Technology

Image: Disney Disney’s live-action adaptation of Mulan will be released on Disney Plus on September 4th for $29.99, the company announced today. Disney executives walked through the new plan for Mulan’s release during an earnings call with analysts today. The $30 fee will be on top of the $6.99 subscriber fee for Disney Plus customers. Chapek also made it seem like non-subscribers can pay $30 for the film as well, but The Verge has emailed Disney to confirm. “We thought it was important to find alternative ways to bring [Mulan] in a timely manner,” Disney CEO Bob Chapek said. In countries where Disney Plus is not available, Disney is releasing Mulan in theaters on the same date. The new release date follows Warner Bros.’ announcement that… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Riot Games, the developer of League of Legends and Valorant, will be giving employees the week of August 10th off to “disconnect, recharge, and reboot,” the studio announced in a blog post published Tuesday. Riot has recently expanded beyond its global smash hit League of Legends, including releasing auto battler Teamfight Tactics, Hearthstone-like card game Legends of Runeterra (which are both set in the League of Legends universe), and Valorant, a brand-new tactical shooter that takes cues from Counter Strike: Global Offensive and Overwatch. But in an industry known for overwork and enforced overtime, referred to as “crunch,” to ship and maintain games, Riot is giving employees a break to help with their health. “As game developers,… Continue...

Shelly Yang/Kansas City Star/Tribune News Service via Getty Images Decision Desk is projecting that Rep. Roger Marshall will win the Republican primary for Senate in Kansas, a huge blow to contender Kris Kobach. It’s also a blow to the political ambitions of billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel, who had enthusiastically supported Kobach, offering public support and significant PAC funding to the candidate’s primary bid. Much of Thiel’s support came through the Free Forever Political Action Committee, which received the overwhelming majority of its funding from Thiel and purchased ads exclusively in support of Kobach and in opposition to Marshall. One recent Free Forever PAC mailing accused Marshall of funding “global warming musicals” and “transgender plays” because of his votes in suppor...

Look Around, the Apple Maps feature that provides 360-degree views of locations at ground level, is starting to expand outside the US. Unusually for Apple, it’s coming to Japan before anywhere else, and is now live in four cities: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, and Kyoto. The update was spotted by Ata Distance. Look Around is essentially Apple’s answer to Google’s Street View. You can bring it up in supported areas by tapping the binoculars icon, which initially displays the Look Around view in an expandable pop-up window. The transitions between photos are smoother than in Street View, which helps make it feel more like you’re actually exploring the area. Still, Apple has been very slow with the rollout. Look Around first came to the US as part… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make M...

Disney plans to launch a new general entertainment streaming platform overseas in 2021 under the Star brand name, CEO Bob Chapek announced today. Chapek didn’t give too many details about the platform, including in which countries Star would launch or pricing, but he noted that it would include content from ABC, FX, Freeform, Searchlight, and 20th Century Studios. Star will not carry licensed content, which is different from Disney’s other general entertainment streaming service, Hulu. More information is expected to be announced at an upcoming investors day that will focus on plans for Disney Plus, Hulu, ESPN Plus, and Star. The announcement comes as Disney hits major streaming milestones, including surpassing 60 million Disney Plus… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make Mone...

Photo by Angelo Merendino / AFP / Getty Images Controversial engineer Anthony Levandowski, who worked for the Google division that would become Waymo before founding trucking company Otto and selling it to Uber, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for trade secret theft during his various stints in the self-driving industry. His sentencing closes the book on a multi-year legal saga stemming from Levandowski’s high-rising and equally fast-falling career in Silicon Valley spanning much of the past decade. Levandowski was initially sentenced back in March, when the US District Attorney’s office recommended a 27-month sentence. Judge William Alsup on Wednesday sentenced Levandowski to 18 months in prison, to be served at a later date due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to T… Co...

