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While EA is best known for blockbuster franchises like Battlefield , FIFA , and, more recently, Apex Legends , the publisher’s EA Originals label is home to some excellent smaller experiences. Today, at E3 in Los Angeles, the company revealed three more intriguing indie games that are in the works. The first is called Lost in Random , and it’s developed by Zoink Studios, the team behind the meditative adventure Fe . We don’t know much about the game, but, like its predecessor, it has an absolutely gorgeous, ethereal visual style. It’s described as “a blend of strategy and action that explores the notion of chance and possibility, set within a beautifully dark and vivid world.” Lost in Random is joined by GlowHeart , a sci-fi action... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2ZbpkpK via IFTTT

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Cult classic TV series Veronica Mars is returning next month with a new, long-awaited fourth season on Hulu, but before it does, fans will be able to catch up on the entire show. Hulu revealed today that the show’s three seasons will be available starting on July 1st. The show follows Veronica Mars, a high school student played by Kristen Bell, who moonlights as a private detective, while also navigating the problems that arise with your regular high school existence. The series ran on UPN and the CW between 2004 and 2007, and was later made into a feature film in 2014. Neptune always calls you back. Stream seasons 1-3 of #VeronicaMars July 1st on @hulu . pic.twitter.com/T5Wui1NuyH — Veronica Mars (@veronicamars) June 8, 2019 Last... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2wFMGHY via IFTTT

Footage of Respawn Entertainment’s upcoming game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order just hit the web , and it shows off a really interesting connection to the rest of the franchise: Saw Gerrera, the leader of a rebel faction in the years before the formation of the Rebel Alliance. The 14-minute clip follows the game’s character, Cal Kestis, a Force user who escaped the Jedi Purge at the end of the Clone Wars, and who is now on the run from the Empire. Saw appears towards the beginning on the Wookiee homeworld Kashyyyk, where he’s working to disrupt the Empire’s plans. It’s a brief appearance, but it highlights how central the character has become in the larger Star Wars universe — a figure that is proving to be hugely important to the era... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2Xv5zsO via IFTTT

Maker Media, the company that publishes Make Magazine and Maker Faire is laying off its staff and halting its operations amidst financial troubles, according to TechCrunch . Maker Media CEO and founder Dale Dougherty confirmed to TechCrunch that the company was ceasing operations and that it had laid off 22 employees, citing financial difficulties with publishing a magazine and the lack of corporate sponsorship. “I started this 15 years ago and it’s always been a struggle as a business to make this work,” he told TechCrunch . “Print publishing is not a great business for anybody, but it works…barely. Events are hard . . . there was a drop off in corporate sponsorship.” Launched in 2005, Maker became a major publication covering the “Maker... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2Kyfryk via IFTTT

Young Jedi and merciless members of the Empire are running rampant in the first 15-minute, uncut gameplay trailer for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order . The footage takes place three hours into the game. Main character Cal Kestis is no longer a Padawan but also not a full-fledged Jedi. The game footage takes place on Kashyyyk, a Wookie planet, where Wookies have been enslaved. Cal Kestis is accompanied by an adorable little droid on his mission in the forest-heavy world. Fallen Order is Respawn Entertainment’s ( Titanfall, Apex Legends ) single-player Star Wars game that follows Cal Kestis (voiced and played by Gotham ’s Cameron Monaghan), one of the last surviving Jedi Order members following an attack by Order 66 after the events of Star... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2Zce78l via IFTTT

Chinese governmental officials reportedly warned numerous tech companies of “dire consequences,” should they cooperate with a US ban against doing business with Chinese tech firm Huawei, according to a report in The New York Times . The move comes after China threatened to set up a blacklist of “unreliable entities” in retaliation for the ban. The Times reports that the warnings came in a series of meetings held earlier this week by members of China’s National Development and Reform Commission, along with members of the Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, before a “broad range of companies that export goods to China,” according to a pair of individuals who were familiar with the talks. It’s not clear... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2wKa2fw via IFTTT

