Technology

UK retailer John Lewis has accidentally posted images of Google’s Pixel 4A 5G a little early, giving us a detailed look at the new mid-range phone’s design. The images, fist spotted by 9to5Google, are accidentally on display on the retailer’s Pixel 4A 4G LTE listing, where they show a 5G logo in the phone’s status bar and a rear camera layout that doesn’t match the Pixel 4A’s. The images confirm several of the Pixel 4A 5G specs that leaked yesterday, including a second rear camera and the headphone jack that carries over from the Pixel 4A. The Pixel 4A 5G is one of the two phones Google pre-announced for this fall, the other one being the Pixel 5. Recent leaks for the two devices claim the Pixel 4A 5G’s specs will position it somewhere between the Pixel 5 and the Pixel 4A in Google’s 2020 ...

Several of Apple’s biggest critics — including Epic Games, Spotify, Basecamp, Match Group, Tile, Blix, and Deezer — have banded together to create the Coalition for App Fairness, a new group aiming to “create a level playing field for app businesses and give people freedom of choice on their devices.” While most of the founding members have individually fought or are fighting with Apple over its App Store policies, the Coalition for App Fairness marks a more coordinated effort for developers to formally protest Apple’s rules. The goal is to also provide a central organization for developers to join, especially those who may not have the clout or the resources to take on Apple alone. The Coalition says that it welcomes “companies of any size, in any industry who are committed to protecting ...

Mac and iOS calendar app Fantastical has updated its software with 12 new customizable widgets. They look like the perfect use-case for iOS 14’s widget support, giving users access to their calendar, events, and weather forecasts straight from the home screen. These aren’t the sort of widgets you’d use to flex on TikTok, of course: these are practical and straightforward designs for people whose live in their schedules. The widgets look as well-designed as you’d expect from Fantastical, and we particularly like the option to jump into meetings directly. No more searching your inbox for that elusive Zoom invitation. [embedded content] Fantastical’s widgets are all hypothetically free to use, but some features (like quick-joining meetings and multiple calendar sets) will not work unless you’...

HBO Max is getting a new TV series called Peacemaker, a spinoff of the upcoming Suicide Squad sequel directed by James Gunn. The show will focus on the origins of its titular character, Peacemaker, played by John Cena. The streaming service has ordered eight episodes with production slated to begin in early 2021. Not much is known about the plot, but Warner Bros. says the show is set in the same world as The Suicide Squad, which is set to debut in theaters on August 6th, 2021. Gunn will also serve as a writer and director for multiple episodes of the show, including the pilot. Peacemaker is the latest DC Comics property to receive a TV show on HBO Max. In July, Warner Media announced a spinoff show focusing on the Gotham City Police Department; the series will share the same universe as Ma...

Microsoft’s first 1TB expandable storage drive for the Xbox Series X / S will be priced at $219.99. Best Buy has started taking preorders for the accessory, revealing a final price that had leaked recently. These expandable storage cards slot into the rear of both the Xbox Series X / S to match the internal SSD speed and provide 1TB of extra storage. Microsoft’s expandable storage solution is proprietary, and only Seagate has been announced as a manufacturer so far. Microsoft tells me more suppliers and additional sizes will be available in the future, but the $219.99 price will still surprise many potential next-gen Xbox owners. The Xbox Series X ships with 1TB of SSD storage, and the Xbox Series S just 512GB of storage. Microsoft’s pricing means the $299 Xbox Series S jumps to nearly $52...

The developers of the hit social deduction game Among Us just announced that they have canceled a planned sequel because of the popularity of the first game. Though that sequel had been announced just 36 days ago, developer InnerSloth wants to support the game that’s so popular right now. “The main reason we [were] shooting for a sequel is because the codebase of Among Us 1 is so outdated and not built to support adding so much new content,” InnerSloth said in a blog post. “However, seeing how many people are enjoying Among Us 1 really makes us want to be able to support the game and take it to the next level.” “All of the content we had planned for Among Us 2 will instead go into Among Us 1.” Among Us, a party game where you work as a team to try and figure out who is sabotaging the crew ...

