Technology

Teenage Engineering, the company behind ultra-stylish synthesizers, speakers, and PC cases, has released a new audio gadget: it’s called the TX-6, and it’s a tiny (in size, not price) field mixer absolutely festooned with knobs. In addition to letting you mix together sound from six stereo inputs and output them to a computer, speaker, or both, in true Teenage Engineering fashion, the TX-6 can also act as a basic synthesizer, drum sequencer, and USB-C audio interface. We gotta talk about those knobs first though. By default they act as controls for a three-band equalizer, letting you tweak the highs, mids, and lows for each input. But a peek at Teenage Engineering’s guide reveals the tons of other things you can do with them, from controlling compressor settings to adjusting pan or note le...

With all the apps that we tend to have running on our phones, it’s a constant worry as to whether the battery will be able to make it through the day — and that’s not helped when apps misfire and run power-draining features in the background. According to 9to5Google, a recent bug in Google’s Messages app on Android phones left the camera running in the background — a great way to both heat up your phone and run down your battery. The Google Messages app allows you to easily take a photo directly from the app and attach it to a chat message. According to the article in 9to5Google, the camera app would occasionally keep running, even when you did not have it on screen. (This issue was also reported happening with a Pixel 6 Pro in a Reddit group.) Using the camera to send an image via Message...

A year and a half since its release, the PlayStation 5 is still extremely difficult to get your hands on. Sony has been one of the most reliable retailers when it comes to console restocks, though it usually reserves them for invite-only restocks that you have to register in advance for. This is one of the rare moments where Sony is opening up a public queue, so if you’re still in the market for this rare console, either the disc-based PS5 for $499 or the $399 PS5 Digital Edition, just go ahead and queue up via its direct store to try your luck. You don’t have to refresh the landing page once you’ve arrived in the queue — just wait it out — but we do recommend that you keep your PlayStation Network account info at the ready, just in case you’re allocated a spot to buy one when the countdow...

OnlyFans has “temporarily paused” Russian accounts and says it can no longer serve Russian creators. The company confirmed the change to Motherboard in a statement today. The subscription-based platform popularized by sex workers had previously allowed Russian creators to stay and continue to get paid despite economic sanctions. In February, Rolling Stone reported that Russian OnlyFans creators briefly lost access to their accounts with little warning. Shortly after, OnlyFans said it had restored access and that “accounts will have full functionalities as long as we continue to have payment methods to support them.” But, on Thursday, the company said it was taking steps to pause accounts receiving payments in Russia. In a statement to Motherboard, the company says it had “explored several ...

A new test from Instagram could make it harder for you to see recent content in the app. Though you can now look up all sorts of recent Instagram posts centered around a particular hashtag, the test will only let you see the posts with the most likes or short videos called ‘Reels’ related to the hashtag. The company says this trial will mix “more recent and timely content” in the two groups, to see how people engage with it. When they were first introduced on Instagram, hashtags could be a fun way to highlight photo trends, but now they are mainly a way for users to get more visibility, and hence, more clicks and likes. According to Instagram, the “top posts” tab shows popular posts, while the “recent” tab shows content in the order it was posted, regardless of how many likes it gets. For ...

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has demanded that YouTuber Trevor Jacob turn over his pilot license after he posted a video called “I Crashed My Plane,” of a crash that the agency suggests was staged, as reported by The New York Times. In the video (which you can watch here), Jacob’s plane appears to have an engine malfunction, and he jumps out of it while wearing a parachute. In a letter, the regulator told Jacob that he “demonstrated a lack of care, judgment and responsibility by choosing to jump out of an aircraft” and said that Jacob “operated this flight to purposefully cause [the plane] to crash.” Jacob posted the video in December, and it already has more than 1.7 million views. Like several members of the flying community, the FAA expressed doubts about Jacob’s choices du...

Slowly but surely, Lego is supersizing all the most iconic vehicles you’ve ever seen in brick form — like the Back to the Future DeLorean, the Space Shuttle, and, of course, its Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series, including the legendary 7,541-piece UCS Millennium Falcon and 6,785-piece UCS AT-AT Walker. Today, Luke’s scuffed-up X-34 Landspeeder is getting the treatment in time for Star Wars Day (“May the Fourth”), and the $199, 1,890-piece set certainly looks the part. GIF by Sean Hollister / The Verge, video by Lego Below you’ll find the biggest images we could nab so you can zoom in and see the details for yourself — including a lovingly detailed, exclusive C-3PO minifig that’s got a proper half-silver, half-gold colored leg for once. The set is 19 inches long. The cockpit is beautiful...

Sonos is nearing the release of a new entry-level soundbar, and you’re looking at it. Codenamed “Fury” and officially known as model S36, the new device is yet another soundbar that will join the company’s lineup beneath the $449 Beam and flagship $899 Arc. It appears that Sonos is no longer willing to cede the lower-cost soundbar market to Vizio and other competitors, as I can reveal that the new product is expected to sell for around $249. That’s substantially less expensive than any Sonos soundbar to date. It’s currently penciled in for release just a few weeks from now on June 7th. I’ve seen genuine photos of the new soundbar, and The Verge has used them to create the 3D renders for this article. It’s not an exact match but more than enough to give you the gist. (You can trust me, I th...

Carcinization describes the evolutionary process in which a crustacean will eventually and inevitably evolve into a crab. Battle royale-ification is this process happening in video games. Rocket League, the game with the simple-yet-elegant premise of “what if soccer was soccar,” will undergo battle royale-ification with its new game mode Knockout Bash. [embedded content] Starting on April 27th, Knockout Bash will pit eight players in a free-for-all to be the last car driving. Knockout Bash will feature the hallmarks of a typical battle royale mode: perma-death (in this case, instead of infinite respawns, players get three KOs before a game over) and an encroaching danger zone with an ever-shrinking battle arena. Rocket League will add new actions and enhance existing abilities to increase ...

Elon Musk has lined up the funding he needs for his proposed takeover of Twitter. In a new filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Musk laid out his plan for the $46.5 billion worth of loans that will allow him to finance the buyout offer made on April 14th. The funding is provided through two debt commitment letters from Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, in which the bank commits to offering a series of loans worth $25.5 billion. The remaining $21 billion will be covered by Musk himself. Notably, the filing does not list any equity partners to share the cash burden with Musk. The Tesla CEO already owns a 9 percent stake in Twitter, valued at roughly $2.9 billion. “The Reporting Person is seeking to negotiate a definitive agreement” The filing also makes clear that ...