Technology

MacKenzie Scott, whose estimated fortune stands somewhere around $60 billion, announced via a Medium post today that she would be parting with a $2.7 billion portion of that wealth and distributing it to 286 groups, all of which are painstakingly named and linked at the end of her note. This third and latest gift brings Scott’s total charitable contributions to society to around $8.5 billion in the past year alone — making her one of the planet’s most generous billionaires. The amount puts her well ahead of the lifetime gifts doled out by the likes of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg ($2.7 billion), Michael Dell of his eponymous computer corporation ($2.25 billion), Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer ($1.4 billion), or eBay’s Pierre Omidyar ($1.3 billion), according to Forbes. Jeff Bezos, currently the w...

With the clock ticking down toward its deployment goal this fall, Dish Network has launched a website with more information on its forthcoming 5G network. There’s not much to the site — just a slightly cryptic name (Project Gene5is) and a link to sign up for a notification when the service is available in your area. Its appearance was first reported by Axios, and there’s no mention of it or the Project Gene5is name on Dish’s main wireless network page. Still, it’s an indication that Dish is moving in the right direction toward a network launch, which it needs to do if it’s going to hit its ambitious targets. Dish has promised to bring its under-development 5G network to life later this summer starting with Las Vegas. That’s just the first stepping stone toward its larger goal of covering 7...

The best anti-Prime Day deals included Contributors: Verge Staff Amazon Prime Day 2021 is nearly here. The annual shopping event begins at 12AM PT / 3AM ET on Monday, June 21st, and continues through 12AM PT / 3AM ET on Tuesday, June 22nd. Like previous years, the retail giant will use the two-day affair to discount a range of popular Amazon products, including the Echo Dot and Echo Buds, along with headphones, laptops, 4K TVs, gaming accessories, and a host of other tech. This year, we’re going to highlight the best Prime Day deals across the spectrum, so you can find the lowest prices with ease and kickstart your holiday shopping well ahead of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We’re also going to cover the best deals available at Walmart, Target, and other non-Amazon retailers that have dec...

Noctua is known for making mighty quiet PC fans, and now it has a CPU cooler that doesn’t need a fan at all. Two years after announcing a passive heatsink potent enough to keep a Core i9-9900K CPU in check, the dead-silent Noctua NH-P1 (via VideoCardz) has finally gone on sale today for $110. It’s an absolute unit at 1.2 kilograms (2.6 pounds). According to the company’s delightfully ASMR build video below (via PC Gamer), the final product’s six soldered heatpipes and thick fins are good enough to run a Core i9-11900K near its TDP of 125W, and even give you a slight overclock to 3.6GHz, though it’ll heavily depend on your case and other components that might also generate heat. The company has a whole set of setup guidelines, a CPU compatibility list, and even a list of recommended cases s...

Owners of the original Oculus Quest will get the ability to stream from their PCs to their headsets wirelessly, using the Air Link system that’s been available to Quest 2 owners for a few months. When the feature was originally announced, it was an open question as to when the first-gen headset would get it (or if it even would), but under a post about the v30 update for Quest, Mark Zuckerberg said that Air Link would be coming “soon.” Zuckerberg’s post about the v30 update and his comment about Air Link. In the post itself, he also shows off being able to use multiple windows to multitask in Oculus Home, which acts as a virtual environment. In the video, he opens three windows at once, creating an environment not unlike sitting in front of three curved monitors. According to UploadVR, the...

Many major streamers support advertising in some form or another — think Hulu, HBO Max, or Sling TV as just a few examples — but Disney’s chief says the company’s marquee service won’t be adding ads to its service anytime soon. Speaking at the Credit Suisse 23rd Annual Communications Conference on Tuesday, Disney head Bob Chapek was asked by moderator and Credit Suisse managing director Doug Mitchelson whether the service planned to introduce an ad-supported entry tier at some point down the line. While he didn’t entirely dismiss the concept of a cheaper ad-supported tier on Disney Plus, Chapek said it wasn’t something the company was currently planning for. “We’re always reevaluating how we go to market across the world, but we’ve got no such plans now to do that. We’re happy with the mod...

