Technology

Post-election celebrations took many forms this past weekend after President-elect Joe Biden was projected to be the 46th president of the US. Those ranged from mass dance parties in the street to countless online expressions of some much-needed collective schadenfreude at the expense of Donald Trump and his surrogates who refuse to accept the reality of his loss. But none quite measure up to the group of furries, led by YouTuber and virtual reality enthusiast CooperTom, who re-created Trump’s bizarre and sad press conference outside a landscaping business that happens to share the same name as a luxury hotel chain. They did so using VRChat, the massively multiplayer online VR simulator that lets you create an avatar of your choosing — including anthropomorphic animals — and socialize with...

Pokéshopper is releasing a life-sized Metapod in April 2021 that can house a human body, hopefully still living. Is it a costume? A sleeping bag? Vore? Truly, who cares, for it calls to me from its soft and gaping maw. The site’s Twitter account helpfully shared a picture of its specifications in what I think also doubles as a sort of “how to insert body” diagram. Rather than explain it with words, let’s just look at it together: Mmm. Soothing. Less comforting is the news that it’s already sold out in roughly seven hours. To anyone with power reading this, please consider restocking. I wish to be on whatever vibe Metapod man is. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet B...

If you’re always on the hunt for OLED TV discounts, Best Buy has a very good one today on Vizio’s 55-inch model. So good, in fact, that three Verge staffers shouted expletives when they first saw it. Normally $1,300, it’s $900 when you’re signed in with your My Best Buy account. TVs of this caliber rarely, if ever, fall below the $1K mark, so it’s worth thinking about whether you want to make the upgrade today. Best Buy hasn’t shared how long this deal will last. In case you’re wondering, this 4K OLED is primed for use with the PS5 or the Xbox Series X / S consoles. It has support for HDMI 2.1, which allows for fast frame rates at 4K resolution — that’s something both consoles can use. Vizio claims that the TV’s ProGaming Engine can display up to 120 frames per second via its variable refr...

iHeartMedia and Pushkin Industries, the podcasting company co-founded by author Malcolm Gladwell, are teaming up to make more podcasts. The companies announced a new, two-year partnership today, which involves iHeart selling all the ads for Pushkin’s ad-supported shows while also co-producing a new slate of shows. Pushkin, up until now, worked with Cadence13 to sell its ads. In its release about the deal, Pushkin says iHeart will help it expand its reach, which makes sense given that iHeart says it’ll play Puskin podcasts over its more than 800 radio stations. That’s an audience Pushkin wouldn’t have been able to reach if not for a deal with the company. Although this deal isn’t ground-breaking in the sense that Pushkin isn’t making its shows exclusive or going in-house, it still speaks to...

Nite Ize BugLit micro flashlight It’s always a good idea to have a flashlight available. It’s an even better idea to have one that will either stand on its own or wrap around your wrist or any convenient surface. And if it looks like a cute little bug, that makes it the perfect gift for a tech friend. Price: ~$12 Amazon Walmart Chromecast with Google TV This updated version of Google’s Chromecast is an easy recommendation for cheap video streaming. It comes with a remote, but the real draw is the new Google TV interface which tailors content to your taste and even lets you add to your watchlist from a Google search. Price: ~$50 Best Buy Walmart Lego Star Wars: The Child Bring home the cutest TV character of all time in Lego form with the official Baby Yoda set. You may not be a...

Apple has cut off major supplier Pegatron from new contracts following the reveal of student labor violations at some of the Taiwanese manufacturer’s China-based facilities. Bloomberg reports that Apple found Pegatron to be falsifying paperwork in order to cover up violations of Apple’s code of conduct for suppliers. Pegatron is one of Apple’s biggest supply chain partners, manufacturing various products including some of the newest iPhone 12 models. The company is now reportedly on probation, however, and won’t be able to win any new business from Apple until the matter has been resolved. Pegatron falsified paperwork “We have a rigorous review and approval process for any student worker program, which ensures the intern’s work is related to their major and prohibits overtime or night shif...

