on The Witcher franchise: it just renewed its Witcher TV series for a fifth season even though the third season hasn’t started streaming yet. The third season will be the last with Henry Cavill starring as Geralt; Liam Hemsworth will take over starting with season four.

WhatsApp is working on usernames and screen sharing

WhatsApp is working on usernames and screen sharing

Image: The Verge

WhatsApp is developing a number of new features, including usernames and screen sharing, as reported by WABetaInfo.

The username feature was spotted in the beta version 2.23.11.15 for Android, and allows WhatsApp users to select a unique username attached to their account. The feature could mean that in the future, users could find each other by their username instead of using a phone number. Conversations that are started using a username are end-to-end encrypted, according to WABetaInfo.

Some beta testers using the 2.23.11.19 version of the Android app also noticed a new screen sharing feature. After pressing the screen sharing button, users could confirm and begin sharing the contents of their screen on video calls. The feature also records the portion of the call that is shared, according to screenshots.

Other features rolling out to some beta testers include a “status archive” setting that allows businesses to archive statuses after 24 hours and then reshare them in the future. WABetaInfo notes that the status archive feature so far looks to be limited to businesses.

Computex 2023: all the news from Taiwan’s big PC show

Computex 2023: all the news from Taiwan’s big PC show

Photo by Sam Yeh / AFP via Getty Images

For one glorious week, PC enthusiasts will gather in Taipei.

After three years, Computex is finally back — in person, in all its glory. The biggest companies in the laptop and PC space, from Taiwan and elsewhere, will be gathered in Taipei this week to showcase products they’ll be releasing this summer and throughout the rest of 2023. We expect to see a whole bunch of refreshes to popular laptop lines, updated desktop components, and maybe even (dare we say it?) a CPU or two. Plus, software services and artificial intelligence were a major focus of CES earlier this year, and we certainly expect that trend to continue.

If you’re interested in following the latest laptop news but can’t make it out to Taiwan yourself, never fear.

We’ll be on the ground in Taipei all week, catching keynotes, interviewing the big players, and getting our hands on some of the most exciting gadgets that you’ll see in 2023. Come along for the ride.

Logi Dock review: conference calls have never been so cute

Logi Dock review: conference calls have never been so cute

Power, ports, and pretty lighting — for a price.

I realized two things when the pandemic forced me to start working from home: I suck at hiding the rat’s nest of cables on my desk, and modern laptops don’t provide anywhere near enough ports. Laptop docks have become an indispensable part of most office setups because they solve both of these issues, but not all docks are built equal — nor are they especially stylish.

The $399 Logi Dock goes a step above most. It’s designed as an all-in-one docking solution that allows you to completely ditch microphone headsets and poor-quality audio recording / playback built into laptops during calls. Alongside the additional ports and laptop charging capabilities common on docking stations, Logitech has slapped on some in-meeting controls, a built-in speakerphone, and some funky underlighting. It’s a much jazzier dock than the usual boring slabs handed out in corporate offices.

The Logi Dock can support up to two 4K 60Hz displays while delivering up to 100W of power to a connected laptop, which is enough juice to charge almost anything besides power-hungry gaming hardware. It weighs in at just over two pounds and has grippy rubberized feet to prevent it from sliding across whatever surface it’s placed on. This dock is mostly intended for more permanent office setups, as while it’s light enough to throw into a bag if absolutely necessary, the required power brick is a beast, making it cumbersome to carry around.

Most of the connections are located on the rear of the dock, which is great for keeping your workspace clear of cables. On the back, you’ll find two USB-A ports, two USB-C ports, one HDMI 2.0, and one DisplayPort 1.4 output. These feature alongside the input for the Logi Dock’s supplied 230W power brick, a Bluetooth 5.1 pairing button, a Kensington lock slot, and a dedicated USB-C Upstream (marked with a purple port) that connects the dock to your laptop.

There’s also a third USB-C port located on the side of the dock to spare you from fumbling around the back of the device to plug in any additional peripherals. This particular port and one of the USB-A ports on the rear are marked with a lightning icon to indicate that they support 7.5W fast charging.

Which… well, isn’t exactly “fast” these days. It took around three hours to fully charge my iPhone 14 Pro Max at that speed, and the Logi Dock’s remaining USB ports can only output up to 4.5W. More affordable offerings like the $130 Plugable Docking Station can support 20W of charging on their secondary ports.

