Roku could be setting its sights on the smart home
A pile of unannounced Roku-branded light strips spotted by a Redditor. | Image: u/Negative_Source_7316 / Reddit
The unannounced lineup reportedly consists of both white and color smart bulbs, a smart light strip, a smart plug, and indoor and outdoor internet-connected security cameras. Roku also appears to be planning to launch a dedicated Roku Smart Home channel, which will presumably let users control the devices from smart TVs and streaming boxes running the company’s operating system.
As ZatzNotFunny and several Reddit commenters have pointed out, Roku appears to be leaning on smart home company Wyze to actually manufacture this hardware before slapping Roku branding onto the boxes.
Although it’s best known for inexpensive streaming boxes, Roku has been expanding its hardware offerings in recent years with soundbars, speakers, and even a subwoofer. It’s also partnered with multiple TVmanufacturers to ship televisions with its streaming platform built in. But historically Roku’s hardware has at least been tangentially related to television watching, usually by improving sound quality.
There’s no word on pricing or release dates for any of these products. But given a Redditor was able to snap a photo of an entire stack of retail boxes, we suspect an official announcement might not be too far away.
Gig Workers Are Learning Their Worth With the Para App A former Uber employee created an app to help drivers. The platforms that hire them are fighting back.
A Victorian woman accused of theft over a $10.5m mistaken cryptocurrency refund has been released on bail as she awaits trial, despite claims she allegedly tried to flee the country.
Thevamanogari Manivel and her partner, Jatinder Singh, appeared by video link from prison in Melbourne magistrates court on Tuesday when they were committed to stand trial on theft and other charges.
Back in April this year, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk signed a $44bn (£40bn) takeover agreement for Twitter. But, in July, the world’s richest man said he was walking away from the controversial deal, arguing Twitter has more spam accounts than it claims. Then, last week, Musk offered to complete the acquisition in a dramatic U-turn. So what might happen next?
Ian Sample talks to the Guardian’s global technology editor, Dan Milmo, about why Musk wants to own the social media platform, hears about the twists and turns of the saga so far, and finds out if the takeover is ever likely to happen
Archive: Fox News, NBC News, Yahoo Finance, MSNBC, Financial Times, BBC News
Adult online age used by third of eight- to 17-year-old social media users
Ofcom study covers Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube, all of which have age limits of 13
A third of social media users aged between eight and 17 have the online age of an adult because they sign up with a false date of birth, according to new research.
The fake age issue means that young users in the UK are at greater risk of being exposed to harmful or adult content, as platforms presume they are older than they in fact are.
Top robot companies pledge not to add weapons to their tech to avoid harm risk
Leading robotics firms promise not to add weapons to general use technology and said they would oppose others doing so
Several robot production companies have pledged not to support the weaponization of their general purpose robots and have encouraged other companies to follow suit.
In an open letter, six leading robotics firms promised not to add weapons to their general use technology and said they would oppose others doing so.
Judge halts Elon Musk-Twitter litigation to allow time to finance $44bn takeover
If the deal does not close by 28 October, a November trial will be scheduled
A Delaware judge has postponed the Twitter v Elon Musk trial in order to give the Tesla chief executive time to complete his proposed $44bn takeover of the social media platform.
The litigation was halted until 28 October to allow both parties to close the transaction, after Musk said he needed time to put together the funds for the deal. Judge Kathaleen McCormick said if the deal did not close by her deadline the parties were to contact her to schedule a November trial.
CNN accused of rug pull as it abandons its NFT project
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
On Monday afternoon, as pointed out by Parker Molloy, CNN ended its big Web3 project by announcing, “we have decided that it’s time to say goodbye to the Vault by CNN.”
You may have already forgotten about it, but Vault by CNN launched in the summer of 2021 as a marketplace for its own NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that would “offer collectors the opportunity to own a piece of history.” Sort of like NBA Top Shot except for media nerds instead of basketball nerds, it minted CNN reports of key events or artistic interpretations inspired by them, creating digital collectibles that owners could show off somehow or trade with others, like baseball cards. This idea apparently seemed more reasonable while cryptocurrency prices were sky-high, and headlines about NFTs didn’t include phrases like “trading volumes collapse 97 percent since January peak.”
Things have obviously changed as the “crypto winter” settled in, although an April report by the Press Gazette said CNN had pulled in more than $300,000 from the sales.
In a Discord channel for the service, another message informed owners that while the Vault website will “undergo changes,” it will remain available for them to view their collections and use its marketplace. Reactions from the community included shock, disappointment, and a few posters saying they planned to contact their lawyers while accusing CNN of a “rug pull,” which in crypto terms applies when a development team unexpectedly yanks support — and funds — from a project, leaving the people who bought in with nothing.
In the Discord, CNN said it plans to compensate “the thousands of collectors who joined us in this experiment” with distributions based on the purchase price of each wallet’s NFTs as captured on October 6th. In a separate message from CNN, staffer “Jason” said, “The distribution will be either FLOW tokens or stablecoins deposited into each collector’s wallet. We are currently working out the details, but expect the distribution amount to be roughly 20% of the original mint price for each Vault NFT owned.” He also noted that the actual media for the NFTs is stored in IPFS, a distributed file system that should mean they’ll continue to be available even if CNN’s website goes away.
So far, that doesn’t appear to be enough to put collectors at ease after they expected that tokens published by an established brand like CNN would experience more support than many shadier NFT projects. As one message in the channel put it, “you can’t simply say goodbye but your NFTs are still ok and now more rare... without a community (discord at least) and no utility... it’s not an NFT anymore but a mere digital copy...”
Image: Discord
Discord messages from Vault by CNN collectors expressing disappointment with its sudden shutdown.
Another member pointed out one hitch resulting from the Vault relying on the Flow blockchain, the same Dapper Labs-made system that underpins NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day. Flow’s support documents mention that it allows withdrawals in the USDC stablecoin that’s pegged to the value of the US dollar at a minimum of $10 per transaction with a $4 processing fee. The cheapest NFTs on CNN’s marketplace are listed for $19 — if someone owns one of those, their rebate would be around $4, or even less, leaving them with no return if they could withdraw it.
