Technology

Signify just announced a new Philips Hue Tap dial switch, portable Hue Go lamp, and fully customizable track lighting in a range of smart lighting updates today. The Hue Tap dial switch (€49/$49) is available in matte black or white and adjusts lights with a turn of the dial. The faster you turn it the faster your lights brighten or dim. It features four buttons than can control scenes in up to three rooms or zones in the home. The magnetic base allows the Tap dial to be used as a remote control. The Philips Hue Perifo track lighting is made of individual rails that let you choose the length the of track. It can be attached to the wall or ceiling, connected to internal wiring or a standard outlet, and be fitted with your choice of Hue spotlights, pendants, light bars, and light tubes. Phil...

Apple‘s latest iOS 16 is now in its beta phase, and with more users getting access to the updated operating system, some have noticed more features that the tech giant didn’t dive too deep into during its WWDC presentation, including the ability to remove up to 29 that come pre-installed on the iPhone by default. Now, thanks to the guys over at MacRumors, we’ve also learned that iOS 16 will help you bypass CAPTCHAs. The new feature comes as part of Apple’s new Private Access Token system, which verifies your device and Apple ID account to prove that you’re a trustworthy user for certain supported websites and apps. All you have to do is activate the Automatic Verification feature within Password & Security in the Settings menu and you’ll be able to skip CAPTCHAs for those supported pla...

Samsung has now unveiled a new display catered to creative professionals: the “ViewFinity S8.” Coming in either 27 inches wide or 32 inches if you’ve got a more spacious workstation, the new model is an IPS monitor with UHD resolutions up to 3,840 x 2,160. To ensure your color tones are as true as possible, the Pantone-Validated screen covers 98% of the DCI-P3 color gamut and also utilizes DisplayHDR 600 for better luminance. You’ll also get fewer reflections through its UL-verified Glare Free technology, ensuring your work is as precise and accurate as you need it to be. Other features include USB-C connectivity, which can also charge your laptop at 90W peak output. For those looking for a new monitor, Samsung’s new ViewFinity S8 will be available by the end of the month. You can learn mo...

There’s good news for people who find bad news about crypto to be good. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be able to buy an exchange-traded fund based on shorting Bitcoin. The financial firm ProShares will debut the first ETF to let you bet against Bitcoin, and it’s set to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange when the bell opens tomorrow, June 21, under the ticker BITI. The SEC previously approved a futures Bitcoin ETF, also from ProShares, in October. It debuted alongside some of the biggest growth Bitcoin has seen. Now, cryptocurrencies have been severely struggling, with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and even stablecoins all suffering major losses. What’s funny about the SEC’s approval of an ETF that can be used to short Bitcoin is that it has not yet approved an ETF that actually allows you to trade ...

Plenty of games have launched in an unfinished state, but it’s rare to see a port of a game first released in 2004 be so buggy that people who buy it can’t actually finish it. On Twitter game developer Aspyr admitted it was aware that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II was currently impossible to finish when played on the Switch. Aspyr’s bread and butter is porting beloved games so you would think it would know better than to ship something so busted. KOTOR II launched on the Nintendo Switch June 8, 2022, and as fans have picked it up and begun to play they noted a bug made it impossible to get past a cut scene about midway through the game. As first seen by Kotaku, one fan replied to Aspyr’s official Twitter account asking if the company knew the game was unbeatable in its cu...

I’ve been binge-watching TV shows and movies since the 90s. First, it was churning through my sister’s old VHS recordings of Doctor Who and X-Files, then there was collecting and watching whole series of anime piecemeal from places like Sam Goody and Suncoast. By the early 2000s, companies began releasing series by the season instead of by the episode (for actually affordable prices) and that made binge-watching shows a lot easier. Just popping to the library to pick up a season of The Sopranos was a heckuva lot easier than asking to borrow someone’s VHS recordings. Now, binge-watching a show is simpler than ever, but the biggest complaint is that people have to binge for fear of spoilers and wish they could savor a show distributed episodically. I don’t care about that. Spoilers are rarel...

Meta’s Reality Labs division has revealed new prototypes in its roadmap toward lightweight, hyper-realistic virtual reality graphics. The breakthroughs remain far from consumer-ready, but the designs — codenamed Butterscotch, Starburst, Holocake 2, and Mirror Lake — could add up to a slender, brightly lit headset that supports finer detail than its current Quest 2 display. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Reality Labs chief scientist Michael Abrash, along with other Reality Labs members, presented their work at a virtual roundtable last week. The event focused on designs that Meta refers to as “time machines”: bulky proofs of concept meant for testing one specific feature, like a super-bright backlight or super-high-resolution screen. “I think we’re in the middle right now of a big step forwar...

If at first you don’t succeed you can try again, and again, and again, and eventually you might find an audience. At least that’s what appears to have happened for Morbius. The abysmal vampire superhero film starring Jared Leto is finally number one somewhere. In a press release issued by Fandango, which acquired Vudu in 2020, the company says that Morbius was the number one title in terms of revenue on Vudu for the week of June 13th, 2022. Notably, that’s revenue, not actual streams. Vudu charges for rentals and purchases and Morbius is currently available to rent for $5.99 or purchase for $19.99. While Morbius was number one at the box office its first weekend, its second week saw a drop off of 74-percent. That’s the worst second week for any big budget superhero film. It continued to sl...

This story is part of a group of stories called Only the best deals on Verge-approved gadgets get the Verge Deals stamp of approval, so if you’re looking for a deal on your next gadget or gift from major retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, Target, and more, this is the place to be. Meta has kicked off a Summer Sale on Quest VR games, and there are over 60 titles on sale. It might be a good time to stock up on games for a Quest 2 headset, especially if you’ve been holding out on some popular ones like Resident Evil 4, Vader Immortal, or Superhot VR. While Meta has been testing out all kinds of new VR and mixed reality headsets, the Quest 2 remains the de facto VR headset for gaming outside of Steam and PlayStation, and the only viable standalone option on the market. Today’s sal...

One of the big features that shipped with the Chromecast with Google TV in late-2020 was its namesake Google TV software and dashboard. Google’s latest attempt at putting its services in front of your eyeballs while watching TV was a launcher that put personalization and smart recommendations at the forefront, as long as you’re a one-person household, of course. Google TV only supported one user profile, and after later adding kid profiles so you don’t have to subject yourself to endless Baby Shark-adjacent recommendations, Google promised to support more profiles. After some long delays and a slow rollout, that feature is finally here. Google TV users should now be able to add multiple user profiles to their devices thanks to a server-side update that’s live, though it may still require a...

Microsoft is synonymous with innovation and quality, and its corporate campus in Redmond, Washington is the physical manifestation of those standards. HYPEBEAST was invited to take a tour of the headquarters, which included a glimpse into its innovation and testing labs, in celebration of the release of the all-new Surface Laptop Go 2. The campus is tucked away in a tree-lined area just outside metropolitan Seattle. It has been operational since 1986 and has since expanded to include new restaurants, gift shops, workshops, and even a barbershop. According to the Redmond government website, more than 47,000 employees work across the 500-acre mixed-use campus. Upon registering at the front desk of the visitor center, we began our tour at the Treehouses, which are wooden structures built up i...