Please don’t sign up for this program. | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Telegram is offering a new way to earn a premium subscription free of charge: all you have to do is volunteer your phone number to relay one-time passwords (OTP) to other users. This, in fact, sounds like an awful idea — particularly for a messaging service based around privacy.X user @AssembleDebug spotted details about the new program on the English-language version of a popular Russian-language Telegram information channel. Sure enough, there’s a section in Telegram’s terms of service outlining the new “Peer-to-Peer Login” or P2PL program, which is currently only offered on Android and in certain (unspecified) locations. By opting in to the program, you agree to let Telegram use your phone number to send up to 150 texts with OTPs to... Continue reading…

Photo by Perry Knotts / Getty Images The NFL will hold its first regular-season game in São Paulo, Brazil, later this year — but you’ll need a Peacock subscription to tune in. Peacock will exclusively air the game on Friday, September 6th, featuring the Philadelphia Eagles and a not-yet-named opponent.This marks the third football game to stream only on Peacock, as the streaming service previously aired an NFL playoff match last January. It also aired an AFC Wild Card game last year that it says was the “most-streamed event ever in the US.”Peacock has other big games lined up, too, but it will stream them alongside NBC. There’s the NFL kickoff game on September 5th, a Big Ten Saturday Night game on September 7th, and the season’s first NFL Sunday Night Football game on... Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Microsoft is naming Pavan Davuluri as its new Windows and Surface chief today. After Panos Panay’s surprise departure to Amazon last year, Microsoft split up the Windows and Surface groups under two different leaders. Davuluri took over the Surface silicon and devices work, with Mikhail Parakhin leading a new team focused on Windows and web experiences. Now both Windows and Surface will be Davuluri’s responsibility, as Parakhin has “decided to explore new roles.”The Verge has obtained an internal memo from Rajesh Jha, Microsoft’s head of experiences and devices, outlining the new Windows organization. Microsoft is now bringing together its Windows and devices teams once more. “This will enable us to take a holistic approach to building... Continue reading…

Affinity’s professional design software could give Canva the edge it needs to seriously compete against Adobe. | Image: Canva Web-based design platform Canva has acquired the Affinity creative software suite, positioning itself as a challenger to Adobe’s grip over the digital design industry. Canva announced the deal on Tuesday, which gives the company ownership over Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher — three popular creative applications for Windows, Mac, and iPad that provide similar features to Adobe’s Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign software, respectively.Official figures for the deal have not been revealed, but Bloomberg reports that it’s valued at “several hundred million [British] pounds.” Nevertheless, the acquisition makes sense as the Australian-based company tries to attract more creative professionals. As of January this year, Canva’s... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Microsoft is starting to preview mouse and keyboard support for Xbox Cloud Gaming today. Xbox Insiders will be able to start playing with their mouse and keyboard in Edge, Chrome, or the Xbox app on Windows PCs, nearly two years after Microsoft announced it was preparing to add mouse and keyboard support to its Xbox Cloud Gaming (xCloud) service.Not every game will be supported during the preview, but there’s a large selection, including Fortnite, Sea of Thieves, and Halo Infinite. Microsoft warns that some games will display controller UI elements briefly before adapting to mouse and keyboard input after you start interacting with the game.If you’re interested in trying games with mouse and keyboard in the browser version of Xbox... Continue reading…

Illustration by Vincent Kilbride The AI search tools are getting better — but they don’t yet understand what a search engine really is and how we really use them. Continue reading…

The competition between AMD and Intel continues to simmer away, providing great processors for us to test and use inside more powerful systems. AMD's Ryzen chips are built on a more efficient platform, allowing the company to draw out more performance without sucking too much power. Intel is struggling with this in its fabrication plants, but we're hopeful about the upcoming 15th-gen Arrow Lake launch. Intel needs to have a successful launch to bring it back to AMD and maintain healthy competition and here's everything we know.

At XDA, we're big fans of customization tools that let you make the most of your Windows PC. And one of the very best you can get has to be Start11, an app developed by Stardock that allows you to radically change your Windows 11 Start menu to suit your style and needs.

Amazon’s latest Kindle Kids comes with perks the standard version lacks, including a protective case and an extended two-year warranty. | Image: Kindle Kids For some reason, Kindle deals have been hard to come by in the past few months, but now the tide appears to be turning. We recently highlighted several Kindle Scribe deals, but if you’re looking for something more budget-friendly, the 2022 Kindle Kids is also on sale. For the first time since Black Friday, the kid-friendly version of my favorite budget e-reader is on sale for $99.99 ($20 off) at Amazon and Best Buy. While $20 shy of the all-time low we last saw in October, it’s still one of its better prices to date.Although the Kindle Kids is a kid-friendly e-reader, it works just as well for parents or adults without children. That’s because it’s identical to the standard ad-free Kindle in that it offers the same crisp 300ppi... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Audible will co-develop and co-produce TV shows adapted from original podcasts and audiobooks with Amazon MGM Studios that it can pitch to Prime Video and MGM Plus, as well as buyers outside of Amazon. The news was first reported by Variety. Adapting recognizable podcast IP with a built-in audience is usually a safe bet for Hollywood. Chris Morrow, the head of audio at the production company Plan B, which signed a multi-project development with Audible last year, noted to The Verge that the goal was to use audio to “help launch IP, and then ultimately find new life for it as scripted features or scripted documentaries.”A number of originals from both of Amazon Music’s podcast properties, Audible and Wondery, have turned into TV shows... Continue reading…

Apple will be playing AI catch-up at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which starts with the keynote on June 10th and runs through June 14th. The company typically focuses on its planned fall software updates and announces some new hardware, and this year shouldn’t be any different. But, going into this year, there’s a lot of mystery around what the company has to say about its approach to generative artificial intelligence.Apple has reportedly been spending millions a day to train its own models and rumor has it that it’s also been courting news outlets for training content partnerships. But other recent reports have suggested that it may cut a deal with Google, OpenAI, or Anthropic (or Baidu in China) to supply... Continue reading…

Image: Nissan Nissan has laid out a new plan to electrify 16 of the 30 vehicles it produces by 2026, with the rest using internal combustion instead. For those of us in North America, the company says it plans to release seven new vehicles in the US and Canada, although it’s not clear how many of those will be some type of EV.Nissan says the US is getting “e-POWER and plug-in hybrid models” — each of those uses a mix of electricity and fuel for power. At the moment, the only all-electric EVs Nissan is producing are the Ariya SUV and the perhaps endangered (or maybe not) Leaf.In 2021, Nissan said it would make 23 electrified vehicles by 2030, and that 15 of those would be fully electric, rather than some form of hybrid vehicle. It’s hard to say if... Continue reading…