I finally got around to watching Mid90s the other week. The film — written and directed by Jonah Hill — is a surprisingly lo-fi, intimate, personal movie about a kid trying to figure out who he is and how to fit in as he hangs out with a ragtag crew of wannabe skateboarders. Hill does a really great job showing the isolation and awkwardness of his main character with quiet pauses and wonderfully natural, casual dialog that feels as messy as conversations among young teens really would be. It lets him build a cast of characters who feel vibrant and full, while still coming across just as lost and confused as the film’s much quieter lead. The most fascinating thing the movie does, though, is let its characters screw up — a lot. Even after... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2wI24U7 via IFTTT

Current Futures , a new sci-fi anthology of short stories, was published online this week in honor of World Oceans Day , taking readers deep into fantastic (and wet) futures. Genetic editing, holograms, and underwater cities each make appearances in the 18 stories and 18 accompanying illustrations. The stories were edited by sci-fi author Ann VanderMeer, and come from authors all over the world. One author, Lauren Beukes, even wrote her story, “Her Seal Skin Coat” while in Antarctica. The anthology was sponsored by the XPrize Foundation, a group that organizes massive competitions focused on pushing technology forward in different fields, including space exploration , robotics , artificial intelligence , among many others . Their latest... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WluHRz via IFTTT

Premium cable network Epix announced that it is now available on Amazon Prime as a video channel, six months after it launched as such on Roku . Prime subscribers can add on the network as a channel for $5.99 a month. The feature is much like what subscribers can do with other premium networks like HBO, Showtime, and Starz on Amazon Prime, and it allows subscribers to keep their bills all in one place. Expanding the availability over to Amazon makes sense: Epix has been developing a string of original shows, including Batman prequel Pennyworth and an adaptation of podcast Slow Burn , both of which will launch later this year. Another platform means more potential subscribers to sign up for those shows. Epix recently launched its own s... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WUSNqz via IFTTT

Well, fork. NBC’s fantastic, surreal drama The Good Place is coming to an end. Series creator Michael Shur posted a statement on Twitter saying that the upcoming fourth season would be the show’s last. In the statement, Shur (who also created Brooklyn 99 and Parks and Recreation ) says that following the show’s renewal after its first season, he and the show’s writers plotted out where they wanted to take the series. “I began to feel like four seasons — just over 50 episodes — was the right lifespan,” he wrote, and noted that while they’ve thought about pushing it a bit further, they opted to end the series while it was still fresh. Dear Residents of #TheGoodPlace Neighborhood 12358W... pic.twitter.com/UVsm5x704p — The Good Place... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2IxvhGH via IFTTT

In 2019, Facebook isn’t just a homepage; it’s a passport. As mobile apps look for an alternative to passwords, big networks like Facebook and Google have become login services, letting a single login sign you into dozens of different apps. As long as Facebook or Google will vouch for you, most apps are happy to take them at their word, using open protocols like OAuth to verify the login. In return, the big companies find out what you’re logging into and when. It’s a good deal for apps trying to avoid the friction of a sign-up process, and one of the many ways major tech companies have made themselves indispensable — or inescapable, depending on your perspective. At its Worldwide Developers Conference this week , Apple threw a wrench into... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2Wl55Ed via IFTTT

Wanted: tread or belt drive Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2MA9cfW via IFTTT

Lyft filed a lawsuit against San Francisco today claiming city authorities are violating a contract it has with the ride-hailing company that gives Lyft exclusive rights to operate bike-share programs in the area. San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency, on the other hand, says it has the authority to sign partnerships with dockless (also called stationless) vendors, and that Lyft’s contract gives it exclusivity only on docked bike shares. Lyft is seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent the city from issuing bikeshare permits to new vendors. As of today, Lyft owns the company Motivate, which operates the Ford GoBike bikeshare program in San Francisco, a docked program that until very recently offered both electric and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/31evkzU via IFTTT

Two of the biggest names in fantasy are collaborating. According to a new leak just ahead of an official E3 reveal , Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is working with Dark Souls studio FromSoftware on a new game called Elden Ring . At this point we don’t know anything else about the game aside from the title, but given the creators, it’s safe to assume it takes place in a deeply realized fantasy world. The game is slated for Xbox One, PS4, and PC, and will be published by Bandai Namco. We’ll likely hear more about Elden Ring at Microsoft’s press conference on Sunday. While From has been around since 1986, it wasn’t until the release of the dark fantasy action RPG Demon’s Souls in 2009, helmed by visionary director Hidetaka... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WnlXdI via IFTTT

