Image: California Highway Patrol Los Angeles citizens can rest easy knowing that a criminal theft ring is no longer stalking the city’s retail stores to feed a Lego black market. That’s because the California Highway Patrol (CHP) announced this week that it had arrested four people it accused of swiping what police estimated was “approximately $300,000” worth of Lego sets.The four had allegedly burgled stores like Target, Home Depot, and Lowe’s of their Lego stock and sold them to black-market dealers who would then vend the stolen bricks at “seemingly legitimate businesses, swap meets, or online.” Police say they were booked on “charges related to Organized Retail Theft, Grand Theft, and Conspiracy to commit a crime.” Image: California Highway Patrol... Continue reading…

The Verge Hi, friends! Welcome to Installer No. 34, your guide to the best and Verge-iest stuff in the world. (If you’re new here, welcome, so psyched you found us, and also, you can read all the old editions at the Installer homepage.) This week, I’ve been writing about the Humane AI Pin and the Aboard app, reading about the Com World War and why studios cancel already-made movies, watching Ripley and a deep dive into the Game Boy’s incredible sturdiness and power, listening to The Rest is History take on Martin Luther, and seeing if Amazon’s Echo Frames can replace my headphones.I also have for you an excellent new video game show, a new ebook reader worth a look, yet another doc about how bad tech is, a sweet new drone, and much more.I also... Continue reading…

Blackmagic’s new Micro Color Panel lets you edit video on the go. | Image: Blackmagic Design Blackmagic Design announced its video editing software, DaVinci Resolve, was coming to the iPad back in 2022, and although it supports multitouch input and the Apple Pencil, sometimes, nothing beats purpose-built hardware. On Friday, Blackmagic announced the $495 DaVinci Resolve Micro Color Panel, which it says will be available worldwide in May and is specifically designed for the iPad.At 14.33 inches by 7.18 inches, the Micro Color Panel is about the size of a computer keyboard. It has an iPad Pro mounting slot and connects either via Bluetooth or USB-C. Besides being smaller than Blackmagic’s other color panels, the Micro is also significantly cheaper (The next one up — the Mini Panel — is listed at over $2,000 on Blackmagic’s... Continue reading…

Initially, the Raspberry Pi was developed to provide a functional yet affordable system to make students more interested in coding. Over time, the ultra-successful SBC family has become quite powerful, boasting new features and amazing additions with each passing generation.

It's an exciting time to be a fan of SBCs. There is plenty of choice outside of Raspberry Pi boards, and these competitors are finding ways to squeeze AI processing onto something the size of a credit card. Such is the case of the BeagleBoard which was released with 4 TOPS of AI processing power. Now, the AI SBC competition is heating up, as the Orange Pi board releases with a theoretical 6 TOPS of performance, alongside other amazing features.

One of the most powerful aspects of the Steam Deck is the wide variety of tasks that it can accomplish, including being used as a desktop replacement. It's also compatible with a huge range of peripherals, and can be used to play many non-Steam games from other launchers, like those found on the Epic Games Store. It can also be used to play games in virtual reality (VR) using the Meta Quest 2 or 3, with a third-party app called Immersed. It's worth mentioning that this won't work for VR games, but it does let you play 2D games on a large virtual screen.

If you've been looking to invest in a great pair of earbuds, the Sony WF-1000XM5 are going to be it. These are the best earbuds that you can buy in 2024. Sony has dominated the field for some years, but its latest product is refined and offers a revamped design, great audio and fantastic noise cancelation. Perhaps the only negative thing we can say about these earbuds is that they cost quite a bit, with a retail price of $299.99.

The Raspberry Pi may not be very powerful, but that makes it a perfect tool to perform low-effort tasks without taking up much space. For example, retro games don't require a lot of processing power, meaning you can easily turn your SBC into a miniature console. To aid with this, developers have released apps that make it easier to run your favorite games on Raspberry Pi. Lakka is but one of many, and its new update makes it even better at making your mini board a full-blown retro console.

Image: OnLeaks / 91Mobiles Google could be adding a feature very similar to Apple’s Emergency SOS feature to the Pixel 9 and the next Pixel Fold. That’s according to leaker Kamila Wojciechowska, who writes for Android Authority that the company would partner with T-Mobile to offer the feature but may add other providers later.Just like Apple’s system, Google’s SOS feature would reportedly present future Pixel owners with a series of questions to ascertain what’s happening, rather than let users thumb one out. A video in the Android Authority article features the animation Google will display to users to help them get the phone aligned with a satellite. According to Wojciechowska, these are some of the questions the feature will ask:What happened?[Are you/Are... Continue reading…

A screenshot from iGBA. | Screenshot: Wes Davis / The Verge I played Game Boy Advance games on my iPhone last night thanks to a new emulator called iGBA, which appears to be the first Game Boy Advance emulator on the App Store since Apple started allowing emulators worldwide. The only trouble is, it doesn’t look like iGBA is developer Mattia La Spina’s own work.In an email to The Verge, developer Riley Testut said the app is an unauthorized clone of GBA4iOS, the open-source emulator he created for iOS over a decade ago (and recently resurrected for the Vision Pro). He said his app uses the GNU GPLv2 license. A Mastodon user found that iGBA does not reference the license, which may violate its terms.Despite that, he says it’s Apple he’s frustrated with, not La Spina.Testut also provided... Continue reading…

As the default web browser on Mac, Safari has received a steady stream of updates over the last few years. Apple releases new builds for all its apps and services with yearly OS updates. While we applaud Safari improvements on Mac, the burning question remains the same: is it good enough to prevent users from switching to Chrome? How does it compare to everyone’s favorite web browser out there? Read our comparison post before you change the default browser on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad.

The Flipper Zero is essentially a Swiss army knife of hacking, and that's great because it draws attention to how insecure some of the world around us can be. One feature that it's particularly lauded for is its ability to act as a BadUSB, where it can tell your computer that it's a keyboard. From there, it can simulate user inputs, and run anything that can be done with just a keyboard.