Rivian’s factory in 2022. | Photo by Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune / Tribune News Service via Getty Images A fire broke out in a parking lot at Rivian’s Normal, Illinois, factory over the weekend, damaging several electric vehicles, local media is reporting. No injuries are being reported at this time. A spokesperson for the Normal Fire Department told The Verge that a report of a fire was called in at 9:43PM CT on Saturday at the Rivian factory. That said, Rivian is now leading the investigation into the nature of the blaze, along with the company’s insurance company, with the town’s fire officials lending their support as needed, Normal Fire Department spokesperson Matt Swaney said in an email. “It is a very intricate and complex investigation so we do not have a timeline of when and if any origin or cause may be determined at this time,”... Continue reading…

The Crew Dragon capsule will launch aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket. | Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images SpaceX is getting ready to set out on its historic Polaris Dawn mission, which will send four astronauts into orbit aboard its Crew Dragon capsule. The five-day journey through the Van Allen radiation belts will include the first spacewalk done by private astronauts.If you’re curious about the mission, here’s what you should know and how to watch it live.What is the Polaris Dawn mission?First announced in 2022, Polaris Dawn is a mission funded by billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman. In addition to Isaacman, three other privately trained astronauts will embark on the mission, including retired US Air Force fighter pilot Scott Poteet, as well as SpaceX engineers Anna Menon and Sarah Gillis. Only Isaacman and Gillis will... Continue reading…

You don't have to update your system BIOS too often, but it's crucial to know how to do it correctly when you do. A lot could go wrong while updating your motherboard BIOS, but it's nothing to be nervous about. Overall, it is a fairly simple process, and you'll have no trouble updating it as long as you know what you are doing and pay close attention to the steps to complete this task carefully.

It seems that Microsoft's newest focus with Windows 11 is making the lock screen more useful. Last month, we saw an Insider build go out that added some handy widgets to the Windows 11 lock screen to bring some life to the otherwise barren display. Now, Microsoft has added a means to control your media from your lock screen, which sounds like a really convenient way to adjust what's playing without needing to log into your computer.

When new PC components arrive, manufacturers usually discount the prior-generation products. So, while the latest generation GPU upgrades are costly, the discounted PCIe 3.0 supporting graphics cards can still offer stellar gaming performance. Instead of choosing the best graphics card available on the market, you could seriously consider picking up a PCIe 3.0 GPU for your PC.

Image: Wizards of the Coast Wizards of the Coast has walked back some of its planned updates to D&D Beyond. All your current Dungeons & Dragons characters sheets are once again safe with the publisher no longer forcing updates to newer versions of spells, weapons, and magic items.Last week, as a part of the updates to Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition — collectively known as the 2024 revision — the publisher announced that it would update D&D Beyond, the tabletop RPG’s official digital toolkit that players use to reference content and create characters using a host of official and third-party sources. The update would add the new 2024 rulebooks to the toolkit, mark outdated content with a “legacy” badge, and change players’ character sheets to reflect all the new... Continue reading…

The cool thing about Xbox cloud gaming is that it works on low-power devices. After all, it doesn't have to do any of the processing to render the game - that's the cloud server's job. As such, Microsoft has been hard at work bringing the service onto low-power streaming devices, which are already designed to handle video feeds. We've already seen the Redmond giant bring Xbox gaming to the Fire TV Stick, and now the company wants to go one step further.

Illustration: The Verge Google is making it easier to keep track of Google Meet calls — which can easily get buried in your tabs — while you’re using desktop Chrome. The company is now rolling out a feature that automatically opens a Google Meet call in picture-in-picture mode when you switch tabs in Chrome, according to a blog post. As shown by Google in a GIF, when you click away from the Google Meet call, a new Meet window pops up elsewhere on the screen so that you can keep an eye on who’s speaking. This might be handy when you’re definitely looking at the document somebody shared around and definitely not checking your Threads feed. GIF: Google The automatic picture-in-picture feature isn’t gated to paid accounts; Google says that... Continue reading…

A visualization of PM2.5 air pollution concentrations in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1850 to 2021. | Image: Air Quality Stripes A new tool shows how much air quality has changed since the Industrial Revolution in cities across the world. It generates a single image made up of different colored stripes representing pollution each year in each major city. You can see stark contrasts from place to place, showing how much work is left to do to clean up pollution and also how well those efforts can pay off in the long run. Air pollution has fallen sharply in wealthy Western nations but is still a serious health risk in many places around the world.“These images make the invisible visible.”“Air pollution is often called the ‘invisible killer,’ but these images make the invisible visible,” Kirsty Pringle, a codirector of the project who is based at the University of... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Apple announced that chief financial officer Luca Maestri will step down from his role at the start of next year. He’ll remain at the company as the head of its corporate services team, leading “information systems and technology, information security, and real estate and development.”Maestri joined Apple in 2013 after serving as the CFO of Xerox. He became the CFO just one year later, replacing Peter Oppenheimer. CNBC notes that when he took over, Apple’s annual revenue was $183 billion, and last year, it reached $383 billion. Apple also announced an expansion to its share repurchase program to $90 billion, which Maestri would oversee. This spring, Apple announced it would increase the amount from $90 billion to $110 billion, breaking... Continue reading…

Image: Sony Sony has announced the $59.99 WF-C510 wireless earbuds, the latest budget offering in its “Truly Wireless” line. They’re fairly bare-bones but improve on their predecessor with voice isolation and slightly longer battery life while costing $30 less. The earbuds come in four colors — black, blue, white, and yellow — and are available for preorder now on Sony’s website or at Amazon.The WF-C510 earbuds, besides having a name that rolls right off the tongue, come with Ambient Sound Mode (Sony’s transparency mode, which pipes in external sound) in addition to voice isolation. They’re also the “smallest ever closed type earbuds” Sony says it has produced. According to Sony’s specs list, they’ll get as long as five hours of “continuous... Continue reading…

Photo: Getty Images Newspaper giant Gannett is shutting down Reviewed, its product reviews site, effective November 1st, according to sources familiar with the decision. The site offers recommendations for products ranging from shoes to home appliances and employs journalists to test and review items — but has also been at the center of questions around whether its work is actually produced by humans. “After careful consideration and evaluation of our Reviewed business, we have decided to close the operation. We extend our sincere gratitude to our employees who have provided consumers with trusted product reviews,” Reviewed spokesperson Lark-Marie Antón told The Verge in an email. But the site more recently has been the subject of scrutiny, at times by... Continue reading…