Photo by Jess Weatherbed / The Verge

The Logi Dock doesn’t provide a lot of ports, but it does make the USB-C uplink connection more identifiable by marking it in purple.

Photo by Jess Weatherbed / The Verge

Don’t be fooled by the lightning symbol — it represents 7.5W “fast” fast charging, not Thunderbolt.

The Logi Dock doesn’t provide any Thunderbolt or USB 4 ports, the connectivity standards that can deliver power, high-speed data, and a video signal over a single connection. Instead, all of the USB ports are 3.1 Gen 1 and support meager transfer speeds of 5Gbps. That’s disappointing given the price point, but it won’t be the end of the world for most everyday office workers. Thunderbolt’s biggest advantage is faster data transfer speeds (up to 40Gbps for Thunderbolt 4), so unless you need to optimize your peripheral speeds or frequently move large files of data around, you’ll get by just fine without it.

I have a few port-related gripes out the gate besides the obvious lack of Thunderbolt support. Firstly, none of the USB-C connections support display output, so you can’t hook up a monitor to them. (You have to rely on the HDMI and DisplayPort ports.) The Logi Dock also frustratingly lacks a standard 3.5mm audio jack and an Ethernet port, ports that are commonly found on other docks.

But credit where it’s due — the Logi Dock is visually the best-looking docking station I’ve seen. It’s available in either black or white and features ambient underlighting and a wrap-around fabric skin that’ll complement most modern office setups nicely. It’s the same aesthetic as that used on Logitech’s StreamCam and reminds me of the optional fabric keyboard covers featured on recent Microsoft Surface Laptop generations. The fabric coating didn’t get especially grubby after a few weeks of testing, but that’s something you may want to consider if you’re prone to mess or live with children.

Photo by Jess Weatherbed / The Verge

The underlighting is a little difficult to see in bright daylight, but it’s clearer when it turns red after you disable your mic or webcam.

I’m providing this warning as it’s expected that you’ll be touching it a lot. There is a selection of touch controls across the top of the Logi Dock that can be used to quickly join or leave calls, adjust the speaker volume, and enable / disable your webcam and microphone. Both the webcam and microphone buttons will turn red when disabled. You can also sync the dock with either a Microsoft Office 365 or Google calendar. Doing so enables the Logi Dock’s “one-touch-to-join” feature — the ambient underlighting will turn purple when a meeting is about to start, which you can then immediately join by tapping the circular join button atop the device.

Those controls are supported across Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Google Voice, Zoom, and Tencent Meeting. I only tested across Teams, Zoom, and Meet, but the controls worked as expected across all of them. There are technically two models of the Logi Dock available — one with a Teams logo as the “join call” button and one with a plain circle. There’s no actual difference between either model besides the design choice, so both will work with any of the supported meeting software.

The audio quality is surprisingly good. You’ll get much better results from dedicated microphones and desktop speakers of course, but the Logi Dock still performs admirably by comparison. There are six beamforming mics built into it (see the small holes on the top) which did a good job of picking up my voice during calls. There were no obvious issues with clarity, though the playback does sound a little crispy.

Results for the “noise cancellation” touted by Logitech were fairly mixed — it completely removed the sound of me smacking my mechanical keyboard and clicking my mouse, for example. It also didn’t create an echo by picking up its own audio output. Some of the household sounds running in the background of calls did manage to come through, though, such as my electric dryer and my neighbors vacuuming.

Photo by Jess Weatherbed / The Verge

Those six holes on the top are the Logi Dock’s beamforming mics.

Photo by Jess Weatherbed / The Verge

The Teams-themed button is just for aesthetics — it’ll also work with Zoom and Google Meet.

The omnidirectional speakers are suitably loud and clear. I heard some slight interference when audio was playing at a low volume, so I personally wouldn’t want to listen to background music through them while working. At louder volumes, you can hear plenty of bass — I’d liken the quality to something like an old Bluetooth speaker. Otherwise, I didn’t have any difficulty understanding what was being said during calls. I’d advise sticking the dock directly in front of you where possible, as the narrow soundstage can sound a little disorientating when placed to one side.

Bluetooth support is a nice inclusion. You can pair wireless peripherals like keyboards, mice, and headsets to the Logi Dock (though most laptops come with Bluetooth support anyway these days), and you can also connect your phone to it if you want to use it as a speakerphone or Bluetooth speaker. Logitech is pitching this as an in-office solution as much as it is a home one, but let’s be real here — blasting your meeting audio in a busy office for everyone to hear isn’t fun for anyone involved. Don’t be that person.

