Technology

Nintendo has released the first eight of 48 new tracks coming to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as part of its Booster Course Pass DLC. It’s an ambitious release strategy that will eventually see it double the number of courses in the game to an impressive 96 in total by the end of next year. Nintendo might not be referring to these new releases as Mario Kart 9, but five years after the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe — and almost eight years after Mario Kart 8 originally debuted on the Wii U — it’s hard not to hope that they might effectively serve as a sequel. While new to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, none of these tracks are brand new. Much like roughly half of the game’s original 48 courses, they’re remasters from previous Mario Kart games. There’s one each from its entries on the Nintendo 64, Wii, GBA, D...

Crime reporting app Citizen has reportedly planned a partnership with private security outfit Securitas in Chicago. A report from Motherboard, citing multiple anonymous sources, suggests Citizen remains interested in offering security services despite ongoing concerns about its app. According to Motherboard, the Chicago Securitas partnership would “function as a check-in service” for users. Securitas could follow up after someone reported a break-in to make sure they’re all right, for instance, or a user could schedule a Securitas visit through Citizen. Citizen already offers a subscription emergency response service called Protect, but it consists of voice or video calls with an agent who can contact traditional emergency services, not a full-fledged security force. The partnership could ...

Ford Mustang Mach-E owners will seemingly soon have another option for planning out a route: Apple Maps’ long-awaited EV routing (via 9to5Mac). It’s understandable if that feature doesn’t ring a bell — Apple announced it at WWDC 2020, saying that it’d be coming to BMW and Ford cars with iOS 14, but it’s mostly been silent about it since. According to the Apple Maps site, the feature assesses “your charge level, elevation, and compatible charging stops along your route.” A page posted to Ford’s website, but now seemingly removed (you can see an archived version here) says that Mach-E owners with either a 2022 model year vehicle or certain versions of the ’21 model will be able to access the route planning while using CarPlay (though it does mention it hopes to get it to all Mach-E drivers b...

The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro are finally getting this month’s sizeable feature drop, as Google spokesperson Matt Flegal confirmed to The Verge that the rollout will begin today. Google previously rolled out the update to the Pixel 3A and 5A on March 7th but decided to push back the update for Pixel 6 devices to address bug fixes, according to Android Police. March’s feature drop brings improved night photography in Snapchat, custom stickers, support for YouTube watch parties in Google Duo, as well as a new Live Caption feature you can use to communicate without even talking during phone calls. We go over these features in greater detail in our post about the update’s initial rollout. The update also brings a number of bug fixes, including “general improvements” for the fingerprint sensor’s stabil...

Naomi Osaka — four-time Grand Slam champion, dedicated activist and entrepreneur — has signed a long-term partnership with the highly-valuable, Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Under the agreement, Osaka will act as a global ambassador for the company, obtain an equity stake in FTX Trading Limited and receive compensation in crypto. The brand notes that Osaka’s ambassador duties will largely center on “bringing women onto the platform and into the future of Web3.” “We have seen the statistics about how few women are part of crypto by comparison, which kind of mirrors the inequality we see in other financial markets,” Osaka said. “Cryptocurrencies started with the goal of being accessible to everyone and breaking down barriers to entry. I’m excited to partner with FTX to...

Microsoft is pushing ahead with plans to warn Windows 11 users that have installed the operating system on unsupported hardware. In a new update to Windows 11, a watermark has appeared on the desktop wallpaper for unsupported systems, alongside a similar warning in the landing page of the settings app. Microsoft had been testing these changes last month, but they’re now rolling out to Release Preview just ahead of a full release to all Windows 11 users in the coming days. While Microsoft doesn’t mention the addition of a watermark in its “improvements” list for this update, testers have noticed it’s included. The new Windows 11 desktop watermark for unsupported PCs. If Windows 11 is running on unsupported hardware, a new desktop watermark will state “System requirements not met. Go to sett...

They don’t make many games like Ghostwire: Tokyo anymore. The latest release from Tango Gameworks, the studio behind the terrifying Evil Within series, Ghostwire: Tokyo is a big-budget action game with a very specific focus. It isn’t stretched out with an unnecessarily large open world or superfluous online features. Instead, it offers something pure and straightforward: a mix of action, adventure, and scares in a tight package that can be wrapped up in less than 20 hours. At the outset of the game, nearly every person in Tokyo has vanished, leaving the metropolis overrun with yokai, folklore creatures, urban legends, and vengeful spirits. You play as Akito, a human who was able to survive the cataclysm by merging with a spirit named KK, who infuses him with supernatural powers. The newly ...

You wouldn’t want to fly most drones in a serious downpour, even most industrial-grade ones from DJI. Until today, DJI’s state-of-the-art was the M300 RTK, a drone that took a barrage of water in marketing videos but where the fine print (PDF) says that snow and heavy rain are not OK for flying. But DJI’s weather sealing and confidence rating have improved — the new DJI M30 Enterprise, announced today, is explicitly ready for “heavy rain, high winds, high altitudes, even in icy and snowy conditions from -20° C to 50° C,” according to the company. The M30 has an IP55 rating for dust and water protection, compared to the IP45 rating of the M300 RTK. That’s not a higher water rating, technically.Image: DJI The M30 is also more portable than practically any of the company’s other industrial dr...

Early in March, a bunch of Facebook users got a mysterious, spam-like email titled “Your account requires advanced security from Facebook Protect” and telling them that they were required to turn on the Facebook Protect feature (which they could do by hitting a link in the email) by a certain date, or they would be locked out of their account. The program, according to Facebook, is a “security program for groups of people that are more likely to be targeted by malicious hackers, such as human rights defenders, journalists, and government officials.” It’s meant to do things like ensure those accounts are monitored for hacking threats and that they are protected by two-factor authentication (2FA). Unfortunately, the email that Facebook sent from the address security@facebookmail.com resemble...

I almost feel silly writing this out but… did anyone else know there’s a built-in gesture to bulk select messages, emails, notes, and more across Apple’s stock apps? Rather than using a sub-menu to put the items in “Select” mode and then ticking the circles that appear in each row, you can just swipe two fingers down the list to select every item in the list that your fingers touch. If you already knew about this feature then feel free to stop reading here, but I, and several of my Verge colleagues, only learned about it when developer Jordan Morgan tweeted to complain that more third-party apps should make use of it. So although it’s a feature that’s available to all apps on iOS and iPadOS, you’ll mainly find it in Apple’s stock apps. From poking around, it seems to be available in Messag...