I spoke to one individual who shared their wallet address and estimated they’d purchased as much as $11,000 worth of CNN tokens from its marketplace. Without ongoing support and after a 20 percent rebate, they have little reason to believe the collection’s value will remain close to that level.
Additionally, as recently as last month, CNN was still pushing community members to buy more tokens so they could have enough to access events like an upcoming Art of Voting NFT Series scheduled to drop on midterm election day, November 8th. Collectors would need to own at least one NFT from a particular set to get a key to access the Art of Voting set and other unspecified “exclusive benefits.” Documentation for Vault by CNN included a section describing the fabled “utility,” listing Exclusive CNN Perks and Exclusive CNN Vault Merch as “coming soon.” A roadmap of promised features even indicated that later this year, people would be able to mint any CNN article as an NFT if they wanted to for some reason.
According to the Vault marketplace website — which does not include a note about the shutdown — the most recent transaction prior to the announcement occurred five days ago, on October 5th, when someone bought a “CNN Defining Moments” token commemorating Nelson Mandela’s release from prison for $77.
The Discord message also informed holders of CNN’s plan to “burn” unsold NFTs, which it says will make the ones they hold rarer, and thanked collectors for joining the “experiment.” Until today’s message about the Vault’s shutdown, we could not find any reference to the project as an “experiment” within CNN’s extensive tweets, Discord broadcasts, and press materials. In an email, CNN publicist Garrett Cowan tells The Verge that the six-week experiment mentioned in the message was an internal test leading up to the June 2021 public launch.
Image: CNN
Vault by CNN logo
CNN is just one of many notable brands and personalities who launched NFTs during their so-called “bull run” over the last couple of years but failed to pay off community expectations.
Athletes are a visible example, with NBA star De’Aaron Fox accused of a rug pull after his Swipathefox project collected $1.5 million and shut down without delivering the promised benefits, or the Player’s Only NFT effort promoted by athletes like Michael Carter-Williams and Jerami Grant, which pulled in $1.4 million but struggled to deliver promised rewards.
League efforts aren’t doing much better: prices and activity on NBA Top Shot have fallen sharply from their peaks, it’s unclear how NFL All Day is doing because I’ve never seen anyone talk about it, and while the NHL announced plans to launch an NFT marketplace in July, it hasn’t actually done it or shared any details on the project ever since. Just a few days ago, Lucky Trader reported that the UFC Strike NFT marketplace that also runs on Flow paused pack drops and credited recent buyers with partial refunds after a user apparently exploited several recent drops to obtain rare items.
Elsewhere in media, the Associated Press courted controversy by launching an NFT marketplace just as prices peaked in January with the stated intention of using proceeds to fund journalistic efforts. Now, the AP NFT marketplace shows little to no activity on many recent drops, and a link on the page pointing to the project’s Discord doesn’t work.
The Verge Guide to Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Amazon Prime Day is no longer a once-per-year shopping event. This year, the company is hosting a second deal extravaganza for Prime members called the Prime Early Access Sale, which kicks off tomorrow, October 11th, and runs through Wednesday, October 12th. If it’s anything like the two-day shopping blitz that is Prime Day, it’ll be filled with some of the lowest prices we’ve seen on 4K TVs, Amazon Echo devices, noise-canceling headphones, gaming accessories, laptops, and more. We also expect to see competing deals at retailers like Target, Best Buy, and Walmart, all of which we’ll cover during the 48-hour window.
Like we’ve done in the past with Prime Day, we’ll be rounding up all of the details regarding Amazon’s fall sales event here, including our ongoing news coverage and our definitive post on the best deals happening at Amazon. We’ll also be highlighting a slew of useful how-to guides, so you’ll be in the know regarding how to get the best deals and price-match sales at other retailers.
Whether you were expecting Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale or not, it looks to be a great opportunity to get the jump on your holiday shopping — after all, no one wants to be forced to do all of their shopping during Black Friday and Cyber Monday if they can help it. November 25th should be for sleeping in, not shopping.
Will this be the deal that breaks Elon Musk? Let's talk about the good and bad with this Musk/Twitter deal. On one hand, it could save Twitter. However, it's more likely to begin a cascading failure across all of Musk's firms. The post Killing Twitter, With Tesla as Collateral Damage appeared first on TechNewsWorld.
Upcoming Call of Duty has annoying phone number verification requirement
Modern Warfare II releases October 28th. | Image: Activision Blizzard
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II will require players to register with a phone number on Battle.net to play the game, in order to make players responsible for their actions. The game is set for release later this month on October 28th.
It’s a repeat of the practice that caused issues for Overwatch 2 players last week, PCGamer reports. A Battle.net support page lists the upcoming CoD shooter as one of its three games that “require that you add a phone number to your Battle.net account” to play, alongside Overwatch 2 and 2019’s Modern Warfare.
The phone verification system, which Activision Blizzard calls SMS Protect, is meant to cut down on toxic behavior from players, preventing them from creating endless new accounts to evade bans or to cheat. “Limiting the number of free accounts that a single person can create helps keep players accountable for their actions and, in turn, reduces toxicity and cheating and ensures a positive community experience for all players,” Activision Blizzard’s support page reads.
The problem is that SMS Protect is designed for text-enabled mobile phones, and doesn’t treat all phone numbers equally. A separate Battle.net support page notes that “mobile phones with prepaid plans may not work with the phone notification service.” It also doesn’t work with VoIP numbers. That restricts the service to players with postpaid cellular plans, which may not be affordable or easily accessible to many players around the world.
One Modern Warfare II beta player told PCGamer last month that they were asked for a “postpaid phone number” to start the game, with Battle.net refusing to accept the number associated with their prepaid Cricket Wireless plan. “This seems very wrong to require video game players to enter into a contract with a telecom company before being allowed to play the game they paid for,” they said.
Requiring players to provide a phone number isn’t new (Dota 2 and Rainbow Six Siege both require them for ranked play) but there haven’t been widespread reports of problems with prepaid phone plans with these previous implementations. One player we spoke to was blocked from playing Overwatch 2 when they entered the same number they’d used to successfully play Dota 2 for years.
