Roku’s Premiere+ is one of the only streaming boxes in town capable of playing HDR 4K video at 60 FPS, and at $50, it’s by far the cheapest. That’s the best price Amazon’s ever offered on this model, and a match for what we expect to see on Black Friday, so if it’s been on your wish list, don’t hesitate.
Microsoft is planning to let Windows Mixed Reality users get access to SteamVR games next week. The software maker revealed to Rolling Stone that a preview program for SteamVR titles will launch on November 15th, allowing VR headset owners to test out games before Microsoft has finalized its software.
The SteamVR support for Windows Mixed Reality will bridge the headsets over to games from the Steam store, and open up Microsoft’s VR headsets to a lot more titles. Currently, Windows Mixed Reality headset owners can only access around 60 apps and games from the Windows Store. Many of the top VR games are available through SteamVR.
Microsoft has not revealed exactly when this SteamVR support will be available as a non-beta feature, but the...
The fallout from sexual assault allegations against Kevin Spacey has continued, with the actor now being replaced by Christopher Plummer in Ridley Scott's All the Money in the World, reports Deadline. The film is still due to be released on December 22nd which means Scott will be working on an extremely tight schedule for reshoots.
Plummer is replacing Spacey as billionaire J. Paul Getty in the thriller, which is about the abduction of Getty's 16-year-old grandson in 1973. Spacey worked around ten days on the film, shooting scenes that mostly feature just his character. The film also stars Mark Wahlberg as Getty's lawyer and Michelle Williams as Getty's daughter-in-law. Both are expected to have to reshoot material as well. The reshoot...
Tesla has announced it’s buying Perbix, a private machining firm that makes automated equipment for factories. According to a report from CNBC, Perbix has been a Tesla supplier for almost three years, but the acquisition will allow the carmaker to bring the production of more parts in-house. Tesla described the deal as a step further in its long-stated ambition to “build the machine that makes the machine.”
The acquisition comes in the middle of a spell of bad news for Tesla production. Last week, the company reported a massive $619 million quarterly loss, and said it would no longer be able to meet its goal of producing 5,000 Model 3 sedans per week in 2017. On Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk blamed the production problems on unspecified “b...
For all its silicon expertise and billions of dollars invested in research, Intel has never been a leader in graphics, though the company is now hoping to correct that situation by snapping up AMD’s graphics chief. Raja Koduri, who until this week had served as AMD senior VP and chief architect of the Radeon Technologies graphics division, is now taking up the same position at Intel. Basically, AMD’s graphics boss is becoming Intel’s graphics boss.
Intel is forming a new Core and Visual Computing Group that Koduri will be leading, with the stated intent being to unify the company’s efforts with graphics chips across its full range of products. In Koduri’s words, it’s an “opportunity to drive a unified architecture vision across [Intel’s]...
iOS: Sure, the iPhone X has a bezel-less screen and facial recognition security, but the device’s most buzzed about feature may just be Animoji. The only problem? Animoji are stuck inside Apple’s Messages app and limited to 10 seconds in length.
Doctors created enough skin to cover 80 percent of the body of a seven-year-old boy with a genetic disease — and it saved his life.
This isn’t the first time that doctors have used genetic engineering to grow new skin, but past attempts only grew a little bit. This time, doctors were able to cover nine square feet of the patient’s body. The boy, who has a genetic skin disease called junctional epidermolysis bullosa (JEB), had been expected to die. Now, two years after the surgery, he lives a normal life and is able to play sports and exercise, the doctors say. The results were published today in the journal Nature.
People with JEB have a genetic mutation that makes their skin blister easily and makes them more likely to develop...
It’s been exactly one year since Donald Trump officially went from racist and psychologically addled TV man to racist and psychologically addled president.
Parents of young kids, you might know it as The Decision. After shopping for milk, string cheese and squeezy pouches with your little ones in tow, you walk back to your car and realize: crap. What am I supposed to do with this shopping cart? Do I leave the kids in the car for 23 seconds (which is illegal, don’t get…
A new report from The Financial Times has pinpointed the precise nature of the holdup in the Department of Justice’s pushback on the AT&T-Time Warner deal: CNN, which sources claim the Justice Department is insisting that AT&T sell before it will allow the deal to take place.
