Technology

Electronic Arts has confirmed details on how some of its most popular titles will perform on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S when the next-generation consoles launch next week. Games including FIFA 21, The Sims 4, and Apex Legends will all get varying degrees of performance boosts when running on the new hardware, either through free upgrades or simple backward compatibility. Star Wars: Squadrons appears to be getting the most comprehensive makeover for the new Xbox consoles. There’ll be a mode that prioritizes visual quality, including better lighting and higher resolutions coming in at dynamic 4K at 60fps on the Series X and dynamic 1440p at 60fps on the Series S. Another performance-focused mode drops the new lighting model but runs at 120fps at the same dynamic reso...

Hello again, friends. The Processor newsletter is back after a not-so-brief hiatus caused by the absolutely frenetic pace of hardware reviews this fall and a special run of Vergecast podcast episodes about those reviews. I’m really proud of those podcasts and if you haven’t caught them, I think it’s worth going back to give them a listen. The big consumer tech news this week is Apple’s announcement that it will hold a ‘One More Thing’ event for November 10th. The going assumption — which I share — is that Apple will unveil the promised first Arm-based Apple silicon-powered Mac, mostly likely a laptop. In this very newsletter I’ve opined a few times on why this transition could be tricky and how Microsoft’s rougher ride in a similar transition could provide some lessons for Apple. Since the...

Nintendo shipped 6.86 million Switch consoles between July and September, increasing its numbers by more than 40 percent year-on-year and reaching 68.3 million units sold since its launch in 2017. That’s impressive growth for the company, since this quarter last year was a strong one — it saw the launch of the cheaper Switch Lite variant, boosting Nintendo’s shipments by more than 50 percent on 2018. The Switch figure is also an improvement on the previous quarter, when Nintendo shipped 5.68 million systems. Animal Crossing: New Horizons was a major sales driver then with more than 10 million copies moved, and continued to sell well this past quarter with more than three and a half million units. It’s now sold 26.04 million copies overall, making it the second best-selling Switch game behi...

WhatsApp is introducing a new disappearing messages option this month. The feature will allow WhatsApp users to enable disappearing messages on chat conversations between friends, to automatically delete messages after seven days. Anyone can enable the option in individual chats, and group admins will be able to enable disappearing messages in group chats. “We’re starting with 7 days because we think it offers peace of mind that conversations aren’t permanent, while remaining practical so you don’t forget what you were chatting about,” says a WhatsApp spokesperson. “The shopping list or store address you received a few days ago will be there while you need it, and then disappear after you don’t.” Photos and videos will also be deleted with disappearing messages Disappearing messages will a...

Google has weighed in on concerns from new Pixel 5 owners over a visible gap between the display and the body of the phone, with the company confirming in a support thread that the gap is “a normal part of the design of your Pixel 5,” and therefore not something to be concerned about. Additionally, the support thread (spotted by 9to5Google) addresses what many users were most concerned about — whether that gap would compromise the Pixel 5’s water resistance (one of the key differentiators between it and the cheaper Pixel 4a), but Google says that the gap will have “no effect on the water and dust resistance or functionality of your phone.” It’s not clear how widespread the display gap issue is on Pixel 5 devices. As various user responses in the support thread show, some devices appear to ...

Amazon is hosting a mini-sale right now on most of its Fire tablets with up to $70 in potential savings available through November 8th. The tablets discounted here are all ad-supported, which means they will display sponsored screensavers on the tablet’s lock screen. The sale includes the Fire HD 8 line, with the base model down to $55 on Amazon, knocking $35 off its normal retail price. If you want the option to have wireless charging and a little more RAM, the Fire HD 8 Plus is also $35 off, marking it down to its lowest price ever of $75. Amazon Fire HD 8 (2020) $55 $90 39% off Prices taken at time of publishing. Amazon’s 8-inch Fire HD tablet line with 32GB of storage (plus microSD support). The base model is down to $55 at Amazon or $75 if you are looking for the Fire HD 8 Plus, which...

President Donald Trump is prematurely declaring victory in a handful of hotly-contested battleground states via tweets Wednesday, challenging Twitter’s rules against making premature election result claims. “We have claimed, for Electoral Vote purposes, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (which won’t allow legal observers) the State of Georgia, and the State of North Carolina, each one of which has a Big Trump lead,” Trump tweeted Wednesday. Twitter started applying labels to the offending tweets shortly after they were posted. More than 1 million ballots are still to be counted in Pennsylvania, and election officials are not legally required to finish their count before Friday. Most importantly, the president has no authority to certify voting results; that power rests with state election o...

Life is in constant flux, but experiencing change during the extremely uncertain time we’re all going through is especially maddening. Luckily, you can still eke out some semblance of control in your web browser — this new Chrome extension created by designer Claudio Postinghel lets you replace Google’s newly redesigned but confusingly similar icons for the old ones (via Gizmodo). When it was announced in early October, we described Google’s big rebrand of G Suite as a way to set up the search giant’s products to better compete with Microsoft Office. Yet the newly named Google Workspace brought a collection of redesigned, cohesive app icons that — in my opinion, and that of my coworkers — are very difficult to recognize from a distance. The new icons.Image: Google The new icons kept the ba...

YouTube says a video claiming President Donald Trump won the election does not violate any of its policies and has allowed it to stay on the platform, despite the election not being called by major news outlets for either candidate yet. The decision stands in contrast to Twitter and Facebook’s more aggressive attempts to clamp down on misleading claims and misinformation over election results. The video, titled “Trump Won. MSM hopes you don’t believe your eyes,” was published by pro-Trump network One American News Network (OANN) on Wednesday. YouTube says the video violates its advertising guidelines but not its content policies, so it can stay online but will run without ads, the company confirmed to The Verge. The story was first reported by CNBC. In the video, an OANN anchor says Trump ...

Last year’s DJI Mavic Mini might have been the smallest and lightest full-featured drone on the market, but it was also a little compromised out of the gate. Today, the DJI Mini 2 — don’t call it a Mavic — is addressing some of its limitations. While the new $449 drone might look identical to the original, even weighing the same 249 grams (which means you don’t need to register it with the FAA), it now comes with DJI’s OcuSync 2 wireless connectivity for up to 2.5 times the wireless range and more stable connectivity. The original was unusual among DJI’s drones for relying on relatively shaky Wi-Fi, which was definitely a dealbreaker for me. It uses the same controller as the new Mavic Air 2, though of course you won’t get that drone’s advanced obstacle avoidance and tracking because it ha...

GameStop holds an annual conference for its employees, and this year’s event includes a rather unnerving TikTok challenge: make the best dance video, and your store can win the privilege of letting employees work for extra hours during Black Friday. The contest, spotted by TheGamer, has since been pulled from GameStop’s website after the promotion received media attention and press inquiries. GameStop did not respond to The Verge’s requests for comment or clarification. For the contest, GameStop asked employees to upload a video to TikTok showing them dancing to a brief song. The contest is meant for “store leaders,” and the company encourages them to get other employees to help. “Be creative, rope in your team, and have fun with it!” the page read before it was removed. GameStop wanted te...