It’s unclear whether Activision Blizzard’s phone number requirements will apply equally for Modern Warfare II players across both Battle.net and Steam, given the game is available across both PC digital stores. Some commenters on Reddit report being asked for a phone number when trying to play the beta through Steam, while others said they were not. Overwatch 2 is currently only available via Battle.net.
In the case of Overwatch 2, Activision Blizzard has said that it’s relaxing its SMS Protect requirements for anyone who played the original Overwatch and has a connected Battle.net account. It’s unclear if there’ll be similar allowances made for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II players. A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment.
How expanding web of license plate readers could be ‘weaponized’ against abortion
Activists fear Flock, whose tech reads license plates, might endanger women seeking abortions
Flock Safety, a rapidly expanding company that sells license plate readers to police and neighborhoods across the US, has an ambitious mission: to eliminate crime.
Since being founded in 2017, Flock says it has contracted with more than 1,200 law enforcement partners in more than 40 states. It provides its services to more than 2,000 neighborhoods, and is expanding the products it offers beyond license plate readers to include a gunshot detection system.
iPhone 14 review: familiar design but now easier to repair
Same performance and battery of predecessors with better camera and significant changes on the inside
On the surface, the iPhone 14 looks like a very minor upgrade. But a redesigned inside makes it easier and cheaper to repair, marking a major shift in the right direction for Apple.
Weak currency rates against the dollar mean the new iPhone is £70 (A$50) more expensive than its predecessor, priced at £849 (A$1,399) despite costing the same $799 in the US. It is an unfortunately familiar story for all of Apple’s current products, and likely others to be released this year.
Screen: 6.1in Super Retina XDR (OLED) (460ppi)
Processor: Apple A15 Bionic
RAM: 6GB
Storage: 128, 256 or 512GB
Operating system: iOS 16
Camera: dual 12MP rear with OIS, 12MP front-facing camera
Connectivity: 5G, wifi 6, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, Lightning, UWB and GNSS
A Minecraft Player Set Out to Build the Known Universe, Block by Block Christopher Slayton, 18, spent two months intricately designing the planets. He even went skydiving to get a better appreciation for Earth.
Todd Sampson’s documentary about how the internet is a giant, unregulated psychological experiment that is changing us is not alarmist, it’s just reality, the former advertising executive says.
In his two-part film, Mirror Mirror: Love & Hate, Sampson shows us first hand the mind-altering power of technology; a technology so intoxicating children choose the online world over the real world and a grown man falls in love with a customised chatbot.
Twitter locks Kanye West out of his account following anti-Semitic post
Ye’s Twitter account is locked after he violated that platform’s policies. | Photo by Edward Berthelot/GC Images
Twitter confirmed that it locked Kanye West, who now goes by “Ye,” out of his account after he posted an anti-Semitic tweet on Saturday (via BuzzFeed News). “The account in question has been locked due to a violation of Twitter’s policies,” Twitter spokesperson Katie Rosborough said in a statement to The Verge.
Twitter has since removed Ye’s tweet, but several users screenshotted the post before Twitter took it down. “I’m a bit sleepy tonight but when I wake up I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE,” Ye wrote. “The funny thing is I actually can’t be Anti Semitic because black people are actually Jew also You guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone whoever opposes your agenda.”
On Friday, Ye posted a screenshot on Instagram showing a text message between him and rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs, accusing Diddy of being controlled by Jewish people. This garnered a response from the American Jewish Committee (AJC), which slammed Ye for espousing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
It’s unclear how long Ye won’t have access to his Twitter account, as the platform’s rules say it could place a user’s profile in “read-only mode” for anywhere from 12 hours to seven days depending on the violation. This means that Ye can’t tweet, retweet, or like any posts until the lockout lifts, but other users can still interact with his content.
The iPhone 14 keeps calling 911 on rollercoasters
Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
The iPhone 14’s new Crash Detection feature, which is supposed to alert authorities when it detects you’ve been in a car accident, has an unexpected side effect: it dials 911 on rollercoasters. According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the feature has had law enforcement sent to amusement parks on numerous occasions after mistaking a thrill ride’s twists, turns, and hard braking for a real emergency.
Apple rolled out Crash Detection with its new iPhone 14, Watch Series 8, SE, and Ultra last month, equipping the devices with a gyroscopic sensor and high-g accelerometer trained on the impact experienced with simulated car crashes. If the sensors detect that you’ve been in an accident, your iPhone will display an alert and call emergency services if you don’t dismiss it within 20 seconds.
Since the iPhone 14 went on sale, the 911 dispatch center near Kings Island amusement park has received at least six phones calls saying:
“The owner of this iPhone was in a severe car crash...”
When it calls law enforcement, it will play an audio message that alerts authorities you’ve been in a crash, and also provides them with your location. (An Apple Watch with Crash Detection can only notify authorities if you have your iPhone with you, or if it’s connected to a mobile network or Wi-Fi.)
Well, that’s exactly what several users’ Apple devices did, but at the wrong time. In a tweet, WSJ reporter Joanna Stern shares an example of one of the 911 calls placed while an iPhone 14’s owner was strapped to a rollercoaster at Cinninatti’s Kings Island amusement park. As the automated message plays, you can hear muffled screams in the background as the rollercoaster runs its course.
Stern says Warren County, where Kings Island is located, received six emergency calls triggered by park rides since the iPhone 14’s release. She also points out that other users have experienced similar issues in amusement parks across the country. Bringing smartphones on rides isn’t really a smart idea to begin with, but the risk of false 911 calls might be all the more reason to leave the iPhone 14 (and other devices) behind before getting in that bumper car.
Apple could bring USB-C to AirPods and Mac accessories by 2024
The second-gen AirPods Pro charging case. | Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
Apple’s preparing to adopt USB-C charging across its line of AirPods and Mac accessories within the next couple of years, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The purported shift away from Lightning comes as the European Union looks to mandate USB-C charging on new smartphones, tablets, and headphones released in the region in late 2024. While the legislation still hasn’t yet been signed into law, it received approval from the European Parliament last week.