Earlier today, news broke that the US Justice Department was asking AT&T to divest some of its assets before it would allow AT&T and Time Warner’s massive $85 billion merger to go through, according to Reuters, but it wasn’t clear exactly which properties it would be requesting the combined company to divest. But according to a source for The Financial Times, “It’s all about CNN,” and that if AT&T agreed to sell the news network the deal would go through.
Apple is working on a redesigned iPad that would remove the device’s home button in favor of the new Face ID system introduced on the iPhone X. Bloomberg reports that the new iPad, which will feature a display size “similar” to the 10.5-inch iPad Pro, is likely to be released “later next year.” An improved Apple Pencil is also under development and expected to launch alongside the updated tablet.
Just as it did for the iPhone, getting rid of the Touch ID home button will allow Apple to trim the iPad’s bottom bezel closer to the device’s edge. This would result in a more immersive screen that fills nearly the entire front of the 2018 iPad. The company reduced the iPad Pro’s side bezels significantly with the 10.5 model that went on sale...
If you’re already using Alexa, and plan on doing a good chunk of your holiday spending on Amazon, you may as well earn some extra store credit in the process.
If you don’t own a pressure cooker, today’s a great day to fix that, as Amazon’s knocked the highly-rated Instant Pot IP-DUO60 down to $80, matching the price we’ve seen in multiple Black Friday ads. While that’s not as good as a one-day $70 deal they ran at the beginning of October, it’s still $20 less than usual,…
Whenever I approach the end of a really great story, I feel an impending sense of dread: I just don’t want it to end. If it’s a book, I’ll read slowly and savor each detail, while in games I stretch out the experience with some optional exploration. But it’s always prolonging the inevitable. That’s one of the reasons I love the concept of video game expansions, which offer a chance to jump back into a world weeks or months after I thought I was done.
That’s the case with “The Frozen Wilds,” the first major expansion for the excellent open-world role-playing game Horizon Zero Dawn. The update doesn’t really change the experience in any significant way. It gives you a new snowy mountain to explore, with more gear to collect and robotic...
I have an evening routine where I lay in my bed, tapping from Instagram story to Instagram story, mindlessly consuming what feels like a mundane montage of all of my friends’ days. That’s because, up until today, users were limited to posting photos and videos from within the last 24 hours. But now, Instagram has…
The US Justice Department is voicing new concerns over the approval of AT&T and Time Warner’s massive $85 billion merger deal first announced last year. According to a a report today from Reuters, regulators are now asking AT&T to put some of its assets up for sale or to offer comparable “structural remedies” that would make the unprecedented media consolidation less of an antitrust lightning rod. The DOJ remains the last barrier to the merger, as AT&T CFO John Stephens publicly announced earlier this year that all other approvals have been met. Now, AT&T is saying the deal may not close until 2018, past its end-of-year deadline it set when the merger was announced.
As part of the deal, AT&T would gain control of HBO, Warner Bros....
In September 2014, when astronomer Iair Arcavi found a new supernova in the night sky, he didn’t think much of it. It looked like any other star that had just died and violently burst apart. The object had brightened some time ago, and now it was fading — a sign that the explosive event was coming to an end. Since the juiciest part seemed to be over, Arcavi abandoned the star in search of supernovae that had exploded more recently.
But robotic telescopes continued to monitor the star over the next couple of months, just in case anything interesting happened. Then, in early 2015, Arcavi asked a student to look through telescope data to see if any of the stars they had found might be acting strange. Sure enough, that “ordinary” supernova...
Relationships are hard. Parenting is hard. Combine those two and you’re in for some bumps in the road large enough to rival those rutted rainforest paths that break your axle and pop your tires. No two people can agree on everything. Not even, or especially not, how to raise a kid to be a functional member of society.
The makers of the once immensely popular Pokémon Go are now making a Harry Potter AR game, Tech Crunch reported today. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is an AR mobile app set to launch next year, co-developed by Warner Bros. Interactive and its new brand, the aptly named Portkey Games.
Rumors of a Harry Potter AR game developed by Niantic had swirled last year, but were ruled a hoax by Snopes. Many had initially predicted that Pokémon Go would spawn a series of copycat AR games, and now that prediction finally seems to be coming true.
