The handheld gaming market is booming, with products ranging from the Steam Deck to the Analogue Pocket offering diverse ways to game on the go. Many of the biggest names in the gaming industry have released a gaming handheld, including Valve, Asus, Lenovo, and MSI. For now, Microsoft is on the outside looking in, but it might not be that way for long. In a recent interview with Polygon at this year's Game Developers Conference, Xbox chief Phil Spencer described how the company might be able to improve on current PC gaming handheld offerings. While nothing is confirmed yet, Spencer's comments reveal that leadership at Xbox is seriously exploring the handheld form factor.

Products on a conveyor belt are scanned at an Amazon fulfillment center, where they are being sorted and shipped out during Cyber Monday on November 27th, 2023, in Tampa, Florida. | Photo by Octavio Jones / Getty Images Despite making pledges to cut down on plastic packaging, a new report from the nonprofit conservation organization Oceana estimates that Amazon’s plastic waste has continued to grow in the US. The company created 208 million pounds of plastic waste from its packaging in the US in 2022 alone, which Oceana says is enough trash to circle Earth more than 200 times in the form of plastic air pillows. That’s a nearly 10 percent jump from the amount of plastic waste it generated the year before, according to the report. The US is a worrying outlier for Amazon, Oceana says. Globally, the e-commerce giant says that it reduced its use of plastic packaging 11.6 percent in 2022 compared to the prior year. But the US is the company’s biggest... Continue reading…

I can understand the appeal of online FPS calculators — simply mention your PC specs and the website will spit out the FPS you can expect. If only it were that simple. FPS calculators are a dime a dozen but what's consistent across them is that they're mostly useless if you want any reliable data. When you're building a PC and are unsure of what gaming performance you can expect, there are far better sources you can use.

What does 3D NAND or TLC NAND mean? How do you choose the best SSD for your PC? These questions may burn in the minds of those seeking additional storage, which is where this explainer piece will help clear up some of the jargon. I'll run through what a solid-state drive (SSD) is, how it works compared to a mechanical hard drive, and what you need to know about choosing the right one based on published specifications.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 on October 14th, 2025, and you’ll need to pay yearly if you want to continue using the operating system securely. Microsoft will offer Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows 10 users, with pricing starting at $61 for the first year.The pricing for additional security updates will be offered to consumers for the first time ever with Windows 10. Businesses and consumers will need to purchase ESU licenses for each Windows 10 device they plan to keep using after the end of support cutoff date next year.For businesses, the first year is priced at $61. It then doubles to $122 for the second year and then doubles again in year three to $244. If you enter into the ESU program in year two, you’ll... Continue reading…

Building a PC may seem daunting, especially if you're new to the world of desktops, but it isn't as complicated as you might think. Putting all the parts together and assembling them in the case, however, is only half the task. The real challenge is to ensure you're getting all the connections correct before you finally get to cable management. If this is your first time building a PC, and you're wondering how to connect your new graphics card (GPU) to the excellent power supply (PSU), then you've come to the right place.

Getting an AI-generated image just right can be annoying. Sometimes it's just missing one extra detail, but if you ask the AI to generate that additional detail, it will instead redraw the entire thing. Fortunately, OpenAI has worked out a way that lets you tweak an image without having to redo the entire thing. Now when you use DALL-E 3 on ChatGPT, you can highlight areas you want to change and tell the AI what you want done.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Google is suing two alleged crypto scammers, accusing them of using its Play Store to offer fraudulent cryptocurrency trading apps and investment platforms that instead simply took users’ money. These apps were used in a type of romance scam commonly called “pig butchering” in reference to fattening a pig before it’s slaughtered.The accused scammers — two app developers based in China and Hong Kong — allegedly uploaded 87 different fraudulent apps to enable their schemes, luring in more than 100,000 people who downloaded them. Based on user complaints, Google alleges that users lost anywhere from $100 to tens of thousands of dollars each. Apps uploaded by the pair and their unnamed associates have been used in versions of the scam since... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Just as Elon Musk said, X is doling out free Premium and Premium Plus memberships to accounts with a high number of verified followers. Multiple X users on Wednesday reported seeing the familiar blue “Verified” checkmark next to their handles despite not paying for either paid X subscription tier. Musk last week announced that X accounts with over 2,500 “verified subscriber followers” would receive a free Premium membership; while accounts with over 5,000 would receive a free Premium Plus membership.based on all the confused tweets i’m seeing, it looks like Twitter / X is starting to really ramp up the roll out of this nowif you suddenly have a blue checkmark even though you’re not paying for one, this is why: p... Continue reading…

The Roomba Combo Essential is available now for $275. | Image: iRobot iRobot is adding two new budget-friendly robot vacuum cleaners to its lineup that aim to provide the best of the cleaning basics, offering both vacuum-only and 2-in-1 vacuum plus mop models for less than $300. Superseding the Roomba 694, iRobot claims the new $275 Roomba Combo Essential vacuum and mop model offers 20x more suction power than its predecessor and increases estimated battery life from 90 minutes to 120 minutes on a full charge.The liquid and suction settings on the Combo Essential can be adjusted between three levels. It also features a V-shaped multi-surface brush, an edge-sweeping brush, and a pump-fed microfiber mop pad for use across different surfaces. Additional features include suggested cleaning schedules based on... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Apple’s online services were hit with an outage that cut many of us off from the App Store, Apple TV, and Apple Music on Wednesday night. The system status page for Apple’s online service noted an outage beginning at 6:31PM ET affecting those services, as well as Arcade, Audiobooks, Books, Podcasts, Fitness Plus, and its new Apple Sports app. Now, the status page lists them all as “outage resolved” as of 7:35PM ET, and they seem to be working again. The @AppleSupport account on X did not list a reason for the issues but directed users to check the status page for more information. Image: Apple.com On Downdetector, it looks like the first reports of issues started coming in just after 6PM ET. The Verge has contacted... Continue reading…

Although the Microsoft Store isn't quite as popular as some other digital storefronts out there, it is still Microsoft's recommended way to download apps securely. To get customers to use the Microsoft Store more frequently as a part of their daily routines, the Redmond tech firm consistently adds new features and enhancements to its storefront. Now, it has announced that it is previewing some significant performance gains in the app for Windows 11 Insiders.