To comply with the upcoming rules, Gurman believes Apple might bring USB-C to the next-gen AirPods, AirPods Pro, and AirPods by 2024, while Mac accessories, including the Magic Mouse, Magic Keyboard, and Magic Trackpad could make the switch to USB-C as soon as next year. Apple’s due to refresh its Mac lineup with a new iMac and Mac Pro next year, and since the release of new Macs typically “coincides with accessory updates” Gurman says “it’s a safe bet that those accessories will move to USB-C in their next incarnation.” Gurman similarly believes Apple will swap over its AirPods before the EU’s legislation goes into effect.
Earlier this year, a report from Gurman suggested that Apple has already started testing USB-C charging on its iPhones, but that we shouldn’t expect them to land on devices until 2023 “at the earliest.” Gurman reiterates this belief in this most recent Power On newsletter, once again adding that he thinks Apple will add a USB-C charging port to the iPhone 15, as well as to the entry-level iPad expected to release by the end of this year.
As my colleague Jon Porter points out, Apple technically wouldn’t have to comply with the EU’s upcoming law until it releases the iPhone 17 in the fall of 2025, as there’s a two-year grace period that allows companies (namely, Apple) enough time to make the transition to USB-C. Despite this, Gurman thinks Apple will “handily beat the due date with its most visible products.”
Even if Apple does make the transition to using USB-C, Gurman expects its presence on Apple devices to be short-lived. Gurman believes that Apple will eventually bring inductive charging to the iPhone and iPad “at some point in the next few years” to get around the legislation, as it doesn’t apply to devices that don’t support wired charging.
The PC market needs another reinvention — is Microsoft’s Surface up for it again?
The future of PCs looks like the Surface Pro X, and Microsoft had better make it work. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge
It’s easy to forget now, but Microsoft’s first Surface was a huge risk. By diving into the PC market, Microsoft was competing with its Windows partners. By combining laptop and tablet, it was trying to create an entirely new device category. And by designing new software for Arm-powered Windows computers, it was betting that the mobile era would change the way laptops work and the way people use them.
Microsoft didn’t get it all right, and it took a couple of years for the Surface line to really hit its stride. But a decade in, you can’t argue with the results: the Surface worked. Not only did the whole “attach a keyboard to your tablet and now it’s a laptop” idea become commonplace around the industry, but Surface also became a big business for Microsoft. The Surface Studio is still one of the most ambitious desktop PCs ever made, and even the more straightforward Surface Laptop is a winner. The Surface Pro 8 is a bit expensive, but it’s one of the best Windows PCs you can buy.
Microsoft is set to announce a lineup of new Surface products this week as it celebrates the 10-year anniversary of the product. Rumors and leaks suggest we might see a new Surface Studio and a Surface Laptop 5 and Surface Pro 9 with some performance improvements. They’ll surely be nice devices and worthy competitors in the ever-crowded Windows market.
The timing of this event is both terrible and tantalizing for Microsoft. Terrible because the PC market is flagging hard after a huge pandemic boost — everybody bought new computers in 2020 and 2021, it seems, and so far isn’t looking for another upgrade). Tantalizing because the market is once again in need of a big new idea about how PCs are supposed to work. Microsoft reinvented them once; can it do it again?
In recent years, Microsoft has shown off a couple of devices that might fit the bill. In 2019, it made a big push into dual-screen and foldable devices with the Surface Pro X, Surface Neo, and Surface Duo. The Surface Neo died before it hit the market, while the Surface Duo has gotten steadily better over the last couple of years.
The Surface Pro X was that event’s most interesting announcement — an excellent next-generation PC, thinner and cooler and Arm-powered — but it just couldn’t escape its app compatibility and performance problems. Microsoft has been interested in these kinds of devices since at least the Courier days, though, and as foldable phones continue to improve and gain traction, we likely haven’t seen the last of Microsoft’s efforts here.
The other device Microsoft hasn’t quite figured out is the Surface Go, the smaller, lighter, and less expensive model in the lineup. The Go could, and maybe should, be Microsoft’s best answer to the iPad and Chromebook — an actually tablet-like tablet with all the extra productivity that comes with Windows. Even the third generation of Surface Go was crippled by its high price and bad battery life, though. Microsoft just hasn’t quite nailed the balance of performance, portability, and price.
Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge
The Surface Go has never quite been the accessible PC Microsoft needs.
For Microsoft to push the boundaries of the PC market again, it’s going to have to figure out how to make Arm-powered Windows computers work. It has to keep working on devices like the Pro X because that’s where the future is headed. The gap between phones and computers is collapsing, and people want laptops that boot faster, last longer, and work everywhere. Because Arm processors run more efficiently and interact with cellular connections, Arm-powered devices can come in all sorts of thinner, lighter, and more interesting shapes. But, of course, nobody cares unless those devices work. That means solving battery life problems, it means improving general Windows performance on these lower-powered chips, and, most of all, it means fixing app compatibility.
This is obviously not lost on Microsoft — it’s just that the company hasn’t done it very well. The company has been working on various “Windows on Arm” projects for years, even building a native Arm version of Visual Studio and the “Project Volterra” developer kit that developers can use to test their apps on Arm systems. Microsoft has also tried over and over to make a “lighter” version of Windows: first, it was Windows RT, then it was Windows 10X, but neither could succeed without a better app ecosystem.
Windows 11 brought some of those lightweight vibes to the overall operating system, and the most recent update to the OS improves the situation even further. The Windows Store continues to grow, too. You’d never confuse Windows with something like iPadOS or ChromeOS when it comes to simplicity and efficiency, but Microsoft is moving in the right direction here.
What the market needs from Microsoft — what it has needed for years — is a true flagship Arm device. The one that gets it right, that pairs performance and battery and makes it clear that the era of the ultra-mobile, ultra-functional PC is actually here. That’s what would push developers to make their apps work on those devices, manufacturers to actually invest in Arm devices, and users to rethink the way their laptops fit into their lives.
Whether the hardware, the software, or the chips are ready to make that leap is hard to say. But that’s where things are headed. And if Microsoft wants its second decade of Surface to be even bigger and more important than the first, that’s where it needs to go.
And if that device happened to have two screens or fold in some rad and new way? I wouldn’t complain about that, either.
