Technology

Denmark plans to cull up to 17 million mink, the country’s entire population, after reports that the animals could pass a coronavirus mutation to humans. The announcement came from Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen at a press conference, and there are currently no published scientific reports on the mutation or its effects. The virus has been found at over 200 mink farms in Denmark, which produces most of the world’s mink fur. Over a million animals were already culled on Danish farms in October. This summer, about 100,000 mink were culled in Spain after similar outbreaks. Outbreaks on mink farms in Utah killed thousands of animals. Denmark’s announcement comes after 12 people in the country were found to be infected with a type of the novel coronavirus that had also been found on mink farm...

Valve is adding a feature to Steam to let developers invite people to test their games right from the Steam client without needing a beta key. The new feature, called Steam Playtest, will let interested testers click a button in a game’s listing on the Steam store to request access and be added to a queue. Here’s what the button looks like, from the Total War: Elysium Steam page. Prodeus and Iron Conflict are also currently running public Playtests, and Valve tells The Verge that all three games are still accepting requests for new testers. The button to request access to a Playtest.Image: Steam Developers will be able to see how many people have access to the test, how many people have expressed interest and are waiting for access, and how many people have been manually invited to a test....

Despite a long history of horror movies succeeding at the box office, Jason Blum struggled to get his movies into the theater. Conventionally wisdom relegated to a few times a year, mostly around Halloween. Horror movies didn’t have the prestige of dramas, or the universal appeal of blockbuster superhero movies, and were seen as risky investments, even if the numbers said otherwise. But after a decade of hits — Paranormal Activity, The Purge, Get Out — Jason Blum’s company Blumhouse Productions finds itself no longer chasing theatrical releases, especially as AMC and Regal struggle during the pandemic. Instead, streamers are coming to him, and the best part: they believe horror is a year-round affair. In many ways, Blum has often been ahead of the curve—and the scary, spooky, and violent m...

A handful of months ago, we wrote about a deal on the OnePlus 7T that dropped its price from $599 to $499. That price has fallen considerably since, and today’s deal at Woot is evidence of that. You can get one for just $370. This is a new, unlocked model in either the “glacier blue” or “frosted silver” colorway, with 128GB of storage and support for a single SIM card. It has a one-year warranty through OnePlus and includes all original accessories. It’s a great value, considering it has the Snapdragon 855 Plus processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 90Hz refresh rate display that makes everything appear smoother on the screen. One caveat here is that it’s the T-Mobile version of the phone, and it comes pre-loaded with T-Mobile applications. That’s obviously not so bad if you’re a T-Mobile user, but ...

In April, a group of astronomers spotted a short, powerful blast of radio waves coming from outer space and then successfully found where it was coming from: a powerful object within our own galaxy. It’s the first time scientists have been able to pinpoint these mysterious radio waves coming from inside the Milky Way, making them the closest of their kind that we’ve ever seen. The radio waves — known as fast radio bursts, or FRBs — seem to have sprouted from an incredibly powerful “zombie” star lurking in our galaxy, according to three papers published in the journal Nature. Called a neutron star, the object is a super dense leftover that forms when a massive star, bigger than our own Sun, collapses in on itself. But this neutron star is what’s known as a magnetar. It hosts an incredibly p...

As President Trump falsely claims victory in the 2020 election, ballots are still being counted across the country — and they will continue to be counted in the days and weeks ahead. (Some deadlines, like for military and absentee voters, have not even passed yet.) We’re headed for record turnout. Despite what the president wants you to think, things are working normally across the country, even despite the extraordinary circumstances brought by the pandemic. States and local governments are running elections like they always do, with teams of carefully observed election officials and volunteers. Widespread voter fraud continues to be an imaginary monster dreamed up by conspiracy theorists. And voting on Election Day seems to have gone pretty smoothly, despite the specter of intimidation a...

Twitter and Facebook have continued to restrict and label posts from President Donald Trump after yesterday’s presidential election, this time addressing a baseless claim that Democratic officials were manipulating vote counts in key states. Twitter flagged the tweet and restricted its reach, saying it was “disputed and might be misleading.” Facebook added a general warning that “final results may be different from the initial vote counts.” Trump triggered a social media crackdown early this morning after accusing Democrats of trying to steal the election. Neither platform has actually removed his claims. Their policies were set before the election. “We placed a warning on this Tweet for making a potentially misleading claim about an election,” said Twitter in a statement to The Verge. Tru...

Gaming technology improves with every new generation of hardware, but that’s not always apparent on launch day. Typically, new consoles are coupled with a lackluster slate of launch games, with developers needing time to fully take advantage of the new hardware. While there are some standout launch titles that will always be remembered — Tetris on the Game Boy, Halo on the original Xbox, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Switch — very few consoles ever arrive with more than one or perhaps two games worthy of being called system-sellers. That’s looking to remain largely true with the launch of Sony’s PlayStation 5 and Microsoft’s Xbox Series X / S next week, despite the excellent-looking Tetris Effect: Connected port, the all-new Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and the ...

We’re just days away from the next generation of console gaming with the upcoming release of the Xbox Series X / S and the PlayStation 5. And now that we’re so close to those launches, we have a pretty good idea of how both companies are approaching this next generation. Microsoft is building toward a future where the hardware you’re playing on almost doesn’t matter. If you want to play an Xbox game, Microsoft is trying to make that possible on many different devices. Sony, by contrast, is sticking with a more traditional approach with the PS5, where you can only play exclusive PS5 games on the console itself. But at launch, both companies are leaning heavily on the libraries of older generations to round out the first few months of their lineups. It should be an exciting new generation. H...

The excitement of getting a new phone is often tempered by nagging regret. A lot of times, it’s not like there was anything really wrong with the old phone (unless there was — a bulging battery or a shattered screen is always a bad look). If it was a breakup, the conversation with an old phone would start, “You’re terrific. It’s not you. It’s me. I just wanted a newer model.” Ashamed of yourself? Don’t be. There’s no need to stick the old phone into a drawer or use it as a doorstop or furniture shim. There are lots of ways you can put your older phone to work. After all, most older smartphones still have plenty of horsepower. Think of yours as a connected device that just doesn’t happen to have a SIM card anymore. Here are some suggestions for what to do with that extra, older phone. (All ...

After a night in which President Donald Trump falsely claimed victory in the presidential election, Facebook has added a notification at the top of Facebook and Instagram feeds saying there was — as yet — no winner. Earlier in the night, both Twitter and Facebook chose to label a message — identical on both platforms — from Trump reading, “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!” Twitter also placed sharing restrictions on the tweet. Twitter calls it “a potentially misleading claim about an election” Early returns were promising for the president, but a number of pivotal states are still counting votes, including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. This work does not involve additio...

Portland, Maine has passed a ballot initiative banning the use of facial recognition by police and city agencies. The Bangor Daily News is reporting that voters have passed a ballot initiative bolstering a ban on facial recognition by city agencies. The initiative follows a city council vote in August, which put a preliminary ban in place as an ordinance. Today’s vote replaces that ordinance with a stronger measure, which cannot be revoked for at least five years. The ordinance was placed on the ballot earlier this year by the Southern Maine chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, as part of a raft of other progressive initiatives including a $15 minimum wage and new limits on rent increases. The new measure also adds concrete penalties, entitling private citizens to a minimum of ...