Technology

How has the first week of February been for you? Good, I hope. We’re keeping it simple with the weekend deals post by providing a variety of the best discounts we’ve seen this week. Whether you just got a PS5 and want an affordable way to get a PS Plus membership, your home is in desperate need of better Wi-Fi coverage and speed, or you need an affordable Sonos speaker, you might find something you want below. Save big on a PS Plus membership This deal has been very popular with readers, and it’s easy to see why. A one-year subscription to PS Plus, Sony’s online service that allows multiplayer and complimentary titles each month, usually costs $60. But digital key seller Eneba is offering it to Verge readers for $28 when they put in offer code VERGE28. Sweetening the value, you can get two...

Final Fantasy XIV is coming to PlayStation 5, developer Square-Enix announced Friday. An open beta will start April 13th. A teaser trailer shows the game running in 4K resolution, and the company says it will have significantly improved frame rates and faster load times. If you’re registered in the PS4 version of the game, the new optimized version will be playable at no extra cost during the beta. [embedded content] Final Fantasy XIV also will get a new expansion pack called Endwalker: Endwalker features the climax of the Hydaelyn and Zodiark story, in which Warriors of Light will encounter an even greater calamity than ever before as they travel to the far reaches of Hydaelyn and even to the moon. In addition to bringing the long-running story arc that began with A Realm Reborn to its co...

A billion years ago last summer, people were getting antsy about vaccines. They wanted things to move faster, maybe skip a few steps in clinical trials to speed things up. This was, at the time, generally considered a bad idea that would result in less accurate data and cause people to lose trust in the vaccines. Now, exactly 1.589 trillion years later, recklessly speeding things up for speed’s sake remains a poor choice, but some people on Twitter like journalist Nate Silver, seem to think we should do it anyways. They take particular issue with the fact that while Johnson and Johnson submitted their data from their giant clinical trial this week, the Food and Drug Administration will take until February 26th to review the data. Three weeks can feel like an eternity during the pandemic, w...

Not long after it blocked Facebook, Myanmar has now ordered mobile networks and internet service providers to block Twitter and Facebook-owned Instagram in the country as well. The southeast Asian country’s military seized power in a coup earlier this week, detaining its civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi along with other government officials. Facebook users had reportedly been using the social media platform to protest the coup, sharing photos of themselves giving the three-finger salute that’s become associated with resistance in the area. “All mobile operators, international gateways and internet service providers in Myanmar received a directive on 5 February 2021 from the Myanmar Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) to, until further notice, block the social media platforms Tw...

Joe Biden’s administration is crafting a report that will include proposals for how the US might respond to global migration due to climate change. Biden commissioned the report as part of a broader executive order he signed yesterday aimed at overhauling the US refugee resettlement program, which was gutted under the Trump administration. “I’ve worked on this very intersection of issues for over a decade, and I never thought that this would be a part of any American president’s priorities, especially within the first 30 days of their administration,” says Kayly Ober, climate displacement manager at the humanitarian organization Refugees International. “So I am delighted and surprised.” A game-changer for people who’ve fled their homes because of climate change If Biden’s report, due in 17...

Sonos is preparing for the release of a new product that, according to FCC documentation, is likely to be the company’s second portable speaker with a rechargeable battery. The unannounced device, listed at the FCC as model number S27, is shown in testing diagrams to have a wireless charging dock and offer both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) wireless technology. FCC diagrams reveal a wireless charging dock.Image: FCC The mandatory FCC label reveals that this new product uses less power than existing Sonos speakers like the Sonos Move, lending more credence to a smaller overall size. The circular label design, and the fact that Sonos says the label is visible on the bottom surface of the product hints that this Sonos speaker could feature a cylindrical design similar to Bluetooth speaker ...

Reddit’s r/WallStreetBets has grown significantly due to the community’s role in driving up the stock prices of companies like GameStop, AMC, and Nokia, and the whole saga has garnered so much attention that there are currently many movies and a TV show in the works. But that increased attention has also put strain on the r/WallStreetBets community itself, forcing Reddit to step in to help sort things out. The trouble started Wednesday night, according to The New York Times, as some r/WallStreetBets moderators talked with each other about trying to get a movie deal. On Thursday morning, “the WallStreetBets moderators who were considering the film deal began booting out other moderators who had questioned them for secretly trying to profit from the forum’s success,” reports The New York Tim...

Elon Musk told Miami’s mayor Friday that The Boring Company could dig a two-mile tunnel under the city for as little as $30 million — a fraction of the $1 billion price tag once quoted by local transit officials. Musk also told the Mayor that The Boring Company could complete the job in six months, versus the original four year estimate. Mayor Francis Suarez shared these details about his “wonderful call” with Musk in a video posted to Twitter. “He’s focused on trying to deliver a project that will have the maximum utility for our residents for the least amount of money,” Suarez said. “The order of magnitude in terms of savings is significant.” Musk first tweeted about wanting to tunnel under Miami on January 18th. “Cars & trucks stuck in traffic generate megatons of toxic gases & ...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify now boasts 155 million premium subscribers and 345 million monthly active users, according to its latest earnings report released today. Those numbers represent a 24 percent and 27 percent year-over year increase. Its biggest increase was in ad-supported monthly active users, which rose 30 percent to 199 million. Last quarter, it reported having reached 144 million subscribers, and 320 million monthly active users. However, despite the growth in listeners, The Wall Street Journal notes that the average revenue per user fell by 8 percent to €4.26 (around $5.13) compared to a year ago. That’s because of the discounted plans used to lure in new subscribers, and the lower prices it charges in markets like Russia and India. Ad revenue… Conti...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge TikTok will start displaying warnings on videos that contain questionable information that couldn’t be verified by fact-checkers, and it’ll begin warning users when they go to re-share those videos that the information hasn’t been confirmed. The app will now display a warning label on these videos that reads, “Caution: Video flagged for unverified content.” This means a fact-checker looked at the content but wasn’t able to certify that it was right or wrong. TikTok has already been reducing the spread of some unverified videos, but they weren’t publicly flagged before today. Creators will now get a message when a warning label is added to their video, and those videos will all have their distribution reduced. Image:… Continue reading… Yo...

Photo by Phillip Faraone / Getty Images for Revolt Four months after ending his exclusive Spotify deal, Joe Budden is bringing his podcast to Patreon and has been made an adviser to the company, taking on the title head of creator equity. Like many other podcasters on Patreon, his show will be available freely on most podcasting platforms — with the notable exception of Spotify — and paying supporters will have access to additional perks. Both his show, The Joe Budden Podcast, and his network, The Joe Budden Network, will be supported through the same Patreon page with the same subscription cost. Subscribers can pay between $5 and $25 a month for bonus content, a private Discord, and exclusive tour deals. Budden tells The Verge he and his team will also gate new shows as exclusives forR...

Microsoft is updating its OneDrive app for Android this week with a new home screen, Samsung Motion Photos support, and the ability to play 8K videos. The new home screen includes quick access to recent files, offline files, and the “On This Day” feature of OneDrive that reminds you of your old photos. Samsung Motion Photos support is also included in this update, allowing owners of Samsung phones to play back photos captured with motion in the OneDrive app or online. These photos work like Apple’s Live Photos and capture a still image alongside several seconds of video and sound before the capture. Microsoft says Samsung Motion Photos playback is rolling out worldwide and will require Android version 6 or above. I… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are...