DC Universe Infinite launches Ultra tier so you can read new comics sooner
Image: Ivan Reis / DC Comics
DC’s adding a new Ultra tier to its Universe Infinite comic book subscription service that lets you digitally read comics just one month after they hit store shelves (via Gizmodo). The new tier launches on Monday at an introductory price of $99 / year, but this price only lasts until November 28th and DC doesn't specify how much it will cost after that.
Currently, users have to wait six months after a new comic hits DC Universe Infinite. While the new tier could make the service more attractive to diehard comic book fans, it’s considerably more expensive than the $74.99 / year or $7.99 / month standard subscription option.
In addition to a shorter launch window, DC’s throwing in 5,000 exclusive titles from Vertigo, DC Black Label, and Collected Editions, bringing the total of available comics to over 32,000 for Ultra subscribers. Anyone upgrading to the new tier will also get a chance to receive one free physical comic book, starting with The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition, which features an exclusive cover designed by Ivan Reis.
Adding the new Ultra tier could help the DC Universe Infinite compete with Marvel Unlimited, which cut its digital release window to three months in 2020. It also introduced a $99 / year Plus plan last year that comes with exclusive merch, discounts on Disney’s online shop, and other perks, in addition to its standard $9.99 / month or $69 / year plans.
Persona 4 Golden and Persona 3 Portable hit modern consoles in January
Image: Atlus
The Persona 4Golden and Persona 3 Portable re-releases are scheduled to launch on January 19th, 2023, Persona developer Atlus announced on Twitter. The two JRPGs will arrive on the Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PS5 (via backward compatibility).
While Atlus didn’t set a release date for the two former titles at the time, it did confirm that Persona 5Royal is arriving on Xbox, Switch, PS5, and Switch on October 21st, marking the first time a Persona game’s coming to a non-PlayStation console.
Both Persona 3 Portable and Persona 4 Golden are remastered versions of their original counterparts, launching for the PSP in 2009 and PS Vita in 2012, respectively. Atlus released Persona 5 Royal in 2020, which we called “the definitive version of an already brilliant RPG” in our review. You can’t preorder either game on newer platforms right now, but Persona 5 Royal is currently available for preorder in both physical and digital copies.
You can get the Google Pixel Buds Pro for their lowest price ever at Wellbots
Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge
While everyone is distracted by the recent announcement of the Google Pixel 7 lineup and the Pixel Watch, Wellbots has quietly provided The Verge Deals with an exclusive discount on the charcoal, fog, and lemongrass colorways of the Google Pixel Buds Pro. Normally $199.99, you can grab a pair of the delicious-looking earbuds for just $159.99 when you use the code VERGE40 at checkout — the best price yet. The Pixel Buds Pro are a massive improvement over the standard Pixel Buds, thanks to their enhanced reliability, multipoint Bluetooth support, and improved battery life. While the mic quality could be better and it lacks support for lossless audio, the Pixel Buds Pro remain an excellent choice for noise-canceling earbuds at this price point. Read our review.
If you’re looking for a pair of earbuds that look a little less edible, you can also find Sony’s WF-1000XM4 earbuds on sale atAmazonfor $248 orTargetfor $249.99 instead of its usual $279.99. The XM4s are still one of our top-rated pairs of noise-canceling earbuds, thanks to their extensive battery life, detailed sound, and amazing noise cancellation qualities. Unfortunately, the Sony earbuds don’t support multipoint Bluetooth connectivity, which is becoming par for the course among wireless earbuds, nor are they the best option for voice calls. However, if you’re willing to look past some small pain points, the Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds are easily one of the best pairs of earbuds on the market. Read our review.
If you’re looking for some clinical-strength retail therapy, you can also find the follow-up to the excellent LG C1, the 55-inch LG C2, on sale atTargetandBest Buyfor $1,349.99 instead of its usual $1,799.99. Just like its predecessor, the C2 is an all-around excellent OLED TV, thanks to its slick aesthetic and compatibility with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomeKit. However, the robust suite of gaming features is really what sets the C2 apart from its peers. In addition to a 120Hz refresh rate, the C2 also supports AMD FreeSync Premium and Nvidia G-Sync for an ultra-smooth gaming experience. Just like the C1, the C2 also includes support for Dolby Vision, HDR10, and the webOS streaming platform, which connects you to all of your favorite services without the need for an external device like a Roku or FireTV Stick.
Okay, we know that Amazon’s Prime Early Access Sale is right around the corner, but if you just can’t wait, you can currently find some excellent deals on Amazon’s Fire tablets right now. The standard and Plus sized models of Amazon’s latest Fire HD 8 tablet are currently discounted to their lowest price ever at BestBuy and Amazon. The original price of the 32GB configuration of the standard Fire HD 8 tablet was $89.99, but both retailers have dropped the price to just $44.99, while the 32GB Fire HD 8 Plus has been discounted to $54.99 at Amazon and Best Buy (normally $109.99). The ad-free models of both tablets have also been discounted to $69.99.
The black colorway of the Beats Solo3 Wireless headphones is currently discounted to $99.99 at Amazon from the usual price of $199.95 — matching the best price we’ve seen for the tried and tested Apple-centric headphones. The integrated W1 wireless chip allows the Beats Solo 3 to pair seamlessly with Apple devices, but it’s worth noting that the headphones are compatible with Android devices as well. While the Beats Solo 3 lack the premium look and feel of more expensive headphones, they remain an excellent choice for anyone looking for a lightweight and comfortable pair of headphones with reliable performance. Read our review.
If you need to expand the storage of your PC but don’t want to go through the trouble of installing an M.2 SSD, you might want to check out the Seagate Firecuda 2TB external gaming SSD on sale at Amazon for $283.47 instead of its usual $499.99 — its lowest price to date. The Firecuda costs a bit more than a conventional M.2 SSD of the same size but still offers transfer speeds of up to 2000MB/s and can be hooked up easily using an available USB-C port.