Photo by Jess Weatherbed / The Verge

There are rubberized feet on the underside, which helps prevent slippage if, like me, you have a tendency to accidentally yank on your peripheral cables.

There are a few other Logitech-flavored quirks here. The Logi Dock has been designed to play nicely with other products in the Logitech ecosystem — I didn’t have any Zone True Wireless earbuds handy to test the Easy Audio Switch feature, but I was able to easily connect a Bolt-enabled keyboard and mouse through a single Logi Bolt receiver. It’s exactly the sort of ecosystem support I look for when I’m wanting to streamline my work setup.

Which is why I’m still bummed out by Logitech software. You need to install Logi Tune — a program for optimizing Logitech headsets and webcams in meetings — to enable the Logi Dock’s calendar syncing feature. That’s yet another Logitech app clogging up my laptop alongside Logitech Capture, Logitech Options, and Logi Options Plus (yes, really). I couldn’t even install Logi Tune on my work device without permission from a system administrator. That’s not going to be a unique situation and will be especially frustrating when you consider the Logi Dock is targeting working professionals.

Photo by Jess Weatherbed / The Verge

The power brick for this is MASSIVE, so I’d personally avoid ferrying the Logi Dock around between workplaces.

Does all of this mean that the Logi Dock is a bad product? Absolutely not. It delivers on pretty much everything it promises. I didn’t have any issues with the peripherals I plugged into it, and it worked just fine with both the M1 MacBook Air and Dell XPS 15 I tested it with (though its worth noting that the M1 MacBook Air can only natively support one external display). It’s reliable, surprisingly compact, and does an excellent job of decluttering your desk. The audio quality is also plenty good enough to appease folks that don’t want to contend with clunky USB microphones or headsets, and it provides more ports and features than similar rival offerings like the $249 Microsoft Audio Dock.

The biggest issue here is that $399 price tag. Omitting both ethernet and Thunderbolt on a dock this expensive feels hard to justify. The lack of a forward-facing IO can also be a nuisance if you frequently switch between a lot of accessories or peripherals, and moving the Bluetooth pairing button to the top or side of the dock would have similarly improved accessibility.

If you can look past those shortcomings and think the idea of a speakerphone conference system combined with a USB hub is appealing, then there aren’t many other options out there. I’m not a convert myself after testing it for a few weeks, but I’m in a committed relationship with my Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones and Rode NT1 XLR mic. The Logi Dock’s audio quality simply can’t compete, and nor do I expect it to. It’s a great choice for those of you who are already looking to minimize your setup and add some additional ports — I’d personally just wait for it to go on sale.

Watch this Nvidia demo and imagine actually speaking to AI game characters

Watch this Nvidia demo and imagine actually speaking to AI game characters

A sample of Nvidia’s ACE (Avatar Cloud Engine) for games. | Image: Nvidia

At Computex 2023 in Taipei, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang just gave the world a glimpse of what it might be like when gaming and AI collide — with a graphically breathtaking recreation of a cyberpunk ramen shop where you can actually talk to the proprietor.

Seriously, instead of clicking on dialogue options, it imagines you could hold down a button, just say something with your own voice, and get an answer from a video game character. Nvidia’s calling it a “peek at the future of games.”

Unfortunately, the actual dialogue leaves a lot to be desired — maybe try GPT-4 or Sudowrite next time, Nvidia?

Here’s the entire conversation I hastily transcribed:

Player: Hey Jin, how are you?

Jin: Unfortunately not so good.

How come?

I am worried about the crime around here. It’s gotten bad lately. My ramen shop got caught in the crossfire.

Can I help?

If you want to do something about this, I have heard rumors that the powerful crime lord Kumon Aoki is causing all kinds of chaos in the city. He may be the root of this violence.

I’ll talk to him, where can I find him?

I have heard he hangs out in the underground fight clubs on the city’s east side. Try there.

OK, I’ll go.

Be careful, Kai.

Watching a single video of a single conversation, it’s hard to see how this is any better than picking from a NPC dialogue tree — but the impressive part is that the generative AI is reacting to natural speech. Hopefully Nvidia will release the demo so we can try it ourselves.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

The demo was built by Nvidia and partner Convai to help promote the tools that were used to create it — specifically a suite of middleware called Nvidia ACE (Avatar Cloud Engine) for Games that can run both locally and in the cloud.

