Asus addresses ROG Ally performance gap and SD card failures

Photography by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge On launch day, the Asus ROG Ally handheld gaming PC mysteriously had worse performance than it did in my original review, something several other reviewers confirmed. Two weeks later, Asus is publicly saying 1) that’s not normal, 2) you shouldn’t see reduced performance anymore, and 3) if you do — or if your ROG Ally is having issues with SD cards — you should immediately reach out to Asus technical support. “When fully updated, including with the latest BIOS 319 and the latest AMD graphics drivers 31.0.14058.4001 (downloadable in MyAsus), we are seeing performance on par with the launch BIOS version 317,” writes Asus ROG marketing manager Whitson Gordon, at the company’s official Discord. (I’m including the full message at the bottom… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/1V4te5G via Grabey
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Sony just spilled confidential PlayStation information because of a Sharpie

Photo by Anthony Wallace / AFP via Getty Images Sony has just revealed lots of highly confidential information about its PlayStation business by mistake. As part of the FTC v. Microsoft hearing, Sony supplied a document from PlayStation chief Jim Ryan that includes redacted details on the margins Sony shares with publishers, its Call of Duty revenues, and even the cost of developing some of its games. It looks like Sony redacted the documents with a black Sharpie — but when you scan them in, it’s easy to see some of the redactions. Oops. The court has scrambled to remove the document, but the damage is done; reporters and Sony’s competition have already downloaded all the documents while they were in the public domain. Among other things, the document shows that Horizon Forbidden… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/XgT9UsK via Grabey
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Caltechs new Morphobot is a little transforming robot that can walk drive and fly

Image: Caltech Caltech has a new RC car-sized robot that can change its shape to drive, fly, and walk to meet the needs of the moment. In its press release, the university compares the M4 — short for Multi-Modal Mobility Morphobot, which sounds like a rejected pitch for a ’90s kids’ show — to a Transformer, and it’s not too far from the truth. The robot is packed with electronics, motors, and a small computer that lets it decide what form it should take to get around. The team that made it gave the M4 large wheels that can, in seconds, swing up to become something more akin to a drone’s rotors and fly. It can also use its rotors to help it up a steep slope while the back wheels drive it forward from the ground, as described in a paper in Nature… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/OxhpJWH via Grabey
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Virgin Galactic reveals crew members for the companys first commercial spaceflight

Image: Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic has revealed the crew members who will be aboard the upcoming “Galactic 01” mission on June 29th, the company’s first fully commercial crewed spaceflight. Announced on Monday, Colin Bennett, Virgin Galactic’s lead astronaut instructor, will be joined by Walter Villadei and Angelo Landolfi — two senior members of the Italian airforce — and Pantaleone Carlucci, a pilot and technical engineer from the National Research Council of Italy. If the mission is successful, Virgin Galactic could soon start competing with rival companies offering commercial passenger flights into space, such as SpaceX and the Jeff Bezos-owned Blue Origin. Image: Virgin GalacticCrew members from the Italian Air Force and the… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/4qml1JK via Grabey
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Reddit says accessibility upgrades for moderators are coming to its mobile apps soon

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Reddit will make “accessibility improvements” to many moderator tools in its official mobile apps by July 1st, the company announced on Friday. Some moderators rely on third-party apps because Reddit’s apps have what they characterize as “significant accessibility challenges,” and the accessibility community has expressed concerns over how they will moderate on mobile after popular apps like Apollo shut down on June 30th due to potentially expensive API pricing changes. It seems this roadmap, which promises improvements to features like the moderation queue and the ModMail messaging system on Android and iOS, is intended to assuage those fears. Based on the replies to the announcement post, however, many are still unhappy with the… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/omGevah via Grabey
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Making sense of the EUs fight for user-replaceable smartphone batteries