According to the report, Harry Potter: Wizards Unite may be influenced by Niantic’s cult classic game Ingress, which allows people to collect boosts, defend locations, and explore their environment, mixing the...
Tinder is getting new features that will “blur lines between the physical and digital world for dating.” Greg Blatt, the CEO of Tinder’s parent company, Match, says the new features will make the app less boring. Match, which also owns other dating platforms including OkCupid and PlentyofFish, posted its third quarter earnings yesterday, noting that overall revenue of $343 million was up 19 percent year over year.
In an earnings call, Blatt attributed the higher numbers to the success of Tinder Gold, and hinted at new features expected to hit Tinder in a few weeks, including AI and location-based functions. Tinder has also gained 476,000 paying subscribers in this quarter.
Our team at @Tinder is fantastic. It’s a pleasure to work with...
We North Americans are entering our twenty-first (give or take) Thanksgiving season of the Internet age and, as such, it no longer feels controversial to publicly state your dislike for turkey. Outside of tradition, there’s really no reason to feature turkey in a lavish, celebratory meal.
Deadspin Roy Halladay Killed in Plane Crash | The Slot Omarosa Had an Illicit Wedding Photo Shoot at the White House | Earther Thousands of Idled, Dirty Railroad Cars Are Littering the American Landscape | Splinter Dead Women Are More Than Just Warning Signs | Very Smart Brothas The White Woman Who Got Fired for…
Take advantage of some early Black Friday deals like an Instant Pot and Bose QuietComfort headphones, plus a Philips Hue starter kit, Nordstrom’s Clear the Rack, and many more kick off today’s best deals.
Last week I went to see author John Green while he was on his book tour for Turtles All the Way Down. It was a fun night of emotional speeches, lectures from his brother Hank dressed as a turtle professor (really), dubious advice, and even music, but there was something Green said that really stuck with me.
On paper, Universal’s plan for the Dark Universe, a franchise built out of various monster-film properties, seemed like a potentially solid idea. The studio planned to revisit some of cinema’s classic horror films, setting them in an interconnected universe like Marvel’s superhero franchise, and potentially reaping the benefits of box-office smash after box-office smash. However, after The Mummy debuted to disappointing reviews and lower-than-expected ticket sales, the two writers in charge of the franchise have departed, and Universal is reportedly re-evaluating the Dark Universe’s future.
Universal had extensive plans for the franchise. The Bride of Frankenstein was meant to follow The Mummy in 2019. They would be joined by new...
Nostalgia sells, and plenty of companies have sought to use this to their advantage. The latest is a Kickstarter for a pretty expensive manual SLR 35mm film camera from a company called Reflex. The camera has an interchangeable lens mount so you can shoot with lenses produced by other brands. The camera comes with an M42 mount, but other mounts for Nikon F, Olymus OM, Canon FD, and Pentax PK lenses are also available. That’s probably its largest selling point — if you’ve got old glass around but no camera body to use it with, Reflex’s camera might be an option for you.
The camera also has an interchangeable back that means photographers can keep another roll of film pre-loaded and quickly change over to a new roll if needed. It also...
When you think “electronic skateboard,” I'll bet you imagine Casey Neistat riding through New York City atop a $1,000-plus Boosted board, the preferred plank of celebrity YouTubers everywhere. But what if I told you that a comparable e-board is hitting Indiegogo today for $549 that doesn't require a handheld remote control? It's called the StarkBoard from Berlin-based Stark Mobility, and it can be had for as little as $449 through early-bird pricing.
Oh, and it's dope.
But first, before you pledge a pile of cash to an unknown company, let me get something out of the way: the last time I rode an electric skateboard was a few years ago when Boosted first launched. It was also just a prototype. I've never been a regular skater, though I’ll...
This is the third installment in the Postpartum Pain Clinic, a multi-part series on managing the aches and pains that come along with caring for newborns and infants.
Staples has announced its Black Friday deals, which include cuts to Windows PCs, printers, many Amazon devices, and $50 off iPads.
