Hyperkin’s new Xbox controller has drift-free sticks in a PlayStation-style layout
A licensed Xbox controller with a bit of a PlayStation vibe. | Image: Hyperkin
Third-party controller makers are continuing to pick up the slack from Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo when it comes to making more durable, drift-proof controllers. Hyperkin is announcing the Competition, an Xbox-licensed wired controller for Xbox Series X / S and PC with a PlayStation-like symmetrical stick layout that you don’t commonly find on Xbox gamepads. But, more importantly, it uses both Hall effect sensors for its sticks and impact triggers to minimize long-term wear and tear.
The Competition was once quietly teased way back in the Before Time at E3 2019, but after a long enough delay, Hyperkin revised it to include the upgraded sensors. However, even after all that time, the launch date and price are still not finalized. It’s tentatively set for release in the first quarter of 2024 with an estimated MSRP of $49.99, but Terence Calacsan, Public Relations Manager for Hyperkin, tells The Verge, “This is subject to change.”
Image: Hyperkin
Besides blue, it will also come in white.
Image: Hyperkin
And black.
Hall effect sensors use magnets to detect movement, meaning there’s no internal friction or impact between surfaces when you’re turning an analog stick or pressing a trigger. Potentiometer-based modules, like the ones used in all first-party gamepads, from Nintendo Joy-Cons to Sony’s DualSense Edge and Microsoft’s Xbox Elite Series 2, can all fall victim to drift over time.
Hyperkin’s Competition may sound a bit similar to GameSir’s recent G7 SE, which was the first Xbox-licensed gamepad to use the superior stick technology, but the Competition aims to separate itself with its unique (for Xbox) stick positioning. We’ll have to see if it competes on price as well. Though if more and more gamepad makers go Hall effect, it will hopefully convince the console makers to eventually follow suit — even if it takes a whole new console generation.
Meta is finally launching a much more capable web app for Threads, the company announced on Tuesday. You’ll be able to post, interact with other posts, and look at your feed, spokesperson Christine Pai tells The Verge. It’s set to roll out over the next few days, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says.
So far, Threads on the web has essentially been a glorified way to look at somebody’s profile — you couldn’t even like or reshare a post even though the web app included the buttons to do so. (If you clicked them, Threads would show you a QR code to download the mobile app.) The new desktop web interface looks a lot like the one in the mobile app, though with some small differences; the navigation icons are on the top of the page, and to switch between the For You and Following feeds, you’ll click a button in the bottom-left corner.
Image: Meta
However, the web experience doesn’t let you do everything that you can in the mobile app. According to Pai, that means you can’t do things like edit your profile or send a post to Instagram DMs from the web.
Still, I’m thrilled that there’s even a bare-bones level of functionality available. I much prefer using social media apps on the web on my computer, especially since I spend the vast majority of my workday in a desktop web browser. Jumping over to my phone just to post something on Threads was starting to get annoying, so I bet I’ll be using this new web version of Threads quite a bit.
Threads had a splashy launch at the beginning of July to take advantage of the unhappiness toward Elon Musk’s Twitter. The app hit 100 million users in a matter of days, easily eclipsing ChatGPT’s huge release last year, even though the app still isn’t available in the European Union.
Gillette x Razer gamer razor has no lights and has no lasers
Razer’s new razor has no RGB, but it’ll shave ya. | GilletteLabs
After all this time, Razer made a razor. Well. Technically, Gillette made a razor and put Razer’s branding on it. Finally, a razor for gamers!
Don’t confuse this with the Razer Razer, this year’s April Fool’s Day joke. That was an RGB gaming mouse with an electric shaver built into it. As fun as it would be to have a quick way to get a bunch of beard hair into your keyboard, the reality here is both smarter and more disappointing.
To be more specific: they took the five-blade GilletteLabs with Exfoliating Bar and slapped Razer’s acid-green-and-black color scheme and snake logo on it. No RGB, which feels like a missed opportunity to tie into Razer’s vast Chroma ecosystem and sync your razor to your laptop, headset, keyboard, mouse, mousepad, and iPhone cooling fan, but it looks like it’ll do a much better job at shaving your face.
Gillette sent along a big old press release about how appropriate and cool it is for Gillette and Razer to team up, how it was inspired by the shaving mouse April Fool’s Day joke, and so forth. In response to me asking whether this was just a GilletteLabs with Exfoliating Bar with Razer colors and branding, Gillette’s global brand franchise leader Daniel Ordonez told The Verge:
It is much more than a logo on a razor. Gillette and Razer meet at the intersection of design, innovation, and cutting-edge technology to unveil the limited-edition product. Both brands collaborated on design elements in a variety of ways to leverage each other’s strengths to create a unique and compelling product – bringing together and integrating the visual and brand identities from both partners – to develop the GilletteLabs Razer Limited Edition product.
And there you have it! The GilletteLabs Razer Limited Edition product is rolling out worldwide at the end of August in two variants — with and without a Razer-green travel tin. You can also buy Razer-branded refill blades if consistency is that important to you. Gillette told me that “final consumer pricing is at the sole discretion of the retailer,” which is not super helpful, but the regular GilletteLabs with Exfoliating Bar is like $23, or $30ish with the travel case, so expect to pay somewhere around that!
[Absolutely unnecessary further context: Back in 2009, Gillette made theGillette Fusion Gamer and Power Fusion Gamer, which were the Fusion and Power Fusion with a slightly different color scheme and the word “Gamer” on the package. It went about as well as you’d think. At least this time, it’s got an actual gaming company — and one with a distinct aesthetic — onboard. Still shoulda put RGB on it, though.]
Instagram is adding a chronological feed for Reels and Stories in Europe
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Instagram and Facebook users in Europe are getting more options to opt out of Meta’s recommendation algorithms, the company has explained in a blog post today. According to Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg, European users will be able to access features like Reels, Stories, and Search on Facebook and Instagram without seeing content that’s been ranked by Meta’s recommendation algorithms.
“For example, on Facebook and Instagram, users will have the option to view Stories and Reels only from people they follow, ranked in chronological order, newest to oldest,” Clegg writes. “They will also be able to view Search results based only on the words they enter, rather than personalized specifically to them based on their previous activity and personal interests.”