The fitness tracker has industry-leading stress tracking, but pour one out for the future of Fitbit smartwatches
When I reviewed the Fitbit Sense two years ago, it was an ambitious smartwatch. Its successor, the Sense 2? Eh, not so much. It’s hyperbole to say the Sense 2 is a complete downgrade, but I don’t think you can truly call it a smartwatch, either. This, my friends, is what I’d call a premium fitness tracker — and if you view it from that lens, it’s a good one. But is it really $300 worth of fitness tracker, especially since the Pixel Watch is only $50 more, has nearly all the same health features, and is much smarter?
Before I get into why the Sense 2 isn’t a smartwatch, we need to set the stage. In 2020, the Sense was plenty smart. It had a novel stress-tracking electrodermal activity (EDA) sensor, FDA-cleared electrocardiogram (EKG) sensors, blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) sensors, temperature sensor, contactless payments, and the choice between Alexa and Google Assistant. It was a viable alternative to the Apple Watch Series 6 and the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 — even if it didn’t have cellular connectivity and its third-party app ecosystem was meh.
A lot can happen in two years. Since then, the Series 8 and Galaxy Watch 5 have caught up to the majority of the Sense 2’s health features while widening the gap in terms of smarts. There’s also now the Apple Watch Ultra and Galaxy Watch 5 Pro to contend with. The Sense 2’s main advantage is weeklong battery life, but that all but disappears if you enable the always-on display. In my testing, enabling the AOD meant three days on a single charge at most.
If you want weeklong battery life, you’re going to have to disable the always-on display.
And then there’s the Pixel Watch. It’s clear that Google, Fitbit’s parent company, sees that as the future of its wearable lineup. The Pixel Watch uses Fitbit’s platform for its health and fitness features; Fitbit CEO James Park even introduced the Pixel Watch at the Made by Google event. And it has all the features you’d expect from a smartwatch, including a voice assistant, emergency calling, and smart home control. If you read between the lines, it all feels like a death knell for the Fitbit as a smartwatch.
Fitbit spokesperson Jonathan Moll told The Verge that the Sense 2 was designed to “prioritize the most important features our users care about and use the most, including heart rate tracking, sleep tracking, and stress management.” It makes sense that Google would take steps to differentiate the Sense 2 from the Pixel Watch. There’s no reason for one company to have two competing smartwatch platforms, and it makes sense for Fitbit to to narrow its focus to fitness. But it feels like Google nerfed the Sense 2 a bit too much.
For example, you can’t use Google Assistant on the Sense 2. This is weird. On the original Sense and the Versa 3, you can pick between Alexa or Google Assistant. Now, your only option is Alexa. Fitbit spokesperson Jonathan Moll told me, “At this time there are no plans to deploy Google Assistant on Sense 2 or Versa 4. We look forward to bringing this feature to future devices.”
Regardless of whether you like digital assistants, their presence on smartwatches is a given these days. Sure, there’s Alexa — but that’s a whole other smart home ecosystem. Why wouldn’t you put Google Assistant on a Google smartwatch? The whole theme of the Made by Google event was that all these devices work together! If not, what’s the point exactly? I’m truly lost at the thought process here.
Previously available third-party apps like Starbucks and Spotify don’t seem to be an option anymore. At least, they weren’t listed as compatible with the Sense 2 when I tried to download them from the Fitbit App Gallery. Fitbit’s third-party ecosystem was already paltry, so this is yet another baffling decision.
The addition of Google Maps and Google Wallet takes some of the sting out. Except, I can’t tell you how well either app works because they’re not available yet. It’s not unheard of for companies to launch features after a product hits shelves. But when you combine this with Google taking away previous third-party apps, it sure is a head-scratcher.
The Sense 2 has a combination Bluetooth / Wi-Fi radio, as did the Sense, but the Wi-Fi is deactivated, per Fitbit’s official spec sheet. Moll told The Verge, “Historically, Wi-Fi was used for updating firmware and music storage. Sense 2 and Versa 4 now use Bluetooth to update firmware, and do not have music storage capabilities.” Add offline music — which the Sense supported for Deezer and Pandora — to the casualty list.
The UI is very similar to what you’ll find on the Pixel Watch. But Google Assistant is missing this time.
All this is odd. The Sense 2’s redesigned UI certainly makes you feel like it’s meant to be a smartwatch. The refreshed design is spiffier than previous versions of Fitbit OS. It looks exactly the same as Wear OS on the Pixel Watch. For example, swiping left and right will let you view widgets. Pressing the button brings up an app list. Swiping up brings up notifications, and swiping down gets you to the quick menu. It’s a great improvement, performance doesn’t lag, and everything looks much nicer as well.
Despite its UI, the Sense 2 isn’t really a smartwatch by 2022 standards. It’s a fitness tracker masquerading as one.
A refined yet comfy redesign
The Sense 2’s software feels like it’s been deliberately limited — or focused, if you prefer — but the physical hardware has been improved all around. You can tell Fitbit’s put a lot of effort into streamlining the design so that it’s more comfortable for everyday wear.
The Sense 2 is lighter than its predecessor, though you may not notice the change in weight. I didn’t when I compared them one after another. I did, however, notice the Sense 2 is much thinner. The Sense had this tapered, trapezoidal shape on the side where the sensor bump dug into your skin. It was a means of masking the thickness when actually on your wrist. The Sense 2 doesn’t need to do that. And as far as numbers go, the Sense 2 is 11.2mm thick, while the Sense is 12.4mm. The difference in thickness is roughly that of a penny.
It was refreshing to wear such a lightweight device after testing the Apple Watch Ultra. It didn’t catch on any sleeves or jacket cuffs, even when I was wearing several layers while hiking. It was also comfy for sleep tracking and all-day wear. I hardly noticed it while running or working out, which is a nice change of pace from the chonkers I’ve been testing as of late.
The new design also means completely different sensor arrays — both on the bottom of the watch and in the display. Where the Sense had a metal top ring for EKG and EDA readings, the Sense 2 builds that capability directly into the display’s bezels. The result is it looks even more like the Apple Watch. And while I wish those bezels were thinner, I’m glad Fitbit is making use of the “wasted” space.
The Sense 2 (top) is thinner and lighter than its predecessor, and it has a physical button where the Sense had an awful inductive groove.
