Technology

Today, Discord is rolling out screensharing to its mobile users. It’s a smart move; earlier this summer, the company’s mobile app was hitting lifetime highs for downloads every day. Mobile screensharing means that you can just share your screen — and whatever you’re watching — with anyone in a voice channel. That means you can watch everything from TikTok to Twitch with any of your friends from anywhere in the world, in real time. While chatting. I saw a demo of the feature recently, and more than anything else, I found the simplicity astonishing. In our pandemic year, I’ve spent so much time socializing virtually — sometimes on Discord, sometimes not — and it’s underscored the importance of casual hangouts; spontaneity is one of the many things the pandemic has taken from everyday life. F...

Hours after announcing it would bring controversial horror game Devotion to its platform, CD Projekt Red’s digital storefront GOG has reneged on its release plans. The company’s social media account claims that “after receiving many messages from gamers, we have decided not to list the game in our store.” Devotion has been at the center of a censorship controversy since release last year, after players found in-game content that referred to Xi Jinping, the president of China, as a “Winnie-the-Pooh moron.” The Chinese leader is notoriously sensitive to the cartoon bear, to which memers have continuously compared him; the movie Christopher Robin did not get a Chinese release. Mentions of comedian John Oliver were outright censored on social media after a segment that mentioned the Winnie the...

Today, Amazon revealed the design of the antennas its customers will use to tap into the company’s upcoming massive satellite constellation, Project Kuiper, designed to provide broadband internet coverage from space. The antenna, which is a phased-array design, underwent development and testing this fall, according to the company. With a diameter of just 12 inches across, the antenna is “smaller and lighter than legacy antenna designs,” Amazon claims. Testing showed the antenna can provide “maximum throughput of up to 400 Mbps.” The company also notes that the antenna can be used to stream 4K-quality videos from geostationary satellites, spacecraft that are located about 22,000 miles above the Earth. Testing showed the antenna can provide “maximum throughput of up to 400 Mbps” Amazon Kuipe...

Instagram spent much of the past eight years fighting to maintain its independence from Facebook. In 2020, the fight was over. Instagram has rolled out a series of features that are thoroughly Facebookian in nature. They’re largely focused around getting you to use the app for longer (and also tend to feel messy and incomplete). It’s hard not to see this as the moment that Instagram succumbed to Facebook’s worst tendency: a focus on growth at all costs, even if it means making a product that’s less enjoyable to use. The most telling change was one of the less explosive The changes are numerous. Facebook Messenger was integrated into Instagram DMs, a beat-for-beat TikTok clone was created and given its own section within the app, the primary “post a photo” button was tucked away into a corn...

Half-Life 2 is one of the last things that makes me feel like a fan, and that’s why I was afraid of Half-Life: Alyx. Writing about video games changed my relationship with the medium. I’m used to analyzing exactly why I like my favorite games. Meeting developers has helped me see their work as an idiosyncratic human creation, not a magical self-contained artifact. I’ve encountered the worst of fan culture, and it’s made me wary of deep, unconditional, inarticulable loyalty to media. Gordon and Alyx felt like old friends For some reason, though, Half-Life 2 and its follow-up episodes are special. They’re not my favorite games, or even my favorite Half-Life games. Like a robot short-circuiting while trying to articulate the concept of love, I’m incapable of explaining my deep investment in t...

Apple had a solid year of tech products across a wide variety of categories. From introducing the M1 chip on computers (including the MacBook Pro), releasing four new iPhones (including the first iPhone with the “mini” moniker), two new Apple Watches, and a few updates on some iPad models, this year’s releases spanned a wide gamut. Today’s deals highlight some of the better discounts you can find right now if you want to buy some Apple tech this holiday season, including historically low prices on the Mac mini with M1 and multiple iPad Pro configurations discounted. The new Mac mini with M1 is on sale at B&H Photo The new Mac mini with the M1 chip launched last month, and if you were looking to upgrade to this computer, you could get the base configuration with 8GB of memory and 256GB ...

By the end of March, questions with friends and family went from “Any plans this weekend?” to “What are you watching now?” The pandemic forced most of us inside, sometimes for weeks on end. Zoom hangs got tired pretty quickly, puzzles were finished in rapid succession, and there are only so many home workouts to be done in a day. My friends and I started catching up on shows we promised we’d someday watch but kept putting off (for many, that seemed to be The Sopranos) or dove into Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, DC, and Marvel Cinematic Universe marathons. Everyone was streaming all the time — to the point that data caps were instituted in countries around the world by regulatory boards that were worried the internet would crash under the strain. The internet never collapsed, but streamin...

While Samsung’s mobile boss TM Roh has telegraphed plans to bring stylus support to more phones across its lineup, there may still be a new Galaxy Note in 2021. An anonymous Samsung official tells Yonhap that the company is “preparing to release the Galaxy Note series next year” and that “Roh’s message does not mean that the Galaxy Note series will be discontinued.” Samsung declined to comment on the specifics of Yonhap’s report when contacted by The Verge, but provided the following statement: Samsung confirms plans to bring some of the most beloved features of the Galaxy Note to more device categories in 2021. We remain committed to providing the best mobile experience to our consumers and will continue to actively listen and consider consumer feedback in all our product innovations. We ...

With yesterday’s release of iOS 14.3, Siri got a new trick: the ability to play real-world sound samples on command. Ask “Hey Siri, what does _____ sound like?” and it will start playing the sound for you. If you ask on an iPhone or iPad, it will show you a picture as well. Google Assistant has been able to do this for a few years now, but now it’s available for the iPhone, iPad, and HomePod. Apple hasn’t announced how many sounds it’s added, but it’s been able to handle most of the animals I asked about (except for some obscure ones that I’m not sure have a real distinctive noise, like an anteater). At the moment, it seems like the sounds are limited to animals, vehicles, and musical instruments. I tried asking for some nature-y sounds, such as thunder or a waterfall, and Siri didn’t play...

Oculus is resuming shipments of its Quest 2 Elite Strap accessory and extending the warranty after reports of defective straps. As UploadVR reported earlier, the Facebook-owned virtual reality company paused Elite Strap shipments in November, saying a small number of users had reported them snapping after use. Now, it tells Android Central that it’s pinpointed the issue as a “processing inconsistency with some early units,” and the product is going back on sale. Oculus maintains that the Elite Strap problems affect a “very small percentage” of customers. But it’s increasing the standard one-year warranty to a two-year period, during which Oculus will replace broken straps free of charge. The $49 Elite Strap (and a $129 version with an external battery and carrying case) replaces the standa...

Activists working for the influential youth-led environmental group, Sunrise Movement, have voted to form a union, they announced today. Some 96 percent of Sunrise workers voted for the union. The group, which has pushed for a Green New Deal, will form a union with Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 1180 in New York, CWA represents other big-name advocacy groups such as Amnesty International. “Sunrise Movement unequivocally supports, and fights for, the right of any and all workers to unionize.” “When we talk about creating millions of good jobs through a Green New Deal, we mean jobs where people get paid well, with the protections they deserve and that the labor movement fought for,” Sunrise Movement Executive Director Varshini Prakash said in a statement today. “Sunrise Moveme...