Technology

We kind of loved the beans. The Galaxy Buds Live’s bean-like shape made sense! But though it originally seemed like Samsung was in on the joke — the company called them beans internally, and even printed the word on the circuitry — Samsung’s next earbuds may take a take a different tack. Today, Indonesia’s telecommunications certification authority has revealed the company has a new “Galaxy Buds Pro” set of earbuds waiting in the wings (via MySmartPrice), and SamMobile may have already revealed what to expect: a source says they’ll be a set of sealed in-ear buds with the same design as the earlier Galaxy Buds+, only now with active noise cancellation and “an improved Ambient mode” to let you hear more of your surroundings. Here’s where the Galaxy Buds Pro appear in Indonesia’s SDPPI databa...

Two days ago, Coinbase did something we rarely see a company do: it gave the world a heads-up that The New York Times would soon publish “a negative story” about how “several Black employees had negative experiences at Coinbase over the last few years.” Well, Nathaniel Popper’s NYT story is now here, and that description looks like the understatement of the week: twenty-three current and former employees went on the record to help produce a thoroughly damning report about systemic racial discrimination at the company. It includes passages like this: One Black employee said her manager suggested in front of colleagues that she was dealing drugs and carrying a gun, trading on racist stereotypes. Another said a co-worker at a recruiting meeting broadly described Black employees as less capabl...

An international group of climate activists and Amazon warehouse workers have launched an online campaign called “Make Amazon Pay,” calling on the tech giant to provide better working conditions for its employees and to reduce its expanding carbon footprint. The protests come just as the New York Times reports that the Seattle-based company has been on a hiring spree this year, expanding its global workforce. “During the Covid-19 pandemic, Amazon became a trillion dollar corporation, with CEO Jeff Bezos becoming the first person in history to amass $200 billion in personal wealth,” the campaign states on its website. “Meanwhile, Amazon warehouse workers risked their lives as essential workers, and faced threats and intimidation if they spoke out for their rights to a fair wage.” “Amazon wa...

I have been a technology cheapskate most of my life. I’ve rarely bought a monitor brand-new; I’m pleased to say I pieced together my current three-screen articulating swing-arm setup primarily from Craigslist and hand-me-downs. But this fall, I had an opportunity to temporarily replace my three aging displays with the most ridiculous, most advanced gaming monitor ever made: the super-ultrawide, super-curved, ultra-high resolution 49-inch Samsung Odyssey G9. The Samsung Odyssey G9 is a monitor so big, so wide, so curved, it can fill a midsized desk and wrap around your entire field of view. It’s also simply a phenomenal screen: speedy (240Hz, 1ms, G-Sync, and FreeSync 2), high resolution (5120 x 1440-pixel), and bursting with brilliant color thanks to a QLED panel that tops out at an eye-se...

After making a huge splash in her Twitch debut last month, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) plans to join the streaming platform again tonight to play Among Us with MP Jagmeet Singh, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, and two other Twitch streamers. The stream, hosted by Singh, is set to begin at 7PM ET on Friday. Ocasio-Cortez’s first time playing Among Us on Twitch was a massive hit, peaking at 435,000 viewers at one point during the match on October 20th. She played with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), as well as Twitch streamers Pokimane, HasanAbi, and more, to get out the vote, with the stream becoming one of the 20 most-viewed of all time. Now, Ocasio-Cortez will take on Singh and Twitch streamer Northernlion, and she’ll be joined again by HasanAbi. “Canadian Members of Parliament ...

Jake Paul feels misunderstood. The YouTube sensation / likely FBI target / former Disney Channel star is frustrated that people don’t see the real him — just the pieces of him that are always screwing up. Yes, he may be known for outlandish YouTube prank videos, he may have been criticized by his city’s mayor for throwing a huge party during the pandemic and later had his home raided by the FBI in connection with a supposed “riot” at a mall, but he’s also trying to do some good things, he says, like inspire his millions of young fans. “People forget that I’m human, and that I’m 23 years old. And that I’m just a normal fucking kid that got handed a lot of power and responsibility, and it’s easy to mess up with that a lot,” Paul told The Verge on a Zoom call from the bedroom of his Calabasas...