The fifth season of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror , a Twilight Zone -esque anthology TV series about technological anxieties and possible futures, was released on Netflix on June 5th, 2019. We’re looking at each of the season’s three episodes to see what they have to say about current culture and projected fears. Spoiler warning: This essay does not give away the ending of “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too,” but it does reveal some major plot twists. Black Mirror has a frustrating tendency to treat characters as mindless dupes seduced by blatantly creepy technology. The season 5 episode “Rachel, Jack and Ashley Too” seems like a perfect antidote. It’s an uncharacteristically upbeat story about subverting sinister tech toward good ends and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2IpQnXO via IFTTT

There were a bunch of announcements this week at Apple’s WWDC , so The Vergecast is going to help you out by breaking down all of the important stuff into one episode. There was a lot to discuss, so this is a lot of podcast. Would you like Nilay’s feelings on the Pro Display XDR? It’s in here. Paul’s thoughts on graphics cards? Done. Dieter’s weird philosophical rantings about iPadOS ? Sorry, but that’s here, too. I personally haven’t been able to keep track of everything that’s new with iOS and macOS Catalina . Luckily, editing this episode today caught me up on everything I need to know. But this wouldn’t be a show without Paul’s weekly segment “ No more notches? ” We’ve got some non-Apple news like that along with some updates on Google’s... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/31fOJjZ via IFTTT

Bose looks to solve the frustration of making voice calls with headphones Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WKr6kj via IFTTT

A $200 gateway drug to a $1,000 iPhone Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2I0NFZI via IFTTT

There are so many streaming options available these days, and so many conflicting recommendations, that it’s hard to see through all the crap you could be watching. Each Friday, The Verge ’s Cut the Crap column simplifies the choice by sorting through the overwhelming multitude of movies and TV shows on subscription services and recommending a single perfect thing to watch this weekend. What to watch Moon , a 2009 indie science fiction drama, was co-written by Nathan Parker with director Duncan Jones who both made their feature filmmaking debuts. Sam Rockwell stars as Sam Bell, a contract employee working for an energy company on an almost entirely automated lunar compound. As he nears the end of his three-year rotation, Sam has an... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2Muszab via IFTTT

And they’re afraid to speak out about it Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2EW6CL4 via IFTTT

Three senators are calling for YouTube to take more direct action in protecting children against predatory behavior on the platform in the wake of a recent New York Times story , which investigated sexually predatory views and comments on children’s videos posted to YouTube. Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) have each taken a step in addressing YouTube’s child safety issue. Hawley announced yesterday that he would be introducing a bill that would make it unlawful for video-hosting platforms like YouTube to recommend videos that feature minors. Recommendation systems are under particular scrutiny after the Times report, which showed YouTube’s recommendation algorithm suggesting videos of... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2QV1f3E via IFTTT

The fifth season of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror , a Twilight Zone -esque anthology TV series about technological anxieties and possible futures, was released on Netflix on June 5th, 2019. We’re looking at each of the season’s three episodes to see what they have to say about current culture and projected fears. Spoiler warning: This essay does not give away the ending of “Striking Vipers,” but it does reveal the episode’s first major plot twist since it’s difficult to address any of the episode’s themes otherwise. At its most intense and celebrated, the bleak-futures series Black Mirror has extrapolated from common technologies and tech-related social structures and projected ways for them to go terribly wrong. Whether it’s reimagining B... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WxbscH via IFTTT

On Saturday, The Wall Street Journal reported that investigators from the Department of Justice will examine “Google’s business practices related to its search and other businesses.” It’s one of the biggest threats Google has ever faced from US regulators, but so far, we don’t know much about the case itself. The Journal ’s description was open-ended, and the nature of Google’s business makes it vulnerable to antitrust challenges from a number of different directions. Google dominates the search market, but it also holds nearly 40 percent of the digital advertising market, and Android is the world’s most popular operating system. In all of these markets, critics have claimed that Google is simply too big, and it’s faced billion-dollar... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2QS9Sfi via IFTTT