Meta is making the changes to comply with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a new piece of regulation that will impact how tech companies moderate content on their platforms. In particular, the DSA requires very large online platforms to allow users to opt out of receiving personalized recommendations. TikTok announced a similar change to its service in Europe earlier this month. Meta says it will need to comply with the DSA by later this month.
Instagram and Facebook users are already able to view select parts of the services using chronological feeds without algorithmically-recommended content. Instagram introduced a purely chronological feed in March 2022, while Facebook announced a “Feeds” tab a couple months later in July. In both cases the announcements concerned the main feeds offered by both services, with no mention of being able to access Reels or Stories content chronologically.
According to Clegg, the changes made to the companies Stories, Reels, and Search are just part of a raft of work Meta is doing to comply with the DSA this month. Meta apparently has over 1,000 employees currently working on complying with the new rules. Clegg says the company has released an expanded Ad Library to offer more transparency on ads that run on its platforms, has offered more details on its recommendation algorithms, and has introduced new limits on how advertisers can target teens. It’s also attempting to make reporting illegal content easier on its platforms, and will give users in the EU more information on moderation decisions.
Microsoft to sell off Activision cloud gaming rights to Ubisoft in bid for UK approval
Illustration by William Joel / The Verge
Microsoft is restructuring its proposed Activision Blizzard deal to transfer cloud gaming rights for current and new Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft. The transfer of rights is designed to appease regulators in the UK that are concerned about the impact Microsoft’s proposed $68.7 billion deal will have on cloud gaming competition. The restructured deal has triggered a new regulatory investigation in the UK that could last until October 18th.
“To address the concerns about the impact of the proposed acquisition on cloud game streaming raised by the UK Competition and Markets Authority, we are restructuring the transaction to acquire a narrower set of rights,” says Microsoft president Brad Smith. “This includes executing an agreement effective at the closing of our merger that transfers the cloud streaming rights for all current and new Activision Blizzard PC and console games released over the next 15 years to Ubisoft Entertainment SA, a leading global game publisher. The rights will be in perpetuity.”
This restructured deal means that if Microsoft does close its proposed deal then it will not be able to release Activision Blizzard games exclusively on Xbox Cloud Gaming. Microsoft won’t be able to exclusively control the licensing terms of Activision Blizzard games on rival services either.
“Ubisoft will compensate Microsoft for the cloud streaming rights to Activision Blizzard’s games through a one-off payment and through a market-based wholesale pricing mechanism, including an option that supports pricing based on usage,” explains Smith. “It will also give Ubisoft the opportunity to offer Activision Blizzard’s games to cloud gaming services running non-Windows operating systems.”
The Ubisoft+ lineup is expanding!
We're excited to announce a new agreement that will bring Activision Blizzard games to Ubisoft+ via streaming upon the completion of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard!
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) first blocked Microsoft’s deal in April citing cloud gaming concerns, before agreeing to negotiations with the Xbox maker following the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) loss in a US federal court last month. Now the CMA has signaled a new investigation phase thanks to Microsoft’s restructured deal, with a statutory deadline set for October 18th — the same deadline that Microsoft recently agreed in its extension of the deal closing date with Activision. A source familiar with Microsoft’s plans tells The Verge that the company now isn’t expecting to be able to close its Activision Blizzard deal until early October.
The CMA has now imposed a final order on Microsoft’s original deal, prohibiting it worldwide while it investigates this new restructuring of the proposed Activision Blizzard acquisition. The CMA notes that “Ubisoft will also be able, for a fee, to require Microsoft to adapt Activision’s titles to operating systems other than Windows, such as Linux, if it decides to use or license out the cloud streaming rights to Activision’s titles to a cloud gaming service that runs a non-Windows operating system.”
The restructured transaction won’t affect Microsoft’s obligations to the European Commission, though. Microsoft has made several cloud gaming deals and EU regulators approved the Activision Blizzard deal thanks to a free license to consumers in EU countries that would allow them to stream via “any cloud game streaming services of their choice” all current and future Activision Blizzard PC and console games that they have a license for.
“The agreement with Ubisoft has been structured so that Microsoft will still acquire the rights needed to honor fully its legal obligations under its commitments to the European Commission, as well as its existing contractual obligations to other cloud game streaming providers, including Nvidia, Boosteroid, Ubitus, and Nware,” says Smith.
The CMA will now assess the reworked deal over the coming weeks and deliver a decision by the October 18th deadline. “This is not a green light. We will carefully and objectively assess the details of the restructured deal and its impact on competition, including in light of third-party comments,” says Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the CMA. “Our goal has not changed – any future decision on this new deal will ensure that the growing cloud gaming market continues to benefit from open and effective competition driving innovation and choice.”
X reportedly tests removing headlines from links to news articles
The Verge
A report from Fortune claims that X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, has tested stripping headlines from articles shared on the site. Posts would only include the lead image and the URL, unless the person or publisher posting the link adds their own text, per materials the outlet viewed.
The image would still serve as a link to the article, but there's no word on a timetable to roll it out or confirmation that it will ship at all. “It’s something Elon wants,” a source is quoted as saying, “They were running it by advertisers, who didn’t like it, but it’s happening.”
(if this text was not here, all you would see is this image with no context, no headline, no description — but it would be a clickable article) pic.twitter.com/XIhUQymnv4
Explanations for the change include reducing the height of individual posts so users’ timelines display more content, and that owner Elon Musk apparently “believes the change will help curb clickbait.”
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment beyond an automated response from its press contact address.
Apple’s sci-fi drama Invasion ramps up the tension in season 2
Image: Apple
Invasion was a curious addition to the sci-fi TV landscape when it debuted in 2021. For much of its runtime, it barely felt like science fiction at all. We all knew something alien was happening — it’s right there in the show’s title, after all — but the story was much more focused on the human-level drama going down as the world steadily succumbed to the invading forces. The result was a show that started very slowly, though things did eventually pick up mid-season. Ultimately, season 1 felt like a prologue to a much bigger story.
With all of that setup out of the way, the second season starts out much more exciting — and it doesn’t let up for the first few episodes.
Note:this write-up is based on the first five (of 10) episodes of season 2. I’ll have more on the full season later on.
