The Verge

Source: The Verge When you say “wearables,” people generally think of smartwatches. But 2024 was a relatively quiet year for smartwatches, during which iterative updates reigned supreme. That happens in a maturing category. In exchange for polished products, you lose out on the weird frenetic energy — and sometimes ludicrously bad ideas — found when…

Source: The Verge SpaceX’s satellite-to-cell Starlink service has hit a nationwide coverage milestone in New Zealand — albeit with a few limitations. One NZ says it’s the first telecommunications company globally to power a nationwide satellite text messaging service via Starlink. Starlink has also signed up partners in Canada, Australia, Japan, Peru, Switzerland, and Chile,…

Source: The Verge The European Union has published several recommendations for Apple to make iOS and iPadOS more interoperable with competitors following two separate proceedings launched in September, sparking concerns about user privacy from the iPhone maker. On Wednesday, the EU Commission submitted draft recommendations to Apple regarding changes that would make the iOS operating…

Source: The Verge The Biden administration set ambitious new goals to slash US greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate accord, urging states and local governments to stay on course regardless of President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to purposefully ignore climate change. The nearly 200 countries that have joined the Paris agreement face a deadline in…

Source: The Verge Samsung just announced new hybrid cooling tech coming to its refrigerators in 2025. They’ll use a traditional compressor alongside a new Peltier module — a semiconductor device that transfers heat from one side to the other when current passes through it. This approach results in a fridge that reduces temperature variations to…

Source: The Verge SanDisk is now SANDISK. It’s also now Sandisk. The company is announcing a fresh rebranding this week with a new logo that drops the inter-capped styling it’s generally maintained since 1995 with one that is inspired by “a single point of data” or a “pixel.” In a new video, Sandisk says its…

Source: The Verge The US Senate has passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual defense spending bill, and it may have major consequences for the world’s largest drone company — though not necessarily the immediate ban that China’s DJI feared. While it did not contain the full “Countering CCP Drones Act” provisions that…

Source: The Verge The creator of the poker roguelike Balatro, who goes by the alias LocalThunk, has been sharing some frustrations over the game’s 18-plus rating in Europe. “Since PEGI gave us an 18-plus rating for having evil playing cards maybe I should add microtransactions / loot boxes / real gambling to lower that rating…

Source: The Verge One of the more popular end-of-year items is music service recaps, and one of the best known is Spotify Wrapped. The company puts together a roundup of everything you listened to that year in various statistical formats, wrapped up (well, that’s what it’s called, right?) in bright, swirling graphics. For 2024, you’ll…

Source: The Verge 2024’s drone hysteria has gone on for weeks across the East Coast, and we still have far more questions than answers. The sightings may have started in New Jersey, but reports of possible drone sightings have continued to spread. Meanwhile, social media-fueled misinformation has rushed to fill the information vacuum about what…