Worried that Facebook collects too much information on you and makes it too freely available to advertisers and others? You’re not the only one. CEO Mark Zuckerberg insists that Facebook is going to fix its privacy problems , but until it does, there are some things you can do to keep your personal information safe. While there are plenty of ways you can tweak Facebook , here are some basic steps that will go a long way toward protecting your privacy on one of the world’s biggest social media networks. Delete personal information You’ll probably be surprised by how much personal information you’ve put on Facebook over the years, from places you’ve lived and visited to your phone number, birthday, and more. So your first privacy step... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WjSoJX via IFTTT

Welcome to Cheat Sheet, our brief breakdown-style reviews of festival films, VR previews, and other special event releases. This review comes from the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It has been updated and revised in conjunction with the film’s release on Netflix. When a fictional AI “goes rogue,” that often really means that it’s working exactly as intended. Tell a machine to make paperclips , and it will turn the entire world into little twists of metal. Ask it to save the planet , and it will decide that people are Earth’s greatest threat. We dream of creating machines that are smarter, more ethical, and more logical than ourselves. Then we fear where that logic will take them. I Am Mother , the debut film from Australian director Grant... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2KEvWcp via IFTTT

In 2015, a massive snowstorm — or, more precisely, a series of massive snowstorms — stranded nearly 50 commuters on a broken train in Boston. Plenty of others were stuck at knotted-up stations since many of the system’s old trains aren’t built to handle heavy snow. So when the storm hit, and kept hitting, the system broke. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) shut down the city’s trains for more than a day, with no real estimate on when full service would be resumed. To say the least, it was a problem. Train stations are liminal spaces, places that serve as a transition between what was and what comes next. We may spend a lot of time there, but it’s always impermanent. There is always a departing train, a next stop, and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2I1LDbO via IFTTT

Snapchat is working on integrating support for events into its service in an apparent attempt to compete with similar functionality offered by Facebook. The unannounced feature was spotted in Snapchat’s code by Jane Manchun Wong , an app researcher with a solid track record for uncovering new social media features before they’re officially announced. It’s currently unclear exactly how Snapchat’s event feature would work — if it’s ever released — but a screenshot posted by Wong shows how its interface looks. When you create an event, you can assign it a time and a place. Swiping up on an invite allows recipients to join a group chat for the event. There’s no word on whether the feature can be used to make public events or if it will only... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2I32MSv via IFTTT

Today, NASA executives announced that the space agency will open up the parts of the International Space Station to more commercial opportunities — allowing companies unprecedented use of the space station’s facilities, including filming commercials or movies against the backdrop of space. NASA is also calling on the private space industry to send in ideas for habitats and modules that can be attached to the space station semi-permanently. A new interim directive from NASA allows private companies to buy time and space on the ISS for producing, marketing, or testing their products. It also allows those companies to use resources on the ISS for commercial purposes, even making use of NASA astronauts’ time and expertise (but not their... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2ZfDCpr via IFTTT

The answer, unsurprisingly, is complicated Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WstEnR via IFTTT

DC Universe has announced that it has canceled its latest live-action TV series Swamp Thing , just after the show’s first episode premiered last week. It’s the first of DC Universe’s slate of shows to get the axe. Launched last year, DC Universe is designed as a one-stop shop for all things from DC, providing subscribers with a massive library of existing comic books, films, and TV shows, along with a whole bunch of live-action and animated original dramas. The first show, Titans , premiered in October and was quickly renewed for a second season , while its second, Doom Patrol (which has not received a second season order), hit in February. Swamp Thing is the latest original, and it premiered on the streaming service on May 31st. The news... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2ZdF3EY via IFTTT

For fans looking to hear about the future of games, E3 has always been an exciting week. This year, though, there’s a big cloud hanging over the show. Two of the biggest names in the industry aren’t holding their usual press conferences; mega publisher Electronic Arts will instead be live streaming news and announcements over the course of a weekend; and Sony isn’t just forgoing a keynote, it’s skipping E3 altogether. At the same time, the weeks leading up to E3 have been full of major announcements, from the next Call of Duty and a strange array of Pokémon experiences , to long-awaited details on Google’s cloud gaming service and a release date for Death Stranding . It has left some to ponder — and not for the first time — whether E3 is... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2IpfvOm via IFTTT