One of the most notable things about Invasion is its structure. The show follows a handful of characters spread across the globe, each dealing with the invading aliens in different ways. Season 1 was all about survival for pretty much the whole cast, whether it was a mother in America trying to keep her kids alive, a bus full of students stranded and alone in England, or a Japanese communications expert desperately trying to contact a lost astronaut who also happened to be her secret girlfriend. But in season 2, most everybody has a bit more direction, and it makes the show move forward with more purpose and intensity.
The new season picks up a few months after the spiky alien blobs first made their presence known, and things aren’t going so well. Major cities look like war zones, with most people having fled or died, while those who remain struggle to fight against the very tough to kill invaders. If it weren’t for the looming spaceships on the horizon, the show could be mistaken for any number of postapocalyptic series early on. And once again, the cast is spread across the globe, dealing with the invasion — and their own personal struggles — on various fronts.
For example, in the first episode, the aforementioned comms expert Mitsuki (Shioli Kutsuna) finds herself on the frontlines of the conflict, fighting in the streets and using Molotov cocktails to keep the alien invaders at bay. But very soon, she’s picked up by an organization called the WDC (World Defense Coalition) and transported to help research the only downed alien spacecraft on Earth. Her attempts to reach her astronaut lover in season 1 made her the only person on the planet to make contact with the aliens, and here, she’s able to continue that work.
The scenes in and around the alien craft are great. Everything about this species is just so, well, alien; the ship is organic in nature, and anyone who spends too much time inside starts to get a little loopy. Her attempts to make further contact with the aliens feel like a mix of Annihilation and Arrival, and eventually, they have a big impact on humanity’s ability to fight back, with a few scenes reminiscent of Independence Day.
But as much as season 2 can feel like other more prominent sci-fi stories at times, it does a great job of mixing that with the grounded human drama that helped make season 1 stand out. The other half of the first episode follows Aneesha (Golshifteh Farahani), who is living on the run with her two kids, heading north and doing her best to avoid other people in the name of safety. She also happens to still be in possession of a piece of alien metal that the government really wants to get its hands on. Her story is much less about the actual aliens and more about navigating the dangerous new social landscape on Earth.
Image: Apple
The show manages to smoothly jump between the slower character development moments and storylines that are rushing toward something with urgency. Basically, it’s still the same Invasion from season 1, except there’s a lot more forward momentum, which in turn, makes it much more exciting. And it gets much deeper into sci-fi weirdness, with dangerous new aliens and a strange goopy creature that Mitsuki forms a connection with. So far, it fulfills the promise of the first season, which was a very long setup for an epic sci-fi story. Now, we’re seeing that story unfold.
The beginning of Invasion helped us understand the humans at the heart of its story. Now, season 2 is helping us understand the aliens that they’re running from.
Season 2 of Invasion premieres on Apple TV Plus on August 23rd.
Amazon’s Fire TV Channels adds a sidebar and more free streaming content
Image: Amazon
Amazon is updating its recently launched Fire TV Channels app. The free, ad-supported streaming platform has a new sidebar that lets you navigate through different categories of content along with a new slate of shows.
Fire TV Channels first launched in May with a lineup of free shows, live news, music videos, and sports from over 400 different providers, such as ABC News, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, America’s Test Kitchen, Martha Stewart, and others. But now, Amazon says the app will also include content from Variety, Rolling Stone, The Hollywood Reporter, Billboard, TV Line, Funny or Die, GameSpot, Honest Trailer, and more.
Meanwhile, the new app’s sidebar lets you sift through all the different types of content available on the platform, with categories including News, Sports, Entertainment, Gaming, Cooking, Travel, and Music Videos. Fire TV Channels is only available on Fire TV devices in the US, and you can access it from the Your Apps & Channels screen without the need to download the app or create an account.
The voice of Mario is stepping away from the character
Martinet at the launch of Super Mario Galaxy. | Photo by Stephen Kelly - PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images
Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario for 27 years, will no longer be voicing the iconic character, according to a tweet from Nintendo. Martinet took on the role with 1996’s Super Mario 64 and has voiced the character in numerous games since, including both mainline Mario releases like Super Mario Odyssey and Super Mario Galaxy as well as countless spinoffs.
“Charles is now moving into the brand-new role of Mario Ambassador. With this new transition, he will be stepping back from recording character voices for our games,” Nintendo’s statement reads. “It has been an honor working with Charles to help bring Mario to life for so many years and we want to thank and celebrate him.”
Though a fixture in video game history, Martinet was missed as the voice of Mario in the billon-dollar grossing Super Mario Bros. Movie that was released earlier this year. There was also speculation that Martinet was not the voice of Mario in the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Wonder, due out October 20th. Nintendo has not yet confirmed if Super Mario Bros. Wonder would be Martinet’s last time as gaming’s most famous plumber.
Here’s the first outdoor smart plug to work with Matter
Leviton’s new Decora Smart Wi-Fi Outdoor Plug-in Switch is the first to work with Matter. | Image: Leviton
The outdoor smart plug works over 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, has on / off functionality (there’s no dimming), and a built-in light sensor for automating any lights you plug into it to turn on at night and off during the day. This is a neat feature you won’t find on a lot of smart plugs and means you don’t need to use any app or programming for it to be useful right out of the box.
The Decora Outdoor Plug-in can also pair with Leviton’s Anywhere Switch Companion, a wire-free remote control that can be wall mounted, making it easier to control the plug from inside the house, another feature you won’t find on the sub-$30 plugs in this category. It supports 120V, 60Hz, and 15A general-purpose loads, can control motor loads up to 3/4HP, and features a 10-inch line cord and six-inch load cord.
Image: Leviton
The Leviton plug works with Leviton’s app, Apple Home through Matter, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings.
With support for Matter straight out of the box, the plug can work with all Matter-enabled smart devices and Matter-certified smart home platforms, including Apple Home, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings. To use the plug with Matter, you’ll need a Matter controller from the platform you want to pair it to — so an Echo smart speaker to pair to Alexa or a Nest Hub for Google Home, and so on. Leviton has a Matter guide on its site with more details.
Outside of Matter, the Decora is certified to work directly with Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, IFTTT, and Schlage. You can also use the My Leviton app for scene control, schedules, and an auto shut-off timer feature.
