Tech Talk

It looks very much as though the Sony LinkBuds true wireless earbuds are going to get a follow-up in the near future – with the near future being Wednesday, May 18, if the latest leak from the rumor mill is to be believed. Said leak comes from well-established tipster Jon Prosser , who says that the earbuds will get their grand unveiling on that date. He also expects the flagship Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones to be launched on May 12. We haven't heard a huge amount about the Sony LinkBuds S up to this point, but there has been a rumor that the hole in the center of the earbuds on the original LinkBuds will be removed, with a round vent near the ear canal to allow sound to pass through instead. Yep. Announcement on May 12$399XM4s will stay around for $349Also, new LinkBuds 👇LinkBuds S (closed wireless earbuds)Announcement on May 18$199 https://t.co/GPi3w87l3D May 5, 2022 See more Paying the price Prosser has also leaked out the pricing of the Sony LinkBuds S: $199 (about

As we're on the eve of Google IO 2022 , Android 13  has seen a public beta, and it includes hints towards Google's own take on Handoff, a feature that first appeared on Apple devices. Handoff allows you to carry on using the same app as you switch between different Apple devices. This can be Safari, a music track, or a podcast, as long as you're signed in with the same Apple ID account. But Continuity lets you carry on in using a feature on a different Apple device, such as taking a photo and seeing it on your Mac. While Google enables you to sync up your bookmarks and purchases when you sign into Android or ChromeOS , the same can't be said for when you're browsing a web page, or midway through listening to a Spice Girls track or watching The Batman again. There's hints towards this already called Tap to Transfer in the Android 13 public beta build, but there's no confirmation from Google as yet. With this in mind, this is why Handoff should be one of

Corsair has said that it expects GPU availability to improve and pricing to be back to MSRP soon, and possibly we’ll see price tags drop below recommended pricing with discounts, as more and more people build their own PCs in the second half of 2022. The company just revealed its Q1 financial results, with Corsair’s CEO, Andy Paul, observing that the quarter saw “positive underlying growth trends” in gaming hardware, despite some continued headwinds, and the chief exec specifically addressed the situation around both self-build PCs and graphics cards. As PC Gamer spotted, Paul noted that in Q1 of 2022, GPUs were the most expensive single component in a gaming PC and were riding around 150% higher than MSRP (the recommended price from the manufacturer) on average – but even with that premium, the CEO said that “gaming PC build activity [was] slightly higher than pre-pandemic and pre-GPU shortage levels.” Furthermore, Paul commented: “We expect that GPU cards will be back to MSRP

Because we liked the OnePlus 10 Pro so much, we're already excited to see what the OnePlus 11 will bring in 2023 - even though we're not expecting it to launch for a long, long time. This will likely be the first OnePlus phone of the year, though we're expecting many entries to the company's Nord line in the meantime. It'll likely be one of the best Android phones of the year, going by the last few entries in the family, though we'll need to wait and see. We haven't heard many rumors about the OnePlus 11 so far. Normally we'd create a rumor hub listing every leak and report, but until we've heard anything major, we've written a wish-list that you can read below. Cut to the chase What is it? The 2023 entry in OnePlus' flagship line When is it out? Likely the first few months of 2023 How much will it cost? Probably just under $899 / £799 (roughly AU$1,400) OnePlus 11 price and availability Going by precedent, we'll likely se

Spotify is shutting down Spotify Stations, its lightweight music streaming app, on May 16, according to emails being sent out to users.  The email is being shared across Twitter which explains both the standalone app and web-based player will no longer function. In fact, Spotify isn’t even waiting until May 16 to begin shutting down Stations as the app has already been delisted from the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store . Spotify’s email goes on to clarify that the music stations will migrate over to the main app and recommends you move your favorites over. Finished experiment We reached out to Spotify to ask why it was discontinuing Stations. Simply put, it was an “experiment” that ran its course. A Spotify spokesperson told TechRadar in a statement, “At Spotify, we routinely conduct a number of experiments to create better listening experiences for our users. Some of those tests end up paving the way for our broader user experience and others serve only as an important

The New York Times reports “more than half a dozen” people were fired. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Amazon has reportedly fired several senior managers that were part of “operations and leadership” at JFK8, the facility in Staten Island, New York that recently voted to unionize . According to the The New York Times , Amazon told the managers it was going through an “organizational change,” but some of their co-workers see it as a punishment for the union’s win. The Times writes that “more than half a dozen” managers were fired, and that many of them had been tasked with responding to unionization efforts. What that means is frustratingly vague — it could mean that the managers were tasked with keeping the union from winning, and that they were fired for failing to do so. But it could also mean that the managers had helped the union in some way, and are being fired for that (though that would likely be a case of illegal retaliation). Amazon’s actions in the run-up to

As Apple faces pressure to open up the iPhone to third-party App Store providers, one developer has been helping users sideload apps since 2019 — and has issues with overbroad legislation demanding users be able to sideload. Apple has been persistently consistent and clear on its view that sideloading brings malware risks , and it's going to take changes in the law to make it allow unapproved apps onto the iPhone . Yet developer Riley Testut has been using one of Apple's own tools to allow users to install apps from outside Apple's curated App Store. According to Fast Company , AltStore has been downloaded over 1.5 million times since its 2019 launch . It reportedly has over 300,000 active monthly users, and almost 6,000 of those contribute to Testut's Patreon, paying over $14,500 for him to work on the service full time.

