Technology

Netflix is constantly looking for its next big franchise hit — a new Stranger Things or The Witcher. And the trailer for Shadow and Bone teases that the upcoming fantasy series could be next. The first trailer for Netflix’s adaptation of the series showcases the series’ main protagonist, Alina, a map maker who discovers that she harbors a special power that can prevent the world from being swallowed up in darkness threatened by a terrifying sea-of-sorts called the Fold. Shadow and Bone is Leigh Bardugo’s fantasy series that has swept readers by storm. The book, which introduces readers to the Grisha universe — a world inhabited by special people who practice a form of spell work known as small sciences — has become immensely popular on sites like Tumblr and TikTok. Fantasy, especially seri...

Best Buy has restocked both of Microsoft’s next-gen consoles the Xbox Series X and Series S. Like some other gaming gadgets released late last year, these consoles are extremely difficult to buy, but if you move quickly, you have another chance to buy one right now. Xbox Series X / S Prices taken at time of publishing. The Xbox Series X is Microsoft’s flagship console, serving as its most powerful (and biggest) option that costs $499.99. While the $299.99 Series S is aimed at smooth 1440p performance, the Series X is focused on fast 4K gameplay. Whether you buy the digital-only Series S or the more powerful Xbox Series X which includes a disc drive, you may want to consider picking up a few accessories that will help you get the most out of your new gadget, such as an extra controller if y...

Apple has added iPhone and MacBook repairability scores to its online store in France to comply with a new French law that came into effect this year. MacGeneration reports that the rating takes into account features like how easily a device can be disassembled and the availability of repair manuals and spare parts. Links to each product’s final score, with details for how they were calculated, are available on this support page. The ratings for Apple’s products vary between products and generations. Its iPhone 12 lineup all have scores of six out of 10 for example, while the previous year’s iPhone 11s are rated lower at between 4.5 and 4.6. The improvement, according to the detailed scoring assessment, is due to the newer iPhones being easier to dismantle than the previous year’s models, ...

Nvidia has started to roll out support for Resizable BAR, a feature of PCI Express that can boost frame rates in certain games by up to 10 percent. The new RTX 3060 graphics card is the first to include Resizable BAR, which allows certain CPUs to access the full graphics frame buffer, instead of being limited to reading just 256MB blocks. Support for other 30-series GPUs will be available in late March. You’ll need the right CPU, motherboard, and graphics card to utilize this new feature, and Nvidia is working with both AMD and Intel to provide chipset support. AMD’s Zen 3 CPUs are supported, alongside Intel’s 10th Gen processors and the company’s upcoming 11th Gen S chips. Nvidia’s Resizable BAR support gives CPUs access to the full graphics frame buffer.Image: Nvidia Much like AMD’s Smar...

A security researcher is recommending against LastPass password manager after detailing seven trackers found in the Android app, The Register reports. Although there is no suggestion that the trackers, which were analyzed by researcher Mike Kuketz, are transferring a user’s actual passwords or usernames, Kuketz says their presence is bad practice for a security-critical app handling such sensitive information. Responding to the report, a spokesperson from LastPass says the company gathers limited data “about how LastPass is used” to help it “improve and optimize the product.” Importantly, LastPass tells The Register that “no sensitive personally identifiable user data or vault activity could be passed through these trackers,” and users can opt out of the analytics in the Privacy section of...

We got our first look at Halo Infinite, the next game in Microsoft’s huge franchise, back in July, and the results were… underwhelming. The graphics and visuals weren’t quite as impressive as you might expect from a next-generation game (the demo was running on a PC “that is representative of the experience that players will have on Xbox Series X”), and one vacant-looking enemy even became the infamous Craig meme. The game was delayed to 2021 a few weeks after the demo aired “to ensure the team has adequate time to deliver a Halo game experience that meets our vision.” On Thursday, though, developer 343 Industries shared new screenshots of Halo Infinite in 4K from an in-development PC version of the game, and the graphics look much better. We’ve included a few of the images below, an...