Outdoor smart plugs are useful for more than just lighting. Holiday decorations, pumps for water features, and outdoor fans are just a few use cases. I’ve been running a fan hooked up to a Lutron Caséta Outdoor Smart Plug all summer to keep my chickens cool in the scorching summer heat.
The new Leviton plug has a similar design to Lutron’s Caséta plug, both of which feature a sturdier build with more weatherproofing than most outdoor smart plugs I’ve tested. But at $80, the Lutron costs $25 more than the Leviton and requires a proprietary hub for most smart features. Both plugs only have one controlled outlet and are IP65 rated, meaning they’re durable enough to handle dirt, dust, rain, and snow. But Leviton’s operating temperature is negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit to 122 degrees Fahrenheit, so it can handle colder temps than the Lutron (negative 4 to 122 degrees Fahrenheit). The Lutron supports up to 1/2HP motor loads and can also pair with a wireless wall switch, without needing the hub.
Lutron has not announced support for Matter but is a member of the Connectivity Standards Alliance, which runs the new smart home standard. However, the company’s products already work with most platforms. Lutron’s Caséta does require the hub for many features, whereas the Leviton can work just over Wi-Fi. However, in my experience, using the hub with Lutron’s Clear Connect protocol means the Lutron plug gets impressive range. Wi-Fi smart plugs often struggle the further they are from your Wi-Fi router. I’ll be testing the new Leviton outdoor plug and will report back.
How Nvidia Built a Competitive Moat Around A.I. Chips The most visible winner of the artificial intelligence boom achieved its dominance by becoming a one-stop shop for A.I. development, from chips to software to other services.
Samsung’s announcement doesn’t specify which platforms the game will support HDR10 Plus Gaming on, but we’re assuming it’s PC rather than consoles given neither Sony nor Microsoft have announced support for this latest HDR format on their platforms. On PC, Nvidia announced it was adding support for HDR10 Plus Gaming to its RTX and 16-series graphics cards in November 2022.
The big advantage being advertised for the HDR10 Plus Gaming standard is that it allows games to automatically calibrate their brightness and colors depending on what a connected monitor or TV can support, similar to what Sony’s PS5 offers with select Sony Bravia TVs. In theory this should result in better highlight and shadow detail, and more accurate color reproduction. The process automates what is often a manual calibration that involves adjusting a slider so that you can barely see a logo on a white or black background. During its announcement, Samsung also advertised that HDR10 Plus Gaming is low-latency and is compatible with variable refresh rates.
As well as a compatible PC, you’ll also need an HDR10 Plus Gaming-compatible display in order to take advantage of the new technology. Samsung says its recent high end TVs and Odyssey gaming monitors already offer support, while Nvidia’s press release from last year mentions that select Amazon, Panasonic, TCL, and Vizio TVs are also compatible. But I wouldn’t expect this to be as widely supported as, say, Dolby Vision.
HDR10 Plus has been around for a few years now, and is best known as an open and royalty-free competitor to the Dolby Vision HDR standard. Both offer a couple of key advantages over the standard HDR10 format, and include support for dynamic metadata to offer more accurate colors and better highlight and shadow detail on compatible displays. Xbox consoles already support using the Dolby Vision standard with games, though when HDTVTest’s Vincent Teoh examined the feature in 2021 he found its advantages over standard HDR10 at the time were negligible.
Despite the “world’s first” language in the announcement, this isn’t the first time Samsung has name-dropped specific games in relation to the HDR10 Plus Gaming standard. When it announced its first screens for support with the format in late 2021 it said Saber Interactive’s Redout 2 and Pinball FX as well as another title called Happy Trails and the Kidnapped Princess would be showcased with the technology at CES 2022. We’ve reached out to Saber to find out if its titles ended up supporting the standard when they were released in 2022, but can’t see any evidence that Happy Trails ever made it to market.
As well as the HDR10 Plus Gaming standard, Nvidia recently announced that The First Descendant will also support its DLSS 3 upscaling technology.
USDA announces $667 million in rural broadband funding
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The US Department of Agriculture announced nearly $700 million in funding Monday to expand high-speed broadband access in rural communities across the country.
The USDA’s ReConnect Program is providing $667 million in grants and loans for broadband projects in 22 states and the Marshall Islands in areas that lack access to speeds of at least 100Mbps down and 20Mbps up. Recipients of this funding will be required to build out infrastructure capable of providing upload and download speeds of 100Mbps, surpassing the Federal Communications Commission’s current speed minimums of 25Mbps down and 3Mbps up.
“The reality is, we have faced some challenging times in rural places, and this is a president who believes strongly in ensuring that investments are made in all parts of the country from the most-populated urban centers to the most remote rural places,” USDA Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a call with reporters Friday.
The USDA received this funding from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which included $65 billion to expand access to affordable high-speed broadband and reach universal connectivity by 2030.
Some of the USDA’s approved projects will help serve anywhere from just a few households to thousands, along with many businesses and farms. The Scott County Telephone Cooperative in Virginia is receiving one of the largest grants at $25 million, promising to connect more than 17,000 people, 1,018 businesses, 37 farms, and 49 educational facilities. On the smaller end, Wave Wireless in Iowa is receiving nearly $500,000 benefitting just 228 people, six businesses, and nearly 40 farms.
Since the bipartisan infrastructure package passed, the Biden administration has distributed billions of dollars to meet this goal. In June, the administration distributed more than $40 billion to states based on need, with every state receiving at least $100 million. The Affordable Connectivity Program, also authorized under the law, received $14.2 billion to extend a covid pandemic-era subsidy lowering the cost of internet packages by $30 a month or $75 on tribal lands.
Speaking with reporters Friday, Vilsack said that Monday’s broadband funding will also support farmers accessing emerging tech to help lower greenhouse gas emissions and remove carbon.
“We are as an administration focused on expanding significantly opportunities for farmers to have more and new and better markets,” Vilsack said. “To do that is going to require a lot of technology that will absolutely depend on high-speed internet access.”
Even in War, Ukrainian Soldiers Find Time for World of Tanks Video Game The urge to play a violent video game in the midst of the most brutal land war in Europe since World War II may seem baffling. But it’s a way to cope.