The entire ACE suite includes the company’s NeMo tools for deploying large language models (LLMs), Riva speech-to-text and text-to-speech, and other bits. It’s also an incredibly good looking demo, of course, built in Unreal Engine 5 with loads of ray-tracing... to the point that the chatbot part feels lackluster to me by comparison. At this point, we’ve simply seen much more compelling dialogue from chatbots, even as trite and derivative as they can sometimes be.

Screenshot by Sean Hollister / The Verge

In a Computex pre-briefing, Nvidia Omniverse VP Rev Lebaredian told me that yes, the tech can scale to more than one character at a time and could theoretically even let NPCs talk to each other — but admitted that he hadn’t actually seen that tested.

It’s not clear if any developer will embrace the entire ACE toolkit the way the demo attempts, but S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chernobyl and Fort Solis will use the part Nvidia calls “Omniverse Audio2Face,” which tries to match facial animation of a 3D character to their voice actor’s speech.

Dolphin says Nintendo blocked a Steam release of its Wii and GameCube emulator

Dolphin says Nintendo blocked a Steam release of its Wii and GameCube emulator

Image: The Verge

The Steam launch of Dolphin, an open-source emulator for the Wii and the GameCube, has been delayed indefinitely (via PC Gamer). A blog post by the developers says that’s due to a Nintendo “cease and desist citing the DMCA” (an earlier version of the blog post simply said “issued a DMCA” but it has since been updated) after they’d announced plans for a Steam launch in March.

Dolphin Emulator Project:

It is with much disappointment that we have to announce that the Dolphin on Steam release has been indefinitely postponed. We were notified by Valve that Nintendo has issued a cease and desist citing the DMCA against Dolphin’s Steam page, and have removed Dolphin from Steam until the matter is settled. We are currently investigating our options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future.

We appreciate your patience in the meantime.

Pierre Bourdon, who says he was involved with Dolphin for over 10 years in various capacities and named in the email from Valve, writes in a series of Mastodon posts that the notice was the result of a back-and-forth with Nintendo initiated by Steam and involved no DMCA notice, calling the action “just standard legal removals / C&D between two companies.”

One element that may be the point Nintendo is using to justify its request to block Dolphin lies in its distribution of the Wii AES-128 disc encryption, according to Bourdon. Rather than asking users to provide the key on their own, the software has shipped with the Wii’s “common key” embedded in its source code for many years.

Bourdon wrote on Mastodon that, unlike a straightforward DMCA takedown, in this case, Dolphin’s creators have no legal recourse to push back. This leaves the group at the whims of Valve, who he says could have ignored Nintendo at this stage without any repercussions.

We have reached out to Valve, Nintendo, and The Dolphin Emulator Project for further comment.

At least one other emulator, RetroArch, exists on the Steam platform, although that software doesn’t operate quite the same way Dolphin does. Where Dolphin directly emulates the GameCube and Wii consoles, RetroArch serves as a frontend into which emulator “cores” can be loaded, giving users a single centralized place to configure software settings for their emulators.

Quest 3 hands-on confirms Meta’s building a ‘far thinner and lighter’ headset

Quest 3 hands-on confirms Meta’s building a ‘far thinner and lighter’ headset

The Quest 3 will improve on the Quest 2 (pictured above) in many important ways. | Photo by Owen Grove / The Verge

A hands-on look at the Meta Quest 3 reveals a massive set of improvements to the Meta mixed reality headset, as detailed in Mark Gurman’s Power On newsletter for Bloomberg this morning. Gurman says the Quest 3, now codenamed Eureka, is “far lighter and thinner” than the original Quest 2, which bodes well for its comfort during extended usage.

A lot of the features he mentioned are similar to what we expect to learn about the Apple “Reality Pro” VR / AR headset soon, including fancy hand-tracking and pass-through video. But some rumors say the rumored Apple headset could cost as much as $3,000. Gurman said Meta also hasn’t settled on the Quest 3’s price yet, but that it could be costlier than the $400 Quest 2, which “may stick around at a lower price.” It will still remain far cheaper than the disappointing Quest Pro that launched last fall at $1,499.99 before getting a price cut in March to $999.99.

In February, Meta VR exec Mark Rabkin told employees the Quest 3 would be more expensive than its predecessor and that “We have to prove to people that all this power, all these new features are worth it.” He said Meta had sold 20 million Quest headsets so far.