But the best change is that Fitbit replaced the Sense’s infuriating inductive groove with an actual physical button. That groove was a confounding design choice. Not only was it prone to accidental presses, but the haptics also weren’t strong enough if you were trying to use the long-press shortcut. I often sat there pressing, confused why my shortcut wasn’t launching. I eventually got the hang of it, but peruse any Fitbit forum or subreddit, and you’ll find plenty of frustrated users.
I had none of these issues with the physical button. Plus, it’s so much more satisfying to press something and know it’s registered. The button, while raised, doesn’t protrude too far. I haven’t experienced any accidental presses so far — even while wearing multiple layers and a winter coat.
A thoughtful tool for stress management
Fitbit clearly put a lot of effort into stress tracking. With the Sense 2, Fitbit’s made some meaningful improvements to the lineup’s most unique feature.
Quick refresher: The Sense watches measure stress via an EDA sensor. EDA sensors detect minuscule changes in your skin’s sweat levels. That, along with other metrics like heart rate variation, can be used as an indicator of stress. Or, as Fitbit dubs it, “body responses.” Previously, the EDA features worked more like spot-checks that users had to initiate. The Sense 2 upgrades the original’s EDA sensor to a cEDA sensor. The “c” stands for continuous, meaning you can now get automatic alerts in real time.
The EDA scan is one of a few recommended actions if you receive a body stress alert.
Basically, if the Sense 2 detects a body response, you’ll get a nudge to log your mood. You’ll also see prompts to take a few stress-relieving actions like a guided meditation, a two-minute EDA scan, or going on a short walk.
It works! Mostly. In my experience, the alerts lagged a bit and often came at inopportune times. For example, I had a bit of a car rental snafu when I visited Iceland last week. It was 4:30AM ET at Keflavik International Airport, I hadn’t slept on the flight, my phone was malfunctioning, and the car rental agency was so new none of its information was on Google yet. It worked out, but I was one misfortune away from hyperventilating into a paper bag. You’d think the Sense 2 would’ve been buzzing incessantly on my wrist. Instead, it only notified me about 30 minutes after everything was sorted. When prompted to log my mood, I hit the “Frustrated” emoticon.
By that time, I wasn’t able to do a guided meditation session, go on a walk, or sit still enough for a two-minute EDA reading to alleviate my stress. I was in a car, giving my husband directions to our next destination. Another time, I got a body response alert while trekking up Seljalandsfoss waterfall in the freezing rain and wind. I logged my mood as “excited,” but I wasn’t interested in anything but being present in the moment. It became a recurring theme. Whenever I had powerful body responses, I was too preoccupied to do more than note how I was feeling. And that’s if I even noticed the alerts, to begin with.
The sensor arrays are different as well. The Sense 2 (right) has a “continuous” EDA sensor to detect body responses.
The execution might be a little clunky, but Fitbit’s stress management feature is still the best I’ve ever tested. I didn’t always respond to alerts as intended, but overall, it is good to take a step back and acknowledge how you feel in a high-stress moment. I appreciated that Fitbit acknowledges that bodily stress can be positive or negative and that it may not always align with your mood.
The stress data is also presented thoughtfully. For instance, you get both a Stress Management score and a weekly summary. The former looks at your body responses, exertion level, and sleep patterns to give you an idea of how your cumulative stress may impact you on a given day. The weekly summary visualizes how many body responses you got each day in the previous week, as well as your most common moods.
Stress management can be challenging, especially if you’re someone who tends to ignore bodily signals until burnout kicks in. (It me.) The mix of quantified data and logging is a helpful visualization tool, and I appreciated it wasn’t linked to athletic performance.
The physical button is a smart addition. You can also see the new embedded sensors in the bezels.
Sleep tracking
Fitbit’s always had some of the best overall sleep tracking features. It’s recently added profiles, which categorize you as a type of animal based on your sleep patterns and give you sleep hygiene insights based on those patterns. (It’s similar to what Samsung does with its Galaxy Watches.) You get a new profile on the 1st of every month. I’d love to tell you how it works, but there’s a catch. You’ve got to wear it for 14 nights out of the month in order to get a sleep profile for the next month, and it only offers profiles on the first of the calendar month. In September, thanks to my review queue, I only got 12, which meant I didn’t get a profile for October and won’t get one until November 1st, six weeks after I started using the Sense 2.
I recognize that I’m an edge case. This reviewer life has me constantly rotating between devices, and I’ve only got two wrists. Customers sticking to one Fitbit will have less of an issue, but there’s no good reason to tie sleep profiles to the first of the calendar month rather than updating them on a rolling basis.
The price is not right
I’ll be blunt. If you want a durable tracker that can withstand extreme elements or one with hyper-accurate GPS data, this ain’t it. The Sense 2 has built-in GPS, but if you really care about accurate route maps, you’re better off with a Garmin or another fitness watchwith multiband GPS. Case in point, you only have to look at these screenshots of a recent hike to see that Fitbit’s GPS isn’t the greatest. The same goes if you’re looking for in-depth training plans and more raw data.
Then again, Fitbit’s always been a platform for general users. Its greatest strength is that it has always presented raw data in a digestible format. That’s what makes the Sense 2 — and other Fitbit devices — great for building healthier habits in a gentle, holistic way. It’s got great recovery tools in its Sleep Score, Daily Readiness Score, and, now, stress management features, as well as simple but convenient tools for logging calories, weight, and water intake. Its Active Zone Minutes metric is excellent for helping beginners visualize whether they’re getting an adequate amount of exercise per week.
So the Sense 2 is a good overall health tracker but a not-so-great smartwatch. Compared to dirt-cheap fitness bands, you’re getting a prettier design and a unique take on stress tracking. I’m just not sure why anyone would pay $299.95 for a fancier fitness tracker with fewer overall features when you can get an entry-level smartwatch for less. I can understand wanting a fitness tracker and not a smartwatch, but in that instance, there are also more affordable options.
Fitbit’s other trackers muddy the water even more. The $229.95 Versa 4 has the vast majority of the Sense 2’s features, and even the $179.95 Charge 5 has an EKG sensor. If you just want a basic tracker, the Inspire 3 is out here for $99.95. Unless you find the Sense 2 on sale for under $200 or really want stress tracking, this isn’t a good deal.
