Technology

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge Oculus has rolled out its first big update for the Quest 2 standalone virtual reality headset, fulfilling a few promises it made when the headset launched last month. Headlining the new features is the 90Hz refresh rate mode that now expands to all system-level apps by default — including through Oculus Link, which has officially exited beta. The company says it’s now allowing developers to ship Quest titles with native 90Hz support, as opposed to the Quest 2’s 72Hz base refresh rate that was active by default. Soon, the likes of Superhot, Echo VR, Beat Saber, Vacation Simulator, Job Simulator, Racket: Nx, and Space Pirate Trainer will support the higher refresh rate. Hopefully Tetris Effect and Rez Infinite will soon join that list. I… Con...

Photo by Dominik Bindl/Getty Images Hasan Minhaj, formerly the host of the now-canceled Netflix talk show Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, will have a major recurring role in the second season of Apple TV Plus hit The Morning Show, Deadline reports. “He will play Eric, a charismatic, rising star who joins The Morning Show team,” according to Deadline. Minhaj’s role follows Netflix’s August cancellation of his comedy / news talk show, which aired for two years and six seasons, and I highly recommend you read Joshua Rivera’s article about why Patriot Act stood out among a crowded field of late-night news comedy shows. Minhaj’s show wasn’t the first talk show that Netflix has canceled, so I also recommend that you read Julia Alexander’s piece about why the streaming service… Continue read...

Apple’s newest smart speaker is way more affordable but still chasing Amazon and Google Continue reading… 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 Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge It’s been hard to secure the new consoles Continue reading… 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 Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.

A 1928 photo shows a sewer outlet pouring untreated sewage into the Mississippi in Minnesota. Nearly a century later, wastewater remains an important public health issue in the US. | Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Doctors couldn’t diagnose the rash spreading across Catherine Flowers’ legs and body. But the activist thought it had to do with the day she wore a dress during a visit to a family whose yard featured “a hole in the ground full of raw sewage.” “I began to wonder if third-world conditions might be bringing third-world diseases to our region,” Flowers writes in her new book, Waste: One Woman’s Fight Against America’s Dirty Secret. She was right. That rash led to research that found that hookworm, a parasite thought to be pretty much dead in the US, was actually alive a...

Lucasfilm Ltd. What makes a Mandalorian a Mandalorian? It’s a question that’s becoming increasingly important on The Mandalorian (shocking, I know), especially as our titular lead (Din Djarin, aka “Mando”) continues in his quest to find other members of his people. Mandalorians who, as we learned in the most recent episode called “The Heiress,” are very different from his own clan. As the episode reveals, Din’s stoic ways and reverence for his armor (to the point of never revealing his face) are not typical of all Mandalorians. Rather, his tribe is a splinter group that adheres to the ways of the “Children of the Watch,” described as a “cult of religious zealots” that sought to reestablish the Way of the Mandalore (the oft-quoted, “This is the way”… Continue reading… You Deser...

Photo by Vlad Savov / The Verge Honda made the bold claim this week that it will mass-produce autonomous vehicles capable of performing 100 percent of driving tasks under certain conditions, but that drivers would need to stand by to take control when needed. This type of autonomous driving is defined as Level 3 by the Society of Automotive Engineers. It refers to highly automated driving where the driver still needs to be able to take over the vehicle upon request. Level 4 automation means that the car is capable of handling most driving situations itself, whereas Level 5 is largely theoretical and covers complete automation in any condition. In a press release, Honda says it has received approval from Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism to… Continue read...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Food delivery platform DoorDash filed its widely anticipated IPO with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, and plans to take the company public early next month. The company’s revenue soared in 2020 and it briefly showed a profit, as restaurants closed to in-person dining due to the pandemic, and relied on delivery services. DoorDash had a net loss of $149 million over the nine months that ended September 30th, compared to a net loss of $533 million for the same period in 2019. During the first nine months of 2020, the company reported $1.9 billion in revenue, up from $587 million a year earlier. The company has more than 18 million customers. more than 390,000 merchants, and about 1 million delivery workers, who it refers… Continu...

Image: Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve is getting updated with support for Arm-powered Macs, and a beta version will be ready for owners on day one. Blackmagic Design released a beta of Resolve version 17.1 today that includes support for Apple’s new M1 chip. That means when the first of these new Macs ship next week, buyers will be able to dive straight into a native version of a key filmmaking tool. Resolve is one of the industry-standard apps for color grading, but it’s become far more than that in recent years. The app also includes a video editor, graphics tools, and an audio editor — plus, the majority of its features are available for free, so it’s an excellent app for creators who are just getting started. As Apple transitions creative-industry users… Continue reading&helli...

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge We started this week with some reviews of the alternatively-sized iPhone 12s — the mini and the Pro Max. We ended this week with an all-new episode of The Vergecast. All that stuff in between? That’s what our Vergecast crew talked about on the show today. Vergecast co-hosts Nilay Patel and Dieter Bohn start the show discussing their reviews of the new iPhones — Nilay on the Pro Max and Dieter on the mini — and how the really big iPhone and the tiniest iPhone rank in battery life, screen size, and ergonomics. Believe it or not, there was another Apple event on Tuesday. During its “One More Thing” hardware event, we saw Apple debut its own M1 processor chips, which power a new Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, and Mac mini. Deputy editor Dan… Continue reading&...

Purrfect dialogue. | Image: via YouTube/H20Delirious We already knew that Spider-Cat was going to be the true hero of Spider-Man: Miles Morales, but with the PS5 game’s launch yesterday, we’re learning new things about this furry sidekick. Specifically, that he takes a pet, like no problem. Video shared by the excellent and informative Twitter account @CanYouPetTheDog shows Spider-Cat getting a pet in-game, along with a very familiar line of dialogue. (You can also see the line at around 52 minutes in this playthrough video by YouTuber H20Delirious.) You can pet the cat in Spider-Man: Miles Morales pic.twitter.com/2zZsZdI4DV — Can You Pet the Dog? (@CanYouPetTheDog) November 13, 2020 If the phrase isn’t ringing any bells, it comes from this video below, itself from another excellent…...