He also previewed the lighter design, explaining that “The main north star for the team was from the moment you put on this headset, the mixed reality has to make it feel better, easier, more natural... You can walk effortlessly through your house knowing you can see perfectly well. You can put anchors and things on your desktop. You can take your coffee. You can stay in there much longer.”

The report confirms some of the other big improvements we’ve been expecting, like a second-generation Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 chip, with much better performance overall as a result.

The report also talked about what the Quest 3 won’t have, namely, eye-tracking. That means games can’t use foveated rendering, a feature present in Sony’s PSVR 2 that adjusts based on where a player is looking and allows the system to concentrate processing power on the graphics in those places and pull back elsewhere.

Design upgrades from the Quest 2 include more sensors inside three pill-shaped areas that contain four cameras, two of which are color cameras for passthrough video. It also features an improved system for adjusting the lenses’ inter-pupillary distance — the distance between your eyes — with a wheel you can turn while wearing it instead of taking the headset off and moving the display manually.

A depth sensor in the middle of the device could improve AR performance compared to the Quest Pro’s camera-only approach. Redesigned controllers ditch the Quest 2’s rings, but the depth sensor may help to keep costs down by tracking the controller's position without requiring cameras like the Quest Pro’s controllers. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg actually said the Quest Pro would get a depth sensor in a Protocol interview, but the feature didn’t make it to the final version.

Gurman called the pass-through video “almost lifelike,” a good sign after my colleague Adi Robertson called AR mode “murky in low light, washed-out or flickery in bright light, and sometimes luridly saturated in between” in her review of the Quest Pro.

It sounds like improvements there come mainly down to how the headset’s cameras handle light and color, as Gurman didn’t think it looked noticeably sharper, despite rumors of a higher-resolution display.

Right to repair: all the latest news and updates

Right to repair: all the latest news and updates

Image: The Verge

The right-to-repair movement is picking up momentum across the US and the rest of the globe. Here’s the story so far.

Tech companies haven’t always made it easy for consumers to repair their products. Without the manuals, parts, and tools we need, there aren’t many options available, and lobbying paid for by many big companies has worked to keep it that way.

Thankfully, the right-to-repair movement has picked up momentum over the past couple of years, putting pressure on giants like Apple, Samsung, Google, and even John Deere to make it easier for both consumers and independent repair shops to repair their devices. While both Apple and Samsung now have self-repair programs that let customers fix their own devices, there’s still a long way to go to make them more widely applicable, available, and cheaper.

In a handful of US states, lawmakers have signed right-to-repair laws pressing companies to improve the repairability of their products. New York passed a right-to-repair law last year, but it went into effect with amendments that introduced OEM-friendly loopholes. Meanwhile, other states, including Minnesota and Colorado, have been more successful recently in passing right-to-repair laws of their own.

You can catch up on all the latest right-to-repair developments in the stream below.

LG’s 48-inch 4K OLED gaming monitor is over $600 off right now

LG’s 48-inch 4K OLED gaming monitor is over $600 off right now

LG 48GQ900 48-inch OLED gaming monitor | Image: LG

The 48-inch LG UltraGear 48GQ900 is on sale at Amazon for an incredible 43 percent off from its typical $1,499.99 price right now, putting it at $852.14 before taxes for Amazon Prime members (or $896.99 for those without Prime), for nearly its lowest price ever. If you’d rather go to the source (or just not Amazon), LG is selling it for $899.99, as is Newegg. This price is as good as it gets for this giant LG OLED gaming display.

If you take this deal, you can expect the usual inky blacks that make OLEDs the contrast champs of the display world, and its 4K resolution will mean a nice, sharp picture spanning its flat panel. Its 120Hz refresh rate can be overdriven to 138Hz, with support for variable refresh rate (VRR), plus stamps for being Nvidia G-Sync compatible and AMD FreeSync Premium. It comes with a nice assortment of ports, too: a DisplayPort port, three HDMI 2.1 ports, two USB 3.2 Gen 1 type A ports, a USB-B upstream port, optical audio out, and a 3.5mm audio jack.

When our own Sean Hollister wrote about this display last year on The Verge, drawing on his experience using the LG C1 as a monitor, he wondered if it has the same aggressive dimming that made the C1 unideal for normal web browsing or office work. Well, the good news is, according to testing at RTings, it doesn’t. The bad news is, it’s because the display’s SDR brightness almost never rises high enough to trigger LG’s Automatic Brightness Limiter, leaving it at a ho-hum 193 cd/m². Still, the outlet gave it high marks for gaming, owing at least in part to its solid HDR performance.