Somebody at Fitbit (or Google) didn’t do the math right. It would’ve been a smarter move to retire the Versa line and let the Sense 2 take the place of the Versa 4, especially if you were going to nerf the smarter features on both devices. But that’s not what happened, and even if it had, it’d just be delaying the inevitable. The Sense 2 is a casualty of Google’s ambitions for the Pixel Watch. And it’s possible that we’re only a Pixel Band away from all Fitbit trackers sharing a similar fate.
Tech firms say laws to protect us from bad AI will limit ‘innovation’. Well, good | John Naughton
For too long, the industry has escaped legal liability in the pursuit of its own interests – and the EU has had enough
Way back in May 2014, the European court of justice issued a landmark ruling that European citizens had the right to petition search engines to remove search results that linked to material that had been posted lawfully on third-party websites. This was popularly but misleadingly described as the “right to be forgotten”; it was really a right to have certain published material about the complainant delisted by search engines, of which Google was by far the most dominant. Or, to put it crudely, a right not to be found by Google.
On the morning the ruling was released, I had a phone call from a relatively senior Google employee whom I happened to know. It was clear from his call that the company had been ambushed by the ruling – its expensive legal team had plainly not expected it. But it was also clear that his US bosses were incensed by the effrontery of a mere European institution in issuing such a verdict. And when I mildly indicated that I regarded it as a reasonable judgment, I was treated to an energetic tirade, the gist of which was that the trouble with Europeans is that they’re “hostile to innovation”. At which point the conversation ended and I never heard from him again.
Rivian recalls 13,000 EVs over loose fastener that could affect steering
The Rivian R1S is just one of the vehicles affected by the recall. | Photo by Nilay Patel / The Verge
Rivian’s recalling about 13,000 electric vehicles (EVs) over a loose fastener that could affect drivers’ ability to control the car (via CNBC). The recall affects nearly every vehicle Rivian has produced this year, and spans the carmaker’s entire lineup, covering certain 2022 R1T pickup trucks, R1S SUVs, as well as the electric delivery vans (EDVs) it's building for Amazon. Rivian produced a total of 14,317 vehicles in the first three quarters of 2022 and delivered over 12,000.
According to a notice filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the fastener connecting the front upper control arm and steering knuckle may not have been “sufficiently torqued.” This could potentially result in separation, “causing a loss of vehicle control and increasing the risk of a crash.” The safety report says drivers with affected vehicles may notice excessive noise, vibration, harshness from the front suspension, and a change in steering performance or feel.
“It’s important not to minimize the potential risks involved and why we are volunteering to conduct this recall,” Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe wrote in an email to customers viewed by CNBC. “In rare circumstances, the nut could loosen fully. I want to reiterate that this is extremely rare, but it does reinforce why we are acting with such urgency and caution.”
Rivian issued the recall after investigating seven reports related to the defect, none of which involved any injuries. The EV maker says it will properly secure the steering knuckle fasteners in the vehicles affected by the recall at no added cost. This is Rivian’s second recall this year, with the company recalling about 500 R1T electric pickups in May due to a faulty airbag system that may fail to deactivate when detecting a child in the front passenger seat.
Maybe it is the name that is the problem. Climate change. It doesn’t sound that bad. The word “change” resonates quite pleasantly in our restless world. No matter how fortunate we are, there is always room for the appealing possibility of improvement. Then there is the “climate” part. Again, it does not sound so bad. If you live in many of the high-emitting nations of the global north, the idea of a “changing climate” could well be interpreted as the very opposite of scary and dangerous. A changing world. A warming planet. What’s not to like?
Perhaps that is partly why so many people still think of climate change as a slow, linear and even rather harmless process. But the climate is not just changing. It is destabilising. It is breaking down. The delicately balanced natural patterns and cycles that are a vital part of the systems that sustain life on Earth are being disrupted, and the consequences could be catastrophic. Because there are negative tipping points, points of no return. And we do not know exactly when we might cross them. What we do know, however, is that they are getting awfully close, even the really big ones. Transformation often starts slowly, but then it begins to accelerate.
Blizzard will be taking Overwatch 2 offline again
The downtime will begin at about 9PM ET. | Image: Blizzard
Blizzard will be taking the Overwatch 2 servers offline once again to fix more of the issues that have cropped up during the game’s rocky launch. The company plans to shut the game down at about 9PM ET (6PM PT), and expects the downtime to last for an hour. This downtime will be the third in two days, as Blizzard had to take the game offline twice on Thursday.
Blizzard detailed the fixes in the works and some updates on a few of the bigger issues in a post on its forums. In Friday evening’s downtime, Blizzard plans to fix Watchpoint Packs not appearing as available for players who preordered them, and to address the LC-208 error that is preventing some players from logging in.
In Friday’s post, Blizzard confirmed that the change to its SMS Protect phone number requirements is now officially in effect. Originally, Overwatch 2 players were required to have a postpaid phone number registered to their accounts to be able to play. However, in response to players’ outcry, Blizzard said it would be softening the policy so that people who had played the first Overwatch with a connected Battle.net account no longer needed to register a phone number to play the sequel.
The company is also looking into the long wait times players might be experiencing before matches. To address them, “we are changing configurations within this system today and hope to somewhat shorten that wait throughout the day,” Blizzard said in the post.
Blizzard is optimistic about the fixes it implemented on Thursday. The changes “resulted in a quadrupling of our capacity and an eventual reduction in login queues overnight,” according to the forum post. Blizzard will continue monitoring things over the coming days, as “weekend gamer hours will be its biggest test yet.” Hopefully, things might be starting to smooth over for Overwatch 2.
Elizabeth Holmes sentencing date delayed amid request for new trial
Theranos founder, convicted of fraud and facing 20 years in prison, requested new trial because of key prosecution witness concerns
A judge has agreed to move the sentencing date for Elizabeth Holmes to evaluate the Theranos founder’s request for a new trial.
Holmes, who was convicted on four of 11 counts of fraud for her role in the blood-testing company, was to be sentenced on 17 October. She requested a new trial in September after a key witness for the prosecution said he regretted the role he played in her conviction.
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