Spotify was down for nearly an hour today, after a widespread outage affected users in countries across Europe and beyond. The music streaming service stopped working for many at around 4:15AM ET, and Spotify rectified the issues after nearly an hour. Spotify outages are rare, and the last major one happened back in August after the company forgot to renew its TLS certificate. The service was down for an hour back then, but we’ve checked and the TLS certificate doesn’t appear to be the source of the issues this time around. We’ve made a few tweaks backstage, so everything should be back to normal. Need more help? Let @SpotifyCares know! — Spotify Status (@SpotifyStatus) November 27, 2020 Spotify also experienced problems earlier this year during a broader Facebook iOS SDK problem. The app ...

Apple’s brand-new computers based on its own custom M1 chip have both been getting sterling reviews due to their great performance and better life. (Well, almost sterling reviews; The Verge’s Nilay Patel is not a fan of the Touch Bar that still adorns the MacBook Pro, and according to reviewer Chris Welch, the Mac mini has a truly awful speaker. But aside from that…) Normally, brand-new Apple computers would not be on sale, even during Black Friday. But the M1-powered MacBook Pro 13 has already had a $50-off sale at Amazon, and today Adorama and B&H are discounting the Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro with M1 chips. For the MacBook Air, both B&H and Adorama are taking $100 off of both the base configuration and the upgraded model with 512GB of storage. It’s the lowest p...

Black Friday is here. You know the deal: it’s the biggest shopping day of the year, followed closely by Cyber Monday, which is happening first thing next week. As you’re expecting, there are some great deals on tech, including TVs, laptops, gadgets, video games, and much more — we have it all below. Unlike most years, the ongoing pandemic saw retailers releasing some of their best Black Friday deals earlier than ever, giving shoppers more opportunities to snag gifts. With that, a few deals might look a little familiar, but we’ve aimed to put in just as many brand-new deals that are hitting for the first time. We’ll be doing our best to keep this post updated during Black Friday, and through the weekend so that you can be certain that what’s listed is still available. And since new deals wi...

Xiaomi’s budget sub-brand Redmi has never released a smartwatch before, and its first entry turns out to be what you’d expect: a pretty uninspiring design at a pretty attractive price. The Redmi Watch just launched in China for 299 yuan, or about $45. The watch has a 1.4-inch rectangular display with curved glass, and it comes in black, white, and blue color variants. The silicone strap is available in black, white, blue, green, and pink. There’s a single button on the side of the watch, with everything else being handled by the touchscreen or the Mi Fit app on a paired smartphone. Other specs include NFC, Bluetooth 5.0, a heart rate monitor, and waterproofing up to 50m. Xiaomi claims that battery life will be good for up to 7 days, or 12 days if you use a power-saving mode. The UI and wat...

Ikea has rolled out scene support in the latest Home Smart software update. Owners of Ikea Tradfri Gateways running the new 1.12.31 firmware can now configure scenes to control several Home Smart products at once, like Ikea smart lights, Sonos-compatible Symfonisk speakers, or Fyrtur blinds. The update also supports Ikea’s new Shortcut Buttons that can be dedicated to executing individual scenes, and should be available to buy shortly for less than $10 / €10. Once updated, scenes will appear in a dedicated section at the top of the Ikea Home Smart app. One scene suggested by the app is “All off,” which can be configured to turn off every Ikea light in the home while silencing every Sonos-compatible speaker. In the future, such a scene could be assigned to an Ikea Shortcut Button that could...

Oculus is hosting a big sale on games and experiences for Black Friday, with more discounts coming on Cyber Monday. There are plenty of standalone deals, but Oculus has also curated several bundles, each one on a different theme. And you can gift titles to other people from the Oculus store, too. You’ll just need their e-mail address when checking out. According to Oculus, all of the games in the bundles below will work with Quest standalone headsets. Be aware, though, that only some of them support cross-buy, meaning one purchase will work both as a standalone app on Quest and when wired to your PC via Oculus Link. All others are exclusive to either Rift or Quest. To avoid confusion, I’ve labeled which support cross-buy. Make sure you check the product pages to see which platform each tit...