Amazon Prime Day, the retail giant’s two-day blitz of deals and promotions, officially lands on June 21st. The annual shopping event is taking a place a few weeks earlier than it has in the past, yet despite still being a week away, Amazon has already kick-started the event with a slew of deals for Amazon Prime subscribers, discounting everything from the last-gen Echo Show 5 to the latest pair of Amazon Echo Buds. More deals are likely to go live in the days leading up to the main event, too, with retailers such as Walmart and Best Buy joining the shopping fray with deals of their own, many of which will rival Amazon’s offerings. Below, we’ve rounded up the best early Prime Day deals. In most instances, all you need to do is sign up for Amazon Prime to take advantage of the deals, however...

Amazon is selling its own COVID-19 test kit directly to customers. Results from the test will appear on an Amazon diagnostics website that was originally designed for use by Amazon employees. The test’s public availability was first reported by Stat News. The test is on sale for $39.99 and has one-day shipping through Prime in some areas of the US. To use the test, a patient swabs their own nose at home and places it in a box with a prepaid shipping return label. The swabs are then sent to a centralized lab. Amazon got the Food and Drug Administration’s sign-off on its COVID-19 test kit in March. At the time, it planned to use the test for its onsite employee testing program. At-home medical testing got a new burst of attention over the past year, as companies raced to deliver COVID-19 tes...

Lordstown Motors has stopped working on an electric van and other future projects in order to aim all resources at putting its first vehicle, a pickup truck called Endurance, into production later this year. The startup previously announced in March that it was accelerating work on the van, but it has struggled since then, with CEO Steve Burns and CFO Julio Rodriguez resigning this week after an investigation into misleading claims about preorders for the Endurance. Burns previously billed the van as a “high-top” recreational vehicle with up to 350 miles of range. He said that it would be the “first mass produced all-electric RV,” and that Lordstown Motors believed “there will be many commercial use cases for an electric van of this size and capability.” But that will have to wait while th...

Minutes before liftoff, Elon Musk’s SpaceX ignored at least two warnings from the Federal Aviation Administration that launching its first high-altitude Starship prototype last December would violate the company’s launch license, confidential documents and letters obtained by The Verge show. And while SpaceX was under investigation, it told the FAA that the agency’s software was a “source of frustration” that has been “shown to be inaccurate at times or overly conservative,” according to the documents. “SpaceX used analytical methods that appeared to be hastily developed to meet a launch window.” SpaceX’s violation of its launch license was “inconsistent with a strong safety culture,” the FAA’s space division chief Wayne Monteith said in a letter to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell. “Altho...

Screenshots of Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 11 operating system have appeared online today. Originally published at Chinese site Baidu, the screenshots show off the new Windows 11 user interface and Start menu. The UI changes look very similar to what was originally found in Windows 10X before Microsoft canceled that project in favor of Windows 11. App icons are now centered on the taskbar, with a new Start button and menu. The Start menu is a simplified version of what currently exists in Windows 10, without Live Tiles. It includes pinned apps and the ability to quickly shut down or restart Windows 11 devices. The operating system is identified as Windows 11 Pro in screenshots, and we can confirm they are genuine. While Microsoft canceled its Windows 10X operating system, the company is c...

Nintendo has announced that Kayuza from the Tekken fighting games will be the latest character to join Super Smash Bros. Ultimate at its E3 2021 Nintendo Direct presentation. Additional details are promised at a future presentation on June 28th. The character marks the latest classic fighting game character to join Nintendo’s flagship fighter, joining characters like Street Fighter’s Ryu or Fatal Fury’s Terry Bogard. Kayuza is the fifth DLC character to be added to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’s second Fighters Pass. Previous additions included Min Min from Arms, Minecraft mascots Steve and Alex, Final Fantasy VII villain Sephiroth, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s Pyra and Mythra (the two count as a single character) released in February. The Fighters Pass costs $29.99 for six characters, with ...