Amazon is rolling out a new rewards program that gives its Flex delivery drivers easier access to shifts based on the amount of work they’ve done for the company. A spokesperson from Amazon confirmed to CNBC that the Flex Rewards program is in its early stages, but is being rolled out to all drivers in the US. As well as access to shifts, the program also includes access to a cash back debit card, as well as discounts and financial services. Launched in 2015 and now available in over 50 cities across the US, Amazon Flex is a service that allows freelance drivers to sign up for shifts to deliver Amazon or Whole Foods orders. According to CBNC, the new rewards program could incentivize drivers to complete more orders for Amazon, rather than splitting their time with other gig economy service...

Virgin Hyperloop announced that for the first time it has conducted a test of its ultra-fast transportation system with human passengers. The test took place on Sunday afternoon at the company’s DevLoop test track in the desert outside Las Vegas, Nevada. The first two passengers were Virgin Hyperloop’s chief technology officer and co-founder, Josh Giegel, and head of passenger experience, Sara Luchian. After strapping into their seats in the company’s gleaming white and red hyperloop pod, dubbed Pegasus, they were transferred into an airlock as the air inside the enclosed vacuum tube was removed. The pod then accelerated to a brisk 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) down the length of the track, before slowing down to a stop. It’s an important achievement for Virgin Hyperloop, which was founded...

As Election Day came and went and we still didn’t know who was going to win the presidency, many of us ended up glued to our devices last week— moreso than usual— seeking the latest news. Whether it was the obsession with MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki and his map wizardry or the constant updates about how many votes were left to count in Pennsylvania or Georgia, Americans likely spent more time doomscrolling through their Twitter feeds and other apps than they normally do. Depending on who your preferred candidate was, by Saturday morning —when the networks called the election for Joe Biden— your doomscrolling may have turned into gleefreshing— the newly-coined term for manually updating your feed to read good news. On Sunday, we started seeing the updates: the iOS Screen Time feature helpfully l...

Alex Trebek, the longtime host of the answer-and-question game show Jeopardy! has died at age 80, according to a statement from the show. “Jeopardy! is saddened to share that Alex Trebek passed away peacefully at home early this morning, surrounded by family and friends,” the statement posted on Twitter read. Jeopardy! is saddened to share that Alex Trebek passed away peacefully at home early this morning, surrounded by family and friends. Thank you, Alex. pic.twitter.com/Yk2a90CHIM — Jeopardy! (@Jeopardy) November 8, 2020 Trebek was born in Sudbury, Canada, on July 22nd, 1940. His career began at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1961. He moved to the US in the 1970s where he hosted game shows including The Wizard of Odds, Double Dare, The $128,000 Question, and The New High Roller...

The Xbox Series X and Series S consoles launch on Tuesday, November 10th. Whether you were able to secure one in time for launch day, or if you plan to get one soon, you might want some fresh accessories to snag with your big purchase. First up, controllers. You probably already know that Microsoft’s Xbox One wireless controller is also compatible with the new Series X / S consoles, which is great. However, the older controller model lacks a few features that might make the newer one a worthy upgrade for you. For instance, the revised controller has a dedicated share button for saving clips and screenshots and sharing them online, a USB-C port for charging up Microsoft’s optional $24.99 play-and-charge rechargeable battery, along with a few cosmetic and physical improvements to the d-pad a...

There is no shortage of devices that you can stick on your bedside table to use as a voice-controlled alarm clock. You can, of course, just use your phone, but you can also put a small smart speaker, such as Amazon’s Echo Dot, Google’s Nest Mini, or Apple’s new HomePod mini there and bark commands at it to set an alarm, tell you the weather, or snooze for ten minutes. If you want something more fully featured, devices like the Echo Show 5, Lenovo Smart Clock, or Google’s Nest Hub have full-color touchscreen displays that can play video, show camera feeds, or be used as a digital picture frame. Lenovo’s latest entrant in this space, the $49.95 Smart Clock Essential, sits somewhere in between all of that. It’s a voice-controlled, Google Assistant smart speaker with a simple, black-and-white ...