Technology

The second largest cinema chain in the US is temporarily closing its doors nationwide. Cineworld, parent company of Regal, announced that it will be suspending operations of its 536 Regal theaters as of Thursday, October 8. The suspension also affects 127 Cineworld and Picturehouse cinemas in the UK. Cineworld had only just reopened theaters in August. The closures will impact approximately 40,000 employees across the US, the company announced. It also affects 5,500 employees in the UK, The Guardian reports. Today’s announcement follows news over the weekend that the release of the 25th James Bond film, No Time to Die, has again been pushed back to April 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic. Theaters were counting on the latest 007 installment to drive sagging ticket sales. We are like a groce...

Twitter has confirmed it’s working on a new feature, currently dubbed “Birdwatch,” that could let the Twitter community warn one another about misleading tweets that could cause harm. There’s an awful lot we don’t know about the idea, including whether Twitter will actually release it to the public or how it might work in its final form, but enough has leaked out that we do have a pretty fair glimpse — which, we understand, is still early in development and would not be released ahead of the US election. As TechCrunch notes, the existence of such a tool was first discovered by Jane Manchun Wong, who often digs through app code for evidence of unreleased features, back in August. At a basic level, the idea is that you’ll be able to attach a note to a misleading tweet: Twitter is working on ...

Sony has invited a number of Japanese publications and YouTubers to get a closer look at the PlayStation 5. It’s the first time we’ve seen the PS5 hardware outside of leaked images from Taiwan’s National Communications Commission. A variety of publications have now published detailed hands-on images and videos of the PS5, providing a more realistic look at how big the console is and gameplay of titles like Astro’s Playroom and Godfall. 4gamer has published photos of the PS5 standing both vertically and horizontally, demonstrating how the stand works in either position to hold the console in place. Some photos also show how the PS5 will cool itself, and 4gamer notes that it wasn’t able to hear the fan inside the console or feel much heat exhausting from it during its limited time with the h...

Apple is suing former recycling partner GEEP Canada — now a part of Quantum Lifecycle Partners — for allegedly stealing and reselling at least 103,845 iPhones, iPads and Watches that it was hired to disassemble. “At least 11,766 pounds of Apple devices left GEEP’s premises without being destroyed – a fact that GEEP itself confirmed,” reads a portion of Apple’s complaint, as reported by The Logic (via AppleInsider). Apple sent the recycling firm over 500,000 iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches between January 2015 and December 2017, according to The Logic’s report. When Apple did an audit, it discovered 18 percent of those devices were still accessing the internet through cellular networks. That 18 percent doesn’t count Apple devices without a cellular radio, so it’s possible an even hi...

If you’ve seen one Razer Blade laptop in the past few years, you’ve essentially seen them all. The new Blade 15 Advanced is another one of those monochromatic, monolithic machines milled out of aluminum. But this one is a beast on the inside, with enough year-to-year improvements elsewhere to be worthy of your attention. At nearly the top of Razer’s configuration tree sits this $2,999 ($2,799 at the time of publishing) model that I’ve been testing for the last week. It has a powerful eight-core Intel Core i7-10875H processor, Nvidia’s RTX 2080 Super Max-Q graphics chip, a 1TB NVMe SSD, and 16GB of RAM. Topping it off, it has a 1080p display with a 300Hz refresh rate. This configuration is powerful, and it has no issue playing all of today’s most demanding games at high frame rates with its...

Cineworld, owner of the largest chain of theaters in the UK and Ireland and the second-largest in the United States — Regal Cinemas — will reportedly close all its theaters next week, according to Variety, The Sunday Times, and others. Variety reports that all 543 theaters in the US will be closed, which account for the chain’s 7,000+ screens in the region. The Sunday Times reports that it will close all 128 theaters in the UK and Ireland, too. Both say James Bond is the reason. Yesterday, the 25th James Bond film — No Time to Die — was pushed back to April 2021 due to the ongoing pandemic, denying theaters one of the last major tentpole releases due out this year. Apparently, theaters were counting on Bond, specifically, to arrive on time and help bail them out of poor ticket sales. The n...

