The Apple Watch Series 8 bears more than a striking resemblance to this year’s model (surprise, surprise). | Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Apple Watch Series 9 has officially landed, bringing with it a few minor improvements under the hood, watchOS 10, and a new Millennial pink(!) color. The new smartwatch is technically the best Apple has ever made, though the updates are all pretty iterative. Thankfully, if you’re looking to pick up an Apple Watch for the first time or make the jump from an earlier model, the last-gen Series 8 is on sale at…
The Steam Deck. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge Valve has been clear it wants to build a Steam Deck 2 — and equally clear that a faster handheld wouldn’t arrive soon. Now, Valve’s Pierre-Loup Griffais tells The Verge and CNBC that it could be late 2025 or beyond before it raises that bar — because it wants to see a leap in performance without a significant hit to battery life. “I don’t anticipate such a leap to be possible in the next couple of years,” he told me via email. Here’s the whole quote: It’s important to…
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the CAADCA last year. | Photo by Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images A federal judge has granted a request to block the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act (CAADCA), a law that requires special data safeguards for underage users online. In a ruling issued today, Judge Beth Freeman granted a preliminary injunction for tech industry group NetChoice, saying the law likely violates the First Amendment. It’s the latest of several state-level internet regulations to be blocked while a lawsuit against them proceeds, including some that are likely bound for the Supreme Court. The…
Laura Normand / The Verge Apple CEO Tim Cook acknowledges in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning that there are “some things about” the platform formerly known as Twitter that he doesn’t like. Cook called the platform’s apparent anti-Semitism problem “abhorrent” but said, “Twitter is an important property; I like the concept that it’s there for discourse.” He didn’t say whether he believes Apple should be advertising on X, only that it’s something the company “constantly” asks itself. Dickerson also pushed Cook on the Vision Pro’s release schedule, asking him about reports that the headset is facing manufacturing delays. Cook…
Zach Katz, FaZe Nickmercs, and Lee Trink at Parq Nightclub in San Diego, California. | Photo by Cassidy Sparrow/Getty Images for FaZe Clan Faze Clan, a merchandising and influencer marketing agency that was once synonymous with the esports space, has fired CEO Lee Trink. CFO Christoph Pachler will take over for Trink on an interim basis, Bloomberg reports. Faze Clan cultivated a lavish and freewheeling image during its early years. The firm maintained teams across many different esports titles, created gaming-adjacent content for social media platforms like Twitch and Snapchat, and sold branded apparel. Trink, who had no esports background…
Apple brings satellite-powered Roadside Assistance to the iPhone 15 and iPhone 14 in a partnership with AAA. | Image: Apple During the iPhone 15 launch event in Cupertino, Apple announced it’s adding satellite-powered Roadside Assistance to the iPhone in a partnership with AAA. Buying and activating a new iPhone 14 or iPhone 15 series device will include two years of Emergency SOS and Roadside Assistance access for free. The services they connect you to are covered under the AAA membership terms or available on a pay-per-use basis for non-AAA members. The Roadside Assistance service — which is US only —…
Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Whenever I get a new phone and eventually install Instagram, the first thing I do is dig through the app’s settings menu for a toggle that reads “Upload at highest quality.” According to the app, when enabled, this ensures you’ll “Always upload the highest quality photos and videos, even if uploading takes longer. When this is off, we’ll automatically adjust upload quality to fit network conditions.” But here’s the weird part: by default, this setting is switched off. Aren’t we in the 5G era? Isn’t this the social media platform where people obsess…
Clive, much like this deal, is on fire. | Image: Square Enix With so many major game releases happening this year — and even this week — you could almost forget that a new mainline Final Fantasy dropped just a couple of months back. Well now, it’s already on a sizable sale. Final Fantasy XVI is selling for $49.99 ($20 off) at both Amazon and Best Buy, its lowest price yet. Final Fantasy XVI is the most gritty and blood-soaked installment of the series to date, taking a chapter or three from George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones when it…
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Meta could let users pay for Facebook and Instagram to avoid ads in their feeds, at least in Europe. The New York Times reports that Meta is considering a paid subscription to its social media products, an attempt by Meta to quell concerns by the EU around data privacy and ads. No information is available on price or a release date, and it’s not confirmed whether the product will actually be released. Meta did not respond to a request for comment. The company has been fighting with the EU and other European regulators…
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…
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon Music Unlimited is getting another price hike, and this one affects people who pay for the music service and Amazon’s Prime subscription. The cost of Amazon Music Unlimited’s individual plan for Prime members will go up from $8.99 to $9.99 per month, according to Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. The price of the family plan is going up, too, increasing from $15.99 to $16.99 per month. The costs of the annual plans for individuals that are Prime subscribers and families are increasing as well, each by $10, THR says. That means the…
Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Disney is once again raising the ad-free prices of both Disney Plus and Hulu this fall. Beginning on October 12th, Disney Plus will cost $13.99 per month, while Hulu’s no-ads tier will run $17.99. The ad-sponsored tiers of both services will (for now) each remain $7.99. Perhaps to ease that blow, the company is introducing a new combo subscription that will bundle ad-free experiences for both Disney Plus and Hulu for $19.99 per month. That plan will be available on September 6th. But these subscription hikes to the standalone services are substantial; Disney…
Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart are all slashing the price of the next-gen console for a limited time. | Image: Sony Earlier this week, we saw a rare deal drop on the PlayStation 5 — only for it to disappear as quickly as it arrived. Thankfully, if you missed out on the unexpected deal at Monoprice, you now have another chance at saving $50 on Sony’s next-gen gaming console. Right now, the disc-based PS5 is on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and GameStop starting at $449, the lowest price we’ve seen on the standalone console since it launched at…
Illustration: Beatrice Sala The FBI is investigating a ransomware attack that shut down emergency rooms in several states (via The Guardian). Ambulances were diverted while California-based Prospect Medical Holdings, which has hospitals in several states, “took our systems offline to protect them” and launched an investigation in partnership with “third party cybersecurity specialists,” it said in a statement to multiple outlets. The Crozer-Chester Medical System (CCMS) in Springfield, Pennsylvania reverted to paper records after most of its computers went offline, and doesn’t expect them back online until next week, according to CBS News. Representatives of CCMS confirmed it was a…
Illustration: The Verge The government’s antitrust case against Google just got significantly smaller. In a filing on Friday, a US district court judge dismissed several of the claims that the Department of Justice and a coalition of states brought against the company, including allegations that Google Search harms competing services. The decision stems from a pair of lawsuits that the DOJ and a group of 38 state attorneys general filed against Google in 2020. While the DOJ and states originally filed separately, the suit has since become mostly consolidated. The suit accuses Google of anti-competitive behavior on a number of…
X is coming for every last mention of Twitter. | The Verge Last week Elon Musk announced the death of Twitter as a brand. He had the sign on the HQ taken down and replaced with a garish X, he axed the logo on the website and in the app too. Lingering longer was the “Tweet” button itself. Today the Tweet button briefly changed to Post, hinting that soon every evidence of the little blue bird and its associated twitter will scrubbed from the every place X, the company formerly known as Twitter, can touch. But that’s not why I…
Verizon would very much like you to switch to its new Unlimited Welcome plan. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The carriers are at it again: Verizon and AT&T are both notifying customers on older unlimited plans to expect a new fee on their bill soon. Customers on Verizon’s 5G Start and AT&T’s Unlimited Elite plans are affected, and the fees go into effect in August. It’s a classic move from the “wireless carrier shenanigans” playbook designed to push customers to newer, more profitable plans. Verizon customers on Reddit and Twitter report that the company has just sent…