Technology

Sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS, is a devastating condition that’s still very poorly understood, so when new research comes out, it can feel like a very big deal — especially if that research seems to offer a way to save children’s lives. Posts on social media cheered one such new study this week, heralding the research as identifying the reason hundreds of babies die unexpectedly each year. But even though the study points in a promising direction for future research, it isn’t a panacea, experts say. “There is nothing definitive about this at all,” said Rachel Moon, a researcher studying sudden infant death syndrome at the University of Virginia, in an email to The Verge. The surge in interest around the study is understandable, she said, but isn’t warranted. SIDS refers to the sudd...

PUBG: Battlegrounds, the PC and console version of the battle royale shooter series, is making a lot of money following its switch to free-to-play in January, as revealed by developer Krafton’s latest earnings report published Friday. According to the report, on PC, sales were up 61 percent year over year to $82.3 million. On console, the sales jump was even bigger, increasing 124 percent from the previous quarter and 274 percent year over year, though Krafton didn’t put a dollar figure behind those increases. The game also saw a “nearly tripled” increase in average monthly active users from Q4 2021. PUBG: Battlegrounds was originally a paid title when it launched on Steam in early access in 2017, but the outsized financial success of free-to-play battle royale shooters like Fortnite, Call...

Facebook-owner Meta is reportedly cutting several projects from its Reality Labs division, which houses the company’s hardware and metaverse initiatives, according to Reuters. It is currently unknown which projects will be scrapped, though Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth reportedly told Reality Lab staffers that various efforts will be “postponed,” as the company is no longer able to financially support its previous plans. A spokesperson confirmed that Meta was not planning layoffs. The announcement marks the latest hit to Meta’s trailblazing plans to pivot into the metaverse, following the company’s $10 billion USD loss on Reality Labs in 2021. In April, the social media giant informed investors that it was planning on scaling back costs this year, after Facebook experienced a drop in users...

Apple updates Apple TV models infrequently, releasing a new model only every few years. The company currently offers two models of set-top boxes for its subscription streaming service. The Apple TV HD dates back to 2015 and retails at $149 USD for 32GB. A newer iteration, 2021’s Apple TV 4K, offers 32GB and 64GB plans, priced at $179 USD and $199 USD respectively. As the streaming service grows in popularity, however, customers will likely want cheaper set-top box options on par with the prices of competitors, such as Amazon. Independent Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted that Apple will meet demands with a new, cost-effective model. “Apple will launch a new version of Apple TV that improves cost structure in 2H22,” Kuo wrote in a tweet. “I think that Apple’s aggressive strategy...

Apple is testing iPhones that swap the Lightning port for USB-C, according to a new Bloomberg report from Apple whisperer Mark Gurman. But you shouldn’t expect to see it in this year’s iPhone lineup, as the changeover wouldn’t happen until 2023 “at the earliest,” Gurman says. The report follows reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s tweets this week indicating Apple would swap to USB-C in the second half of 2023, which is presumably when that year’s iPhone lineup will be released. The switch would be a big one, though it’s not a complete surprise. Apple has already moved the iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad Mini to USB-C. And the EU revealed a proposal in September that would require many devices, including smartphones, to include USB-C ports — Gurman says that this legislation was “a key reaso...

Four years ago, Polygon published a feature that asked what happened to video game pioneer Ban Tran, a Vietnamese woman credited with creating Wabbit, the first console game to feature a named playable female human character. After years of digging and numerous “Return To Sender” marked letters, the Video Game History Foundation finally found her. Today, the Video Game History Foundation is sharing the story of Van Mai neé Tran (who was mistakenly called Ban because of an accidental misspelling of her name in the credits) and her work in the video game industry. Mai recounts her time in the early ‘80s working for Games for Apollo, a short-lived video game company based in Texas. There, she worked on Wabbit, a game for the Atari VCS that featured a girl named Billie Sue tasked with saving h...

Every Friday, The Verge publishes our flagship podcast, The Vergecast, where Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel and editor-at-large David Pierce discuss the week in tech news with the reporters and editors covering the biggest stories. On Wednesday, we saw Google announce a whole bunch of products and features from their keynote live stream — from updates to the Nest Hub Max to previewing a 2023 Pixel tablet. So, on The Vergecast, we’re focusing a chunk of the show on Google’s announcements and initiatives for the coming year or so. And there’s no better way to start that conversation than with an interview with Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. Read the full transcript of that conversation here. After the interview, Verge deputy editor Dan Seifert joins the show to dive deeper into th...

An Apple TV that actually competes with Roku and Amazon could be on the market by the end of the year. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo in a tweet, Apple would launch a new Apple TV “that improves cost structure” in the second half of 2022. It’s about damn time. Currently, Apple sells three Apple TV models. Its 4K Apple TV comes in 32GB and 64GB capacities and retails for $179 and $199, respectively. That’s a good deal for what you get from the 4K Apple TV. Apart from Nvidia’s Shield lineup, no set-top box really has the same support for a wide range of home theater standards and formats that the Apple TV 4K does. It’s the gold standard for professional home theater installers and is particularly praised for its EDID capabilities. EDID, or Extended Display Identification Data, basically t...

Elon Musk says his deal to buy Twitter is “temporarily on hold” after the social network reported that false or spam accounts comprised less than 5 percent of its 226 million monetizable daily active users. The Tesla CEO, who offered to buy twitter for $44 billion, tweeted a link to a May 2nd Reuters report on Twitter’s filing, saying he wants to see the company’s calculations. “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted. However, in a follow-up tweet, he added that he’s “still committed to [the] acquisition,” suggesting that it’ll proceed after Twitter provides satisfactory information on its numbers. Still committed to acquisition — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022 Twitter’s sh...

On April 14th, The Verge published a story about how Samsung’s “Experts,” who answer customer chats at Samsung.com, were being pushed by both Samsung and staffing agency Ibbu to do some customer support for free. While we spoke to a dozen experts during our reporting, only one was willing to be named in the story: Jennifer Larson. The day after our story was published, Larson received an email saying that she was being temporarily suspended and that she’d get an update in a week. Over four weeks later, Ibbu told her she’d been fired. The email to Larson read, in part: After reviewing your activity on the platform, Ibbu has determined that grounds exist to terminate you from the platform. While we value and encourage any feedback from the Ibbu community and constructive communications on th...

At the end of its I/O presentation on Wednesday, Google pulled out a “one more thing”-type surprise. In a short video, Google showed off a pair of augmented reality glasses that have one purpose — displaying audible language translations right in front of your eyeballs. In the video, Google product manager Max Spear called the capability of this prototype “subtitles for the world,” and we see family members communicating for the first time. Now hold on just a second. Like many people, we’ve used Google Translate before and largely think of it as a very impressive tool that happens to make a lot of embarrassing misfires. While we might trust it to get us directions to the bus, that’s nowhere near the same thing as trusting it to correctly interpret and relay our parents’ childhood stories. ...