Meta may launch a Threads web version early this week
Illustration: The Verge
Meta will launch the web version of Threads, its competitor to X (formerly known as Twitter) early this week, reports The Wall Street Journal. A web version has been frustratingly missing since the short-form posting service began.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is working on adding the feature along with better search (well, search at all, really — right now, you can only search for usernames on the platform) earlier this month, and that it would be ready in “the next few weeks.”
However, WSJ says, its sources say the feature’s “launch plans aren’t final and could change.” Mosseri posted on Threads last week that Meta had been testing “an early version internally for a week or two,” but that it “needs some work” before wide release.
Threads launched as a very barebones Twitter clone only a month and a half ago, quickly soaring past the 100 million user mark, but it’s been missing several crucial features, which the company has been slowly adding. The company recently added a follow feed, as well as the ability to verify a link with your Mastodon profile, indicating Meta may actually be taking integration with the decentralized social network protocol Activity Pub at least partially seriously.
Russia’s Luna-25 space craft ‘ceased to exist’ after colliding with the Moon.
Luna-25 launching from Russia earlier this month. | Photo by Xinhua via Getty Images
Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft failed to land on the Moon, Roscosmos, Russia’s state-run space corporation, announced today. In a statement, the organization reported that the lander “ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the Moon.” It would’ve been the country’s first Moon landing since 1976.
Luna-25 entered orbit around the Moon last week, and was meant to orbit for just five days before landing on Monday, August 21st, but over the weekend, Roscosmos said it was analyzing a “technical glitch” that occurred as it was preparing the craft to move to a pre-landing orbit. Now the organization says Luna-25 has been lost.
Russia was pushing to beat India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission to land on the Moon. That spacecraft also made lunar orbit this month, and the country’s space agency, Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO), tweeted this morning that Chandrayaan-3 is set for its own Moon landing on August 23rd. India plans for it to set down on the Moon’s south pole — the same region of the surface targeted by Luna-25 — on August 23rd. If successful, it will be the first spacecraft to land on the Moon’s south pole.
Luna-25’s mission, after landing, was to study the Moon’s south pole ice to gain insight into the satellite’s formation. Analysis of the ice would let scientists “theorize on how water appeared on the surface of the Earth’s natural satellite and whether this process was linked to the emergence of water on the Earth,” according to a scientist quoted by the state-owned Russian news agency TASS. The unnamed scientist said the study would help determine whether the Moon formed independently, or if it was instead blasted apart from the Earth by an extraterrestrial impact.
Luna-25’s Moon-bound mission began in 2015, and this landing was meant to be a precursor to an eventual crewed mission to the Moon in 2029. This mission is an unfortunate setback for Roscosmos, which Russia has starved of funding in favor of its military, writes BBC.
Landing on the Moon is no mean feat, and efforts to do so are frequently met with failure and disappointment. Earlier this year, Japanese startup ispace lost contact with its Hakuto-R Mission 1 lander after a three-month trip, and an Israeli Moon-landing mission ended in catastrophe in 2019 when the Beresheet spacecraft’s engine failed during final descent. The ISRO also reported a failure the same year as it lost contact with the Chandrayaan-2 Vikram lander as it crashed on descent.
Adobe co-founder Dr. John Warnock has died — he was 82
Dr. John Warnock in 2009. | Photo by Patrick Tehan/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images
Adobe co-founder Dr. John Warnock passed away on Saturday at the age of 82, Adobe announces today. A cause of death has not been released; he is survived by his wife, graphic designer Marva Warnock, and his three children.
Warnock founded the revolutionary software company Adobe with his partner, the now-late Dr. Charles Geschke, in 1982. Marva Warnock designed the company’s original logo, and Adobe released its first program, the desktop publishing software Adobe PostScript, two years later. Warnock served mostly as the company’s CEO until 2000 and was co-chairman of the board along with Geschke until 2017. Warnock remained on the company board of directors afterward.
Warnock was “one of the greatest inventors in our generation with significant impact on how we communicate in words, images and videos,” wrote Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen in an email to employees informing them of Warnock’s passing. He later added, “My interactions with John over the past 25 years have been the highlight of my professional career.”
Adobe is widely-associated with Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Photoshop, but the company has maintained an impressively broad portfolio of well-regarded staple applications in multiple industries. During Warnock’s tenure as its CEO, Adobe created industry-standard software for business, graphic design, photography, video editing, audio recording, and more.
SwitchBot says its new smart curtain controller is stronger and quieter
The SwitchBot Curtain 3 on a telescoping rod. | Image: SwitchBot
SwitchBot has announced the Curtain 3, a smart curtain controller it says will be quieter than the Curtain 2, and twice as strong. The company also claims a new, improved (and separately available) solar panel will offer “true unlimited battery power,” something the previous panel didn’t quite achieve. The Curtain 3 and the SwitchBot Solar Panel 3 will retail for $89.99 (£89.99 / €89.99) and $25.99 (£25.99 / €25.99), respectively, when they release on August 25th.
The Curtain 3 is, as the name suggests, the third iteration of the company’s smart curtain controller. It can now pull up to 36 pounds (16kg), according to the company, which is more than double the Curtain 2’s 17lb weight limit. Like the Curtain 2, the new curtain controller uses Bluetooth Low Energy, giving it a range of up to 80m (262ft), assuming a direct line of sight.
Image: SwitchBot
SwitchBot’s Curtain 3 is compatible with multiple types of curtain rod.
SwitchBot’s specs say its new controller hums at about 45dB from 1m away (roughly as loud as a suburban neighborhood at night), while its new 5mm-per-second QuietDrift Mode will drop it to 25dB, which is about as loud as a human whisper. Outwardly, the new design is similar to previous models, but it’s longer (by 30mm) and skinnier now than the Curtain 2. The company says it’s compatible with 99 percent “of curtain tracks found around the world.” Like the Curtain 2, it can be bought in rod rail, U rail, and I rail configurations.
SwitchBot says its new $25.99 SwitchBot Solar Panel 3 has “over twice the charging efficiency,” and will only need three hours in direct sun, “where clear shadows can be formed,” to effectively eliminate the need to charge the Curtain 3. Battery life on its own hasn’t improved though — SwitchBot still expects the Curtain 3, like the previous model, to last for up to 8 months on a full charge.