Stores will open at 7AM on Black Friday. If you don’t want to battle through the hoards of crowds, you can shop online on Thanksgiving and pick it up in-store on Friday, November 24th. That makes it a bit easier to deal with crowds.
Here are some highlights of the deals will be available from Staples on Black Friday:
Jezebel Plane Makes Emergency Landing After Passenger Goes Through Sleeping Husband’s Phone and Discovers His Infidelity | Deadspin Roy Halladay Was “Your Favorite Player’s Favorite Player” | Earther Thousands of Idled, Dirty Railroad Cars Are Littering the American Landscape | The Root Say Something Nice: 7 Things…
Yes, it’s already happening again. Nordstrom Rack has brought back their Clear the Rack sale and it’s full (and I mean FULL) of really incredible deals. Designer clothing, brands you’ve never heard of, everything in clearance an extra 25% off. This lasts through Sunday, so you have a good amount of time to pick up…
Philips’ own Hue iOS and Android apps are pretty straightforward tools for configuring your Philips smart lights and accessories, scheduling actions to happen at certain times, and combining sensors with lights and preset scenes so you never have to touch a light switch again. But the app is limiting in terms of its…
Best Buy is one of the kings of Black Friday deals, and the electronics retailer is back again with a smorgasbord of TVs, video games, smart speakers, drones, and more on sale — just in time for the holiday season.
If you’re looking to brave the craziness of a retail store, doors open 5PM on Thursday, close at 1AM Friday morning, and then reopen again at 8AM Friday morning.
Best Buy has posted a daunting 50-page catalog of discounts and deals. But don’t worry: we’ve gone through the listings and pulled out the best of the best for you right here.
One year to the day from the announcement that Vespa was working on its first electric option, parent company Piaggio has returned to the Milan Motorcycle Show and let loose (almost) all the information about the forthcoming scooter. What’s missing, unfortunately, is the price. There’s also no exact window on when it will ship in 2018. But eager customers from around the world will be able to preorder it in the spring.
The Vespa Elettrica will have a range of 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles. Like with most electric vehicles, that number will be flexible, and will depend on how you ride it. But for comparison, 62 miles is about three times less than the 174-mile range of the 50cc Vespa Primavera, one of the most affordable scooters in...
Logitech has announced that it’s shutting down all services for the Harmony Link hub, a plastic puck the company released in 2011 that gave smartphones and tablets the ability to act as universal remotes for thousands of devices.
Owners of the product have received an email from the company warning that the Link will completely stop working in March. “On March 16th, 2018, Logitech will discontinue service and support for Harmony Link. Your Harmony Link will no longer function after this date,” the email says. There’s no explanation or reason given as to why service is ending in the email, but a Logitech employee provided more details on the company’s forums. “There is a technology certificate license that will expire next March. The...
In a Hollywood Reporter cover story published this morning, Drake outlined his plan to move into TV and film production, and he already has an impressive list of partners and potential projects.
He confirmed that he’s working with Netflix to revive Top Boy, which ran on Channel 4 in the UK from 2011 to 2013. He’ll executive produce the series alongside his longtime manager Adel Nur. He told The Hollywood Reporter that he originally watched the show on YouTube, and was impressed by the world-building in the London-set crime drama. He also called out the “human element,” which is a nice parallel with a deeply adorable anecdote from later in the interview:
Drake attended a private screening of A24's The Florida Project and became obsessed...
Film director Steven Soderbergh says he faced a lot of challenges in making Mosaic, including what to call it. In January, HBO will air Mosaic as a six-episode series over five nights. But starting today, you can download a standalone app for iOS and tvOS, and take in its roughly 7.5 hours in interactive form, shifting your perspective among the story’s main characters in a branching narrative. Mosaic most resembles the sort of show you might binge-watch on Netflix — all of its episodes will be available at once — and yet it allows for a level of interaction only possible inside a custom app.
“It’s not a TV show, and it’s not a movie,” Soderbergh told me and two other reporters on Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco. “It’s something...
We’re already at the halfway point of Mr. Robot season 3, with episode 5 tonight. That means Nilay Patel, Russell Brandom, and me, Megan Farokhmanesh, will be breaking down the episode at 11PM ET in our digital after show. But this week, we’re transcending the digital realm and heading to television; the show will air on USA directly after Mr. Robot, where we’ll be joined by creator Sam Esmail for this ~very special~ episode.