There are limits on which emoji you can use. | Image: WhatsApp WhatsApp is now rolling out the ability to react to a message with emoji, as well as share files that are up to 2GB in size, a massive jump from the previous 100MB limit. Meta, the company behind WhatsApp, said last month that these features would be coming “soon,” and it seems like today’s the day. The company also announced on Thursday that it’ll be doubling the maximum size of group chats. When reactions were first announced , Meta said that you’d only be able to use a select few to start out with but that support for “all emojis and skin-tones” would be added in the future. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressing many emotions here. The reactions are a useful feature, which is why other apps like Slack and Telegram have had them for a while — if you want to be able to show that a message made you laugh without clogging up the group chat, you’ve now got a way to do that. That’s going to be extra important soon, as

But will I have to claim that as income on my taxes? Intuit, the company behind TurboTax, has agreed to pay out $141 million after it “cheated millions of low-income Americans out of free tax filing services,” in the words of New York Attorney General Letitia James. Most of that money will go to consumers that were tricked into paying for its service. This comes as the result of an agreement it made with the AG (and officials from all 50 states and DC), which will also require the company to change its marketing practices. According to the Attorney General’s press release , Intuit will owe people $30 for every year they were tricked into paying for TurboTax between 2016 and 2018. The document notes that “impacted consumers will automatically receive notices and a check by mail.” TurboTax has long been maligned for being opaque and having deceptive marketing. For years there were two versions of its tax preparation software that had “free” in the name: TurboTax Free Edition, and T

Bluesky Bluesky, Twitter’s open-source offshoot, has released early code for a decentralized social network protocol. The system is dubbed the Authenticated Data Experiment (or ADX) and is available on GitHub for developers to test, although Bluesky emphasizes that it’s incomplete. It’s one of the most substantive windows into Bluesky’s workings since the project was conceived in 2019 and formally incorporated in early 2022. Bluesky CEO Jay Graber writes that ADX will be the start of a semi-public development process. “We’re going to take a middle path of releasing work before it’s complete, but also giving ourselves time to workshop new directions at early stages,” Graber says. The GitHub repository includes an overview of ADX’s goals and design as well as some experimental code. “Feel free to play around, but don’t try to build your next big social app on this yet. Things are missing, and things are going to change,” Graber says. The code is available under an open source MIT

To commemorate National Small Business Week, Meta has announced a number of new tools to help businesses manage conversations and ads as well as generate leads. According to a new press release from the company, businesses have had a lot of success getting discovered by new customers and having conversations using Facebook and Instagram ads that open to a WhatsApp chat. In order to make it easier to create these kinds of ads, Meta will soon make it possible to create full ads directly from the WhatsApp Business app. As businesses using the company’s Inbox are already managing customer messages across Facebook Messenger and Instagram Direct all in one place. Now though, Meta plans to bring WhatsApp to Inbox as well so that multiple people at an organization can manage messages in Inbox from the same WhatsApp number on multiple devices to help save time and boost productivity. Meta is also testing a new capability in Meta Business Suite that will allow businesses to send promotio

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Employees at a third Apple retail store have announced that they’re trying to organize a vote on whether to unionize, according to a report from The Washington Post . Workers at Apple’s Towson Town Center store in Maryland say that they’ve received signatures from a majority of the employees that would likely be able to join a union, and are planning on filing with the National Labor Relations Board to schedule an election. In a letter , the organizers say their union is called the “Coalition of Organized Retail Employees” (or AppleCORE), and say they’re not trying to “go against or create conflict with” Apple management. Instead, the workers say they want to gain access to rights they currently don’t have. While they don’t specify which ones in the letter or a press release , The Washington Post reports employees saying they want a voice when it comes to determining their pay, hours, and coronavirus safety. In the letter, the workers ask Ti

Throwing its hat into the metaverse ring, Spotify has launched a new digital space with a revolving theme where players can come in to create music and play games. The aptly named Spotify Island is available on Roblox , although the name is a little misleading. Judging by the trailer and the early YouTube videos, the space is more of an archipelago as players can hop from island to island with a large central hub in the middle. Since it’s all centered around music, the big island houses a big-screen stage for concerts and “beat-maker stations powered by Soundtrap.” You can play in this world by downloading it from Roblox . Kid-friendly beat making Soundtrap is an online audio station owned by Spotify that people can use to make music with it or record a podcast. But since this is a kid’s game, music-making is pretty rudimentary. Throughout the digital world, you’ll come across these pink stones that create a sound when pressed. It doesn’t appear that there will be a way to record