Earlier this year, SwitchBot introduced its new $70 SwitchBot Hub 2, which serves as a Matter bridge and therefore adds Apple Home compatibility to the Curtain 3 (and its other Bluetooth devices, like the Curtain 2). Without the updated hub, you’re stuck with Samsung SmartThings, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa — though the company also supports Apple Shortcuts, which you can trigger with Siri.
If you haven’t heard of SwitchBot, it’s known for its clever, easy-to-install smart home retrofits, like its $99 smart lock that isn’t a smart door lock at all, but a Bluetooth-connected motor that attaches to your door with a plastic piece that over the thumb turn of your deadbolt. It also makes a button-pressing robot that can toggle paddle switches (amusingly, the company shows a Hue smart switch as one it’s compatible with) or press other buttons, say to start your coffee maker.
In Good Omens, diversity is divine
Good Omens second season highlights how good queer and disabled representation could be in the fantasy genre. | Image: Amazon
Warning: Spoilers ahead for season 2 of Amazon Prime’s Good Omens
With the release of the second season of Good Omens on July 28th, writer Neil Gaiman has officially (and rather devastatingly) put any accusations of queerbaiting to bed. Leaving very little room for interpretation, Crowley and Aziraphale — the respectively demonic and angelic main characters of the Amazon fantasy-comedy series — engaged in some distressingly emotional snogging during the last moments of this season’s final episode, thereby ending over 30 years of speculation about the nature of their relationship. The fight is over. The shippers have won.
Well, not just the shippers.
I’ll provide some context for those of you who aren’t chronically online: “shipping” refers to the act of endorsing a romantic or sexual relationship between two real or fictitious characters. The term comes from the X-Files fandom in the ’90s, which was generally split into “relationshippers” and “Noromo” fans who... well, I think you can guess their feelings on the central couple of Mulder and Scully. Over time, “relationshipper” shortened to “shipper,” and other fandoms adopted the term when talking about their own favorite couples in fandom.
Image: Amazon
They’ve been married for millennia, your honor. They just don’t know it yet.
Ineffable Husbands — the ship name for Crowely and Aziraphale — emerged after Good Omens was released in 2019, but some fans have endorsed a relationship between the two since the original novel penned by Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett debuted in 1990. The characters are frequently described (in both the book and the series) as sexless cosmic beings that don’t need to understand silly human concepts like gender or sexuality. But there’s an obvious inclination to view them as male-coded, especially with David Tennant and Michael Sheen’s respective portrayals of Crowley and Aziraphale.
An overwhelming majority of the intimate interactions depicted in the second season were visibly, undeniably queer. It wasn’t just that core relationship between these two celestial beings. There’s a secondary storyline that focuses on a lesbian love story, alongside additional romantic representation for other LGBTQ and / or nonbinary characters. Plus, a vast majority of these interactions take place in London’s Soho district — the beating heart of the city’s queer community — which has lost several of its once-iconic LGBTQ+ spaces to redevelopments and gentrification over the years. Even this small detail felt like an act of defiance.
I went into this season with the anticipation that I’d be disappointed because it feels like fantasy media hates being direct about non-heterosexual romance. And when it does include them, the show usually gets canceled immediately after. But while Good Omens hasn’t officially been renewed, that appears to be a quirk of the strike — with most involved planning for a third season. This isn’t a show likely to be cut off at the knees suddenly. So the minute Crowley’s lips canonically smashed into Aziraphale’s, I shrieked, sobbed, and called every other queer friend I had to demand they add the series to their watch list. It’s been years since a show made me feel so validated.
Image: Amazon
Nina and Maggie’s brewing romance added a secondary storyline to what was already shaping to be a queer love story.
During a press junket ahead of the show’s premiere (which took place before the SAG-AFTRA strike officially began), I spoke to David Tennant and Michael Sheen about the new direction their characters took this season.
Even before the first series came out, the book already had a massive online following where people were interpreting the relationship between the two main characters as closer than what was already implied. Did that influence how you portrayed the characters?
David Tennant: I think you just have to play the characters as they are. And you have to allow people to decide what they may or may not think that means or implies, you know. The subtext is to be read by the audience, isn’t it? And I don’t think that you play anything specifically because you’re aware that certain people are hoping the relationship will develop in a certain way.
Michael Sheen: And I think Neil had always been very clear that these aren’t humans, and therefore human labels don’t apply in the same way. But I was always very interested from the very beginning about playing a character who is sort of [comprised] of love, and how that might manifest itself in a very particular relationship with another being. So I found it interesting to see how the more that Aziraphale gets comfortable with living on Earth and being among humans and being among human things, how might that be expressed through him and in terms of this relationship.
I found that very interesting to explore in what we were doing. But like I say, you have to kind of resist putting certain labels on it that aren’t to do with these supernatural beings. They are multifaceted with lots of different aspects. And as Neil played around with in Sandman as well with that character [Dream], they could manifest themselves at different times, as different genders, different sexes, and different ages. There’s no end to the possibilities for them. So there’s also no end to the possibilities of what their relationship can be.
Did either of you have any input into how your characters were going to develop in season 2 now that we’ve moved away from the source material?
MS: Well, only so much, I suppose, in how the relationship developed on camera, how we interpreted the scenes, and inhabited the characters. I think Neil is incredibly open. He’s a fan as much as anybody else of the story and the characters. And I think watching us playing those characters probably suggested certain things to him within the parameters of what he and Terry had already worked out. We brought some of the ideas they had for what could happen after the book into season 1. So their ideas for where the story could go, we still haven’t finished yet. But in terms of actually suggesting things, I mean, Neil tends to have a better handle on that sort of thing.
DT: He’s quite good at all that stuff, isn’t he? So you just want to leave him to it. The last thing you want to do is try to limit his imagination.
MS: [jokingly] “Gaiman — shut it! This is what needs to happen, mate!”
DT: Yeah, we just sit back and let the scripts roll in.
Image: Amazon
The series is quick to remind you that despite outward appearances, all angels and demons are genderless.
None of this is to say that Good Omens is the only TV series setting a new standard for queer representation. The swashbuckling pirate comedy Our Flag Means Death has made similar waves (sorry) for directly depicting relationships across the LGBTQ+ spectrum. Coming-of-age stories like Netflix’s Heartstopper also excel in representing queer romances. Genre shows like Invasion, Warrior Nun, and The Wheel of Time include major romances centered around two women, but the romances, particularly in the fantasy genre, are rarely centered on queer masculine-presenting characters.
