Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge The new year was supposed to begin with a brand spanking new calendar app. But roughly 72 hours after the premium email service Hey announced its latest feature — an integrated calendar — co-founder David Heinemeier Hansson received some unwelcome news from Apple: it was rejecting a standalone
Read MoreLike its distant relative, the Game Boy, the Nintendo Switch has cemented its place in history as one of the definitive handheld gaming devices. Its popularity is such that after almost seven years on the market, it’s still regularly at its $300 retail price in the USA, before sales tax. Globetrotting readers may have been
Read MoreIllustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apologies for sounding like a broken record, but the numbers are down again. This time by a lot, although that is not unusual for the end of the year. Podtrac reports that, among the top 20 publishers, downloads fell 19 percent month over month and down 24 percent
Read MoreVersion 4.1 of the Astro web framework, released January 4, features new accessibility audit rules, custom cookie encoding, and a configuration option for the client:visible directive. Available on GitHub, Astro is positioned as a framework for building fast, content-driven websites, web applications, and dynamic server APIs. Astro 4.1 adds two audit rules for the dev
Read MoreImage: The Verge Warner Bros. Discovery’s add-on sports tier for Max is going to remain free for a little longer than originally planned, as reported by Deadline. The Bleacher Report Sports add-on was added last October, and while it’s been available at no cost to subscribers so far, it was set to become a paid
Read MoreOlivia Solon / Bloomberg: The UK’s NHS probes whether Palantir breached contract terms by launching an influencer campaign to counter criticism of the patient data platform it’s building — – Palantir hired agency to counter misinformation about NHS work — Contract prohibits any marketing without written consent
Read MoreRyan Browne / CNBC: Coinbase agrees to acquire an unnamed holding company that holds a MiFID II license, which would allow Coinbase to begin offering crypto derivatives in the EU — – Coinbase told CNBC exclusively that it entered into an agreement to buy an unnamed holding company which holds a Mifid II license.
Read MoreTechCrunch: Uber is testing Uber Flex, a flexible pricing service that lets riders pick a fare of their choice that will be shared with nearby drivers, in 12+ Indian cities — Uber has quietly been testing a flexible pricing service in more than a dozen cities in India, a move that could help it expand
Read MoreAs a nerdy kid in the 90s, I spent a fair bit of time watching the computer-themed cartoon Reboot. During the course of making a documentary about the show, [Jacob Weldon] and [Raquel Lin] have uncovered the original digital master tapes of the show. This is certainly exciting news for fans of the show, but
Read MoreBloomberg: Source: Microsoft executive Dee Templeton has joined OpenAI’s board as a nonvoting observer, as part of a broader boardroom overhaul after Altman’s brief ouster — – Templeton has already begun attending board meetings — Appointment is part of broader boardroom overhaul at OpenAI
Read MoreAlex Ebert / Bloomberg Law: Merck settles its cyberattack insurance dispute with insurers over denying coverage for NotPetya losses due to “Warlike Action”; the amount was not disclosed — Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Inc. struck an 11th-hour settlement with insurers Wednesday, evading …
Read MoreIn recent years, smartphone cameras have made remarkable progress, yet many still face challenges in simultaneously excelling at photography and videography. A recent comparison of the Pixel 8 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max at an indie-pop concert underscored the limitations of these devices. Despite their advanced features and impressive specifications, both smartphones struggled
Read MoreIllustration: The Verge Apple could soon be the subject of a federal antitrust lawsuit, according to a report from The New York Times. The publication says that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is in the “late stages” of an investigation into Apple and its moves to keep customers locked into its ecosystem. The DOJ’s
Read MoreIn recent years, smartphone cameras have made remarkable progress, yet many still face challenges in simultaneously excelling at photography and videography. A recent comparison of the Pixel 8 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max at an indie-pop concert underscored the limitations of these devices. Despite their advanced features and impressive specifications, both smartphones struggled
Read MoreEmma Roth / The Verge: A developer finds that Google seems to be working on Bard Advanced, an upgraded version of Bard that will be available through a Google One paid subscription — Google appears to be working on an upgraded version of Bard called “Bard Advanced” that will be available through a paid subscription
Read MoreWall Street Journal: Sources: Synopsys is in advanced talks to acquire Ansys, which makes software used in aerospace, health care, and automotive, for ~$35B in a stock-and-cash deal — Synopsys and Ansys are in exclusive talks, and a deal could come as soon as next week — Synopsys is in advanced talks …
Read MoreCurrently, the only apps you can launch by voice command on Android are Google Assistant and whatever voice assistant your OEM preloads, such as Bixby. A hidden page in the latest Android beta hints at a “voice activation” feature that could expand this capability to more apps. It’s not totally clear how it works yet,
Read MoreNew York Times: Sources: the US DOJ may file an antitrust lawsuit against Apple that targets the company’s strategies to protect the dominance of the iPhone as soon as H1 2024 — Justice Department officials are in the late stages of investigating the iPhone maker, focusing on how Apple has used …
Read MoreThe lovely thing about a hobby like keyboard building is that the melting pot of designs manages to never turn into a nasty porridge. Rather, it remains a tasty chili that keeps getting more flavorful with time. It’s a simple recipe, really; someone becomes dissatisfied enough with their peripherals to do something about it, often
Read MoreDisney Earlier this week, Disney’s film Steamboat Willie entered the US public domain after nearly a century — and so did its star Mickey Mouse. It was a turning point for one of the 20th century’s most iconic and rigorously protected pieces of intellectual property, and it was celebrated by an explosion of irreverent Mickey
Read MoreRyan Browne / CNBC: Coinbase and other cryptocurrency exchanges introduce risk assessments and finance tests for UK users ahead of strict new rules for digital asset products in UK — – Coinbase, Crypto.com and Gemini are among cryptocurrency exchanges that are asking U.K. users to fill out risk assessments …
Read MoreYihui Xie, well-known in the R community as the creator of R packages such as R Markdown, knitr, blogdown, and bookdown, has been laid off from Posit, where he worked as a full-time software developer. Xie announced the layoff, which happened at the end of December, in a blog post this week. He said he would
Read MoreWall Street Journal: Sources: Synopsys is in advanced talks to acquire Ansys, which makes software used in aerospace, health care, and automotive, for ~$35B in a stock-and-cash deal — Synopsys and Ansys are in exclusive talks, and a deal could come as soon as next week — Synopsys is in advanced talks …
Read MoreGergely Orosz / The Pragmatic Engineer: How a change to US tax law Section 174, forcing amortization of software labor, led to higher tax bills, less hiring and more layoffs, IP moving abroad, more — 👋 Hi, this is Gergely with a bonus, free issue of the Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter. In every issue, I cover
Read MoreImage: Apple Catch up on all of The Verge’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters news updates, reviews, and interviews. Continue reading…
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