Wikipedia has been an integral part of web culture for nearly twenty years, letting users browse its millions of text-heavy, crowd-sourced encyclopedia entries from their computer, tablet, or phone. Now, the overall look of Wikipedia on desktop is getting a makeover for the first time in a decade to make the site more approachable for new users. You can browse all the proposed new features in this MediaWiki post, and there are some animated GIFs to show you what they might look like. Personally, I really like how the new table of contents feature looks. I tend to curiously read Wiki pages of public figures and this could make it a lot easier to skip past certain sections of a page without having to scroll down on my computer. This will make it much easier to navigate longer pages!Image: Wi...

Nvidia’s RTX 3080 graphics card seemed to be the 4K gaming champ we’d been waiting for at $699 — except most of us are still waiting a week after launch. The card was practically impossible to buy, Nvidia made some mistakes and had to fight off bots, and scalpers wound up selling them for thousands on eBay. Tomorrow, the beefier $1,499 RTX 3090 goes on sale at 6AM PT / 9AM ET, but it’s probably not a solution for any of those problems. It’s really designed for 8K gaming and giant creative projects, with its primary spec boost being a tremendous 24GB of GDDR6X RAM, and Nvidia has revealed today it’s only 10-15 percent faster for 4K gaming than the far more affordable RTX 3080. (Genuine question: do you have an 8K screen? OK, carry on.) And even if you’re willing to pay that $800 premium, Nv...

Nintendo has just announced Kirby Fighters 2, a brand new game in the Kirby series for the Nintendo Switch, and it’s available to download from the eShop right now for $19.99. In the game, you fight against up to three other players in local or online multiplayer. You can play as one of 17 different Kirbys, each wielding one of Kirby’s famous copy abilities (including a new Wrestler ability), as well as other characters including Bandana Waddle Dee, Meta Knight, and King Dedede. In addition, the game offers a story mode where you work your way through a number of battles to eventually take on Meta Knight and King Dedede, and you can play it co-op with a friend. The game also has a “Single-Handed Mode” where you’ll be tasked with clearing nine battles against increasingly-difficult opponent...

I hate to bring you this news, but underneath a Fall Guy’s playful, gelatinous exterior, the very being that comprises it is deeply disturbing. It has hidden abs, nipples, a human skull, and long taffy-like optic nerves, among other horrific anatomical anomalies, according to a tweet from the game’s developer. It gets worse, though. Fall Guys are six feet tall, taller than many human beings. Looking at its general bone structure, it looks like a hybrid between human, dinosaur, and bird. That combination should render a fierce species of advanced intelligence and agility, but… well. Well, you asked for it… This is official lore now Remember: • Human shown for scale• Fall Guys are 183cm (6ft)• This Fall Guy is happy, look into his eyes• We can’t take it back Official Fall G...

The US Department of Justice has submitted a proposal to weaken Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a rule that protects websites and apps from liability for third-party content. The proposal would make it riskier for sites to remove offensive content and would remove sites’ immunity for hosting material related to terrorism, child sex abuse, or cyber-stalking. It would also remove some protections for sites that don’t sufficiently explain their content moderation policies. The new rules are a concrete application of ideas the Justice Department floated months ago. They cover two orthogonal goals for Section 230 reform: pushing web platforms to more aggressively remove harmful (and sometimes illegal) content like harassment and child sexual abuse material and discouraging them f...

As the Arizona Senate election heats up ahead of November, Democratic candidate Mark Kelly’s team launched its own Snapchat account on Wednesday, including the first custom Snapchat AR lens from a Senate campaign. Retired NASA astronaut Kelly is running in a hotly contended special election in Arizona to serve out the remainder of the late Sen. John McCain’s term through 2022. The seat is currently held by Sen. Martha McSally, who is running in opposition to Kelly on the Republican ticket. Kelly’s Snapchat account will be used to rally voters ahead of the election, seeing as the campaign has strayed away from in-person events and canvassing due to the coronavirus pandemic. A campaign spokesperson told The Verge on Wednesday that the team will be posting new Snapchat content for followers d...