Technology

As the invasion of Ukraine enters its third day, Russia has blocked access to Twitter in an apparent effort to stifle the flow of information, according to a report from the internet monitoring group NetBlocks. Beginning Saturday morning, NetBlocks failed connections across every major Russian telecom provider, including Rostelecom, MTS, Beeline, and MegaFon. Russians are still able to access Twitter through VPN services, but direct connections are restricted. The motivation behind the restrictions is unclear, but comes amid a broader crackdown on social media platforms in the country. Friday night, Russia announced a new block on Facebook after the platform removed the accounts of four state-run media organizations, a move the government described as a violation of “the rights and freedom...

Microsoft is rolling out its latest test build of Windows 11 to its Insiders, and the update is promising to make Bluetooth devices simpler and easier to access. Windows 11 Build 22563 will surface a list of Bluetooth devices right into the Quick Settings menu of the taskbar, complete with visible battery levels for supported devices. This new Bluetooth list allows users to connect to new devices and disconnect to current devices without having to open the full Bluetooth settings menu. It takes a small cue from the way Windows 11’s Quick Settings already handles Wi-Fi networks or selecting an audio source. This is the latest update to come to Windows 11 after just recently bringing new touch gestures and Start menu folders. Bluetooth has been a bit of a sticking point for Windows, often be...

An accessibility feature that was introduced with Android 12 allows you to control your screen using facial gestures: raise eyebrows, smile, open mouth, look up, look left, look right. This feature, called “Camera switches,” uses the phone’s camera to watch for these gestures and allows them to signal simple screen operations. These operations include: go to the next actionable screen object, select an object, go to the previous object, touch and hold, scroll forward, and scroll backward; you can also pause the camera switch itself. It’s not a long list: it only includes six facial gestures and not all that many actions. However, it’s a beginning, and it could be useful if you can’t use your hands to work your phone’s screen. If you do have a Pixel loaded with Android 12, here’s how you st...

Twitter is giving all users access to the content warning feature it tested last year. The feature lets you obscure individual photos and videos behind warnings for nudity, violence, and “sensitive” content, rather than adding a blanket warning to all multimedia tweets. It’s available on Twitter’s Android and iOS apps as well as its web client. Users can put a content warning on posts by adding a photo or video, tapping to edit it, and then hitting a flag icon that will bring up the options listed above. You can tag multiple warnings for an individual piece of media, and you can add a warning to one image or video in a tweet but not another — although in the latter case, Twitter appears to place a single warning over both of them. The option to add one-time sensitive content warnings to ph...

The Verge was recognized yesterday by the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) with an ASME Award for Photography and Illustration for “Best Digital Illustration” for its “Verge 10” illustration by Micha Huigen. Our “Verge 10” series celebrated the 10th anniversary of The Verge and included more than 20 stories looking back at our last 10 years and ahead to the future. One of those stories, “What The Verge Covered in Our First 120,000 Stories” by Jacob Kastrenakes, received an additional nomination for “​​Best Illustrated Story” for the art by Kristen Radtke. “This is our first ASME award, and we couldn’t be happier it was for the incredible illustration that accompanied ‘Verge 10,’” says Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel. “The Verge is about how technology makes us feel, and art an...

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories. This week is a pretty gadget-heavy episode about some heavy gadgets. Senior reports editor Sean Hollister starts the show with his review of the Steam Deck, the latest portable gaming system. Sean explains how it was the hardest review he’s done and why he decided to give it a 6.5 score, despite the amount of fun he had using it. Verge reviewer Allison Johnson continues the gadget talk with her review of Samsung’s Galaxy S22 Ultra, including improvements on the camera, using the software, and whether this is the end of the “slab phone.” Stay tuned for a lightning round of gadget new...

Nvidia is confirming to The Verge, Bloomberg, Reuters, and others that it’s investigating an “incident” — hours after The Telegraph reported that the graphics chipmaking giant had experienced a devastating cyberattack that “completely compromised” the company’s internal systems over the past two days. “We are investigating an incident. Our business and commercial activities continue uninterrupted. We are still working to evaluate the nature and scope of the event and don’t have any additional information to share at this time,” reads a statement via Nvidia spokesman Hector Marinez. Even The Telegraph’s sources aren’t suggesting that Nvidia has necessarily had any data stolen or deleted, and there’s no current suggestion that the “incident” might be linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, t...

In an open letter published Friday afternoon, the Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, called on Apple to stop supplying products and services to Russian users as a response to the country’s ongoing invasion. “I appeal to you,” Fedorov wrote in the letter, published through his Twitter account, “to stop supplying Apple services and products to the Russian Federation, including blocking access to App Store!” I’ve contacted @tim_cook, Apple’s CEO, to block the Apple Store for citizens of the Russian Federation, and to support the package of US government sanctions! If you agree to have the president-killer, then you will have to be satisfied with the only available site Russia 24. pic.twitter.com/b5dm78g2vS — Mykhailo Fedorov (@FedorovMykhailo) February 25, 2022 “We are su...

AT&T today announced it’s field testing new 5G small cell radios that can hide on top of street lamp posts. The new radios were born out of a partnership between AT&T, mobile technology manufacturer Ericsson, and urban solutions provider Ubicquia. “It is virtually unseen from street level,” wrote Gordon Mansfield, AT&T’s VP of mobility access & architecture, in a company blog post. Mansfield touted that these new low- / mid-band 5G radios can be deployed within 15 minutes on street lamps. “No long wires and big, bulky boxes – a true aesthetic improvement,” Mansfield wrote. Anything that helps 5G blend in is a good thing since there’s also “ground furniture” and being a target of vandalism to worry about. These new small cell radios are not a replacement for the much faster ...

Valve’s $400-and-up portable gaming PC the Steam Deck went on sale this morning… but you didn’t get an email from Valve, I’m guessing? I didn’t either — and as Valve’s just now explaining, that’s because they’re going out in small batches rather than all at once; the next batch won’t be arriving until Monday, March 7th; and then they’ll go out in weekly batches each Monday, presumably through the month of June. Did you have a reservation for Q1 2022? You should see your email by the end of March. Q2 2022? They’ll start in April, when I’ll hopefully get mine since I ordered on the very first day (but who knows, the reservation website had a lot of trouble that morning). And if your reservation says “After Q2 2022,” Valve says stay tuned for “news soon.” Perhaps that means they’ll stop...