Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The Securities and Exchange Commission has linked a SIM swapping attack to its account breach on X earlier this month, which led to the creation of a fake post announcing approval of Bitcoin ETFs that caused the cryptocurrency’s price to spike. In an update on Monday, the SEC says an “unauthorized party obtained control of the SEC cell phone number associated with the account in an apparent ‘SIM swap’ attack.”A SIM-swapping attack occurs when a bad actor obtains a victim’s phone number through techniques like social engineering. That allows the attacker to intercept calls and texts intended for the victim, including two-factor authentication codes, which they can then use to sign in to their victim’s accounts.In the SEC’s case, a bad... Continue reading…

Image: The Verge After last year saw over 9,000 layoffs in the video game industry, 2024 is continuing the trend, and League of Legends maker Riot Games is the latest example. On Monday night, the company announced that “we are refocusing on fewer, high-impact projects to move us toward a more sustainable future,” which means eliminating roles for 530 people globally, or about 11 percent of its total workforce. This news arrives just days after the results of a Game Developers Conference (GDC) survey showed 56 percent of respondents felt layoffs were in store for their studios due in large part to a “post-pandemic course correction.”Legends of Runeterra and Riot Forge cuts are part of the ‘adjustments’“Some of the significant investments we’ve made... Continue reading…

LG’s MyView smart monitor | LG Electronics You can now purchase the entire slate of LG’s webOS-powered MyView monitors, which debuted at CES earlier this month, including one with a 31.5-inch 4K IPS panel (model 32SR85U) that starts at $599.99. Sure, gamers can find better value for their money than a monitor that maxes out with 5ms response times and a 60Hz refresh rate, but visual creatives might appreciate a 95 percent DCI-P3 color gamut. And when your office work is done, you can fire up a full suite of entertainment apps or stream directly from another device with AirPlay 2 and Miracast support.It could be an ideal monitor for movie watching at your desk without loud fans (or Slack notifications) ruining the immersion, and it’s easier to fit into your home office than... Continue reading…

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) puts another layer between you and the internet at large to help keep your home network safe, but VPNs can also be used to bypass geographic blocks on things like Netflix that have different content for different regions. With a VPN, you can conceal your location by disguising your IP (internet protocol) address and encrypting all the data you send and receive over the internet. Of course, VPNs won't protect you from every threat (for more on that, check out our piece on common VPN misunderstandings), but working in tandem with security software like firewalls included with your router and devices, can help keep you safe online.

There's a good chance that if you've ever bought a new laptop or an off-the-shelf PC, you may have noticed that when you look in File Explorer, there are two drives listed, even if only one drive is mentioned on the spec sheet. That's because, many times, PC manufacturers create partitions — virtual divisions of a storage drive that act as individual drives themselves. There are valid reasons to want to have partitions on your PC, but for many, having the internal storage split into two drives may not make much sense. If you fall into that latter camp, you can delete a drive partition in Windows 11 so you can make your storage whole again.

The Apple Vision Pro starts shipping to U.S. customers in a few weeks. And as the hype builds up, some reviewers have had the opportunity to spend some more time with it. While plenty of positive remarks have been made about this upcoming spatial computer, some of its flaws are also starting to surface in both the software and hardware departments. Personally, I don't plan on buying Apple's Vision Pro. However, if Apple addresses some of my concerns, I could change my mind down the road.

LIFE habitat burst test | Sierra Space Sierra Space blew up its inflatable space habitat to test how much pressure it can handle. Dubbed LIFE, for Large Integrated Flexible Environment, it consists of “softgoods,” or woven fabrics that act like a rigid structure once inflated. The test focused on LIFE’s pressure shell, which is supposed to keep the habitat intact no matter the pressure it’s experiencing. This layer is made up of Vectran straps (the same material used for the Mars Rovers), which “becomes stronger than steel when inflated on-orbit,” and other high-strength fabrics. With the support of NASA, it pumped in air beyond the recommended level of 60.8 psi until the whole thing went kaboom. (The explosive ending starts at 5:55 in the video below.)The aerospace... Continue reading…

Image: MrBeast Exactly how much money can you make by uploading a video to X? The going assumption has been that X — like Twitter before it — is a poor platform for video creators that can’t compete with YouTube and TikTok in terms of monetization and reach. So there’s been a lot riding on the results of a recent test by MrBeast, who aimed to see whether he could actually make money on Elon Musk’s platform.Last week, MrBeast, real name Jimmy Donaldson, posted a video to Musk’s platform with the explicit goal of seeing “how much ad revenue a video on X would make.” Musk had previously encouraged MrBeast to post to X, and he sent out an excited message shortly after the test went up. “First MrBeast video posted directly on !” Musk wrote. Now, a week... Continue reading…

Image: PocketPair The Pokémon-like has sold over 5 million copies in the three days since its early access launch. Continue reading…

An electric delivery vehicle plugged into a new charging station at a USPS sorting and delivery center. | Image: Christian Lilakos The US Postal Service debuted its first EV charging stations in Atlanta, Georgia, today, the first of many expected to be deployed at “hundreds” of new sorting and delivery centers this year. It’s a key step in the Postal Service’s plan to put together one of the nation’s biggest EV fleets, made up of more than 66,000 delivery vehicles. “The work USPS is doing to electrify those vehicles is making EVs commonplace on every road and street in our country,” John Podesta, senior advisor to the president for clean energy innovation and implementation, said in a press release.“The work USPS is doing to electrify those vehicles is making EVs commonplace on every road and street in our country.”USPS is working on converting around 400 sites... Continue reading…

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Artists on Apple Music will earn a bonus payout of up to 10 percent in royalties for all songs that are also available in spatial audio. That’s according to an update sent to record label partners and seen by 9to5Mac. Quoted by Music Business Worldwide, it says that starting with January’s month-end payout, “pro-rata shares for Spatial Available plays will be calculated using a factor of 1.1 while Non-Spatial Available plays will continue to use a factor of 1.” Pro rata refers to the “one big pot” of pooled subscription money that’s divided based on the number of streams.Bloomberg reported in December that Apple planned to offer financial incentives for musicians and record labels to release songs in the Dolby Atmos-supported format.... Continue reading…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images And another one bites the dust — this time, it’s Google Podcasts, which is being discontinued in favor of YouTube Music.Back in 2018, Google moved its Play Music service over to YouTube, and while some people felt it was an improvement, others weren’t so thrilled. I have to say that I count myself among the latter; I usually listen to rather than watch my music, and I didn’t find the YouTube Music interface any kind of improvement. Now, as it tends to do, Google has decided to drop yet another of its apps and instead add those features to another service. It sent out an email to users announcing the move last September and has now sent another, offering tools that allow you to either migrate your subscription to YouTube Music or export... Continue reading…