Technology news

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge YouTube Music has rolled out its first personalized playlists to all subscribers, including a rival to Spotify’s Discover Weekly called Discover Mix. YouTube’s Discover Mix and New Release Mix were spotted by some users back in September, but they’re now available for all alongside a third personalized playlist called Your Mix.
Discover Mix is meant to introduce you to new artists you’ve never heard of or serve up lesser-known trac

Fans have long bemoaned the inability to purchase digital versions of films from legendary Japanese animation house Studio Ghibli. But starting today, that’s changed.Nearly the entire collection of Studio Ghibli movies are now available to purchase on all major platforms, including Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, Google Play, Sony, Microsoft, and FandangoNow in both the United States and Canada. Both Japanese and English versions are available. All Studio Ghibli movies were previously

Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call On Tuesday, lawmakers put out a new proposal that would require the federal government to study how a pair of laws that targeted online sex trafficking broadly kicked sex workers off the internet last year.
In the lead-up to the passage of Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) / Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) last year, advocacy groups and sex workers rallied over how the bills could make them less safe by forcing sex

Instagram Instagram’s newest Stories feature allows users to post multiple photos on one screen. The feature, called Layout, is launching globally today, and people can incorporate up to six photos. It’s a simple feature, but one that’ll likely be popular, especially given the multiple third-party story-editing apps that offer something similar. Within Instagram, the only way to previously pull off a similar trick was to copy a photo from a gallery and paste it in a text box.

Illustration by William Joel / The Verge The internet is full of spoilers, making it a dangerous place to hang around if you’re trying to steer clear of what happens in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Watchmen, or any other TV shows, movies, or video games that you’re still catching up on. Even when you think you’ve got things under control, Google’s autocomplete feature has spoiled things before. URLs can contain spoilers, too.In addition, trolls can embed spoilers in

Images: WinFuture Samsung released the Galaxy Note 10 on August 23rd, but a new variant of it is apparently in the works. What appear to be leaked marketing images of the upcoming device have been posted by WinFuture, which reports it will be called the Galaxy Note 10 Lite.
It seems the Galaxy Note 10 Lite will keep a hole-punch display for the front-facing camera, but its triple-camera system will be arranged in a rectangle, similar to the iPhone 11 and Pixel 4’s camera squares and unlik

Andrews McMeel Universal Iconic comic strip The Far Side launched its official website today, which debuted with a selection of classic cartoons, doodles from creator Gary Larson’s sketchbooks, and a letter from the cartoonist himself. Despite the strip’s cultural ubiquity in the form of books, calendars, and posters, the official website marks the first time the comic has ever been authorized to be available online. To mark the 40th anniversary of the strip, which was syndicated fr

“Hypercar” is a term often used to describe cars with specs and price tags so extreme, so outside the realm of what’s on display at your average dealership that calling it a “supercar” — already a totally fine description that gets its point across without too much hyperbole — somehow falls short.So what does it mean when the prefix “hyper-” is applied to a vehicle of more modest standing, like an electric scooter? For D-Fly Group, a London-b

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Google’s Stadia cloud gaming service has broken a bunch of promises, but it’s making good on one. Starting today, Google is delivering the last batch of games it promised for 2019, including Borderlands 3 and Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2.Tomorrow, it’ll add Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint — the first game to offer Google’s promised Stream Connect feature that lets players see their teammates’ screens so they ca

Photo credit should read INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images Respawn Entertainment today announced a new global e-sports tournament series for its battle royale shooter Apex Legends, the first official tournament for the game since its launch in February of this year.
Called the Apex Legends Global Series, the tournament will feature 12 live events around the world that are produced either by Respawn and its parent company Electronic Arts or by the tournament’s event production partners P

Netflix’s TV adaptation of The Witcher comes out on Friday, but if you’re looking to get your Witcher fix even sooner, you’ll be able to play CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt on Xbox Game Pass starting Thursday, December 19th.We should note that the show and the game aren’t exactly in the same universe. Netflix’s The Witcher is based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s series of fantasy novels, while CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3 is the third of a sep

Earlier this month we told you about AI Dungeon, an AI-powered text adventure with near infinite possibilities. You can type what you want into the game, and the AI will generate a response on the fly, creating a freewheeling experience that encourages cooperation and imagination. Now, AI Dungeon is available on iOS and Android as well, making it much easier to explore fantasy and sci-fi realms with an AI game master.We tested the iOS version briefly, and although there were a few game-breaking

Wattam. It’s been a decade since Keita Takahashi released a commercial video game — the last title from the creator of the Katamari Damacy series was Noby Noby Boy in 2009 — but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t busy. He’s continued working on games, dabbled in augmented reality apps, and even tried his hand at designing playground equipment before being stymied by the heavy costs and regulations involved. “I decided I should be a billionaire to make playgrou

One of the more fascinating parts of live-streaming culture is its penchant for raising money for charities; it’s a regular feature across sites and streamers. Twitch, for example, leads some campaigns itself — like its regular Twitch Rivals charity events — and some are spearheaded by individual streamers (like Ben “DrLupo” Lupo) who feel passionate about raising money for the less fortunate among us. Today, the live-streaming toolkit Streamlabs is launching its ow

