Polestar’s electric future looks high-performing — and promising Image: Daniel GolsonLast week, I attended Polestar Day, a massive event put on by the Geely-owned Swedish brand in a hangar at the Santa Monica airport. The Volvo offshoot company invited hundreds of media, investors, and owners to experience the latest products and upcoming models and learn about a bunch of new technology innovations and partn…

Truck bloat is killing us, new crash data reveals Image: GettyAmerican car buyers can’t get enough big, tall SUVs and trucks — but new data suggests that the downsides of this trend are growing increasingly deadly. Crashes involving vehicles with hood heights that are 40 inches or higher are 45 percent more likely to result in a fatality as compared to vehicles with hood heights that are 30 in…

Gaming brands are learning the right lessons from enthusiast mechanical keyboards The Asus ROG Azoth (top) and Razer BlackWidow V4 75% (bottom) aren’t your typical gaming keyboards.The new Razer BlackWidow V4 75% and Asus ROG Azoth play to traditional gaming strengths, while feeling and sounding significantly nicer to type on. Continue reading…

Amazon’s Map View arrives to create a digital map of your smart home The new Map View for the Alexa app should make managing devices in the app a little easier. | Image: AmazonFinally, no more scrolling through an endless list of devices named “First Motion Sensor” or “Fourth Light” in Amazon’s Alexa app. The smart home controller is getting the option of a new user interface — Map View. Launching November 14th …

Amazon will now let you track Buy with Prime orders from your Amazon account Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeIf you buy something from a merchant that uses Amazon’s Buy with Prime button, you’ll now be able to track those orders on your Amazon account, access 24/7 customer service over live chat, and be able to return “eligible” orders at “more drop-off locations” without having to box them up or add a label, Amaz…

Here are your bingo cards for Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s Fortnite testimony We cut Peely the Banana — he’s been pretty absent so far. | Illustration: Cath VirginiaThe Epic v. Google trial is absolutely chock-full of intriguing lingo, so we couldn’t resist — we whipped up a custom set of bingo cards to make your trial live blog experience that much sweeter. Here are four bingo cards to get started with; you can click to…

Disney Pinnacle is preparing to be the next big NFT failure Image: Dapper LabsNFTs aren’t gone yet — Disney will launch an “all-new socially driven collectible experience” called Disney Pinnacle later this year, turning characters from Pixar, Star Wars, and its classic animated films into tradable digital pins. The Disney Pinnacle website has a waitlist for interested traders and collectors; however, it …

Nothing is bringing iMessage to its Android phone Photo by Allison Johnson / The VergeNothing Phone 2 owners get blue bubbles now. The company shared it has added iMessage to its newest phone through a new “Nothing Chats” app powered by the messaging platform Sunbird. The feature will be available to users in North America, the EU, and other European countries starting this Friday, November 17t…

Polestar makes the rear window obsolete with its new crossover coupe The new Polestar 4 is the Swedish EV brand’s first crossover coupe, slotting between the compact and midsize segment. It features the quickest acceleration yet from a Polestar vehicle, a completely new Google-based infotainment system, lots of fresh designs, and the lowest carbon impact of any Polestar. But by far the most controversial feature …

Google’s CEO is about to drop into the Fortnite trial Photo illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Philip Pacheco, Bloomberg, Getty ImagesWe have spent five days in a San Francisco courtroom watching witness after witness in the Epic v. Google trial. We’ve heard a lot about Google’s app store dealings, mostly from people who aren’t widely known to outsiders. But today, November 14th,…

Samsung’s cloud gaming hub is now available on some of its older TVs Boosteroid is the latest cloud gaming service to come to Samsung’s Gaming Hub. | Image: SamsungMany older Samsung smart TVs can now run cloud gaming apps like Xbox Game Pass, GeForce Now, and more — allowing users to play modern games like Starfield, CyberPunk 2077, and more without a console. The news comes after Samsung promised in August that…

All the announcements from Nintendo’s fall Indie World event Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeNintendo’s showcasing all the indies you can expect to see on the Switch in late 2023 and 2024. Continue reading…

The Fitbit Charge 6 is already nearly 40 percent off ahead of Black Friday With more features and a lower price tag, Fitbit’s latest fitness band represents a small — albeit welcome — return to form. | Image: Google / FitbitWe’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the line between modern smartwatches and fitness trackers is getting increasingly difficult to make out. Thankfully, Google appears to be correcting cour…

Is AI the answer to sustainable farming? Illustration by Nico H. Brausch for The VergeWhat happens when a robotics expert and a sixth-generation farmer decide to start a company together? They spend most of their time grappling with one looming problem: climate change. In 2020, Gilwoo Lee, the robotics expert, and Casey Call, the farmer, founded Zordi, an agricultural platform that bl…

How to electrify your life when you rent Illustration by Nico H. Brausch for The VergeTwo years ago, Caroline Spears was finally living on her own, roommate-free, in a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco, where the cost of living continues to go up. She was drawn to its affordability and space. “It was a great work-from-home spot,” Spears said. She didn’t foresee, however, the high …

Venmo Groups aims to make it easier to split up and track expenses Venmo groups debuts today and will roll out over “coming weeks.” | Image: Venmo / Crop: The VergeVenmo has started rolling out a new “Venmo Groups” feature that aims to make it easier to organize and share common expenses with others. The company says the feature will let people track, split, and manage group expenses. Basically, the company is …

Opal’s second camera is the Tadpole, a tiny webcam for laptops The Tadpole is meant to just clip right over top of your laptop’s webcam. | Image: OpalTwo years ago, Opal launched a camera with a tweet. (They were still called tweets back then.) It was the middle of a global pandemic, a work-from-home revolution, and a truly brutal time to start a hardware company — and Opal suddenly had tens of thousands of…

Notion’s new Q&A feature lets you ask an AI about your notes Q&A tries to both answer your questions and cite its sources. | Image: NotionThe first killer app of AI for businesses, it appears, is a simple thing: to be able to find information in the morass of files, folders, attachments, incompatible enterprise software apps, and everything else that constitutes modern knowledge work. Notion, which aims t…

YouTube is going to start cracking down on AI clones of musicians Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeYouTube will have two sets of content guidelines for AI-generated deepfakes: a very strict set of rules to protect the platform’s music industry partners, and another, looser set for everyone else. That’s the explicit distinction laid out today in a company blog post, which goes through the platform’s early…

Uber is testing a service that lets you hire drivers for chores I guess that means your Uber driver can collect you from Ikea and then build your furniture when you get home. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The VergeUber is experimenting with a new service that allows users to hire drivers from its app to complete everyday household chores and projects, in a bid to expand beyond its existing ridesharing and …