Team

Apple employees push back against returning to the office in internal letter

Apple employees are pushing back against a new policy that would require them to return to the office three days a week starting in early September. Staff members say they want a flexible approach where those who want to work remote can do so, according to an internal letter obtained by The Verge. “We would… Read more

Alienware M15 R5 Ryzen Edition review: the right parts at a high price

If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. The new Alienware M15 R5 Ryzen Edition is a slight undoing of progress, depending on how you look at it. As many gaming laptops are going thinner, this one is heavier and thicker than previous generations. Its… Read more

Google confirms diversity exec no longer in role after problematic post

One of Google’s top executives in diversity strategy and research has left his post after a 2007 blog post slamming the state of Israel resurfaced on June 1st. In the post, Kamau Bobb used antisemitic language, insinuating Jews have an “insatiable appetite for war and killing.” The post was quickly picked up by the New… Read more

Steam now lets developers team up on game bundles

Valve has started letting developers team up to create bundles on the Steam gaming storefront. It outlined the new “DIY collaborative bundles” in a blog post yesterday, describing the feature as a way to collect titles with “common themes.” Steam already offered multi-developer bundles, but only ones that were specially curated by the platform. Now,… Read more

Samsung Unveils ZNS SSD: QLC V-NAND for Datacenter-Grade Endurance & Performance

Home News (Image credit: Samsung) Samsung has introduced its first Zones Namespaces (ZNS) solid-state drives that combine high performance, long endurance, relatively low price enabled by the company’s QLC V-NAND, and improved quality of service (QoS) for datacenters. To use Samsung’s new PM1731a ZNS SSDs, datacenters will have to deploy new storage systems and software. ZNS SSDs work… Read more

Philips Hue gets a sleeker new app rebuilt ‘from the ground up’

The Philips Hue app is getting a big update on Thursday. The team at Signify, which makes Hue lights, has rebuilt the app “from the ground up” to make it easier to use. The new version looks mostly the same as the existing app, but it has tweaks around the edges to make it quicker… Read more

NASA will send two missions to Venus for the first time in over 30 years

The agency has picked two new robotic missions to explore the hot hell-world of Venus, Earth’s neighbor and the second planet from the Sun, administrator Bill Nelson announced on Wednesday. The two missions, DAVINCI+ and VERITAS, were among four competing proposals under the latest round of NASA’s Discovery Program, which manages smaller planetary exploration missions… Read more

Amazon will stop testing most employees for weed

Amazon is relaxing its policy around employees using weed, according to a new blog post, and will no longer enforce marijuana drug tests for any employee who isn’t also regulated by the Department of Transportation, like a delivery driver. In the past, Amazon used positive tests as a reason to disqualify applicants during the hiring… Read more

AMC is giving free popcorn away to meme stonk investors

Look, when the internet learns a new trick — like it did in January, with GameStop — it’s a pretty safe bet that people will play the trick again. So AMC is through the roof right now: it touched $72.62, a 91 percent increase from its open and an all-time high. That’s because AMC has… Read more

Next God of War delayed until 2022 but will come to PS4 too

The next God of War game has been pushed to 2022. The game, intended for PS5, was originally planned to launch sometime in 2021. Head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst confirmed the news in a post shared on the PlayStation blog, saying “we’ve made the decision to push that game out to next year, to… Read more

Big Windows Changes Coming at June 24th Event

Home News (Image credit: Microsoft) We’ve been hearing information about the “Sun Valley” UX redesign for Windows since last year, and now it seems like we might finally be getting a look at it. Microsoft today announced that it will be holding a livestream on June 24th detailing “what’s next for Windows,” and although information… Read more

The Olympics’ vision of gaming looks very different from the biggest esports

The Olympics is currently hosting its first-ever virtual sporting event series, the Olympic Virtual Series, where competitors can play in virtual versions of five different physical sports: motorsport, cycling, baseball, sailing, and rowing. The cycling competition, for example, takes place in Zwift, which lets you pair your bike and a bike trainer with your computer,… Read more

This scientist shoots trees to study how they migrate

In Black Rock Forest, just north of New York City, Angie Patterson aims a shotgun at a northern red oak tree. Patterson is a plant ecophysiologist, and the leaves that she’s shooting out of the canopy will give her data to understand how and why trees migrate. Trees have been on the move since at… Read more

Apple Watch, Fitbit users with heart conditions get more medical procedures

People with irregular heartbeats who use wearable devices like Apple Watches and Fitbits aren’t overwhelming doctors with worried calls about their hearts, a new study shows. But they are more likely to be treated with a heart procedure called an ablation, the analysis found. The small study is one of the first to show how… Read more

Intel’s Raja Koduri Shows Off Xe-HPG Gaming GPU with 512 EUs

Home News (Image credit: Intel) Intel’s graphics chief Raja Koduri published the first ‘official’ image of Intel’s upcoming gaming graphics processor based on the Xe-HPG architecture. Koduri also confirmed that at least one of the company’s DG2 GPUs will feature 512 EUs. “Xe-HPG (DG2) real candy – very productive time at the Folsom lab couple… Read more