HMD Nokia is expanding the breadth of its smartphone lineup in the US today with the launch of the Nokia 3.1 A for AT&T and the Nokia 3.1 C for Cricket. The Nokia 3.1 A is the company’s first phone for AT&T’s network since HMD relaunched the brand in 2016, while the 3.1 C joins the larger 3.1 Plus from earlier this year on Cricket’s network. Targeted at the entry-level of the market, the phones are essentially identical in terms of specs and features. They have 5.45-inch, 720 pixel wide displays; 8-megapixel rear cameras with LED flash and 1080p video capture; 5-megapixel front cameras; 2,990mAh batteries that Nokia says is good for two days of battery life; Qualcomm Snapdragon 429 processors with 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage with... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WiPtRP via IFTTT

Facebook won’t allow Huawei to pre-install its apps on smartphones anymore, Reuters is reporting . It’s the latest example of Western tech companies cutting ties with the beleaguered Chinese telecom giant after President Trump issued an effective trade ban against it. Huawei phone owners will still be able to download and use apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook’s main app itself, and they’ll continue to receive updates through the Play store. Huawei just won’t be able to include them out of the box, which it typically does alongside various other pre-loaded services like Twitter. Facebook has apparently landed on a different calculus to deal with the trade ban than Google. Google has secured a temporary license to continue to... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/31esZoG via IFTTT

According to a new report by the Financial Times , Google is trying to make the case to the Trump administration that it needs to be able to provide technology to Huawei in the name of US national security. According to one FT source, the central point of the argument is that Huawei would be forced to fork Android into a “hybrid” version that would be “more at risk of being hacked, not least by China.” Google, like all US companies, has been banned from having business dealings with Huawei . In the long term, that would mean that Google would not be able to provide any of its services on Huawei phones. In the short term, the company has secured a temporary license to continue to supply software updates to existing phones. Because Huawei... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WmXy7U via IFTTT

Starting this fall in the US, Walmart customers in select cities can choose to have their groceries delivered directly into their refrigerators when away from home. The InHome service will use Walmart vehicles and its own workers equipped with proprietary wearable cameras. Using undisclosed “smart entry technology,” Walmart employees will be able to enter homes to make deliveries, while customers will be able to control access and watch the deliveries remotely. Walmart takes the order “from food aisle to fridge,” according to a statement issued by the company. The InHome services will launch this fall and be available to over 1 million customers in three cities: Kansas City, Missouri; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and Vero Beach, Florida.... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2I0hs4E via IFTTT

Virtual reality and eye-tracking seem like an incredible match — for reasons I’ll illustrate below — and now HTC’s first dedicated stab at an eye-tracking headset has arrived in the US and Canada for $1,599. That’s the word from HTC’s official blog post , following an earlier release for the headset in China and Europe last month. Why eye-tracking? As my colleague Nick explained when he tried the Vive Pro Eye in January , it not only allows you to control things in VR just by looking at them, but can also produce higher fidelity VR images with less processing power — by only rendering the parts of a scene that you’re actually looking at in high resolution, instead of wasting those resources on your peripheral vision too. It’s a technique... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WO2xTh via IFTTT

Google unveiled its Stadia launch date and pricing today. The cloud gaming service is arriving in November , priced at $9.99 per month for access to the premium tier of service. While you’ll be able to use Google’s powerful cloud servers for that subscription, you will need to purchase the majority of games separately. Google hasn’t confirmed exact game pricing and availability just yet, but it is releasing a list of launch titles that will be available on the service. The big additions are Destiny 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3. Destiny 2 takes advantage of cross-save support that Google is bringing to Stadia, allowing players to share their progression between Xbox, PC, and Stadia. We don’t yet know what other games will get similar support like... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2ItHWui via IFTTT