If you insist on repurposing a big ol’ OLED television for office work, there is the 42-inch LG C2, which is just a little smaller, brighter, and is priced the same as the non-Prime member price for the UltraGear at $897. For that price, you’ll get a similar display while losing features like DisplayPort and the ability to overdrive the refresh rate, and of course, you may want to come up with some way to deal with the wide feet it sits on.

For some good tips on picking out the right monitor for working from home, be sure to check out The Verge’s guide.

There’s no telling how long this sale will last, but historically it hasn’t been long, so it may be worth jumping on.

The odd appeal of absurdly long YouTube videos that don’t play anything

The odd appeal of absurdly long YouTube videos that don’t play anything

I swear, this is a screenshot of an actual YouTube video. | Image: David Pierce

The video’s title is, for once on YouTube, pretty straightforward: “24 hours + of pure black screen in HD!” Leaving aside the questions about the difference between standard- and high-def pure black screens, the video does what it says on the tin. Hit play, and you get more than 24 hours — 24 hours, one minute, 27 seconds, to be exact — of black screen and silence. It’s like turning off your computer, without turning off your computer.

This video has 40.2 million views.

The first time I watched it, I assumed there was a joke or a Rick Roll or something in there somewhere and watched an upsettingly long time to find it. Nothing. So I figured it was a bit. Fun meta-commentary about the drivel people choose to watch! Most commenters seemed to agree and were goofing on the concept. “How is this not in theaters?” commenter Orbital wrote. “The story, the characters, the acting is a masterpiece! especially at 1:23:53, where dark acted as the void, is just so beautiful.” Uinthlees YT called it “a complete masterpiece” with “many wonderful, heart-touching moments.” And Buzzcut Boy wrote that they watch it every night before they go to bed: “i have watched this video so much that i even see it when i close my eyes like my eye lids are a little screen playing this master peice.”

But now, after spending too many hours watching too-long videos just like “24 hours + of pure black screen in HD!” I think I’ve discovered their true purpose. Not only are they not a joke but they’re also some of the most useful and user-friendly things on YouTube.

The ultra-long video is a longtime staple of YouTube, of course. The first one I remember watching was 10 hours of goats bleating the chorus to Taylor Swift’s “I Knew You Were Trouble,” but I think my all-time favorite is when Nathan Graham from the gaming channel Unspeakable uploaded a video called “PLAYING MINECRAFT FOR 24 HOURS STRAIGHT!” which turned out to be a few minutes of gaming and about 23 hours of looped footage of Graham sleeping. The upshot: 14 million views. It’s a good joke.

There are more useful genres of mega-long YouTube, too. You can get 24 hours of a roaring fire, which is good background viewing in the winter. There’s an astonishing amount of content directed at dogs, which mostly amounts to 20-plus hours of soothing music and nature shots. (The “most replayed” bit of one such video is a sweeping overhead shot of a lush island, down to the beach, and I like imagining my dogs just scrubbing back to that bit over and over to soak in the island vibes.) There’s also plenty of super-long Cat TV, too, but that seems less popular. I found one that’s just 20 hours of a seal spinning around in the water, titled “No need to be Upset 20 HOURS LONG!!” It has 644,000 views, several of which are now me.

The most sensible long videos are the music ones. Twenty hours of spa music, 12 hours of jazz, 14 hours of loungey covers of popular hits. I’ve come to like these even better than the always-streaming channels like Lofi Girl because they’re so predictable — I’ve played a 24-hour video called “Starbucks Jazz Music Collection 2021 - 24 Hours Smooth Jazz for Studying, Work, Relax, Sleep” so many times that my brain knows its ebbs and flows, and it barely even registers as I go about my day.

And yet, I still can’t explain why “24 hours + of pure black screen in HD!” is such a huge hit. Its channel’s owner, a guy named Noah who calls himself “Black Screen Guy,” has picked up 65,000 subscribers and more than 150 million views on videos just like it. The even longer “44 hours of pure black screen in HD!” has 5.4 million views. Thirty-five hours, 2.2 million views. Thirty-two hours, 2.4 million. The channel’s most surprising success story? “24 hours of pure white screen!” is exactly what it sounds like and has 44 million views. Which is a lot more than the 7.2 million on “a red screen for 24 hours!”