Sony will allow the PlayStation 5 to make use of expanded SSD storage from this summer, according to a report in Bloomberg. The functionality is said to be coming in a firmware update that will activate the PS5’s M.2 expansion slot, which is currently disabled. Sony told The Verge ahead of the PS5 launch that the feature was “reserved for a future update.” Bloomberg’s sources say that the firmware update will allow for an increase in the speed of the PS5’s cooling fans. The PS5 has an extremely fast built-in SSD, and any compatible third-party drive will need to be equally fast in order to store and run PS5 games; that’s going to generate some extra heat. The PS5 comes with an 825GB SSD right now, leaving users with only 667GB of usable space when formatted. With game sizes ever increasing...

Telegram is updating its messaging app with options for auto-deleting messages, expiring invite links, and new unlimited groups, the company shared in a blog post. Much like Signal, Telegram received a burst of new users in the confusion over WhatsApp’s privacy policy and now the company is adopting features that were already part of its competitors’ apps, features which offer more security and privacy. Auto-deleting messages were already possible in Telegram’s encrypted Secret Chats, but this new update for iOS and Android adds the option to make messages disappear in any kind of chat. Auto-delete can be enabled inside of chats, and set to delete either 24 hours or seven days after messages are sent. Auto-delete won’t remove every message though; if a message was sent before the feature w...

The latest Call of Duty game collection may now be too big to fit the base 500GB PlayStation 4 hard drive (via IGN). According to the official Call of Duty blog, if you want to have the latest Call of Duty: Warzone update and the full Black Ops: Cold War and Modern Warfare package on your PS4, you’ll have to uninstall content you don’t use. The games make that somewhat easy to do by letting you remove certain modes — for example, if you only want to play Warzone, you could uninstall Black Ops’s single player, Zombie, and arcade modes, but it seems a bit ridiculous that you can’t fit three (or really, two and a half) games on an entire game console. That’s especially true since Activision sort of treats these three games as one thing: Warzone blends the content from Modern Warfare and Cold ...

Square Enix just announced Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade, a PS5-enhanced version of FF7 Remake that includes graphical improvements like “improved textures, lighting, and background environments.” But some users on ResetEra noticed one other potentially huge graphical upgrade: Cloud’s famously skinny arms may have gotten a bit beefier. Did Cloud get more swole for next-gen, like the PS5 itself? Clearly, this warranted a full investigation. Check out this image, from user Tyaren: Image: ResetEra user Tyaren And this GIF, from user Rickenslacker: GIF: ResetEra user Rickenslacker Convincing, right? These two images make a strong argument. But my Verge colleagues and I weren’t totally sure. Like our brothers in arms at Reddit suggested, it could be a trick of the improved lighting or sli...

Sony has confirmed that Japan Studio, its internal video game developer based in Tokyo, will essentially wind down and refocus around a single team. In a statement to IGN, Japan Studio said as of April 1st it would be “re-centered to Team Asobi, the creative team behind Astro’s Playroom, allowing the team to focus on a single vision and build on the popularity of Astro’s Playroom.” In other words, get ready for more Astro games. Astro’s Playroom is a well-received title packaged with every PlayStation 5 console. It’s a 3D platformer designed to show off the advanced haptic feedback of the new DualSense controller. Before that, the same team developed Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, widely considered to be the standout exclusive PlayStation VR title. VGC previously reported today that the “vast ...

The enhanced version of Final Fantasy VII Remake for the PS5 wasn’t the only Midgar-related news today. Square Enix also revealed an even bigger surprise: a battle royale for mobile devices that’s set three decades before the original game. It’s called Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier, and it’s slated to come to both Android and iOS devices later this year. We don’t know much more about the game just yet, but, as the title implies, it’s centered on Soldier, a group of enhanced fighters that plays an important role in FFVII’s story. A multiplayer battle royale seems like a strange way to tell a story like that, but the trailer at least shows some iconic FFVII locales and what looks like fast-paced combat involving both weapons and magic. A second mobile spinoff, a story-driven game call...