Technology

Cyber Monday is upon us. The big finale of the busy shopping weekend will officially happen Monday. But if you’ll be busy with work or whatever else, there’s some good news today: You can get a lot of the best Cyber Monday deals early. More and more retailers have lifted the veil on their new deals earlier than ever, and we’re focused on adding them here. As you’re expecting, there are some great deals on TVs, laptops, tablets, smartwatches, video games, and much more. We’ll be doing our best to keep this post updated ahead of Cyber Monday, and we’ll be back all of next week to give you as many chances as possible to get everything on your holiday wish list. Latest deals Sony’s WF-1000XM3 wireless noise-canceling earbuds are down to $152 at Walmart, which is the lowest price we’ve seen yet...

David Prowse, the actor who played Darth Vader in the original Star Wars films, has died, the Associated Press reported. He was 85. George Lucas asked Prowse to audition for Star Wars after seeing the 6-foot-6 actor in the 1971 Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange. Prowse had his choice of playing Chewbacca or Vader, and opted for the latter because, as he told the BBC, “you always remember the bad guy.” Plus, he added, he didn’t fancy wearing Chewbacca’s fur suit. Prowse played Luke Skywalker’s erstwhile father in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi, but famously, his voice didn’t make it into the films. He said all Vader’s lines, but the voice of James Earl Jones was later dubbed in. RIP David Prowse, 85.The man behind the Darth Vader mask and suit in STAR WARS....

As any avid gamer knows, bugs and glitches are part of the deal. Sometimes they take gameplay to a whole other level, as seems to be the case with Spider Man: Miles Morales where players unexpectedly turned into inanimate objects, including a patio space heater (there’s a probably joke there about great power and great responsibility but we’re above puns at The Verge dot com) (spoiler: we totally are not). The patio heater incident was weird enough, but it’s not the only strange inanimate object to abruptly replace a player in-game: It’s possible this Spider-Man glitch may eventually rank up there with the funniest in-game weirdness. There was the bug in Half-Life 2 that left NPCs unable to blink, the numerous oddities including misplaced obelisks in Microsoft Flight Simulator, and of cour...

Tony Hsieh, the former CEO of online shoe retailer Zappos has died, the company confirmed Saturday. Hsieh retired from the Las Vegas-based company in August, after 20 years at the helm. Under his leadership, Zappos became known for its customer service and employee-focused company culture. Hsieh wrote a best-selling autobiography titled “Delivering Happiness” that detailed his philosophy. Amazon acquired Zappos for $1.2 billion in 2009, and kept Hsieh on as CEO. He said in 2010 he had decided to sell to the e-commerce giant because Amazon recognized “the uniqueness of Zappos’s culture and Amazon’s duty to protect it. We think of Amazon as a giant consulting company that we can hire if we want—for instance, if we need help redesigning our warehouse systems.” According to CNN, Hsieh, 46, die...

Noise-canceling headphones are an important piece of tech if you enjoy having zero distractions or outside noise while you jam to funky tunes or listen to podcasts. And, as you might have expected, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are a good time to invest. While not as convenient as popping earbuds into your ears, noise-canceling headphones do a better job of erasing sound distractions when stacked up against popular wireless earbuds like Apple’s AirPods Pro or Jabra’s 75t. But if you prefer earbuds over headphones, we have rounded up the best wireless earbud deals this Black Friday. We are picking out all of the best deals going on right now on several brands that offer noise-canceling headphones. If you want more deals for other tech categories, check out our best Black Friday deals post. ...

The Trump administration has once again extended the deadline for ByteDance to sell video sharing platform TikTok’s business in the US, Reuters reported. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has given China-based ByteDance until December 4th to either sell or spin out its US business, according to a court filing. CFIUS reportedly granted the extension “to allow time to review a revised submission” that it recently received. President Trump said in August that TikTok and its parent company were a national security risk to the US, and issued the initial order requiring TikTok to sell its US business. Trump’s order would have blocked all US transactions with ByteDance. In September, the US Commerce Department issued an order to block downloads of TikTok in the US. ...

With a pair of next-gen video game consoles now on the market, it’s a very good time to be shopping for a new 4K TV that can best showcase their capabilities. Even if gaming isn’t your thing, Black Friday and Cyber Monday always bring about excellent discounts on sets from many of the top brands like Samsung, LG, Vizio, Sony, TCL, and others. Whether you’re ready to spend over $1,000 or are looking for something more on the budget side, odds are you can find something to your liking. Looking for more than just a TV? Check out our updating list of the best Black Friday deals you can still get right now. The best TV deals for Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 owners The Xbox Series X and PS5 do much more than just play games in 4K. They support HDR, variable refresh rate (in the case of the X)...

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are each a good time of the year to consider upgrading your phone. Whether you’re looking for a deal through a carrier or you’d rather get an unlocked phone, you can save during the holiday season. The best deals on phones for Black Friday are on Android devices, including newer models from Google, Samsung, OnePlus, and more. Predictably, these big price cuts don’t apply to iPhones. Nothing new there, but there is a gift card promo happening if you are interested in picking one up. Below, you’ll find the best deals we’ve found so far. If you buy an unlocked phone, there won’t be any strings attached to the purchase. If we include a carrier promotion, we’ll be sure to thoroughly list out each requirement necessary to get the deal. Apple iPhone deals Let’s get t...

The Verge would greatly appreciate it if you bought a certain Samsung TV today. We make some of our money from affiliate revenue, and Black Friday in particular helps pay some of the bills! And today only, this particular TV is fifty thousand dollars off. That should make it easy for you, right? You think it’s a typo? Some pricing error, maybe a scam where you’ll owe the full amount when all’s said and done? Nope! It’s just that the 98-inch Q900 normally costs $100,000, and Samsung is making it a win-win for everyone (particularly us!) by offering it half-off. Wait, you’re telling me you don’t have $50,000 for a new TV? How are you going to afford a 98-inch 8K television with that kind of thinking? You can’t, of course: at the bargain price of $50,000, Samsung has finally undercut Sony’s r...

In early August, we learned the lovely Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey would come to Nintendo Switch, but we didn’t know exactly when. It turns out yesterday (Thanksgiving) was the day! You can now pick up The Alto Collection from the Nintendo eShop for $7.49, a temporary 25 percent launch discount over what will become its standard $9.99 price. (Check out the video above to get a pretty good sense of what the games are like; we called Alto’s Adventure “the next great iPad game” in our review way back in 2015.) Originally, you’d control Alto and his snowboarding / sandboarding friends by simply tapping the iPhone, iPad or Android touchscreen to jump and perform tricks, but the games now have full controller support as well. You’ve also been able to pick them up on PS4, Xbox One, and th...