With its second season, Good Omens has managed to create a wonderfully diverse world in a setting where, theoretically, anything is possible. And it does so unapologetically and positively — a host of characters are verbally identified as being queer or genderless, which is a breath of fresh air compared to shows that leave these things open to interpretation, thereby denying viewers from seeing themselves officially represented. Similarly, several visibly disabled characters appear in this season, and nobody ever tries to use those physical differences as a plot device. In fact, none of the other characters even mention the differences between them.
Disability representation is something the wider fantasy genre also struggles with. When creator and disability consultant Mark Thompson created the “Combat Wheelchair” for the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop roleplaying game, some players argued that it was unnecessary because in-game magic would have eradicated all disabilities in the D&D universe. Yet, it’s wildly offensive to suggest that a game known for providing unimaginably limitless gameplay possibilities should prevent its players from representing themselves in that universe.
Image: Amazon
Liz Carr’s Saraqael (pictured lower center) might be the only competent angel in the entire series.
I spoke to actor, comedian, and disability rights activist Liz Carr about her portrayal of Saraqael, an archangel in season 2 of Good Omens that, frankly, seems to be the only heavenly employee who’s any good at their job. “I just really loved the casting choices,” she said. “The character was not written for a wheelchair user, so they chose somebody known for being very sarcastic, i.e., the person who’s right for the role.”
“I got approached, and Neil said that, ‘In Heaven, you will be flying. As a wheelchair user, your chair will fly, and on Earth, you’ll be able to form miracles where anything inaccessible will become accessible.’ Cast me or a disabled person, and it gives such fun and such richness, such opportunity. And for people to watch and go, ‘I’ve never seen that. I’ve never seen me’ ... Heaven is about perfect bodies, cured beings. So to not be that — I think that’s very funny.”
Other angels are also depicted with disabilities this season. During the flashback in episode 2, the choir of angels sent to reward Job and his wife for their commitment to God includes individuals with Down syndrome and limb differences. These actors aren’t credited, but their inclusion means that Saraqael isn’t a token inclusion — in Gaiman and Pratchett’s world, anyone can be an angel.
The cliffhanger at the end of the final episode of Good Omens season 2 suggests that the show’s diversity and inclusivity won’t slow down any in subsequent episodes. Season 3 has yet to be greenlit (and likely won’t be anytime soon due to the ongoing writers and actors strikes), but Gaiman says he already has it all planned out should it be approved. If all goes well, book fans may yet get to see the long-teasedretirement cottage in the UK’s South Downs.
X glitch wipes out most pictures and links tweeted before December 2014
The Verge
X, which was formerly known as Twitter until its recent rebranding, is having a problem displaying old posts that came with images attached or any hyperlinks converted through Twitter’s built-in URL shortener. It’s unclear when the problem started, but it was highlighted on Saturday afternoon in a post by Tom Coates, and a Brazilian vtuber, @DaniloTakagi, had pointed it out a couple of days earlier.
As it is, it appears to affect tweets published prior to December 2014, judging by posts visible on my own account. No videos are affected (Twitter only added native image support in 2011 and built-in videos in 2016), but links to YouTube, for example, are now just text with a t.co URL that doesn’t work.
Image: Screenshot of Twitter.comThe image in Ellen DeGeneres’ tweet has been restored, but a reply shows that not everyone has been granted that privilege.
On Saturday afternoon, as Coates pointed out, the glitch claimed the picture from one of the most famous tweets ever (back when they were still called tweets), this selfie posted by 2014 Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres flanked by celebs like Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, and others, taken during the show’s broadcast.
I haven’t seen any public comments from owner Elon Musk or X CEO Linda Yaccarino about the problem, but at some point on Saturday night / early Sunday morning, the picture in that post was restored.
Despite speculation that it could be an intentional cost-cutting move by Musk, the fact that the actual media posted hasn’t been deleted suggests an error or bug of some kind, one of many that have arisen since last year’s takeover and mass layoffs.
There’s also at least one other old tweeted image that still worked — the one posted to President Barack Obama’s account after winning his 2012 campaign for reelection, showing a hug between him and the First Lady. It’s unclear if that one had been manually restored, but it was still visible on Saturday afternoon.
The timing for the cutoff in pictures and links that are broken seems related to changes Twitter made in 2016, adding “enhanced URL enrichment” to show previews for linked websites and native attachments that didn’t count against Twitter’s 140-character limit. According to developer documentation, the metadata for these additions “began emerging” in December 2014.
From the X Developer Platform Data Dictionary:
In March 2012, the expanded URL enrichment was introduced. Before this time, the Tweet payloads included only the URL as provided by the user. So, if the user included a shortened URL it can be challenging to match on (expanded) URLs of interest. With both Historical PowerTrack and the Search APIs, these metadata are available starting in March 2012.
In July 2016, the enhanced URL enrichment was introduced. This enhanced version provides a web site’s HTML title and description in the Tweet payload, along with Operators for matching on those. With Historical PowerTrack, these metadata become available in July 2016. With the Search APIs, these metadata begin emerging in December 2014.
In September 2016 Twitter introduced ‘native attachments’ where a trailing shared link is not counted against the 140 Tweet character limit. Both URL enrichments still apply to these shared links.
Twitter, X, or whatever it’s currently called, did not respond to requests for comment.
I’ve never seen a laptop that looks quite like this. I’ve also never seen a laptop with its particular set of problems.
At this point, I feel like people who want to buy an LG Gram know exactly what they’re getting. Grams are made to travel. They’re unbelievably light (they used to weigh a kilogram, or about 2.2 pounds, hence the moniker) and they have great battery life — and that’s most of what they are.
The LG Gram Style adds a new factor to that equation, and it’s right there in the name. When I first got eyes on the Gram Style at CES earlier this year, I predicted that it might be the prettiest laptop of 2023. Of the selection I’ve tested so far this year, that has held up. With the possible exception of the HP Spectre (which, to be fair, is a completely different vibe), there’s not a PC on the market that looks this cool. And while it’s not a cheap laptop, with a current list price of $1,699, it is affordable, as larger Grams go.
