Technology

After years of anticipation, T-Mobile is finally getting into the live TV business with the launch of a new internet-based streaming service called TVision, launching on November 1st. To be clear: TVision isn’t using the fiber-optic-based IPTV technology that it acquired alongside Layer3 back in 2017. It’s a traditional over-the-top streaming service that simply streams live television over the internet, just like YouTube TV, Hulu’s live TV service, Fubo TV, Sling TV, or (in perhaps the closest analogy) AT&T TV. But what sets TVision apart is its pricing, which aims to offer lower costs and more flexibility than its competitors. Think of it as a T-Mobile’s take on YouTube TV or Sling To that end, TVision is broken up into a few different products. There’s the $40-per-month TVision Live...

Every Tuesday this month, Vergecast co-host Dieter Bohn will host a series of discussions diving deep into tech review season, each focusing on a specific product. This week, Dieter brings back Vergecast co-host Nilay Patel and Joanna Stern, a senior personal technology columnist at The Wall Street Journal, to discuss their reviews of Apple’s iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro. The reviews for the latest iteration of Apple’s flagship phone have been out for about a week now. Dieter reviewed the iPhone 12, Nilay reviewed the iPhone 12 Pro, and Joanna reviewed them both side by side. Dieter walks through what features Joanna and Nilay focused on in their reviews — Joanna’s 5G at a football stadium, Nilay’s Dolby Vision videos — and how significant the upgrades are for this year’s devices. The crew ...

As the high-profile disputes about what content you can play on your iPhone rage on between Apple, Epic Games, Google, and Microsoft, a company called BackBone is focusing instead on making sure you get the most out of the games that are currently available. Like Razer did with its Kishi controller for iOS, and as other companies have with snap-on controllers of their own, BackBone is introducing one for $100 that it calls the BackBone One. To buy it, you’ll first need to download the app and make the purchase from there. With the controller fully extended, it can fit any iPhone running iOS 13 or later, starting with the iPhone 6S and including the new iPhone 12 lineup. It’s great for Apple Arcade games that support controllers. Sky: Children of the Light and Call of Duty: Mobile play wond...

Fall Guys is getting a Godzilla skin soon, and it’s adorable. Just look at it! I want to give it a big hug. But I also have to admit that I want to use the Godzilla skin to channel my inner monster and annoy other players without regret. I am never that person who grapples players just inches from the finish line of a Fall Guys stage — that’s just rude. But dressed as Godzilla? Well, all bets are off. LOL I can’t explain how excited I am to let you know that GODZILLA will be coming to Fall Guys next week THE GODZILLA@TOHO_GODZILLA THE ACTUAL GODZILLA LITERALLY GODZILLA OFFICIAL GODZILLA Better start getting your crowns together now pic.twitter.com/cMgUdqHCgX — Fall Guys (@FallGuysGame) October 27, 2020 Fall Guys has been one of the biggest hits of the year, and a number of brands hav...

Zoom’s end-to-end encryption (E2EE) has arrived, letting both free and paid users secure their meetings so that only participants, not Zoom or anyone else, can access their content. Zoom says E2EE is supported across its Mac, PC, iOS, and Android apps, as well as Zoom Rooms, but not its web client or third-party clients that use the Zoom SDK. E2EE has launched in technical preview, which means Zoom is asking for feedback on the feature for 30 days. However, the company says that E2EE will continue to be available after this period. Instructions on how to enable it can be found in Zoom’s help center. Zoom has previously offered encryption for its calls, but the data was only encrypted between each meeting participant and Zoom’s servers, rather than being end-to-end encrypted between partici...

In the week leading up to Election Day, The Verge is running a series of editorials about what we’re voting for — not candidates but the ideas that move us to engage with the electoral process in the first place. A week before the election, American democracy is not in great shape. At least 14 states have reported some kind of voter intimidation, ranging from inconveniences to outright felonies. In Florida, armed security guards appeared outside a polling station, claiming to be working for the Trump campaign. (The campaign denied any involvement, although President Trump has encouraged supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully.”) In North Carolina, a Republican county commissioner was charged with misdemeanor assault after shoving a poll worker. In Boston, a ballot drop-of...