Embracer Group has announced its latest acquisition and it's another big one. Making a deal with Square Enix for $300 million, this sees them set to acquire Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montréal, and Square Enix Montréal. Sharing the news in a press release , this acquisition also includes IP rights to several big franchises, including Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain, and "more than 50 back-catalogue games from Square Enix Holdings." It's a surprisingly low amount given what's on offer here, though Square Enix has often expressed disappointment at sales for Western games.  Embracer confirms this deal affects 1,100 employees and that, if it passes, will be expected to close between July to September this year. Speaking further, Lars Wingefors, co-founder and group CEO, stated ”We are thrilled to welcome these studios into the Embracer Group. We recognize the fantastic IP, world class creative talent, and track record of excellence that have been demonstr

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge As a category, mental health apps have worse privacy protections for users than most other types of apps, according to a new analysis from researchers at Mozilla. Prayer apps also had poor privacy standards, the team found. “The vast majority of mental health and prayer apps are exceptionally creepy,” Jen Caltrider, the Mozilla *Privacy Not Included guide lead, said in a statement. “They track, share, and capitalize on users’ most intimate personal thoughts and feelings, like moods, mental state, and biometric data.” In the latest iteration of the guide , the team analyzed 32 mental health and prayer apps. Of those apps, 29 were given a “privacy not included” warning label, indicating that the team had concerns about how the app managed user data. The apps are designed for sensitive issues like mental health conditions, yet collect large amounts of personal data under vague privacy policies, the team said in the statement. Most apps also ha

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The Wikimedia Foundation (WMF), the organization behind Wikipedia, has announced that it will no longer accept donations in cryptocurrency, as first reported by Web3 Is Going Just Great . In an update , the WMF says it “has decided to discontinue direct acceptance of cryptocurrency as a means of donating.” It also says it will close its Bitpay account, preventing any future contributions in crypto. After a lengthy discussion with almost 400 members of the WMF community, the majority voted to do away with crypto contributions 234 to 94. Some of the main arguments concerned the environmental implications of Bitcoin, the risk of scams , as well as the fact that the WMF gets such a low amount of donations in cryptocurrency compared to other forms of payment. The WMF says it received $130,100.94 worth of cryptocurrency donations in 2021, making up just 0.08 percent of the total contributions it received. Following the community’s vote, the WM

Photo by Sean Hollister / The Verge I never thought I’d be writing about my baby’s Fisher-Price gamepad again, but here we go: a modder has turned the cheap tune-filled toy into a complete Xbox gamepad with everything you’d need to play Elden Ring. And incredibly, he did so without losing any of the Fisher-Price Game & Learn Controller ’s built-in sound effects — meaning you can now pair your Malenia run with such classic kiddie hits as “1, 2, 3, 4, up goes your score!” and “Orange, purple, white and pink, green, red and blue, woohoo!” here's the Fisher Price Xbox controller in action! let me know what games you'd like to see me play with it and thanks to @Wario64 for the off-hand joke that inspired me to make this happen pic.twitter.com/3OETvcsEsI — Rudeism (@rudeism) May 1, 2022 This may not be surprising if you’ve heard the name Dylan “Rudeism” Beck before, because this is actually one of the less ambitious controller stunts the New Zealand native and

Image: Razer Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff, the co-founder and former president of gaming hardware company Razer, passed away last week at the age of 81. Maybe you’ve never heard Krakoff’s name, but it’s possible you’ve been impacted by his far-reaching legacy. In 1999, Krakoff was behind the first-ever gaming mouse: the Razer Boomslang . Not only was it the foundation of Razer’s now-massive lineup of gaming mice, it arguably jumpstarted the entire gaming peripheral industry. Below, you can see Krakoff himself in an ad promoting the Razer Boomslang mouse in 2002 — alongside professional gamer Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, who signed a historic sponsorship deal with Razer long before the word “esports” entered the lexicon. Origin stories can be complicated, and the story of Razer is more convoluted than most. Razer wasn’t actually a company until 2005 — it was the trademarked brand of an entity called Kärna , which had invented an opto-mechanical encoding wheel that could track a mo

It's been three years since the first-ever 5G phone launched in Europe, and the handsets that have followed it have met with a mixed reception; 5G was expected to be a revolution for mobile tech, but several years of Covid and lockdown have thrown a spanner in the works. On May 1, 2019, the Oppo Reno 5G landed in Switzerland. The country became an early battleground for 5G phone companies, due to it being one of the first to get 5G networks earlier that year.  Oppo beat out Huawei and Xiaomi, which launched its first 5G phones literally the following day, although the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G and a mod for the Moto Z4 won the race to be first in other continents. The victory was a surprise because, at the time, Oppo wasn't as big a force in Europe as it is now. With the past year bringing the Oppo Find X5 Pro , the OnePlus merger and big-ticket sponsorships such as Wimbledon, it's easy to forget that it was quite fresh-faced back in 2019. At the big European launch, o