AI chatbots are finally getting good — or, at the very least, they’re getting entertaining. Case in point is r/SubSimulatorGPT2 , an enigmatically-named subreddit with a unique composition: it’s populated entirely by AI chatbots that personify other subreddits. (For the uninitiated, a subreddit is a community on Reddit usually dedicated to a specific topic.) How does it work? Well, in order to create a chatbot you start by feeding it training data. Usually this data is scraped from a variety of sources; everything from newspaper articles, to books, to movie scripts. But on r/SubSimulatorGPT2, each bot has been trained on text collected from specific subreddits, meaning that the conversations they generate reflect the thoughts, desires,... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2MvZcV3 via IFTTT

Bungie is bringing cross-progression to Destiny 2 as part of a new Shadowkeep year three update . The change comes just months after the game studio, known for titles like Halo and Destiny, parted ways with its longtime publishing partner Activision . Destiny 2 players will now be able to share their characters across Xbox One, PC, and Google’s new Stadia game streaming service. You’ll notice that PlayStation 4 is the big missing part of this cross-save feature. “We’re still working with PlayStation to figure out the transition,” explains Stadia project manager Andrey Doronichev in a statement to The Verge . It’s not clear if Sony is holding cross-save progress back, or if there arejust technical hurdles. In Google’s Stadia event, the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/31gJ25d via IFTTT

‘Founders’ will pay $130 for first dibs Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2HXauxb via IFTTT

Amazon’s HQ2 isn’t coming to New York, but Jeff Bezos is ! (At least, he’s investing in New York City real estate.) The Amazon CEO plonked down $80 million for a 10,000-square-foot penthouse, plus two other apartments directly below it. The penthouse is already three floors, according to the Wall Street Journal , but should Bezos combine his acquisitions, he’ll wind up with 17,000 square feet and 12 bedrooms. Now, obviously, Jeff’s going to want a bedroom, and let’s assume probably his four kids aren’t going to share bedrooms. That is still seven leftover bedrooms. I’m sure Bezos has hired an interior designer, but just in case I’d like to give him some inspiration on how to theme the rest of his bedrooms. I’m not sure any of these ideas... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2MwxJT8 via IFTTT

The gloom surrounding Huawei ever since its blacklisting by the US has been pierced by a ray of Russian sunshine this week, as the Chinese company announced it’s signed a 5G development deal with MTS , Russia’s biggest mobile operator. Timed to coincide with a three-day visit by Chinese president Xi Jinping to Moscow, the deal signals a desire for a closer relationship between the two Asian powers, and it unites the fates of two of their respective leading companies. Russian leader Vladimir Putin, quoted by his national news service TASS , has said that cooperation between Russia and China is now “at an unprecedently high level,” and the sentiment has been echoed by president Xi. Both countries would appear to be finding comfort from... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2XxZnR0 via IFTTT

An Apple director has said that the iPad’s upcoming mouse support is likely to have uses that go beyond making the iPad more accessible to people with disabilities. In an interview with TechCrunch , Apple’s director of Global Accessibility Policy & Initiatives, Sarah Herrlinger, said “Accessibility features can benefit more than the original community they were designed to support,” before referencing closed captions as an example of a widely used feature that was originally meant for the hard of hearing. Mouse support on the iPad is a frequently-requested feature, especially since Apple has billed its latest iPad Pros as replacements for a traditional laptop. Apple might supply keyboard-equipped covers for the tablets, but users still... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2wB7Vuv via IFTTT

Yesterday, Google released the fourth beta for Android Q, which was made available via OTA updates for Pixels and might have hinted at improved face unlock for future devices . Unfortunately, some number of Pixel users who downloaded and installed the Over-The-Air update have run into problems: their phones “bootlooped,” going into a constant reset state. As Android Central notes, Google has updated a post on Reddit to say that it is pausing the rollout of the latest Beta while it looks into these issues. Google writes: We’re aware of an issue with Android Q Beta 4 related to installing updates. We’ve temporarily paused Beta 4 OTA updates to all Pixel devices as we investigate the issue. We apologize for any inconvenience, and will... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2wKVDiZ via IFTTT