In this case, it turns out, the outrageous length is the whole appeal. Across all these videos and many other silent blank ones, every viewer seems to have their own use case. The most common, by far, is to use these videos as a way to simply keep your device on. “I keep this playing overnight so that my laptop doesn’t shutdown while downloading games,” one commenter wrote. “I have to keep this open on my phone because it’s broken and will not turn back on if it turns off,” another said.

There are also a surprisingly large number of times when you might want your device on but the screen off. “I use this so I can have music open on another tab at night and have this open so the screen with the music on it wont shine so bright in my room,” one commenter wrote on a two-day-long video of a blank black screen. “I use this every night, put on a podcast and q this to come on next,” said another. “Unironically useful for avoiding screen burn in,” another wrote. “Big thanks <3.”

In the description of one video, a 10-hour saga of pure black screen, the Black Screen Guy himself suggested even more possibilities. You can use a black screen to check your computer’s backlight or look for dead pixels; to trick your parents into thinking the computer’s off so you can play games without having to reenter the password; to track time by how long the video’s been playing; to clean your screen without turning off the computer; and so much more. A black screen does wonders, apparently, especially when it doesn’t involve turning anything off.

My immediate reaction to this was, well, confusion. Just turn off your screen! You can change the settings on a Mac or a PC to turn off your display without putting your computer to sleep, and smartphones and tablets have plenty of ways to play audio in the background even with the display off.

But you know what’s actually easier than tweaking a bunch of settings, especially for younger users accustomed to finding everything they need on YouTube? Just playing a video. One commenter on a blank-screen video called it “the perfect video to cast to your tv when you’re too tired to get up and turn it off,” which seems both ridiculous — if you can cast from your phone to your TV, you can probably use your phone to turn off your TV! — and telling. A blank-screen video is both a stupid solution and a strangely elegant one.

In a way, I’ve come to see “24 hours + of pure black screen in HD!” as a perfect microcosm of YouTube. YouTube is part entertainment platform, part information library… and part tools repository. It can soundtrack your day, teach you how to beat any game or solve any problem, keep your pets entertained while you’re gone, or transport you to just about any place on earth. A blank screen video is a productivity tool, plain and simple.

I even understand now why a seven-day-long video, which is just a timer counting down 168 hours, has 3.7 million views. One commenter summed it up thusly, “This is the timer you need when you need to stay active on your computer while working from home. No one will notice you were gone because this video keeps playing.” As long as the computer’s awake, I can be wherever I want.

Apple’s $50 million butterfly keyboard settlement is finally approved

Apple’s $50 million butterfly keyboard settlement is finally approved

People who owned MacBooks with butterfly keyboards will now get paid. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

The $50 million settlement over Apple’s bad butterfly keyboard design got final approval by a federal court judge in California, Reuters reported yesterday.

US District Court Judge Edward Davila denied an attempt to amend the agreement, writing in his ruling that 86,000 people filed claims. That finally puts a figure on the number of people affected who will get compensation for repairs they’d paid for. Or at least the number who heard about the lawsuit and followed it to the settlement agreement that was reached last July.

The original suit came about because Apple laptops from 2015 to 2019 had a new keyboard design that just didn’t hold up under normal use; crumbs and dirt, or even just accumulated dust, could cause keys to fail or stick. Casey Johnston famously wrote in The Outline that “The new MacBook keyboard is ruining my life.”

Despite Apple’s repeated attempts to iterate on the keyboard, the problem didn’t go away until it released the 16-inch M1 MacBook Pro in 2019, which took things back to the “scissor switch” design that also ships in the Magic Keyboard for Apple desktops. The design was fully phased out of its products a few months later when Apple released a redesigned 13-inch MacBook Pro. Apple’s settlement doesn’t include an admission of wrongdoing but will pay some people back up to $395 to cover their repair costs.

This final wrinkle in the saga involved six objectors who offered arguments saying the settlement wasn’t fair to MacBook owners who’d never repaired their failed keyboards (and therefore don’t get any cash) or that the $125 offered to those who’d only had to pay for one replacement wasn’t enough to cover the cost of repairs. But Davila denied their objections, saying that just wanting more money isn’t enough to deny the settlement’s approval.

In short, anyone who filed a verifiable claim for keyboard money by the March deadline will be getting their money soon.