“A big frustration with the Apple TV 4K is about to be history,” my colleague Chris Welch wrote, when we learned that Apple’s premiere set-top box would finally be able play 4K YouTube videos at their native resolution instead of being stuck at 1080p. These days, even a $40 dongle can do better than that. But though Apple’s latest software updates did bring YouTube 4K to the Apple TV 4K, the frustrations aren’t necessarily over. It turns out you’re limited to watching 4K at 30fps, instead of a smooth 60 frames per second, and without the depth of color and contrast that High Dynamic Range (HDR) provides. That’s what 9to5Mac noticed yesterday, and we’ve confirmed with Google that — for now — Apple TV only supports 4K at 30fps with SDR content. iPhones and iPads don’t necessarily have this l...

You would think a dating app that knows your sexuality and HIV status would take thorough precautions to keep that info protected, but Grindr has disappointed the world once again — this time, with a gobsmackingly egregious security vulnerability that could have let literally anyone who could guess your email address into your user account. Luckily, French security researcher Wassime Bouimadaghene discovered the vulnerability, perhaps before it could be exploited, and it’s now been fixed. Unluckily for Grindr, the company ignored his disclosures — until security researcher Troy Hunt (of Have I Been Pwned) and journalist Zack Whittaker (of TechCrunch) each confirmed the issue and wrote about it. The details need to be seen to be believed (so please look at the image above) but the short ver...

Nintendo revealed on Thursday that Steve and Alex from Minecraft will be added to the character roster in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch, and now we’re getting the full reveal: they’ll arrive on October 13th, and there’s a whole video you can watch where longtime Smash series director Masahiro Sakurai shows off their new moves, including the ability to build your own platforms out of blocks! See it above. The video reveals that you’ll effectively have six different Minecraft characters to choose from, because Steve and Alex have three different skins each: Plus, there’s a Zombie and an Enderman at around 4 min into the video. You’ll be able to harvest materials from the walls and ground with your various tools to craft upgrades on the fly, and the materials you get depe...

In a move that, I’m sure, has absolutely no relation to anything going on in the world today, Apple has quietly updated its “Face with Medical Mask” emoji with friendlier eyes, eyebrows, and rosy cheeks. Before, it looked a little lethargic. Now, it’s almost happy? You can practically imagine a smile underneath. Except you don’t have to imagine. Wait for it: GIF: Emojipedia As Emojipedia points out, the new emoji is literally Apple’s existing “Smiling Face” with a mask on top. Do you think the artist was imagining a frown under there? Probably not. Juxtaposition: Emojipedia It’s just the latest way that emoji have evolved to express the anguish of 2020 — even as other emoji are getting delayed until 2021. It’s also the latest way that Korea appears to have a jump on the United States where...

James Bond may not avert his next death until 2021, but apparently Paul W.S. Anderson’s Monster Hunter movie will still hit the big screen this year: the just-posted official teaser trailer for the movie confirms that it’ll arrive this December, “only in theaters.” At just 13 seconds of footage, it’s not much of a teaser — and where are the swords? Milla Jovovich mans a minigun, and her squad has a couple rifles at their disposal. But as our sister site Polygon points out, it does give us a glimpse at a Black Diablos, which is just the sort of gigantic sand-loving Triceratops-esque mega-beasts that the teaser seems to show. Don’t worry about those swords, by the way. As the movie’s synopsis makes clear, Jovovich and co will trade their guns for blades before long: When an unexpected sandst...

This story is part of a group of stories called Only the best deals on Verge-approved gadgets get the Verge Deals stamp of approval, so if you’re looking for a deal on your next gadget or gift from major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and more, this is the place to be. Welcome to the weekend. Amazon Prime Day 2020 kicks off in less than two weeks, starting on Tuesday, October 13th and lasting through the 14th. That’s two days to get some of the best deals that we’ll see all year. We’re prepping behind the scenes for the event to make sure you’re able to get exactly what you’re looking for. But for now, I’m going to highlight a few of this week’s best deals that are still going on. OnePlus 8 $699 $799 13% off Prices taken at time of publishing. The OnePlus 8 saw a r...