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.

Image: Lucasfilm Disney Plus is on a run of turning Marvel and Star Wars stories into animated anthologies, and that’s not stopping anytime soon. The latest is Star Wars: Tales of the Empire, a follow-up to 2022’s Tales of the Jedi, which, naturally, explores the dark side of the Force. It starts streaming on Disney Plus on May 4th.The series will consist of six episodes, which will be split between two character perspectives: the Nightsister Morgan Elsbeth (who will be familiar to those who watched Ahsoka) and former Jedi Barriss Offee (previously featured in Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars). According to Disney, the series “focuses on previously untold events in the lives of the featured characters.”Tales of the Empire joins a growing list of... 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…

The Verge Floor-sweeping robots are only getting better, with new mopping skills, better navigation chops, and more automation, so less work for you. We picked nine of the best bots you can buy right now. Continue reading…

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…

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…

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…

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…

RISC-V is an open standard instruction set architecture that is most frequently positioned as a competitor to Arm. It's low power, it's aimed at smaller devices, and it's completely open for anyone to use and implement. That openness has led to concerns surrounding fragmentation, but by and large, the RISC-V community is pretty bullish on its capabilities. Now, X-Silicon has announced that it has created a new "C-GPU," which is a CPU core with GPU capabilities.

The new Surface Laptop 6 for Business is here, bringing the powerful Intel Core Ultra chipset to Microsoft's long-running line of mobile workstations. These are fantastic laptops for work and everyday use, and considering how light they are, you're going to want to carry yours around everywhere you go. That means you need to find a good laptop case for it. The Surface Laptop 6 for Business is available in 13.5 inches and 15 inches, which are pretty common sizes, so you've got a lot of options. To save you some time, we've already sorted through them all to bring you the best Surface Laptop 6 for Business cases, from simple sleeves to roomy shoulder bags and more.

Overclocking your CPU is a great way to get a few more years and slightly better performance from an older processor. With the price of newer CPUs, the way they are, simply upgrading your PC is not always an option for everyone. If this is a situation that you find yourself in, then you'll be happy to hear that you could easily improve many of your PC components by changing a few CPU settings. To do so is easy and the only requirement is that you have a relatively new CPU (made in the last 10–15 years) and a little bit of fine-tuning in the BIOS menu.

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.