Technology

Tablets exist in a space between phones and laptops that is becoming increasingly muddled. As phones become more powerful and gain larger displays, laptops continue to get lighter. Tablet manufacturers haven’t been resting on their laurels, though, and many of the more recent tablets we’ve seen are looking to bridge the gap in terms of performance and, in select cases, handle some tasks more efficiently than both phones and laptops. The tablet spectrum is varied, too. Inexpensive models like the Amazon Fire HD 10 make for excellent media streaming devices, while those in Microsoft’s versatile Surface lineup can easily serve as ad-hoc laptops when paired with an optional, folio-style keyboard. Then there’s the ubiquitous iPad, a slate that has become the go-to tablet for anyone searching fo...

Hogwarts Legacy, the upcoming open-world Harry Potter RPG, got its first proper gameplay reveal from developer Avalanche Software ahead of its release date later this year at a special PlayStation State of Play stream that showed off 14 minutes of footage from the game. (Despite the Sony-hosted debut, Hogwarts Legacy isn’t a PlayStation exclusive and will also be released on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X / Series S in addition to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.) Players will get to create their own character, be sorted into one of the four Hogwarts houses, and take classes (although they’ll be starting Hogwarts as a late-fifth-year student, presumably to avoid a serious RPG starring an 11-year-old.) Live your own Hogwarts adventure Combat will involve using different spell combinati...

T-Mobile will be adding a new layer of security to its port-out process with the addition of a PIN, according to the company. According to The T-Mo Report, which obtained an internal document, the new number transfer procedure would require users to obtain a six-digit PIN from T-Mobile’s app or site and provide it when attempting to change their number to a different provider, which could make it harder for bad actors to steal phone numbers in “SIM swapping” attacks. In a statement to The Verge, T-Mobile Media Relations confirmed the company is “putting Number Transfer PINs in place to add an additional layer of security to protect customers from unauthorized port outs. These PINs will be put in place soon.” According to The T-Mo Report, the process will only be available to postpaid custo...

Gran Turismo 7, one of the biggest PlayStation releases of the year so far, has been undergoing server maintenance for hours because of an issue found with the game’s latest update. “Due to an issue found with Update 1.07, we are extending the current server maintenance period,” reads a notice on the Gran Turismo website from this morning. “We will confirm the completion time as soon as possible.” The maintenance means that much of Gran Turismo 7, including its career mode and multiplayer, is unplayable, and it’s unclear when the maintenance might end. Developer Polyphony Digital hasn’t detailed what the underlying issue might be, and Sony didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. Update 1.07 adjusted rewards for some races According to Polyphony’s patch notes, Update 1.07 adds a ...

Amazon is facing a lawsuit in federal court from the National Labor Relations Board. The watchdog has asked a judge to issue an injunction forcing Amazon to give labor activist Gerald Bryson his job back. Amazon fired Bryson in April 2020, in what the NLRB says is a clear case of Amazon retaliating against him for protesting unsafe working conditions at its JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, NY. According to the NLRB, the Section 10(j) injunction it’s pursuing is intended to temporarily make a situation right when the court case could take too long to fix the alleged issue. In this case, Bryson has been fighting to get his job back for almost two years, according to The New York Times. The NLRB petition (which you can read in full below) argues that other employees may be afraid to speak out...

This afternoon, NASA will begin the very slow process of rolling out its brand new rocket, the Space Launch System, transporting the fully stacked vehicle out to its primary launchpad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. It’s a major moment for the rocket, which has been in development for the last decade, but after numerous delays and hiccups, the vehicle’s launch may finally be on the horizon. The Space Launch System, or SLS, has spent most of the last year tucked away in NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building, a massive warehouse structure at KSC used to house and integrate giant rockets. There, the pieces of the vehicle have been stacked together and tested, getting everything ready for this moment. the vehicle will embark on an 11-hour journey across four miles of KSC terrain Now, the vehicl...

It took less than six hours for drug-developing AI to invent 40,000 potentially lethal molecules. Researchers put AI normally used to search for helpful drugs into a kind of “bad actor” mode to show how easily it could be abused at a biological arms control conference. All the researchers had to do was tweak their methodology to seek out, rather than weed out toxicity. The AI came up with tens of thousands of new substances, some of which are similar to VX, the most potent nerve agent ever developed. Shaken, they published their findings this month in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence. The paper had us at The Verge a little shook The paper had us at The Verge a little shook, too. So, to figure out how worried we should be, The Verge spoke with Fabio Urbina, lead author of the paper. ...

The ESPN app has been updated with support for Apple’s SharePlay feature, which lets you watch videos over FaceTime together with family and friends. The feature is particularly well suited for live sports, which the ESPN app (by virtue of offering built-in access to Disney’s ESPN Plus streaming service) offers a fairly considerable amount of. Once updated, users will be able to watch ESPN Plus streams, along with original ESPN video content in the app and “TV Everywhere” content within the app that users have authenticated with an additional login. As is the case with most SharePlay content, everyone that’s participating in a shared stream has to have access to the service in question — so if you’re the only one with an ESPN Plus login, you won’t be able to watch the game through SharePla...

Spotify’s production deal with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle will finally result in a podcast series this summer with the launch of Meghan’s first show. The series is long overdue. Spotify signed a deal with Harry and Meghan’s production company, Archewell Audio, in December 2020 to produce and host podcasts for the service, but it’s so far only resulted in a single one-off episode. Archewell discussed policies to “minimize the spread of misinformation” It also seemed like the deal could be on the rocks. In January, as Spotify was being scrutinized for its deal with Joe Rogan, Archewell Audio released a statement saying it had raised “concerns” to Spotify about “the all too real consequences of COVID-19 misinformation on its platform.” Around the same time, Spotify was reported to be pres...

The latest Elden Ring patch nerfs two extremely popular abilities, adds some sorely needed quality of life updates, and provides a significant buff to caster builds. Late last night, Bandai Namco announced patch 1.03 for Elden Ring. The patch fixes several bugs including one that prevented players from obtaining items after a boss kill. The developers have also seemingly heard the many complaints about the game’s lack of quest tracking, and while they didn’t add a quest log, they did make it easier for players to find the appropriate NPCs. Added a function to record an icon and the name of an NPC on the map when you encounter that NPC They’ve also increased the number of situations in which you can summon an NPC which, of course, comes the day after I had to tackle the Godskin Noble with n...

After more than a decade of painstaking development and numerous delays, NASA’s new mega-rocket, the Space Launch System, will roll out into the open Florida air this afternoon, fully stacked and nearly ready to fly to space. Once in the great outdoors, it will embark on an 11-hour journey to its primary launchpad in Cape Canaveral, where it will undergo testing ahead of its debut flight beyond the Moon, set to occur sometime this year. It’s a major milestone that could herald the beginning of NASA’s return to the lunar surface. Designed to carry people and cargo into deep space, the Space Launch System, or SLS, is set to play a starring role in NASA’s Artemis program, the space agency’s major initiative to put the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon by the mid-2020s. tod...