Technology

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...

Microsoft’s next Surface Pro 8 tablet and its upcoming Surface Laptop 4 have appeared in leaked images online. Twitter user cozyplanes discovered the images at what appears to be an FCC-like filing, noting that the Surface Pro 8 may ship with LTE support. Both devices will likely launch early next year, and don’t appear to feature any major updates to their design. Windows Central reports that the Surface Pro 8 and Surface Laptop 4 could launch as early as mid-January, with 11th Gen Intel processors and Intel’s Xe graphics support. The Surface Laptop 4 is also rumored to include AMD processor options, which will likely be a custom Microsoft chip based on AMD’s Ryzen 4000 series. Microsoft previously co-engineered a special Ryzen Surface Edition processor for the 15-inch Surface Laptop 3, A...

Things have been tough this year for many of us, and while everyone loves giving great gifts to friends and family, you also don’t want to spend more than you’ve got. Well, don’t worry — we’ve got your back. There are loads of great gifts being discounted to under $50, and we’re letting you know where you can get them and for how much. We’ll be scouring the sales for games, gadgets, and other tech that can put a smile on your loved ones’ faces and keep your bank balance in a reasonable condition. Looking for more Black Friday deals? Be sure to check out our continuously updated roundup of all the best sales. Smart speakers and home tech deals under $50 Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Google Nest Mini Google Nest Mini $19 $50 62% off Prices taken at time of publishing. The Nest Mini is Goo...

Rome’s Fiumicino airport plans to welcome passengers from the US without requiring them to quarantine, as long as they test negative for the novel coronavirus multiple times. Fiumicino says it will be the first airport in Europe to offer the “COVID-tested flights,” creating what it calls “safe air corridors” between Italy and the US. It will test the idea out in December starting with flights from New York’s JFK airport, New Jersey’s Newark Airport, and Georgia’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta airport. If those flights are successful, similar flights could be made “widely available” by summer 2021, according to Fiumicino. It’s risky to rely solely on testing Fiumicino says it will require passengers to take a molecular or antigenic test within 48 hours before taking off. They’ll also need to t...

Best Buy is offering a pair of great deals on Apple’s recently-released 10.2-inch iPad, with offers of up to $70 off. The retailer has knocked $50 off the price of the base 32GB model, which is now $280 compared to its usual asking price of $330. Meanwhile the 128GB model, which is the model we recommended most people should buy, is $70 less than its usual price of $430 at $360. It’s the lowest price we’ve seen the 128GB model sell for since its launch. Apple’s 10.2-inch iPad sits at the bottom of its tablet lineup, but it’s still very good at doing the kinds of things iPads have always done well. This year’s model comes with a faster A12 Bionic processor that means the tablet still feels fast and sprightly to use, even if its outward appearance is starting to look a little bit dated. It l...

If you’re looking for something to do while recovering from your Thanksgiving meal — whether you’ve enjoyed it with family or ate it while zooming with friends — something to enjoy are this year’s biggest shopping events: Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Nearly everything has moved online so that you can do all your holiday shopping and saving from the comfort of your couch. There are a wide range of retailers participating in the Black Friday / Cyber Monday festivities, including Google, Best Buy, Walmart, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. You’re bound to find a discount on most of your wishlist items, including 4K HDR televisions, laptops, video game consoles, headphones, and more. Many retailers are depending on this week’s sales to push up their annual sales performance, and so there are bou...