Technology

Magic: The Gathering is a painful game. It hurts to see your meticulously crafted deck obliterated by a killer combo by turn four or to have your game-winning creature fizzle into nothing with a well-timed Counterspell. But Sheepwave — a streamer, artist, and Magic: The Gathering content creator — doesn’t think this already ruthless game is painful enough. To add a little spice to her Magic games, Sheepwave made the Shockbox — a box that delivers a tiny electrical jolt whenever a player takes damage. Sheepwave says the Shockbox was born out of a “twisted” sense of humor and an affinity for electrical engineering projects. “The whole thing started as a one-off joke I made,” Sheepwave tells The Verge. “But people really responded to it, and it was well within my skill set. Electrical enginee...

Update September 10th, 5:01PM ET: Sony appears to have sold out of PS5 consoles for the day. We’ll make sure to let you know when the next opportunity comes up. The PlayStation 5 is still difficult to get, but as restocks come and go one of the most reliable sources is Sony itself. Sony’s direct online store has opened a queue for ordering the disc-based PlayStation 5 console and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition. Once you’re on the landing page, you do not have to refresh the page, just try to wait patiently. When the countdown finishes, make sure you have your PlayStation Network account info ready to log in and complete the purchase if you are allocated a spot to buy one. PlayStation 5 Sony’s flagship next-gen console, which includes a disc drive, allows you to play both digital and physica...

The Analogue Pocket has experienced a few delays already due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s suffering another, the company shared on its site. Preorders for the retro handheld that can play Game Boy cartridges and other formats like Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket Color, and more via adapters will ship “at the latest in December.” The $199 console was previously slated to launch in October, following a delay that pushed it from its original 2020 launch window. Analogue says that “due to new Covid restrictions with our assembly partners, their capacity to deliver within our agreed timeframe has been affected.” Though understandably frustrating for people who like to stay entertained during tough times, you can’t pin blame just on Analogue since chip shortages spurred by the pandemic have impa...

Ransomware has been a hot-button topic in 2021 due to its impact on critical infrastructure, hospitals, and computer manufacturers. However, a recent report from NBC News may be one of the more heartbreaking accounts of the effects hackers can have: it details how data leaks from attacks on schools can put student’s most sensitive information out onto the internet, available to anyone who knows how to find it and is willing to pay. It’s a story that’s well worth a read for all the details it goes into and edge cases it explores. According to NBC’s report, one school district had an Excel sheet called “Basic student information” posted to the dark web after it refused to pay a ransom, according to the FBI’s instructions. The article’s author, Kevin Collier, breaks down the shocking informat...

It was May 11th, the seventh day of the Epic v. Apple trial, that Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers hit upon a compromise neither company had asked for. She asked Epic’s economist, David Evans, if it would be sufficient to kill Apple’s anti-steering rules — the ones Apple uses to keep developers from even telling you that there’s a perfectly good external website where you can purchase your subscription instead of inside the app itself. On May 24th, the final day of the trial, Judge Rogers hinted she was still leaning toward that exact sort of compromise, one that might not please either side, one that might involve Apple’s anti-steering rules. That’s what happened today. Both sides lost. But Epic arguably lost more. In a win for developers — but not Epic — Rogers ruled for a permanent nationwi...

Author Stephen King and Humble Bundle are teaming up to release an exclusive short story called “Red Screen.” All pay-what-you-want proceeds (starting at a $5 minimum) from “Red Screen” will benefit the American Civil Liberties Union while the story is available, from September 10th through September 16th. Besides being notable as one of the newest entries in King’s prolific body of work, “Red Screen” is also the first Humble Bundle Exclusive. Based on what little has been shared of the plot, it certainly sounds…interesting. The description follows (emphasis mine): “The never before published story follows a cop who interrogates a deranged plumber who just murdered his wife, only to discover something far more insidious.” It’s likely not about the video game plumber I’m guessing King...

You’re on Instagram looking for your best friend’s daily dog update, but you have to scroll endlessly through a sea of posts you care little about, and probably forget what you’re looking for in the first place. After a few extra annoyed scrolls, you close the app in frustration. It seems Instagram is well aware of your plight, because it is quietly testing out a solution for your messy feed called “Favorites.” According to Alessandro Paluzzi, a mobile developer who first posted about the new feature on Twitter, Favorites lets you categorize your most important Instagram accounts (friends and creators) as your priorities, so that their posts will land “higher” in your feed. If this feature sounds familiar, it’s because Instagram was testing a different Favorites feature back in 2017, which...

During the Apple v. Epic trial, Apple software leader Craig Federighi argued that tight control over the App Store was necessary for securing the iPhone. But Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers didn’t buy it, writing in her ruling Friday that he may have been “stretching the truth for the sake of the argument.” Federighi cast heavy doubts about whether Apple would be able to secure iPhones without its App Review system acting as a gateway, by saying that the macOS security was basically in a bad place. Judge Rodgers doesn’t think Federighi has the proof to back it up (you can read her quotes below in context on page 114): While Mr. Federighi’s Mac malware opinions may appear plausible, they appear to have emerged for the first time at trial which suggests he is stretching the truth for the sake o...

In 2019 a New York Times report called Google’s then-121,000-strong assortment of temporary employees “a shadow work force that now outnumbers the company’s full-time employees.” Now, a whistleblower has filed a complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) stating that gaps in pay between temporary workers and full-time employees doing similar work had widened over the last few years, stretching far enough that the Guardian reports it broke local laws in the UK, Europe, and Asia. Even worse, documents viewed by the Guardian and the New York Times reveal that last December, Google managers discovered the problem and instead of addressing it immediately, they held off on taking action and only applied correct rates for the year’s new hires. The whistleblower is being represent...

The video chat app Houseparty is shuttering for good, developers shared in an announcement on Thursday, September 9. Founded in 2015, the app enables users to connect over video and play against one another in multiplayer games like Heads Up and Uno. After acquiring Houseparty in 2019, Epic Games introduced its popular Fortnite Mode, a feature that connects players through video calls and allows them to live stream the game directly to the app. “Since joining Epic, the Houseparty team’s social vision and core technology have already contributed to new features used by hundreds of millions of people in Fortnite and by developers around the world,” the announcement reads. The developers went on to explain that with such growth, they “can’t give the app or our community the attention that it ...

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers delivered a ruling in the antitrust case brought by Epic Games against Apple, ordering Apple to make changes to its app store while also instructing Epic Games to pay Apple about $3.7 million USD. The case was initially brought forward in August 2020, after Fortnite creator Epic Games updated its iOS app to allow players to bypass Apple’s payment system and pay Epic Games directly, cutting Apple’s commission. Apple subsequently removed Fortnite from its app store for violating its rules, spurring Epic Games to file a lawsuit. In a culmination to the year-long case, the permanent injunction issued by Gonzalez Rogers on Friday prohibits developers from directing users away from in-app purchases in the Apple app store. However, the cou...