SpaceX’s Starship prototype during the test hop, recorded by LabPadre’s livestream | Image: Screenshot from LabPadre livestream Just two days after returning its first astronauts back to Earth, SpaceX successfully flew a prototype of its next-generation, deep-space rocket in south Texas, sending the vehicle up to 500 feet and then landing it back down on Earth. It’s the largest test version of the massive spaceship to see some air. The prototype is that of SpaceX’s Starship, a spacecraft the company wants to build to transport people to deep-space worlds like the Moon and Mars. The final version of the spaceship would stand at nearly 400 feet high and 30 feet wide, and be capable of sending more than 100 tons of cargo into low Earth orbit, according to SpaceX. Starship is designed to fly t...

Alto’s Adventure and Alto’s Odyssey, two mobile games we at The Verge love because of their beautiful art style and polished gameplay, are finally coming to PS4, Xbox One, and the Epic Games Store as The Alto Collection on August 13th. This will also be the first time Alto’s Odyssey comes to Windows. A Nintendo Switch port is “coming soon,” with no firm release date announced yet. Originally released on iOS in 2015 and both Android and Linux in 2016, Alto’s Adventure is an endless runner snowboarding game. You play as Alto or one of his friends as they traverse the snowy landscape while being chased by village elders; you control your character by tapping the screen, which lets you jump over obstacles and perform tricks. Alto’s Adventure… Continue reading… You Deserve to Make ...

Photo by Blake Nissen for The Boston Globe via Getty Images The pharmaceutical company Moderna started the last, longest step in the process of testing its COVID-19 vaccine candidate at the end of July — a Phase 3 clinical trial. It’s an enormous undertaking: their goal is to recruit 30,000 people, inject some of them with an experimental vaccine and then follow each and every one of them to see how many contract the coronavirus and how many do not. This will take months, even with the federal government’s Operation Warp Speed compressing the timeline whenever possible. Those months may seem endless when over a thousand people are dying from COVID-19 each day in the United States. The process is long and intensive for a reason, though. Just because a vaccine exists doesn’t mean it’s reason...

Photo by Matthew Horwood/Getty Images Virgin Atlantic Airways has filed for bankruptcy protection for its United States business, as it tries to nail down a £1.2 billion ($1.6 billion) rescue plan announced last month. It’s the second of Richard Branson’s airlines to do so during the COVID-19 pandemic, after Virgin Australia filed for “administration” — a form of bankruptcy in countries like Australia and England — earlier this year. Virgin Atlantic filed for Chapter 15 bankruptcy protection in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday. Chapter 15 is a way for foreign companies to let US bankruptcy courts recognize restructuring efforts happening abroad. The company is not yet going out of business or liquidating its operations, which is what Chapter 7 bankruptcy… Continue reading...

Photo: Film Frame / Marvel Studios Disney continues to face financial woes in just about every part of its business, but one year after Avengers: Endgame came out, it’s clear just how much the pandemic has affected its studios division. Disney didn’t release any major films last quarter, and the third quarter earnings report shows how much that impacted the company. Overall, revenue hit $11.78 billion, down from $20.2 billion the year before, but most of that came from streaming. Studio revenues decreased 55 percent in the quarter to $1.7 billion, the company announced. That means Disney made $1.7 billion this quarter, and $3.8 billion in the same time frame last year. What it shows is there’s a big Avengers: Endgame hole in the calendar, and it’s a perfect example of… Continue readi...

Image: Samsung Russia Samsung’s Unpacked event tomorrow will be the official showcase for the heavily rumored and much-leaked Galaxy Note 20. For those who wanted yet another look at the phone in full before it’s unveiling, an AT&T promotional video pretty much shows off every inch of the device and even details its most important specs and new features. The video, which popped up on Twitter courtesy of South American tech blogger Karlos Peru, appears to have been prepped as a piece of marketing material to promote the new phone and its larger Ultra variant. It doesn’t tell us anything groundbreaking that we didn’t already know or suspect about Samsung’s upcoming extra-large phones, but it is pretty staggering that a video with this much information and… Continue reading… ...