That doesn’t mean you should buy it — there is at least one unfortunate reason that you probably shouldn’t, which I’ll get into — but I am still slightly jealous of anyone who gets to carry it around.
The centerpiece of the Style’s unique aesthetic is one you don’t actually see when you’re using it: the lid. It’s coated in an iridescent finish that’s white when seen head-on but can appear anywhere from blue to orange to pink depending on the lighting and viewing angle. The effect isn’t flashy or obnoxious, though; a passerby wouldn’t necessarily know that they weren’t just looking at a pink-ish or orange-ish (sorry, I’m not great with colors) laptop.
It’s not just the lid that has this unique look — the palm rest does as well. In fact, the Gram Style takes after last year’s Dell XPS 13 Plus in that the bottom section of the keyboard deck is one continuous piece of glass with no delineated touchpad. There is a touchpad, of course, but you just kind of have to know where it is. Once you click it (or accidentally brush it with your palm, which I did approximately 3,000 times), some LEDs pop up for a couple of seconds to outline its left and right boundaries. If LG can put a backlit keyboard on the Gram, I’m not sure why it can’t have these pretty light strips be a permanent thing, but anyway.
Don’t see the touchpad? Look closer.
In true Gram fashion, the Style is also quite light. At 2.76 pounds (so, technically, more than a kilogram), it’s lighter than quite a few 13-inch ultrabooks and noticeably lighter than the 15-inch MacBook Air. It’s downright impressive for a 16-inch laptop. You will find some thinner and lighter options out there (many of which will be other Gram models), but this is close to as light as you can get for the category. Needless to say, I loved carrying it around and had no problem doing so with one arm and other things piled on top.
The build, in turn, is a bit flimsier than you typically get at this price. There’s a bit of flex in the keyboard deck and screen. The bezels are also quite visibly plastic, which I really don’t love to see in the year 2023. This is another standard LG Gram thing; these chassis often aren’t the sturdiest, and that’s a big way they shave weight.
The webcam is 1080p, and it’s fine.
Other things I like about the Gram’s chassis:
Audio is surprisingly good for such a thin laptop, with a nice surround quality. I have been obsessed with Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” recently, and these speakers convey the breathy qualities of her voice very well.
The display is a 16:10 3200 x 2000 pixel 120Hz OLED, and it’s stupendous. The details it presents are quite sharp. Brightness is more than adequate. There’s some glare, but nothing concerning. I love the deep blacks, as is always the case with OLEDs.
Port selection includes two USB-C (one is used for charging), one headphone jack, one USB-A, and one microSD. This is a bit sparse for a 16-inch laptop, but beggars can’t be choosers in today’s thin-and-light space.
I love Gram keyboards, this one included. There’s so much travel and such a firm click that typing on it feels more like typing on my mechanical keyboard than it does on other laptops.
There is one thing we need to have a serious discussion about. It’s the touchpad.
I know that it is possible to do a haptic touchpad well because Apple’s been doing it for literal years now. But I keep coming across these truly terrible ones being attempted in the Windows space, and unfortunately, the Style’s invisible one is no exception. It’s just not good. It doesn’t reject palms well and lights up if my hand so much as brushes it while I’m typing. The click requires a lot of force. Even when I was hitting pretty hard, I would estimate that my attempts to click didn’t go through roughly 40 percent of the time. This is especially true if you’re using the device on a non-flat surface; the thing went haywire when I tried to use it on my lap, registering false clicks and missing real ones. The invisible touchpad on Dell’s XPS 13 Plus was bad, but not this bad.
This is something I hope LG can improve in the future, but for the moment, it’s a nonstarter for this computer.
The USB-A port has one of those little trapdoors on the bottom.
The Style is powered by a 12-core Core i7-1360P. (Our model also had 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.) That should theoretically be quite fast, but it’s clear that it’s facing some cooling issues in this thin body. Even when I was just using a few Chrome tabs, the keyboard was consistently toasty. During heavier work in Premiere Pro, the CPU was often venturing into the mid-90s (Celsius).
The Style’s performance when used on its own for office work was completely fine. But when I hooked it up to an external monitor and was running around 10 Chrome tabs, I could tell the thing was chugging. I heard on-and-off fans and coil whine. Performance lagged a bit as well to a degree that wasn’t disruptive but was noticeable.
The Style scored a 184 on PugetBench for Premiere Pro and completed our export test in seven minutes, 29 seconds. While this isn’t a video editing-focused laptop, those aren’t phenomenal scores even among the ultraportable category.
For game results, I saw 26fps from Shadow of the Tomb Raider, 11fps from Horizon Zero Dawn, and 12fps from Red Dead Redemption 2 (all at their highest graphic preset and 1920 x 1200 resolution). Those are basically the same scores that we saw from the Gram 17 with the 12th Gen version of this processor. Needless to say, this isn’t your ideal purchase for AAA gaming or really any kind of processor-intensive work.
Our photographer, Amelia, said this device was a lot of fun to shoot.
Here’s the other side of the coin: battery life was great. I know other reviewers have complained about the Style’s battery life, but my unit did a commendable job. I consistently got over eight hours out of one charge (with the screen at half brightness and the Battery Saver setting on). This is one of the best battery lifespans I’ve seen from a P-series machine (when it comes to my workload, specifically), and I’d love to see more Windows ultraportables hit this eight-hour mark.
Nevertheless, I must mention that the Gram has a large 80Wh battery inside, which makes that figure a bit less impressive. I have been banging this drum for ages now, but I will repeat it for those in the back: putting a P-series chip in a laptop and cutting back its performance to a ridiculous degree in order to eke out usable battery life makes no sense, and I don’t know why companies won’t just use U-series processors for these low-wattage / long battery life situations.
The LG Gram Style is both an interesting experiment and a hilariously impractical buy. I have to commend LG for the creativity that’s gone into designing this device, and it has a combination of truly phenomenal features. The screen, the audio, the keyboard, and the overall chassis (unfortunate bezels aside) are all among the best I’ve tested this year.
The touchpad, unfortunately, keeps me from being able to enthusiastically recommend it, even to those who don’t mind the lower-powered processor. It’s one factor, but it’s the primary way that many people will access the rest of this laptop’s capabilities, and while it looks really neat, it’s just not fun to use right now. As much as it pains me to say, I think most people will have a better experience with a regular old Gram.
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