Technology

Ludwig Ahgren, a streamer perhaps best known for his month-long subathon that took place earlier this year, is moving from Twitch to stream exclusively on YouTube Gaming. Ahgren’s first stream on YouTube will take place tomorrow, November 30th. Ludwig leaves behind a significant presence on Twitch. He has 3.1 million followers, and TwitchTracker’s metrics indicate he has more than 27,000 subscribers as of this writing. And by the end of his subathon, he had broken the all-time Twitch subs record — TwitchTracker says he peaked at 283,066 subscribers. But he won’t be starting from nothing on YouTube, where he already has 2.08 million subscribers. Ahgren is the latest streamer to move from Twitch to YouTube as of late, following Ben “DrLupo” Lupo and Tim “TimTheTatMan” Betar’s jumps in August...

One day in 2011, Jack Dorsey called an all-hands meeting at Twitter. The company was in the middle of a push to redesign Twitter’s mobile apps, and the effort had led to anger and burnout. Dorsey, who had co-founded the company in 2006 with Ev Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass, was then serving as its executive chairman. The company prepared for what it assumed would be a pep talk from the most eccentric of Twitter’s co-founders. And they got one, of a sort. As the meeting began, the lights at Twitter headquarters dimmed. An acoustic guitar began playing over speakers. Dorsey encouraged everyone to listen to the lyrics. Blackbird singing in the dead of night Take these broken wings and learn to fly All your life You were only waiting for this moment to arise Sitting in the dark, no one w...

Today, Elizabeth Holmes cried on the stand as she recounted being raped at Stanford. It was part of the reason she dropped out of college, she testified. “I decided I was going to build a life by building this company,” she said on the witness stand today. When she started dating Sunny Balwani, her co-defendant who is being tried separately, “he said I was safe now that I had met him.” Then, she said, he abused and raped her. Holmes, the former CEO of Theranos, is standing trial for 11 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Recordings of Holmes lying to investors and journalists have been played to the courtroom. Since the opening statements, we knew she was going to try to shift blame especially onto Balwani, the company’s former president. Balwani’s lawyer has previous...

Months after claiming that he is trying to buy a planet bigger than Jupiter, Lil Uzi Vert is now supposedly planning to drop around $700,000 USD to purchase a jetpack. In a recent interview with Twitch streamer Trainwreck, the rapper explained that his decision to buy a jetpack isn’t “about the money” and that he is required to take lessons to operate the tech. “To be honest, I’ve been on some other shit,” Uzi shared. “I’m trying to buy this jet pack, right? This is serious. It’s not about the money ’cause I think about, maybe after everything [it’s] 700 grand or 600 grand … The one I’m trying to get, you got to take a class for like a year, I think.” Uzi is no stranger to lavish yet seemingly odd purchases; in addition to trying to buy a planet, he previously implanted a $24 million USD p...

Twitter has a new CEO: Parag Agrawal, who’ll be taking over for Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, the longest-serving chief executive in the company’s 15-plus-year history. Agrawal isn’t the most well-known of names either inside or outside of Twitter. He’s been with the company for over a decade, though, working his way up from an engineer to become its top executive (and a close friend of Dorsey’s). Agrawal first started at Twitter back in October 2011 with a focus on ad products, and he became the first recipient of the company’s “Distinguished Engineer” title. He was later appointed chief technology officer in October 2017, during which time he’s jumped in to address high-profile problems (like a large-scale password security issue) and take on some of the company’s bolder initiatives (l...

Microsoft’s new Clarity Boost feature for Xbox Cloud Gaming (aka xCloud) is intended to make your cloud gaming streams a little bit less fuzzy, but it will only be available on the company’s Edge browser. Clarity Boost “uses a set of client-side scaling improvements to improve the visual quality of the video stream,” Microsoft’s Milena Gonzalez said in a blog post. I tried Clarity Boost in a few games, and I felt that it made a noticeable difference. Games were generally less blurry, and many smaller details like leaves and bricks looked much sharper than they do with Clarity Boost off. It doesn’t dramatically change the way games look, in my opinion, but if you want xCloud games to be a little more clear, I’d recommend flipping Clarity Boost on. Here are a few comparisons I put together t...

