Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Twitch has introduced new policy and moderation updates that aim to help curb sexual harassment. The streaming platform announced in a blog post that it has made its sexual harassment policy “easier to understand” by more clearly outlining prohibited conduct. Twitch’s moderation tools will now also allow streamers to more easily filter out inappropriate chat messages.Twitch says the policy itself is “largely unchanged,” but now better defines what the Amazon-owned company considers sexual harassment — including “non-physical behaviors of a sexual nature” that would make users feel degraded, uncomfortable, or generally unwelcome on the platform.“We prohibit unwanted comments — including comments made using emojis/emotes — regarding... Continue reading…

Cloud providers are an essential service, and they provide us with comfort in knowing that our data is safe and secure in an off-site location away from us, while also providing a huge amount of storage without needing to take up space in your own home. However, it has arguably gotten to the point where we're too reliant on cloud storage, and there are a few reasons why.

Image: The Verge A global IT outage grounded flights and resulted in outages at the London Stock Exchange and other systems early Friday morning. Continue reading…

Image: The Verge CrowdStrike has published a post incident review (PIR) of the buggy update it published that took down 8.5 million Windows machines last week. The detailed post blames a bug in test software for not properly validating the content update that was pushed out to millions of machines on Friday. CrowdStrike is promising to more thoroughly test its content updates, improve its error handling, and implement a staggered deployment to avoid a repeat of this disaster.CrowdStrike’s Falcon software is used by businesses around the world to help manage against malware and security breaches on millions of Windows machines. On Friday, CrowdStrike issued a content configuration update for its software that was supposed to “gather telemetry on possible... Continue reading…

Trucks near a warehouse in San Bernardino County, California | Image: Wes Reel  / The Verge The data is in, and it shows a significant rise in air pollution where e-retailers build their warehouses, and the neighborhoods hit the hardest have more people of color living in them.Warehouses have mushroomed across the US with the rise of e-commerce — creeping closer to Americans’ homes and becoming more common than office buildings. They’re there to store, sort, and send off packages that wind up at our doorsteps seemingly out of thin air. In reality, that flurry of activity sends fleets of trucks and delivery vehicles through communities, affecting neighborhoods closest to warehouses the most.“I would argue that it’s a very meaningful, impactful amount.”The first nationwide study of its kind linked truck traffic from warehouses... Continue reading…

Little phone, how I miss you. | Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge We’ve already heard rumblings about an iPhone Slim model taking the place of the iPhone Plus in 2025, making it the iPhone 17 Slim. Now, a new report from Apple supply chain expert Ming-Chi Kuo corroborates earlier claims, suggesting that the company’s incredible shapeshifting non-Pro iPhone is about to evolve yet again.Kuo agrees it will come with a 6.6-inch screen and adds that it’ll have just one rear-facing camera along with the company’s beleaguered in-house 5G chip. Kuo says that the Slim model won’t be a direct replacement for the Plus; instead, it represents “new design trends beyond the existing iPhone lineup.” That tracks with rumors that it might cost more than the $1,200 Pro Max.Apple has had one heck of a time trying to... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge More than 500 developers at Blizzard Entertainment who work on World of Warcraft have voted to form a union. The World of Warcraft GameMakers Guild, formed with the assistance of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), is composed of employees across every department, including designers, engineers, artists, producers, and more. Together, they have formed the largest wall-to-wall union — or a union inclusive of multiple departments and disciplines — at Microsoft. This news comes less than a week after the formation of the Bethesda Game Studios union, which, at the time of the announcement, was itself the largest wall-to-wall Microsoft union. In a statement emailed to The Verge, Microsoft spokesperson Delaney Simmons wrote, “We... Continue reading…

In venture capital, you are what you fund. | Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge Two of Silicon Valley’s famous venture capitalists made a case for backing Trump: that their ability to make money is the only value that matters. Continue reading…

Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images Will the Tesla robotaxi have a steering wheel or not? Elon Musk won’t say. The Tesla CEO dodged several questions during an earnings call Tuesday about the status of the company’s long-promised autonomous vehicle, including whether it would have traditional controls like pedals and steering wheels. It’s an increasingly important question left hovering over Tesla’s robotaxi plans, which have been already been delayed to allow more work on the prototype. Theoretically, a steering wheel- and pedal-less vehicle could take months, if not years, to be approved for public roads. A more traditional looking vehicle, meanwhile, could be released a lot sooner. Theoretically, a steering wheel- and pedal-less vehicle could take months, if not... Continue reading…

Apple's iPads are some of the best tablets that you can buy. Not only do you get a fantastic hardware experience, but you also get excellent software support too. While investing in an iPad can be expensive, there are ways to get great deals on these products if you know where to look.

Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) will finally get its moment on the Senate floor this week after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) announced he’d move for a procedural vote on the bill as soon as Thursday. It fulfills a promise Schumer made to parent advocates who have championed the bill, which would impose a duty of care for online platforms to mitigate certain risks to kids. But the timing means that even if KOSA passes the Senate before the week is out, the House itself will only have a week to consider the measure, since the August recess is close at hand.At a press conference Tuesday, advocates and bill sponsors urged other senators to quickly vote to pass the bill, without other amendments that could stall its progress... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge Years after Twitter replaced the pistol emoji with a green-and-orange water gun, X has decided to change it back to a regular handgun. An X employee announced the change in a post last week.The company hasn’t explained the change, but it feels on-brand for Elon Musk’s social network. Twitter originally switched its emoji to display a water gun in 2018, following others like Google and Facebook. (Apple made the switch in 2016; Microsoft was a brief hold-out.) We’ve embedded a screenshot of the X post, so you can see the gun image. (On some devices, the actual post still shows a water gun when embedded.) Eventually, the Unicode Consortium, which decides which emoji get made in the first place, followed the... Continue reading…