Technology

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...

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...