The new Google Pixel 8 has everyone abuzz thanks to the upgrades over its predecessor, with just a $100 bump in the price tag. The Pixel 8 comes with a brand-new Tensor G3 chip, better cameras, and a brighter but slightly smaller screen.

Illustration: The Verge It’s been almost 10 months since a trial date was set in Epic’s antitrust lawsuit against Google, and with all of the other big tech cases going on right now, including Google’s other antitrust proceedings, you’d be forgiven for forgetting about this one. But believe it or not, the trial will start in less than a month, on November 6th, in the United States District Court in California’s Northern District.The court released a tentative list of witnesses, mostly executives and leads from both companies, on Thursday. Epic listed 53 witnesses it either will or might call, including Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Google and Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat, and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney. Andy Rubin, one of the co-founders of the Android... Continue reading…

Hisense’s latest entry-level model offers a lot for the price, including Mini LED backlighting and full-array local dimming. | Image: Hisense Happy Saturday, dear readers! As you might have seen, Amazon has already begun to roll out a bevy of deals and discounts ahead of its fall Prime Day event next week. However, Amazon isn’t the only retailer currently slinging noteworthy discounts on Echo speakers, robot vacuums, and 4K TVs. Best Buy is also matching many of Amazon’s current promos, including Amazon’s terrific discount on the Hisense U6K, which drops the 55-inch TV down to just under $400 ($80 off).Although TCL TVs have been the go-to budget recommendation for the last decade or so, Hisense has really upped the ante in recent years. The U6K Series is a great example of a 4K ULED TV that punches above its weight with great color and contrast, low input lag, and Google’s... Continue reading…

Temperature sensor. Temperature sensor? Temperature sensor. | Image: Google The Pixel 8 Pro has an infrared temperature sensor. Why does the Pixel 8 Pro have a temperature sensor? For an unusual feature on a $1,000 flagship phone, Google really isn’t saying much about it. The Pixel 8 Pro announcement mentions it almost in passing: And on the back of the Pixel 8 Pro, a new temperature sensor lets you quickly scan an object to get its temperature. Use it to check if your pan is hot enough to start cooking or if the milk in your baby’s bottle is at the right temperature. We’ve also submitted an application to the FDA, to enable Pixel’s Thermometer App to take your temperature and save it to Fitbit.Any off-the-shelf infrared thermometer can tell you the temperature of a hot pan or a baby bottle. But the instant... Continue reading…

Image: GKids The setup of Blue Giant is familiar anime territory: a young boy from a small town moves to Tokyo to pursue his dream. This boy, Dai, is a saxophone obsessive. He practices all day under a bridge, honking and warbling until he wears out his reed. Naturally, Dai wants to be the greatest jazz musician in the world.For all his audacious ambition, Blue Giant is largely restrained. The movie focuses on the trio that forms the band — and even shifts its attention away from Dai at around the halfway mark. There’s also Sawabe, a savvy and smug pianist who knows how the club performance circuit operates. And then there’s Dai’s roommate, Tamada, a high school friend who improbably becomes the band’s rhythm section after trying the drums just... Continue reading…

Illustration: Beatrice Sala 23andMe posted a blog yesterday saying that data from users of its genetic testing and analysis platform has been circulating on dark web forums after hackers used recycled logins to gain access to get into accounts. BleepingComputer wrote on Thursday that a hacker leaked what they said was “1 million lines of data” for Ashkenazi Jewish people before saying they would sell stolen 23andMe data for $1 – $10 per account. The data includes users’ names, profile photos, genetic ancestry results, date of birth, and geographical location.The company confirmed to BleepingComputer that the data is legitimate in a statement it also shared in an email to The Verge. In the statement, 23andMe managing editor Scott Hadly wrote that "the preliminary... Continue reading…

Image: Neon Before Anatomy of a Fall gives us a body, we get a booming steel drum cover of 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.” It’s coming from upstairs, where Sandra’s (Sandra Hüller) husband is insulating the attic. But he’s playing the music loudly — possibly out of spite. Sandra is downstairs answering a grad student’s questions about her career as a successful novelist, speaking pretentiously, and predictably, about how reality informs her fiction. Samuel (Samuel Theis), the husband, is also a writer but has never been able to publish a book. Blasting horrible music is perhaps how he expresses that bitterness to his wife. An hour later, he’ll be found outside, head cracked open after tumbling from the third floor.That’s the initial assumption at least. But... Continue reading…

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge The issueYou may have noticed recently that of the tabs on your Chrome browser have circles around the tab’s icon and that the icon itself is smaller and slightly faded. What’s that all about — and can I change them back? You can see how much memory has been freed up by hovering your cursor over the inactive tab. Quick fixChrome’s recent Memory Saver feature, according to Google, “automatically frees up memory from tabs you haven’t used in a while.” The circled tab icons indicate which tabs are currently inactive. To make them active again, you just have to click on them.The full storyI have a tendency to use a lot of tabs over the course of a working day — and I’m sure a lot of our readers do the same. Some of... Continue reading…

Image: Ubisoft A richly constructed world and a pared-down gameplay experience refocusing on stealth and assassinations don’t save a game that is largely just okay. Continue reading…

Illustration: The Verge Mashable reports that users on X, formerly known as Twitter, have seen unlabeled ads in their feeds while scrolling through the company’s mobile apps. When users tap them, they’re taken to other websites, with no way to block or report them. Unlike normal ads that are just posts from company X accounts and have an “Ad” label, these new ones have no account associated with them. Here, this post shows what they look like:This is new. A Twitter ad without an account attached that I can’t block or interact with. Glitch or trial balloon? pic.twitter.com/Nn05vJGkeb— I Hate My Favourite Teams (@CarcelMousineau) September 30, 2023If you’re just scrolling, the embedded image and clickbait-style text might make you think it’s just another... Continue reading…

Photo illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge; Photo by Sean Gladwell / Getty Images A home for music diehards has been fractured by increased fees that are pushing sellers and shoppers to other platforms. Continue reading…

Apple Music is one of the most prominent subscription services offered by the iPhone maker. It first launched back in mid-2015 and has received some major upgrades throughout the past eight years. Today's it's Spotify's biggest rival, offering an extensive catalog of lossless music, in addition to tens of thousands of curated playlists. So, how did Apple Music get here? Let's take a walk down memory lane.