Image: Apple The European Parliament recently voted on regulation that would, among other things, require smartphone manufacturers to make their device’s batteries more easily user-replaceable. Here’s the fine print. Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/grBEQda via Grabey
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The best ebook reader to buy right now

Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge From reading in the bath to scribbling notes in the margins, from diving into the Amazon ecosystem to avoiding it outright, there’s an e-reader for everyone. Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/NmM2nzt via Grabey
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Amazon Prime Day 2023: the latest news deals and coverage

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Every ounce of coverage for Amazon’s big, made-up shopping holiday taking place July 11th and 12th. Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/KviSd7P via Grabey
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How to check your version history on Google Docs

Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge Anyone old enough to have used a typewriter knows that a major advantage of word processors is that nothing is permanent — if you make a mistake, you can easily fix it. However, sometimes the fix is worse than the mistake: you may accidentally delete a word, a phrase, a paragraph, or an entire section and then realize minutes, hours, or even days later that you should have kept it. What do you do? Not a problem — just go back and check the previous versions of the document. While Google Docs automatically saves your documents every few minutes, it also keeps a record — a version history — of what has been done in the document since it was created. It’s very simple to find your version history: * Go to the top menu and select File >… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/YxSngi6 via Grabey
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Pollution from gas stoves can be worse than secondhand smoke

Photo by Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto via Getty Images Gas stoves release worrying amounts of benzene, a chemical linked to leukemia and other blood cell cancers, according to a new study from Stanford researchers. Benzene that gas-burning stoves release inside homes can reach concentrations even higher than what’s typical in secondhand smoke, according to the paper published last week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The study adds ammunition to efforts to phase gas connections out of homes and buildings. There’s a growing body of evidence on the risks gas stoves pose to public health and the environment. The fossil fuel industry, however, has pushed back hard against policies to shift to clean energy by playing on people’s attachment to gas stoves. “Seeing the… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/KUvSZQ0 via Grabey
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Breville Joule Turbo review: sous vide with speed

Sous vide cooking can produce perfect meats every time, but it takes a long time to do so. Breville’s new Joule Turbo can pull the same tricks in as little as half the time. Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/w7FBxj9 via Grabey
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Microsoft says June Outlook outages were a DDoS attack

Microsoft Outlook was subjected to a DDoS attack. | Illustration: The Verge In early June, complaints began cropping up on Twitter that Outlook was down for as many as 18,000 users at the peak of what, it turns out, was a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, according to a story in The Associated Press (AP) this morning. Microsoft acknowledged the attack in a blog post on Friday, offering some technical details and recommendations for guarding against such attacks in the future. The blog doesn’t mention whether the company got things under control or whether the attack abated on its own. But on Twitter, the Microsoft 365 Status account tweeted about the outage as it occurred on June 5th, then again later that day, finally seeming to get things under control the next morning: We continue to observe… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/mIWXN3C via Grabey
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Shutterless cameras deserve good shutter sounds

The Nikon Z9’s stacked sensor doesn’t require a mechanical shutter, but that doesn’t mean its users don’t need good feedback from their cameras. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge Snapping a camera’s shutter to take a picture is one of the best feelings in photography. You get a timeless, tactile feedback as you capture every decisive moment with a satisfying auditory “click” sound. But we’re slowly losing this hallmark of picture-taking. Not only because smartphones are replacing full-size cameras for most people but because more cameras are being built without mechanical shutters at all. Nikon’s flagship Z9 and newer Z8 cameras forego traditional shutters entirely, so instead of hearing and feeling a mechanical action, you either hear nothing at all or are played the sound of a fake shutter. Just this week, Nikon released firmware 4.0 for the Z9, which added a slew of new features, including extra shutter sounds:… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/9wF0Xbh via Grabey
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Arlos Essential Wired Doorbell is on sale for less than $60 right now

