Technology

When EA announced it was remaking Dead Space, it wasn’t really clear what “remake” meant. Would the company be completely rebooting the beloved space horror series? Or would it be more like a remaster that upgraded the original’s 13-year-old graphics for the Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and modern PCs? Star Wars: Squadrons studio EA Motive offered a little bit more detail in interviews. But it was still hard to gauge what the remake was supposed to accomplish — since compared to remakes of ’90s games like System Shock, where designers are updating limited graphics and unfamiliar control schemes, Dead Space still feels eminently playable today. Now, the Dead Space remake’s developers have helped fill in some of the gaps. Motive held a livestreamed Twitch session with members of the studio’...

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. The fast-approaching Labor Day holiday promises to bring plenty of great tech deals on notable favorites, including smart speakers, headphones, TVs, and tablets. While we regret to inform you that it is, sadly, not yet the weekend, there is a wide selection deals already available at retailers such as Amazon, Walmart, and B&H Photo, many of which are likely to run through the rest of the week and into the long weekend. Right now, there are savings to be had on devices like the Bose Noise Cancelli...

The NFT space continues to be weird and occasionally wonderful, but today’s story is going for some sort of award: a collector paid over $300,000 in Ethereum for an NFT from someone claiming to be Banksy after the image appeared on the famed street artist’s website. Then, Banksy’s spokesperson said that the artist had no involvement with NFTs, and stories came out declaring it a fake. Finally, the NFT’s seller spontaneously refunded the collector, seemingly with no note. Oh, and to really muddy the waters, the collector who bought the NFT goes by the name of Pranksy. Pranksy told the BBC that he heard about the auction, which was being held on the NFT marketplace OpenSea, from someone in his Discord. (The BBC doesn’t identify Pranksy by name, but he has since revealed that he purchased the...

Google may be working on a new wireless charging stand for its Pixel phones, according to a leaked image of a retail inventory backend mentioning a “Google Pixel 23W WL Stand” published by Android Police. The name suggests the charger could support 23W wireless charging, and if Google does end up releasing this stand, it seems likely that the upcoming Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro would support 23W charging as well. Android Police’s image seemingly revealing the existence of a new Pixel Stand. Image: Android Police That wireless charging speed, if accurate, would be more than the iPhone 12’s maximum 15W wireless charging with a MagSafe charger and surpass the 10W wireless charging offered by the original Pixel Stand (which is still available on Google’s online store). Google hasn’t replied to a ...

In an email to employees today, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that even though “we are welcoming back tens of thousands of Googlers on a voluntary basis,” the company will extend its voluntary return to work policy until at least January 10th, 2022. After that date, the current plan is to have countries and locations make mandatory return to work decisions depending on local conditions. The most recent plan shared publicly would’ve pushed Google employees back to the office at some point in September, but that won’t happen. Whenever its offices expect to have employees there in-person, Pichai reiterated that there would be a 30-day heads up first. The letter didn’t directly cite the Delta variant, but waves of infection have again wrangled plans of several Big Tech companies as they consid...

On Wednesday, September 1st, a number of channels on Twitch will go dark as streamers participate in #ADayOffTwitch, a walkout designed to bring attention to the ongoing hate and harassment that’s plagued the platform for the last several weeks. Created by Twitch streamers ShineyPen, Lucia Everblack, and RekitRaven, the walkout aims to bring greater awareness to the problems creators are suffering on Twitch. The Verge spoke with these organizers, streamers, and others to talk about #ADayOffTwitch, how they’re coping with the precipitous rise of hate raids, and what they hope the platform will do to protect its users in the future. A Day Off Twitch was born out of the #TwitchDoBetter movement, a hashtag created by streamers affected by the hate raids that have exploded across Twitch in rece...

Apple has barred employees from creating a Slack channel to discuss pay equity. A member of the employee relations team, Apple’s version of HR, said that while the topic was “aligned with Apple’s commitment to pay equity,” it did not meet the company’s Slack Terms of Use. “Slack channels are provided to conduct Apple business and must advance the work, deliverables, or mission of Apple departments and teams,” the employee relations representative told employees. The company’s rules for the in-office chat app say that “Slack channels for activities and hobbies not recognized as Apple Employee clubs or Diversity Network Associations (DNAs) aren’t permitted and shouldn’t be created.” But that rule has not been evenly enforced. Currently, Apple employees have popular Slack channels to discuss ...

LinkedIn is shutting down its ephemeral Stories product, the company announced Tuesday. The company plans to “remove the current Stories experience by the end of September,” according to Liz Li, senior director of product. The Snapchat-style video Stories were first launched in February 2020 in internal testing. Part of the reason for the shutdown is that LinkedIn learned users just didn’t want disappearing video. “In developing Stories, we assumed people wouldn’t want informal videos attached to their profile, and that ephemerality would reduce barriers that people feel about posting,” Li said. “Turns out, you want to create lasting videos that tell your professional story in a more personal way and that showcase both your personality and expertise.” LinkedIn’s move follows Twitter’s shut...

Last year DC had an impressive showing at its virtual FanDome event, and today the company revealed it’s doing it again very soon. FanDome will return on October 16th, and will feature updates, trailers, and reveals covering what looks to be a big range of projects across film, television, comics, and video games. That includes: “an exclusive new trailer” for the Robert Pattinson-led The Batman; looks at movies Black Adam, The Flash, and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom; more details on upcoming seasons of Harley Quinn, Batwoman, The Flash, Superman & Lois, and Sweet Tooth; reveals for games Gotham Knights and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League; and a whole bunch of comic news, including the next chapter of the Fortnite / Batman crossover. You’ll be able to watch the event live on Octo...

While we still don’t know exactly when EA’s upcoming college football video game will be released, fans will be able to play college ball soon for a limited time thanks to a special “Campus Legends” event coming to Madden NFL 22’s arcade-y Superstar KO mode. The event, which begins Tuesday and runs until September 27th, will let you play as one of 10 schools: Clemson University, Louisiana State University, Michigan State University, University of Florida, University of Miami, University of Nebraska, University of Oklahoma, University of Oregon (UO), University of Southern California, and University of Texas. The teams will also feature alumni as players — for example, UO graduate Justin Herbert, who is currently the quarterback of the Los Angeles Chargers, will be on UO’s roster. The Campu...

Joby has released a MagSafe mount for tripods that should simplify the process of attaching an iPhone 12 and any future iPhone models that support MagSafe. The new GripTight mount allows for quick attachment, letting the mount hold on to your phone either by just its MagSafe magnet or with a more secure option that tightly grips the edges of your phone like Joby’s previous smartphone mounts. With the latter use case, people may not know that you’re partially connected to the GripTight mount with MagSafe, but at least you’ll know it in your heart. This new mount is available now for $23.97 from Joby’s site, and it works on the company’s line of flexible GorillaPod tripods as well as any other tripods that support the industry standard 1/4-20-inch thread. The clamp can rotate 360 degrees so ...

“I hopped into the lounge, with myself, and was baffled to see that this dumb idea actually worked.” One day during the testing of Dance Central VR in the Harmonix office, Robbie Russell was struggling with a very particular problem. They were running a multiplayer check of a social hub feature where up to four players can hang out in a private visual space and take part in dances, play mini-games, or just chat. But everyone else in quality assurance (QA) was busy at the time. So Russell came up with a workaround. “You can’t just log someone in and then take the headset off because eventually it’ll time out,” they say. “So me, in my infinite dumbassery, put two headsets on, one Oculus Quest and one Oculus Rift, and strapped two sets of controllers to my wrist. The Rift controllers had hole...