T-Mobile customers have been reporting issues making and receiving calls all afternoon, with problems frequently linked to Verizon numbers. This all started around 2PM ET this afternoon, with hotspots showing in most major metro areas on Downdectector. Initial reports suggested Verizon might be having issues, but Verizon spokesperson Kevin King tells The Verge that its network is operating “business as usual.” Downdetector map showing T-Mobile outage concentrated along the East Coast and Midwest.Image by Downdetector A number of users on Twitter have been complaining about the outage, with T-Mobile customers frequently raising concerns about calling other networks and, in some cases, even other T-Mobile customers. The reported problems range from instantly dropped calls, to “all circuits a...

eBay has bought out sneaker authentication service Sneaker Con, a company that gives sneaker-lovers the peace of mind that the kicks they’re purchasing are real. The acquisition builds upon eBay’s existing relationship with the service, which began back in October 2020 when eBay first launched its sneaker vetting process. When select sneaker brands are purchased for over $100 on eBay, the shoes go through Sneaker Con before reaching the buyer. There, the sneakers are thoroughly vetted by experts who ensure that the sneakers are authentic and match the description of the original listing. 1.55 million sneakers have been authenticated on eBay The sneakers are then sent to the buyers with tags showing that they’ve been verified. eBay notes that since the start of the initiative, 1.55 million ...

Mobile kitchens that cater solely to food delivery services, like Uber Eats and DoorDash, sound like a great idea in theory, as dedicated delivery kitchens can push out food faster without having to worry about passing meals along to servers. But a report from The Wall Street Journal details some of the mishaps associated with one trailer-bound ghost kitchen company, Reef, which involves third-degree burns and regulatory violations. Just this April, the WSJ reports that one Reef kitchen in Houston, Texas experienced two fiery accidents in just four months. One involved a blast that erupted from the kitchen’s propane burners — and by a stroke of luck, the cook came out unscathed. While the cook escaped harm — she happened to open a refrigerator at the same time that shielded her from the fl...

We’re back! After spending all of Black Friday doing a live blog to highlight the best deals, we knew we had to continue it for Cyber Monday. Sure, the deals aren’t as plentiful, and fewer new ones are popping up compared to the frantic pace of Black Friday, but this dedicated live blog is where you’ll find the deals that we like, along with new ones that pop up as Lightning deals at Amazon or elsewhere. We’ll also let you know when we update some of our bigger deal roundups, like our guides to the best phone deals and best laptop deals. So keep an eye on this space and our guide to the best Cyber Monday deals to stay in the know and save yourself some money during this sacred commercial holiday. Cyber Monday 2021 deals live blog

Sonos is likely planning to announce a new, smaller, and cheaper subwoofer to join its home theater product lineup. A Redditor spotted mention of a “Sub Mini” right in the Sonos smartphone app, and based on the text, it’s evident that this is a real product and not some mistake or placeholder text. In the screenshot, Sonos describes the Sub Mini as a “smaller, cylindrical subwoofer” compared to the large, square, and very pricey Sub. Most conventional subwoofers are hefty squares or rectangles that people often try to keep out of sight. But cylinder-shaped subwoofers aren’t unheard of. The Sub Mini could resemble something like the below subwoofer from OSD. This example of a cylindrical subwoofer is made by OSD.Image: OSD The third-gen Sub currently retails for $749. And while that’s defin...

This story is part of a group of stories called Only the best deals on Verge-approved gadgets get the Verge Deals stamp of approval, so if you’re looking for a deal on your next gadget or gift from major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and more, this is the place to be. You want to bring a badass foam blaster to your next Nerf war — or gift one to a very grateful kid or kid-at-heart this holiday. Good news: the Nerf Rival Perses, arguably the best official blaster ever made, is just $50 during Walmart’s Cyber Monday sale. Normally $100, it’s a fully automatic SMG-style blaster that holds 50 far-flying, bouncy foam rounds in its hopper and dishes them out at up to eight shots per second. Plus, you won’t need to buy big bulky dumb alkaline batteries for this one. It c...