Technology

With everything else going on, you may have momentarily forgotten Epic Games and Apple’s on-going legal battle over the Fortnite creator’s alternative payment system that got it booted off the App Store. The lawsuits are still playing out, but here’s a small positive: Epic announced last Friday that your V-Bucks stranded on the macOS and iOS versions of Fortnite will be honored and credited to your account so you can spend them on other platforms. Epic says that players who purchased V-Bucks on iOS and macOS should receive their credit by today, November 9th. Those V-Bucks can be spent on any platform that can play Fortnite other than iOS or macOS. Because Mac & iOS are blocked for Fortnite updates, we’re beginning to grant a V-Bucks bonus for players on these platforms — to spen...

Although there’s no shipping date for it yet, Apple has sent out review samples of its upcoming MagSafe Duo charger to reviewers. It’s a travel charger that combines Apple’s new MagSafe charging puck with an Apple Watch charger and a USB-C to Lightning cable. It costs $129, but that price doesn’t include a USB-C charging brick. You’ll need to buy that separately, and you’ll need to make sure it can supply at least 20 watts of USB PD power so that it can fast-charge your iPhone. Apple sells one for $19. $129 is $100 more than what I paid for a wireless charger that can charge my phone, AirPods, and Apple Watch at the same time. That charger doesn’t fold up into a neat little package and can’t fast-charge an iPhone at 15 watts, but it uses USB-C instead of Lightning and has little lights to ...

Amazon is warning customers that Xbox Series X preorders might not arrive tomorrow. In an email to some Amazon customers, the retailer says it expects to ship some consoles “in the coming weeks as we receive more inventory in November and December.” Amazon estimates that the affected preorders will receive Xbox Series X units by December 31st or before. The emails are being sent to a wide range of people, and some who have preordered on Amazon have yet to receive a shipment notice with just a day to go until the Xbox Series X launch. It’s surprising to see these emails arrive less than 24 hours before the Xbox Series X was supposed to be delivered, but it’s not clear how many are affected by the delay. Amazon sent a similar email to some customers who preordered the PS5 back in September. ...

According to research done by IT company CBT Nuggets, your laptop’s keyboard could carry 20,000 times more bacteria than your toilet seat. And with so much of your work, school, socializing, and entertainment now taking place online, you’re probably using your laptop more than ever. Whether you’re struggling with crumbs, dust, fingerprints, pet hair, or sticky residue, you should be able to clean your keys with materials you already have lying around. And if you share a device with other members of your household, you can prevent the spread of germs as well. It’ll just take a few minutes out of your day, and your keyboard will look brand-new. Here’s what to do. Turn it off Before you get started, turn off your computer. You don’t want to accidentally hit a hotkey combination that leads to ...

If you’re like us, you probably haven’t thought about the Slingbox in a good long while; the idea of beaming your own TV over the internet has largely been replaced by streaming TV services, even if watch-anywhere DVRs like the Fire TV Recast do still exist. But if you are still relying on a Slingbox of your very own, you’re officially on notice: Dish subsidiary Sling Media is discontinuing all Slingbox products and will permanently shut down the Slingbox servers on or around November 9th, 2022 — “at which point ALL Slingbox devices and services will become inoperable,” says Sling. Why now? Please enjoy this illuminating explanation: Screenshot of Sling’s FAQ Right then! The company’s also nixing a variety of its SlingPlayer apps, including its app for Windows Phone, which… it’s been...

The PlayStation 5 can do practically everything the PS4 can, with only a small handful of games and features getting left behind. (Bye-bye, 3D Blu-ray.) But there may be one compelling reason to keep your PS4 around: you could pick up where you left off in a PS5 game from another room of your house. Sony confirmed today that the existing PS4 will soon let you access your other PlayStation consoles remotely, including the PS5: We’re updating PS4’s Remote Play feature. Now, in addition to being able to access your PS4 from a PC or a mobile device, your PS4 can access other consoles via Remote Play too, right on your TV. This includes the ability to connect to your PS5 and stream a PS5 game to your PS4 so you can play it there. VGC and Eurogamer reported today that a “PS5 Remote Play” app has...

The PlayStation 5 will launch on Thursday, November 12th, and Sony has published a huge FAQ outlining a lot of details about the new console. Buried in the FAQ are a few new tidbits that mean you’ll be able to play even more games than you might have expected on the PS5. PS5 games will be region free, according to the FAQ, which means you’ll be able to play games from other countries without any issues. That could be a big deal if, for example, there’s a game released in Japan that you want to play but doesn’t get an official release in the US. That game will still work on your PS5. The PS5 will also support Sony’s PlayStation Now cloud gaming service, which means you’ll be able to play more older PlayStation games than we previously knew. PS Now lets you download and stream certain PS4 ga...

As it became clear that the votes cast on Election Day in several key states would take time to tally, President Trump started the drumbeat to “stop the count” before all ballots had been accounted for. But Democratic activists were prepared to rally for counter-demonstrations. In Pennsylvania, where officials had cautioned that ballot-counting would take longer than usual, protecting the state’s 20 Electoral College votes seemed especially crucial. Within hours of Trump’s tweet, organizers in Pittsburgh held a “Count Our Votes” rally — a combination block party and demonstration, organized with tools and knowledge built over the course of months or years. The rally was coordinated by a group of local protest organizations, including One Pennsylvania, which covers a coalition of activists ...

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...