The PlayStation 5 is big. This was never a secret, but I was still surprised by just how huge the console looks in person. A few weeks ahead of the next-gen console’s launch on November 12th, we’ve finally been able to check out the hardware for ourselves. And while I can’t talk much about the PS5 experience just yet — stay tuned for more on that— I can tell you what the actual console and its new controller look and feel like. Standing 15.4 inches tall and 10.24 inches deep, the PS5 does look and feel absolutely massive. To put it in perspective, it’s not as big as your average PC tower, but it’s edging close to it. Having it positioned vertically next to a 55-inch TV does take away from some of its size, but I’m still shocked every single time I look at it. I will say that the… let...

Microsoft and Sony have both created rather bulky next-gen consoles. We’ve known for weeks that the PS5 is the biggest game console in modern history, but Microsoft’s Xbox Series X isn’t exactly small. Now that we have both consoles to compare side by side, the design decisions and differences are immediately obvious. Microsoft and Sony have both taken different approaches to console design for this next generation. These design choices are apparent when you place both side by side vertically or horizontally. The PS5 is bigger than the Xbox Series X is almost every way possible. While the PS5 towers over the Xbox Series X when stood vertically, it’s thinner when you lay it down. That will mean you can slot the PS5 into TV stands where you can’t squeeze an Xbox Series X. That’s someth...

It’s hard not to be charmed by a smartphone that comes with a screwdriver in the box, especially when it’s as small and dinky as the one that comes with the Fairphone 3 Plus. In fact, that’s the only accessory you get with the phone. There’s no USB cable, no wall charger, and definitely no earbuds in the box. This little screwdriver is an important indication of what you’re getting with the latest device from sustainable smartphone manufacturer Fairphone. For starters, the phone is designed to be as repairable as possible. It’s an upgraded version of last year’s Fairphone 3, one of only two devices to have earned a perfect repairability score from iFixit. Beyond repairs, Fairphone also attempts to use ethically sourced materials where possible and offer good working conditions for the peop...

When Viana Ferguson was a content moderator for Facebook, she came across a post that she immediately recognized as racist: a photo of a white family with a Black child that had a caption reading “a house is not a home without a pet.” But she had a hard time convincing her manager that the picture was not just an innocent photo of a family. “She didn’t seem to have the same perspective, there was no reference I could use,” Ferguson said. She pointed out that there was no pet in the photo, but the manager also told her, “Well, there’s also no home in the picture.” Ferguson said it was one of several examples of the lack of structure and support Facebook moderators face in their day-to-day jobs, a vast majority of which are performed for third-party consultancies. Ferguson spoke on a call or...

Getting a new phone is exciting, but it can also lead to spending an annoying amount of time adjusting settings, permissions and notifications for all your apps. Cloud backups are supposed to make this process easier, but they don’t always catch everything – for instance, you’ll want to double-check that COVID-19 exposure notifications are still enabled on your new iPhone 12 if you restored from a backup. They might not be, according to BBC News. If you’re concerned you might be affected, you can re-enable exposure notifications in iOS by opening the Settings app, selecting Exposure Notifications, and clicking “Turn On Exposure Notifications.” Users first noticed issues with the official National Health Service (NHS) contact tracing app in the UK. When some iPhone 12 and 12 Pro owners trie...

It might not be the coveted rocket-firing Boba Fett action figure, nor offer quite so many play possibilities as the $800 LEGO Star Wars UCS Millennium Falcon. But if you’re a fan of The Mandalorian, whose second season starts Friday, Hasbro’s $350 Razor Crest might just be the greatest Star Wars toy in a very long while. At 30 inches long, 20 inches wide and 10.5 inches tall, it’s a big enough to re-enact a whole bunch of the Disney+ show’s iconic scenes inside its cockpit and cargo hold — using standard 3.75-inch figures — and the entire ship is chock-full of details. You’ll find a packed weapons locker, a carbonite freezing chamber and Baby Yoda’s hiding place inside, plus seventeen different panels you can remove to see inside the ship, show off damage, or pretend like a band of Jawas ...