Technology

Samsung will officially be announcing its latest lineup of Galaxy flagship phones — rumored to be the Galaxy S21, S21 Plus, and S21 Ultra — on January 14th, the company confirmed through invitations to a new Galaxy Unpacked event. The tagline: “Welcome to the Everyday Epic.” The event will kick off at 7AM PT / 10AM ET. The company is widely expected to announce three new smartphones at the event, successors to last year’s Galaxy S20 lineup: a pair of matching S21 and S21 Plus phones (that are expected to be largely similar, except for size), and a more premium S21 Ultra model that will offer even better specs and cameras, similar to its 2020 counterpart, in addition to a curved display and support for Samsung’s S-Pen stylus. There’s not a lot to glean from the event teaser video you can wa...

The TikTok Ratatouille musical— aka the Ratatousical— debuted online on New Year’s Day and has already sold more than $1 million in tickets, in quite the feel-good start to 2021. A portion of the ticket sales will benefit The Actors Fund, which supports performers and workers in the entertainment industry. The musical came together on TikTok over several months, with creators including composers, fans, set designers, costumers, and choreographers devising musical numbers, songs, and even a fake Playbill for the fictional “show” based on the 2007 Disney/Pixar animated film. Then suddenly it was actually happening: Seaview Productions announced it was producing the show in association with TikTok, and even Disney/Pixar gave its blessing. The show got some big name Broadway stars to perform t...

The TikTok Ratatouille musical— aka the Ratatousical— debuted online on New Year’s Day and has already sold more than $1 million in tickets, in quite the feel-good start to 2021. A portion of the ticket sales will benefit The Actors Fund, which supports performers and workers in the entertainment industry. The musical came together on TikTok over several months, with creators including composers, fans, set designers, costumers, and choreographers devising musical numbers, songs, and even a fake Playbill for the fictional “show” based on the 2007 Disney/Pixar animated film. Then suddenly it was actually happening: Seaview Productions announced it was producing the show in association with TikTok, and even Disney/Pixar gave its blessing. The show got some big name Broadway stars to perform t...

The Russia-linked SolarWinds hack which targeted US government agencies and private corporations may be even worse than officials first realized, with some 250 federal agencies and business now believed affected, the New York Times reported. Microsoft has said the hackers compromised SolarWinds’ Orion monitoring and management software, allowing them to “impersonate any of the organization’s existing users and accounts, including highly privileged accounts.” The Times reports that Russia exploited layers of the supply chain to access the agencies’ systems. The Times reports that early warning sensors that Cyber Command and the NSA placed inside foreign networks to detect potential attacks appear to have failed in this instance. In addition, it seems likely that the US government’s attentio...

The Russia-linked SolarWinds hack which targeted US government agencies and private corporations may be even worse than officials first realized, with some 250 federal agencies and business now believed affected, the New York Times reported. Microsoft has said the hackers compromised SolarWinds’ Orion monitoring and management software, allowing them to “impersonate any of the organization’s existing users and accounts, including highly privileged accounts.” The Times reports that Russia exploited layers of the supply chain to access the agencies’ systems. The Times reports that early warning sensors that Cyber Command and the NSA placed inside foreign networks to detect potential attacks appear to have failed in this instance. In addition, it seems likely that the US government’s attentio...

The best thing I have watched in 2021 so far is the Ratatouille TikTok musical, it’s charming and the performances —by some big Broadway stars— are excellent. If you haven’t purchased your ticket yet (prices are on a pay-what-you-can scale), there’s still time; it will stream until January 4th. Ticket proceeds benefit the Actors Fund, a worthy cause. Be warned that the songs will definitely get stuck in your head, just like any good musical number does. In other news I just started Bridgerton… will report back. Saucy so far. It’s kind of slim pickins this week for new trailers, but I found a couple of interesting ones that all happen to feature strong female protagonists, a fine tone to set for 2021. [embedded content] Pretend It’s a City It’s no secret that Fran Lebowitz has thought...

The best thing I have watched in 2021 so far is the Ratatouille TikTok musical, it’s charming and the performances —by some big Broadway stars— are excellent. If you haven’t purchased your ticket yet (prices are on a pay-what-you-can scale), there’s still time; it will stream until January 4th. Ticket proceeds benefit the Actors Fund, a worthy cause. Be warned that the songs will definitely get stuck in your head, just like any good musical number does. In other news I just started Bridgerton… will report back. Saucy so far. It’s kind of slim pickins this week for new trailers, but I found a couple of interesting ones that all happen to feature strong female protagonists, a fine tone to set for 2021. [embedded content] Pretend It’s a City It’s no secret that Fran Lebowitz has thought...

T-Mobile suffered a security breach in December that may have exposed call-related information and phone numbers for some of its customers. First reported by Bleeping Computer, the information affected by the breach did not include names on customers’ accounts, physical or email addresses, financial data, credit card information, Social Security numbers, tax IDs, passwords, or PINs, the company said. T-Mobile said in a statement emailed to The Verge that it had notified “less than 0.2 percent” of its customers— which works out to about 200,000 people— that some account information may have been illegally accessed. That information “may have included phone numbers, number of lines subscribed to and in a small number of cases some call-related information collected as part of normal operatio...

T-Mobile suffered a security breach in December that may have exposed call-related information and phone numbers for some of its customers. First reported by Bleeping Computer, the information affected by the breach did not include names on customers’ accounts, physical or email addresses, financial data, credit card information, Social Security numbers, tax IDs, passwords, or PINs, the company said. T-Mobile said in a statement emailed to The Verge that it had notified “less than 0.2 percent” of its customers— which works out to about 200,000 people— that some account information may have been illegally accessed. That information “may have included phone numbers, number of lines subscribed to and in a small number of cases some call-related information collected as part of normal operatio...

If you’ve never gotten around to buying and playing Metro: Last Light, the remastered version is free on the GOG store today and tomorrow (via Polygon). The game has been out for a while now, but it’s still as terrifying as ever, even if you’re playing it for a second or third time. And, when you get a game from GOG, it comes without any DRM, so your copy of the game isn’t tied to any particular platform. You can download the files to your hard drive, and it’ll still run without GOG’s launcher installed. The process of claiming the game is a little non-obvious, as the “Metro: Last Light giveaway” link at the very top of the page just leads to GOG’s search screen. To claim the free game, you’ll first want to log in (or create an account if you don’t have one), then go to the homepage. Scrol...

Gazelle, one of the longest-running used smartphone buyers in the US, has announced the end of its core trade-in program, which let phone owners mail in phones and other electronics devices in exchange for cash. The news, revealed in an email Gazelle sent to some customers on Wednesday and shared with The Verge, means any prospective Gazelle customers will have to receive a quote and initiate the trade-in process by January 31st, 2021 (allowing 30 days to mail in the phone) if they want to take advantage of the program. The service will shut down officially on February 1st, while any active trade-ins will be honored, the company says. Gazelle will still accept used smartphones through its ecoATM kiosks This isn’t the end of Gazelle’s business. Gazelle’s parent company ecoATM, which has bee...

LG’s screen-swiveling Wing was one of the most interesting looking smartphones of 2020, but its unique design was held back by poor software support. A new software update, out today for the Verizon-exclusive device, looks to help address those issues by adding some new dual-screen functionality. Specifically, Droid Life reports that the new update makes it much easier to send apps to and from the smaller display to the main one (a process that previously involved some convoluted menu wrangling.) With the new update, there’s now a “send” button that shuttle apps from one display to the other, along with a “restart” button to relaunch apps that transition over poorly. You can also use a third-finger gesture to accomplish a similar task. Finally, LG has added app names to the homescreen when...