Arlo’s Essential Wired Video Doorbell offers a high-res camera and a wide field of view. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge It’s unfortunate, but many video doorbells require you to lock yourself into one platform’s smart home ecosystem to really make the most of them. Thankfully, there’s at least one video doorbell that works well with any smart home platform: the Arlo Essential Wired Doorbell. And right now, it’s on sale in white for $59.49 (about $91 off) at Amazon. If you prefer another retailer (or color), you can also buy it in black at Verizon for $64.99. Not only is Arlo’s video doorbell compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Samsung SmartThings, and even Apple Home, but it works well with many of these platforms. In fact, you can even use it to view live feeds from the Google Home app, which is a rarity for a non-Google camera. It also shares… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/roz6nYh via Grabey
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Apple Mac Studio (2023) review: the M2 Ultra rips

The Mac Studio remains the top choice for professionals who need a powerful but compact desktop computer. Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/IJWVnNc via Grabey
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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom all the latest on Nintendos huge sequel

Link in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. | Image: Nintendo Going deep on the biggest game of the year with analysis, interviews, and the wildest builds. Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/tiMJfg2 via Grabey
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Microsoft now sells Surface replacement parts including displays batteries and SSDs

Image: Microsoft Microsoft is starting to sell replacement components for its Surface devices. The software giant now supplies replacement parts in the Microsoft Store, allowing Surface owners to replace their displays, batteries, SSDs, and more. “We are excited to offer replacement components to technically inclined consumers for out-of-warranty, self repair,” says Tim McGuiggan, VP of devices services and product engineering at Microsoft. “When purchasing a replacement component, you will receive the part and relevant collateral components (such as screws if applicable).” Tools to help you repair a Microsoft Surface device are sold separately by iFixit, which Microsoft partnered with in 2021 to sell official Surface repair tools. iFixit supplies tools… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/qB4YP0U via Grabey
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The new Kindle and Kindle Paperwhite have dropped to some of their best prices

The waterproof Kindle Paperwhite is also $30 off today. | Photo by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge If you like to read books on long flights but don’t want to incur extra baggage fees this summer by carrying a whole load, it might be wise to invest in a Kindle. These e-readers are capable of containing thousands of ebooks and audiobooks, but they’re incredibly lightweight. That means you won’t break your back or the bank, especially as they’re available right now at some of their best prices to date. Today, for example, you can buy Amazon’s latest Kindle with ads and 16GB of storage for $79.99 ($20 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, while the ad-free version is just $20 more. Not only is Amazon’s new entry-level e-reader pocketable at just six inches but it also features a display as sharp as the Kindle Paperwhite’s, making it a… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/MjlWZzv via Grabey
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Assassin’s Creed Mirage gets new story trailer and gameplay demo

Image: Ubisoft At its big summer showcase, Ubisoft provided the best look yet at the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Mirage. To start, a new story trailer gave a better look at the new assassin, Basim, and the 9th century version of Baghdad he’ll be exploring in the game. You can check it out above. Perhaps more interesting, though, was a deep dive into the gameplay. Mirage is billed as a game that returns to style of the original Assassin’s Creed games, which is to say fewer RPG elements, and more focus on parkour, stealth, and, well, assassinations. The gameplay walkthrough showed Basim running and climbing his way through the city, while using tools like a blow dart and smoke bomb to dispatch of enemies as cleanly as possible. Also, he has a very good… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/pAHmnfO via Grabey
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Microsoft announces black Xbox Series S with 1TB of storage for $349

Image: Microsoft Microsoft has just announced a new black version of the Xbox Series S with 1TB of built-in storage at the Xbox Games Showcase. Little has changed here since the original Xbox Series S, apart from a black paint job and more storage inside. Microsoft is launching the 1TB black Xbox Series S on September 1st priced at $349, and pre-orders start today. The carbon black Xbox Series S was announced on stage by Xbox chief Phil Spencer, who also mentioned that the company has also increased its shipments of Xbox Series X to meet demand. Image: MicrosoftThe black Xbox Series S. The Xbox Series S originally launched at $299 with just 512GB of storage, so this bump to 1TB is very welcome. It comes just days after W… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/zBwievD via Grabey
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How to get free electricity in the UK