E3 2019 kicks off next week, and with it an onslaught of game announcements, trailers, and news. Electronic Arts, Xbox, Bethesda, Ubisoft, Square Enix, and Nintendo all have plans to showcase their upcoming projects, even before the show officially begins on Tuesday, June 11th. The good news? It’ll all be streaming. Here’s how to watch and what to expect from each one. Saturday, June 8th EA Play When: 9:15AM PT / 12:15PM ET What: EA Play will be an all day event, but it includes a few notable highlights. At 9:30AM PT, Star Wars fans can tune in for more info on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order , followed by Apex Legends at 10AM PT. The full schedule also includes a focus on Battlefield V , EA Sports FIFA and Madden NFL , and The Sims 4 . How to... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2Xx3vRc via IFTTT

Earlier this week at WWDC, I finally got a chance to sit down and actually use iPadOS on an iPad Pro. The purpose of the meeting was ostensibly to walk me through the new features, but I greedily grabbed the iPad and started tapping, swiping, and opening web pages — listening and talking about what was new all the while. Turns out that, just like the new OS on the iPad, I can multitask better than I expected. Jamming through the new features on iPadOS was like a greatest hits album of iPad Pro complaints that have been resolved. External USB drives, direct access to drives for Lightroom, and a desktop-class browser all felt like direct responses to our iPad Pro review last year. Other annoying things have also been fixed, too. For... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2ZcnfKd via IFTTT

Last summer, during tech platforms’ long period of indecision over what to do about Alex Jones, I wondered why their community standards so often seemed to favor the bully over his victims . Algorithms built by YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter all worked to recruit new followers for Jones, but when some of those followers then forced parents of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting to go into hiding , the platforms offered no support. That’s why I was heartened on Tuesday to learn that YouTube is changing its policies to make victims of Sandy Hook, 9/11, and other historical tragedies a protected class . That means YouTubers will no longer be able to upload videos denying that these historical events happened. That reduces the... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2HYaqxp via IFTTT

Whether via Valve’s Steam or Nvidia’s website , you can now download the RTX demo of Quake II that got The Verge ’s Sam Byford excited when he tried it at Computex a week ago. RTX is Nvidia’s branding for ray tracing, covering graphics cards, computers, and games that support it, and this Quake recreation is one of the most instantly appealing and accessible manifestations of the tech. You’ll obviously need to have an RTX GPU somewhere in your system in order to make the magic of real-time light and shadow calculations happen, but if you do, the first three levels of Quake II are waiting for you to download and enjoy for free, and if you want the full game, that can be had for $4.99. Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2Kvjbkd via IFTTT

Starting July 9th, Uber will offer helicopter rides between JFK airport and Lower Manhattan that can be booked on demand through its app. Uber Copter, The New York Times reports , will offer eight minute flights between the city and its major airport, with prices typically costing between $200 and $225. Flights can be booked up to five days in advance. Uber Copter’s launch comes almost three years after Uber launched its flying car project called Uber Elevate , which was an ambitious plan to offer flights using a network of lightweight, electric aircraft. Since then the company has continued to offer one-off marketing stunts where it gives people helicopter tours of big events like CES , but nothing that will actually get you from point A... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2K09pqL via IFTTT

Two years after their original introduction , Google is updating its SOS Alerts with more real-time information about areas affected by natural disasters, and new navigation warnings in Google Maps to help route you around danger. The changes will also show you more detailed visual information about earthquakes, hurricanes, and floods, with a visual overlay to show the impacted areas. For hurricanes, Google will attempt to forecast their route, and will display a crisis notification card in Google Maps if you’re near an affected area. Flood forecasts will show an overlay on a map of affected areas, along with information about severity. Finally, earthquakes will also get a crisis card, which will show you its epicenter, magnitude, and... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2K1Hreq via IFTTT

The fourth version of Android Q’s developer beta includes a new “Face Authentication” entry in its settings menu, suggesting Google is planning to include native support for face unlock in the operating system. 9to5Google reports that the feature will support using your face to unlock the device, sign into apps, and make payments, similar to Apple’s competing Face ID technology. The final version of Android Q is expected to be released later this summer. We’ve seen face unlock support appear on Android devices before, but it’s generally relied on manufacturers building their own support for it on top of the core operating system. Since each manufacturer has to build its own implementation, the results can be inconsistent. The face unlock... Continue reading… from The Verge - All Posts http://bit.ly/2WkVPjo via IFTTT