Image: iFixit iFixit has awarded Apple’s new Mac Pro a near-perfect 9 out of 10 score for repairability, dubbing the machine a “Fixmas miracle.” The repair specialists praised the computer for being easy to open, for having components that can be replaced without the need for any tools, and for even printing step numbers and diagrams directly onto components to aid with repairs.
It’s a huge departure from how Apple normally approaches the repairability of its products. A

Alcon Interactive Group The classic 1997 Blade Runner adventure game, which was once nearly impossible to find and play, has been rereleased on GOG. Blade Runner (the game) told a unique detective story set parallel to the original 1982 film. It includes some existing characters voiced by Blade Runner actors Sean Young and James Hong, but it features a new character named Ray McCoy — a Los Angeles Police Department blade runner who has to search crime scenes and hunt down rogue replicants

The Star Wars saga is full of iconic imagery, characters, weapons, and spaceships, but perhaps none more so than the lightsaber. They’re powerful weapons and tools, and we’re told time and again throughout the films how important they are — each weapon marks the personal style of its Jedi wielder — and how critical it is that each warrior never lose theirs.But it wasn’t until the modern prequel Star Wars movies that the lightsaber really came into its own on film. A

Alexander Parkin Lately, there’s been a lot of heat over the simple lightbulb. Over the past decade, manufacturers raced to make their lightbulbs more efficient. The competition helped people save both energy and money — and the environment got a pretty big boost, too. But not everyone’s a fan of all that innovation.A more efficient bulb “doesn’t make you look as good,” President Donald Trump has argued multiple times over the past year. “Being a vain p

Skyryse, an autonomous helicopter startup, unveiled the technology stack that it says will enable future fleets of air taxis to fly themselves over cities. It also released footage from a demonstration flight of one of its autonomous helicopters from earlier this year.
The Hawthorne, California-based company is one of many with dreams of flocks of air taxis whizzing above cities in the near future. But rather than expend a lot of energy trying to build an electric-powered vehicle from the ground

Sony has announced a new accessory that adds two customizable back paddle buttons to a DualShock 4 controller. It’s called the Back Button Attachment, and it features a crisp OLED display and a dedicated button that allows you to quickly remap controls on the fly without having to jump into a menu within the PS4. Sony says that it can store up to three unique control schemes at a time and that it works with all games, including PlayStation VR titles.
This accessory will debut in the US on

Image: ABC 2019 is coming to a close and so is the decade. Prestige TV has never been better. Marvel turned on-screen superheroes into the biggest (and most profitable) trend of the era. Streaming is the new battlefield for viewer eyeballs. To close out the 20-teens, Verge staffers are breaking down their favorite moments, media, and what they believe was the most overlooked in entertainment from the last 10 years.
Lost’s series finale, “The End,” is my favorite finale of any

Image: Epic Games There were a lot of great games this year. Pokémon Sword and Shield, Death Stranding, Control, Untitled Goose Game, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and Baba is You all hit in 2019. But when I had time to play a game, I usually opted for another drop in Fortnite instead.
At this point, I’ve been hooked for nearly a year and a half, ever since Fortnite came to the Switch in June 2018. My first goal was to get that elusive first win, but the game keeps pulling me back wit

Image: Niantic Labs Pokémon Go creator Niantic Labs says its augmented reality multiplayer feature, Buddy Adventure, is coming “very soon” to the iOS and Android versions of the mobile game. Buddy Adventure was first shown off last month at a press event, and it allows players to use the existing buddy system in Pokémon Go to bring a more realistic version of their favorite pokémon into the real world using more sophisticated AR technology.Niantic’s says B

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google has fired another employee following a showing of internal activism, marking the latest in a series of controversial terminations at the search giant.
Kathryn Spiers, a security engineer at Google, told The Verge she was fired from the company last week after two years. As part of her duties at Google, Spiers was responsible for sending web browser notifications within the company. While Google employees navigated the web, relevant informational po

The “zoom and enhance” trope is a TV cliché, but advances in AI are making it a reality. Researchers have shown that machine learning can enlarge low-resolution images, restoring detail that wasn’t there before. Now, this technology is making its way to consumers, with image editor Pixelmator among the first to offer such a feature.
The Photoshop competitor today announced what it calls “ML Super Resolution” for the $60 Pro version of its software: a function

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Lee Sang-hoon, the chairman of Samsung Electronics, has been found guilty of violating South Korea’s labor union laws and sentenced to 18 months in prison, the Financial Times reports. Prosecutors said that Lee, along with around 24 other current and former Samsung officials, used a variety of tactics to discourage union activity, including threatening to cut wages and withdrawing business to union-friendly subcontractors.Although The Wall Street Jo

Tendershoot / No More Robots If you’ve frequented certain older web forums, someone may have once told you to “lurk more.” The command admonishes newcomers to immerse themselves in a strange new digital environment until they understand its quirks and topography — to become part of a culture specifically by not participating in it.
Hypnospace Outlaw is a game for lurkers.
In Hypnospace Outlaw, you are a new user of the super-futuristic ‘90s Hypnospace network, a vi

Image: Lime Lime just announced LimePass, a weekly subscription service that wavers the unlock fee on renting the company’s electric scooters and bicycles. The company says the subscription is now available in cities across the US, Australia, and New Zealand, and that it plans to offer it in more markets starting in January.Although Lime says that pricing will vary between markets, a screenshot of the subscription suggests that it will cost $4.99 per week in San Francisco. Lime says its u