technology

A collection of cool, calming, and creative gifts to show your appreciation for that special maternal figure in your life. By Sheena Vasani, a writer covering commerce, e-readers, and tech news. She previously wrote about everything from web development to AI at Inside. Moms are the hardest people to shop for. After all, what can you gift the person who gave you life or raised you? The best you can hope to do is gift her something thoughtful to demonstrate your gratitude for all she’s done, though that often requires the kind of time and careful consideration we don’t always have. That’s why we’ve put together this gift guide. With the help of the rest of the Verge staff, we came up with a list of presents that’ll make your mom’s life a little easier, from a robot vacuum that makes cleanin...

Reddit/ Tech / During the outage, the company said that an issue had ‘left many of our web and mobile platforms unavailable.’ At the time, posts and comments sometimes wouldn’t load. By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium. Share this story Image: The Verge Reddit says it has “restored services” after a major outage that, depending on the situation, stopped posts and comments from loading. I had observed a few different issues. When logged out, I couldn’t see any posts or comments at all; I would just get an error message or a blank page under the Reddit search bar. When logged in on an account that’s not on the old Reddit layout, posts loaded on the homepage, but wh...

/ Flags spotted in code from a recent beta version of the app refer to an “edit_ui” and “edit_history.” iMessage and WhatsApp recently got message editing features of their own. By Jon Porter, a reporter with five years of experience covering consumer tech releases, EU tech policy, online platforms, and mechanical keyboards. Share this story Screenshot: Google Google could be developing a new feature for its Messages app that would let you edit a message after having sent it, according to code spotted by TheSpAndroid. References to the feature first appeared in a beta version of the app on November 19th, and there are four flags that appear to reference it, though attempting to enable them reportedly doesn’t do anything. The evidence of the in-development feature has cropped up as support ...

/ In a blog post, the FTC cautioned that cleverly placed QR codes can set people up for a scam. By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020. Share this story Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) warned the public against scanning any old QR code in a consumer alerts blog last week. Naturally, the warning comes down to security and privacy — bad actors can put QR codes in inconspicuous places or send them via text or email, then just sit back and wait for a payday in the form of money, logins, or other sensitive information. The New York Times reported that John Fokker, who heads threat intelligence at cybersecurity company Trellix, says...

/ A new Bloomberg report says a rumored 12.9-inch iPad Air will work with the biggest Magic Keyboard available today, while the 9th-gen iPad will leave the lineup. By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020. Share this story Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Apple is reportedly making some changes next year that it hopes will make it easier for people to fit a specific iPad to their needs. For instance, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman wrote in his Power On newsletter today that the next iPad Air will get an M2 chip in addition to the larger second model that’s been rumored. One of the other ways Apple is reportedly tackling the issue is to drop the 9th-generation model that’s b...

/ Plus, in this week’s Installer: iMessage for Android, AI images, Lego Fortnite, and much more By David Pierce, editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired. Share this story If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. Image: William Joel / The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 17, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage. I also have for you a new Mastodon app, a bunch of new AI tools, a whole new Fortnite universe, an espresso maker, and much more. And I have some thoughts abo...

/ A few companies have tried to find ways to make iMessage work outside Apple’s purview. Beeper succeeded — loudly. Apple fought back. By David Pierce, editor-at-large and Vergecast co-host with over a decade of experience covering consumer tech. Previously, at Protocol, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired. Share this story If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. Beeper Mini brought iMessage to Android. It didn’t last long.Image: Beeper A few days after the team at Beeper proudly announced a way for users to send blue-bubble iMessages directly from their Android devices without any weird relay servers, and about 24 hours after it became clear Apple had taken steps to shut that down, Apple has shared its take on the issue. The compan...

/ The Tesla 2023 Holiday Update will also add features like Apple Podcasts and multi-stop trip planning via the app. By Wes Davis, a weekend editor who covers the latest in tech and entertainment. He has written news, reviews, and more as a tech journalist since 2020. Share this story Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Tesla will release its 2023 Holiday Update next week with a few big changes, including one that lets Teslas call 911 automatically if the car’s airbags deploy in a crash. On Thursday, the company announced the update is coming next week, and it highlighted other coming features like Apple Podcasts support, rear-screen Bluetooth headset support, an updated version of the park assistance with 3D visuals, and new blind spot indicators. Apple Podcast support joins Apple Mus...

/ The nostalgic event was a strategic decision to get players back into the game, before launching a trio of new experiences beyond battle royale. By Andrew Webster, an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories. Share this story Image: Epic Games You could say that Fortnite is entering a new phase. With the launch of Lego Fortnite, Rocket Racing, and Fortnite Festival, the game is now more than a popular battle royale — it’s a platform designed to house lots of different kinds of experiences. That shift was preceded by an event that brought the game back to its roots with Fortnite OG, which returned to the original battle royale map alongside classic weapons and vehicles. And tha...

/ Engineers and major companies are pushing a technology called L4S that they say could make the web feel dramatically faster. But how? Illustration by Hugo Herrera / The Verge A few months ago, I downgraded my internet, going from a 900Mbps plan to a 200Mbps one. Now, I find that websites can sometimes take a painfully long time to load, that HD YouTube videos have to stop and buffer when I jump around in them, and that video calls can be annoyingly choppy. In other words, pretty much nothing has changed. I had those exact same problems even when I had near-gigabit download service, and I’m probably not alone. I’m sure many of you have also had the experience of cursing a slow-loading website and growing even more confused when a “speed test” says that your internet should be able to play...

/ Harmonix’s latest music game is available inside of Fortnite, following the launches of Lego Fortnite and Rocket Racing. By Andrew Webster, an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories. Share this story Epic released a trilogy of new games inside of Fortnite this week. It started with Lego Fortnite, continued with Rocket Racing, and is wrapping up today with Fortnite Festival, developed by Guitar Hero studio Harmonix (which Epic acquired in 2021). It’s all part of an ambitious plan to turn Fortnite from a hit battle royale into a platform filled with all kinds of different experiences. And in the case of Fortnite Festival, it’s a full-blown music game inside of Fortnite. Think ...

/ Black Friday pricing has returned on the latest entry-level iPad, and God of War Ragnarök is on a one-day sale for an all-time low. Plus, more deals for your weekend. Plus, it comes in this awesome yellow color.Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge We’ve found Apple’s latest generation of its base-model iPad to be a bit awkwardly priced from the start. At $449 it’s a little close to the much nicer iPad Air and simultaneously a lot pricier than its ninth-gen predecessor. But that all looks different when you knock a Benjamin off of it — because right now you can get the 10th-gen iPad with base 64GB of storage for $349 ($100 off) or expanded 256GB for $499 (also $100 off) at Best Buy until December 11th. This matches its Black Friday best pricing, making it a much better purchase. The 10.9-inch...