Apple’s entry-level MacBook Air is down to its all-time low at Amazon

Apple’s entry-level MacBook Air is down to its all-time low at Amazon

Apple’s entry-level MacBook Air is an easy rec at $799.99 thanks to its speedy performance and long-lasting battery life. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

Happy Saturday, readers! Apple’s upcoming Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) is now less than two weeks away. The company is largely expected to introduce its mixed reality headset — ending what feels like a decade of rumors — along with a new 15-inch MacBook Air. However, if you’re looking for a 13-inch machine that packs plenty of value, Apple’s base MacBook Air from 2020 is matching its all-time low of $799.99 ($200 off) at Amazon and Best Buy.

Despite its age, Apple’s M1-equipped remains one of our go-to recs for anyone who can’t afford the newest MacBook Air but wants something lightweight and relatively fast. We once heralded it as one of the best laptops you could get, namely due to its long-lasting battery life, solid keyboard, and the strength of Apple’s M1 silicon, which continues to hold up even if the last-gen Air can’t quite compete with newer models. It’s not a budget buy, per se, but if you want an everyday machine for work and entertainment, you’d be hard-pressed to find one that offers more value for the money.

Read our M1 MacBook Air review.

Streaming devices might not literally be a dime a dozen, but, suffice it to say, there are a lot of fantastic options to consider when you’re on the hunt for your next streamer. Most of them aren’t anywhere near as versatile as Amazon’s third-gen Fire TV Cube, though, which has hit an all-time low of $119.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Target.

At its core, the latest Fire TV Cube is a streaming device that also pulls double duty as a smart speaker thanks to an array of beam-forming mics. Much like the Fire TV Stick 4K Max, it supports Wi-Fi 6E and 4K streaming in all the popular HDR formats (including Dolby Vision), yet it also touts faster performance and support for hands-free voice commands, which are now far more capable than they were just a few years ago. Now, pair the aforementioned specs with the speaker’s built-in HDMI input and attractive, fabric-adorned and you have a streaming device that’s a real step up from Amazon’s budget offerings.

Read our Amazon Fire TV Cube (third-gen) review.

Peacock may have dropped its free membership tier in February, but there are still ways to save on the streaming service if you know where to look. Now until June 12th, for example, new and returning subscribers can grab a year of Peacock Premium for $19.99 ($30 off) when they use promo code SUMMEROFPEACOCK.

If you’re curious as to how Peacock’s two subscription plans differ, well, there isn’t much to know. The ad-supported Premium plan gives you access to all of the same movies and TV shows as the higher tier — meaning you can still use it to burn through Cocaine Bear, Rian Johnson’s oh-so-excellent Poker Face, and whatever the hell Vandepump Rules is — along with select sporting events and news. You won’t get as much live programming or the ability to download content for offline viewing, but, hey, it’s also less than $2 a month.

A few more deals for your Memorial Day weekend

• Anker’s MagSafe-ready 622 Magnetic Battery is still on sale at Amazon for $39.99 ($30 off) when you clip the on-page coupon for an additional $10 off. Anker is offering the same discount through May 28th with promo code WSCPJQTUSS, making now a good time to pick up the 7.5W magnetic charger. Read our magnetic charger buying guide.
• The AirPods Max, Apple’s luxe on-ear headphones, have returned to $449.99 — about $100 off and their second-best price to date — at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart. The wireless headphones certainly aren’t cheap, though they do showcase phenomenal build quality, great noise cancellation, and the kind of simplicity for which Apple has become known. Now, if only the included carrying case wasn’t such a travesty. Read our review.
• The Razer Huntsman Mini is currently on sale at Amazon with clicky optical switches for $69.60 (about $50 off). Although the wired 60 percent board is one of Razer’s smallest, it still features programmable macros and RGB backlighting, which you can customize with Razer’s Synapse software.
• We aren’t going to wax too poetic regarding Vizio’s M512a-H6, but if you’re looking for a powerful soundbar with up-firing speakers and support for Dolby Atmos surround sound, you can pick it up on Amazon with a 6-inch sub and two rear speakers for $374.43 (about $126 off). Read our soundbar buying guide.
• The fifth-gen Echo Dot is still down to $39.99 ($10 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. It remains to be seen how the latest Dot compares to Amazon’s newest Alexa speaker, the Echo Pop, but we do know the Dot retains some hardware advantages over the latter. This includes a temperature sensor and an option for an LED clock, one that can display the time, weather, song titles, and other helpful tidbits of information. Read our review.