So, watch us on TV! You can also find us right here on The Verge, or on the Mr. Robot Facebook page. You can join the conversation using the #RobotAfterShow hashtag on Twitter, or pop into our official Mr. Robot Reddit thread. If you missed last week’s episode with special guest Carly Chaikin, check out the show on...
Instagram is rolling out an update that will allow users to upload any video or picture from their library — regardless of whether it was taken within the past 24 hours. Previously, the workaround was to re-save, screenshot, or edit the metadata on the image or video so that it appears new in your library, tricking Instagram into thinking you’d just captured some fresh new content.
The fun of the disappearing story formats, pioneered by Snapchat, was how it made users feel like they’re following along a person’s day in real-time, but since so many people (particularly celebrities and influencers) were finding ways around the 24-hour limit, Instagram has decided to get rid of the time restraint altogether. In case you don’t want to...
I liked Twitter better when everyone got 140 characters. That’s the whole point of Twitter: brevity, concision, a strong editorial hand on the tiller. So I was not at all pleased to see the company’s announcement that all users now get 280 characters, which I believe will encourage a certain sloppiness in expression—a…
Android: You pull up a photo and hand your phone to a friend so they can see it. Before you know it, they’re scrolling through your entire camera roll and looking at whatever screenshots, nudes, or other embarrassing images you have stored on there. We’ve all been in this situation (and we’re probably all guilty of…
Keeping an eye on more than just your packages
Last week, the podcast Reply All investigated the persistent rumor that Facebook records users’ conversations and uses them to target ads. Facebook denied it, and co-host Alex Goldman was convinced. But for the second half of the episode, Goldman talked to people who have talked about a product, then seen it pop up in…
Samsung is releasing a new color of its Galaxy Note 8 in the US: Deepsea Blue. The new color will be available from November 16th on AT&T, Sprint, and Verizon. It’ll also be available unlocked from Best Buy stores, bestbuy.com, or samsung.com.
The color is pretty bright and shiny for a deep ocean blue, but it’s a nice option if Midnight Black is too boring and Orchid Grey is too weird. Samsung is known for only releasing specific colors in certain markets. The Deepsea Blue device has been available in other countries including South Korea, Canada, and Germany, while a Maple Gold handset was released in the UK and Australia.
The Galaxy Note 8 costs $950, so it's $50 cheaper than the starting price of Apple's flagship iPhone X. If you...
Eight years and 250 million downloads later, Words With Friends is getting a sequel. The word game, a touchscreen take on Scrabble that once got Alec Baldwin kicked off a plane, first launched in 2009 and has been one of mobile’s most enduring hits. Since then, the game and its studio were acquired by Zynga, and Words With Friends has received multiple updates and been ported to a range of platforms. Most recently, a stripped-down version came to Facebook Messenger. As with many long-running games, this success creates an interesting dilemma for its developers: how do you build something new without disrupting the existing audience?
For Zynga, the solution was to make a sequel that’s entirely optional, ensuring it was fully compatible...
Welcome to Home of the Future, a four-part video series co-produced by Curbed and The Verge. Each month, we'll take you inside one innovative home and explore how the technology of today informs the way people will live in the future. To follow along, stay tuned for new video episodes on our Facebook page. This month’s location? A round, net-zero prefab home engineered to survive the strongest storms.
The past several months brought intense hurricanes with record-setting wind speeds to the US Gulf Coast and the Caribbean, badly damaging multiple communities. More than 200 people have died in this recent batch of hurricanes, and technically, the season doesn’t end until November 30th.
Many families have been faced with the decision to...
If you can’t bear to look at today’s Facebook memories of you skipping to the polls—or you’re dreading tomorrow’s memories of your and your friends’ post-election reactions—you’re not alone. We talked to five therapists about how the election and its aftermath has affected their clients’ mental health.
We already know that for various users, iOS 11.1 makes media playback stutter, breaks audio control on the lock screen, and autocorrects the word “I” to an unrecognizable character. But there’s more! It also breaks the Calculator app.
Meet the scientists building a library of designer drugs
