Technology

Hate raids happen with little warning. A streamer will get a follow notification and instead of feeling joy that a new person has joined their community, dread sets in as their chat suddenly erupts into an uncontrollable geyser of hateful messages. Hate raids have infested Twitch over the last few weeks, primarily targeting marginalized streamers making life on the platform so miserable many are considering abandoning it altogether. Twitch has promised new safety features are in the works, but streamers are upset and angry that more hasn’t been done to stop hate raids. Streamers are using the #twitchdobetter hashtag to agitate for change, and they are creating and sharing resources to protect themselves against the seemingly endless tide of trolls bombarding streamers with racist, transpho...

This week, Epic Games added a new mode called Impostors where players complete tasks on a ship while two impostors sneakily try to teleport as many agents off the ship as they can. If that sounds like a familiar gameplay loop to you, you’re not the only one who feels that way — fans immediately noticed that the mode borrows heavily from Among Us, a social deduction game that exploded in popularity in 2020 and was built by a tiny indie studio. The team at Innersloth, the developers of Among Us, are justifiably upset with Epic’s blatant repurposing of its hit game. But despite the underhanded tactics by Epic, Impostors’ polish and surprising connections to the ever-expanding Fortnite story could be a preview of the future of Epic’s smash hit as it tries to be the ultimate live service game. ...

If you’re a frequent reader of The Verge, I’m sure the name Chaim Gartenberg is known to you. He’s been reporting and commenting here for years on everything from the latest AMD Ryzen processors to the new trailer of The Witcher, and has become a familiar sight on videos as well. Chaim recently moved to a new space, which means he got a chance to set up a new space for working at home. We asked him to talk about it. Tell me a little about yourself. What is your background, and what do you do at The Verge? I’ve been at The Verge for just over nine years — I started as an intern in August 2012, and I’ve worked with a lot of pieces of the site over years, including being a reporter, working with our Circuit Breaker gadget blog, and, of course, writing tech news. Right now, I’m one of our news...

The WarioWare series has always been about chaos. Its self-described micro-games are so fast and strange that by the time you understand what’s going on, the game has already moved on to something new. Switch owners will be able to get a taste of that with the upcoming WarioWare: Get It Together — and from what I’ve seen, it might be the most chaotic take on the series yet. Nintendo recently took me through a brief hands-off demo of the game, running through a couple of different modes. The one unifying factor between them all seemed to be a desire to take the micro-game concept to absurd new levels of mayhem. The main change is that there is now a cast of characters you can play as, all plucked from the WarioWare universe. And each has their own unique controls and specific abilities, whi...

Whether you use iOS or Android, the Tile Mate (2020) is a great Bluetooth tracker that’s designed to help you keep watch over your personal stuff. This $15 discount on a four-pack from Amazon and Best Buy is a great value for people getting started with Bluetooth trackers or someone building an arsenal of them. Unlike Apple AirTags, they can remotely ping your phone and also have an innovative design, known as a hole, for easily attaching to things without additional accessories. Similar to AirTags, and to the benefit of humankind, they have user-replaceable batteries. Tile Mate (2020, four-pack) $55 $70 22% off There’s a reason Tile has become synonymous with Bluetooth trackers. The Mate features superb range, a replaceable battery, and access to a large crowd-finding network, allowing yo...

Nest Brush has just released its reddot-winning toothbrush on Kickstarter. Looking to reinvent the dated design of the toothbrush, the Nest Brush is a travel-friendly toothbrush that is compact and sanitary. Available in four colors, the Nest Brush features a refillable tube in the handle that dispenses toothpaste to the food-grade hypoallergenic silicone head. The brush can be mounted to its magnetic stand where the head is UV-C sterilized. The UV-C stand automatically turns on to kill any bacteria on the brush and will automatically turn off after a minute. If you’re planning to take the Nest Brush on the road, simply pop off the removable UV module and add the travel case. The travel setup has two months’ worth of battery life. Those interested can head over to Kickstarter to back the p...

When it comes to mechanical keyboards, you generally have the option of playing it safe with a major brand like Corsair or Razer, or buying from smaller enthusiast manufacturers with more interesting designs and often more affordable prices. Of the two groups, Epomaker definitely falls into the latter. Its recent AK84S wireless keyboard isn’t something you’re going to be able to buy off the shelf from Best Buy, and as yet it’s not listed on the company’s Amazon storefront. Instead, after recently being funded via a Kickstarter campaign, it’s now available to preorder directly from Epomaker’s own site. The company says it’s focusing on shipping keyboards to its Kickstarter backers for now before moving on to orders made via its website in mid- to late September. Shipping can take anywhere f...

Google is adding an option to its Calendar service to let you show where you’re working on any given day of the week, the company has announced. The feature will start rolling out from August 30th for users on select Google Workspace plans, and will be accessible via Calendar’s settings menu alongside its existing working hours options, as well as on the weekly calendar view below where it shows each day’s dates. Available work locations include “Office,” “Home,” “Unspecified,” or “Somewhere else.” According to Google, the option is being added so it’s “easier to plan in-person collaboration or set expectations in a hybrid workplace.” It follows a surge in the popularity of home and hybrid working due to the pandemic. This has meant employees increasingly have to keep track not just of peo...

Earlier this month Realme launched MagDart, its MagSafe-a-like ecosystem of magnetic wireless charging products. The headline device is a 50W brick that Realme professes to be the fastest magnetic wireless charger in the world — it’s supposed to be able to charge a 4,500mAh battery from 0 to 100 percent in 54 minutes. Naturally I was interested in trying this for myself. Realme sent me a 50W MagDart charger, a 65W SuperDart wall charger to plug it into, and a Realme Flash “concept phone” with built-in MagDart compatibility. (The only other Realme phone to work with MagDart is the new GT flagship, and even that requires a specialized case.) The Flash isn’t a commercial device, but it’s a very nice phone nonetheless. That’s mostly because it’s very obviously a repurposed OnePlus 9 Pro, made ...

Amid the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, numerous social media platforms have begun implementing new features to protect the identities of their users from being traced. According to Reuters, Facebook spearheaded the movement, temporarily preventing users from searching for profiles or looking through the friends lists of those registered in the country. The company’s head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher also tweeted that Facebook has launched a one-click tool for those in Afghanistan to swiftly lock down their accounts, so no one else could look at their timeline posts or share profile images. Twitter expressed similar concerns over the post history of its Afghan users, saying that it has gotten in touch with civil society partners in order to support various groups within the...

AT&T TV and its defunct AT&T TV Now sibling will officially become DirecTV Stream, a new unified service spun out of a deal between TPG Capital and AT&T for the telecommunication giant’s streaming properties. DirecTV began updating AT&T TV and AT&T TV Now customers of the change on August 14th. On the welcome screens of both services’ mobile apps informing them that the change would officially take place on August 26th, a spokesperson confirmed to The Verge. DirectTV Stream rebrands AT&T’s services acquired in the TPG Capital deal, which did not include HBO Max. (WarnerMedia, home to HBO Max, is set to merge with Discovery in mid-2022.) Image: DirecTV According to a company news release, “AT&T satellite, streaming or IP video customers will automatically keep th...