Photo by Mike Kemp / In Pictures via Getty Images Octopus Energy is a shining star during a time of high inflation and a cost of living crisis. Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/fFlzyUe via Grabey
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The next Sonos Move has shown up at the FCC ahead of its summer release

The first-gen Sonos Move was released in 2019. | Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge Back in March, I told you that Sonos is working on a second-generation Move speaker due for release this year. And now, as spotted by Janko Roettgers, the upcoming portable speaker has made its way through the FCC. The filing matches up with my earlier report and identifies the next Sonos hardware product as model S44. The FCC documentation also confirms one key upgrade that I mentioned in March: the Move (Gen 2) will support Bluetooth and Wi-Fi at the same time instead of making you toggle between them like the original speaker did (via a switch on the back). As a result, just like the Roam, Era 100, and Era 300, the next Move will let you play something over Bluetooth and then relay that audio to the rest of your Sonos system. T… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/Tf8JzmH via Grabey
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Mt. Gox: all the news on Bitcoin’s original biggest bankruptcy scandal

One of the strangest stories in crypto still isn’t over. Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/DvGPOzt via Grabey
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Final Fantasy VII Rebirth will be released in early 2024

Image: Square Enix Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the sequel to the remake of the beloved RPG, finally has a release window. It’ll be coming to the PS5 in early 2024. The announcement was made as part of Summer Game Fest. In a trailer, we got a major new look at the upcoming game. Cloud and crew wandered grassy fields, visited what looked to be Cosmo Canyon, and took on some fearsome enemies. Even Yuffie, who first came back in Final Fantasy VII Remake’s DLC, showed up in the trailer. The game will be available on two discs, according to the trailer. The second chapter of the elaborate remake project was unveiled last year, following the launch of Final Fantasy VII Remake in 2020. Over the last few days, Square Enix has been teasing big news about the game… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/VyBK8iq via Grabey
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Here are the features Apple didn’t announce in the WWDC keynote

WWDC 2023 was chock-full, but there was still a lot Apple didn’t say. | Illustration: The Verge Apple held a monstrous WWDC this year, and a ton of what was rumored, it turns out, will actually see the light of day. There’s the new 15-inch MacBook Air, M2-powered Mac Studio, and Apple’s finally realized AR headset — which we now know is called the Vision Pro. As usual, Apple didn’t touch on everything new during its opening keynote. But lots of small features that could change the way you use your Apple devices (or are just fun to play with) get packed in, and we’ve collected as many of those as we could find here. To keep this article from being a mile long, I’ve noted in the top iOS 17 section where I could confirm features will hit other platforms. So take a deep breath and dive in. Image: AppleiOS 17… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/eYnOxkg via Grabey
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The SEC is trying to freeze Binance’s assets

Nick Barclay / The Verge The Securities and Exchange Commission is trying to freeze the assets of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. In an emergency motion for a temporary restraining order filed Tuesday (PDF), the SEC says it has made this decision to “ensure the safety of customer assets.” The filing also claims that Binance has engaged in “violative conduct” for years in “disregard of the laws of the United States, evasion of regulatory oversight, and open questions about various financial transfers and the custody and control of Customer Assets.” As part of the order, Binance and CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao are required to give up “possession, custody, or control over Customer Assets” within five days, with Zhao nor the company having the… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/0JZ4UK5 via Grabey
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Mac Pro with M2 Ultra first look: boy, that’s a big chip

Apple just announced a new Mac Pro, and we’ve just gotten our first photos of it. It doesn’t look too different — the 2019 cheese grater design is still here — but it has a big ol’ M2 Ultra chip on the inside. Check out the photos in the gallery below. (One interesting tidbit: Apple took the heatsink off the chip!) The upgraded Mac Studio is also available with the M2 Ultra chip, but the Mac Pro offers expandability options that aren’t available with the Studio. The Mac Pro has six PCIe Gen 4 slots — slot six is a compatibility slot. The new Mac Pro has a lot of ports, too, including eight Thunderbolt ports (six in the back and two on top), two USB-A ports, an SD card slot in the front, two 10GB ethernet ports, two HDMI ports, and a… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/2NezkdV via Grabey
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Google’s AI-powered search experience is way too slow

Generating… | Image from Google’s I/O 2023 keynote replay Why wait for an AI-generated summary when I can just scroll down the page? Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/nBUby2J via Grabey
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If Apple wants its headset to win, it needs to reinvent the app

Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge If Apple’s mixed reality headset is going to succeed, it’s going to be because of the apps. On Monday, Apple will take the stage at its 2023 Worldwide Developers Conference to talk about FaceTime and Apple Books and all the other cool built-in stuff you’ll be able to do with its ski goggles strapped to your face. But if it can’t get third-party developers on board, and those developers don’t figure out how to build life-changingly great stuff for those goggles, the Reality Pro (or whatever it’s called) doesn’t stand a chance. Apple knows this better than anyone, of course. The iPhone took off when apps like Instagram and Uber showed what you could do with a camera and a GPS in your pocket. The iPad became a creative tool because creative… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/Chg8xUO via Grabey
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Climate change makes food scarce, but Yellowstone bears are staying fat

A mother grizzly and her cub walk through a meadow in Yellowstone National Park. | Photo by Will Powers / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images Yellowstone’s grizzly bears have managed to stay just as fat over the years regardless of growing environmental stressors, according to new research. Fat is life for a bear; it needs lots of fat to make it through months-long winter hibernation and have healthy cubs. That’s why scientists monitoring the bears in and around Yellowstone National Park were happy to find plump grizzlies despite some of their major food sources dwindling. “We were kind of surprised,” says Frank van Manen, an ecologist with the US Geological Survey who leads the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team. Looking back on data collected on the park’s bears over 20 years, van Manen and his colleagues found that body fat levels had stayed roughly the same for bears… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/om3RMq5 via Grabey
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Nuclear fusion startups set to receive $46 million from the Department of Energy

US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm announces a major scientific breakthrough from researchers at Nuclear Security and National Nuclear Security Administrations Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Washington, DC, on December 13th, 2022. | Photo by Olivier Douliery / AFP via Getty Images The Department of Energy is pumping $46 million into eight companies developing nuclear fusion power plants, which has been an elusive clean energy dream for scientists for over half a century. Now, after a big scientific breakthrough in December, the Biden administration aims to achieve “a pilot-scale demonstration of fusion” on an incredibly fast timeline that’s “within a decade.” The funding announced yesterday is a big bet on what’s considered the “Holy Grail” of clean energy. Generating electricity from nuclear power plants mimics the way stars create their own energy. And while some researchers are optimistic about the timeline Biden’s proposing, many experts say it will likely be several decades before these futuristic power… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/1AxlBae via Grabey
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Asus swears that it has totally fixed the ROG Ally’s battery life

Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge When Asus seeded the first units of its handheld ROG Ally gaming PC to reviewers back in May, it’s fair to say that the results were… not overwhelmingly positive. Some reviewers loved the product, while others were broadly unhappy. But across the gamut, there was one thing that pretty much everyone agreed on: the battery life sucked. The Verge’s Sean Hollister saw a maximum of four hours from the device, whereas his ceiling on the competing Steam Deck (which has a battery of the same size) is closer to seven. The criticisms rippled through the online sphere. Preorders were canceled left and right — around 10 percent of original buyers, by Asus global marketing director Galip Fu’s recollection, backed out soon after the initial wave of… Continue reading… from The Verge – All Posts https://ift.tt/OlkrsEZ via Grabey
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