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Image: EA

MySims is back, and it’s coming to the Nintendo Switch. A new bundle featuring revamped versions of EA’s MySims and MySims Kingdom will revive the classic simulation titles with Switch-optimized controls and updated textures.
If you’ve never played MySims, it’s sort of like a cross between The Sims and Animal Crossing. In the mainline game, you’re tasked with rebuilding a run-down town by procuring blueprints, constructing houses, and making furniture to attract new residents. Each character has their own unique characteristics, like the bug-loving Gertrude Spackle and Yuki, who often threatens to bite your face for some reason.
MySims launched on the Wii and Nintendo DS in 2007 before arriving on PC and Blackberry. MySims Kingdom, which switches up the original gameplay by putting you inside a royal setting, launched on the Wii and Nintendo DS a year later. There have been several other entries in the series as well, including MySims Agents, MySims Party, MySims Racing, and MySims SkyHeroes.
It feels like it’s been ages since I got my hands on a MySims game, and I’m excited to jump back in. I just kind of wish EA created a new entry with refreshed stories and characters specifically for the Switch, instead of simply remastering the old games. But, hey, maybe that will happen down the line. There’s been a lot going on with The Sims franchise as of late — along with MySims, EA is also working on a new free-to-play Sims game, codenamed Project Rene.
MySims: Cozy Bundle launches on the Nintendo Switch on November 19th, and preorders are available starting today.

Image: EA

MySims is back, and it’s coming to the Nintendo Switch. A new bundle featuring revamped versions of EA’s MySims and MySims Kingdom will revive the classic simulation titles with Switch-optimized controls and updated textures.

If you’ve never played MySims, it’s sort of like a cross between The Sims and Animal Crossing. In the mainline game, you’re tasked with rebuilding a run-down town by procuring blueprints, constructing houses, and making furniture to attract new residents. Each character has their own unique characteristics, like the bug-loving Gertrude Spackle and Yuki, who often threatens to bite your face for some reason.

MySims launched on the Wii and Nintendo DS in 2007 before arriving on PC and Blackberry. MySims Kingdom, which switches up the original gameplay by putting you inside a royal setting, launched on the Wii and Nintendo DS a year later. There have been several other entries in the series as well, including MySims Agents, MySims Party, MySims Racing, and MySims SkyHeroes.

It feels like it’s been ages since I got my hands on a MySims game, and I’m excited to jump back in. I just kind of wish EA created a new entry with refreshed stories and characters specifically for the Switch, instead of simply remastering the old games. But, hey, maybe that will happen down the line. There’s been a lot going on with The Sims franchise as of late — along with MySims, EA is also working on a new free-to-play Sims game, codenamed Project Rene.

MySims: Cozy Bundle launches on the Nintendo Switch on November 19th, and preorders are available starting today.

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Travis and Jason Kelce after the 2024 AFC Championship. | Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images

Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and his brother Jason have inked a $100 million deal to hand over distribution of their sports podcast series, New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce, to Amazon’s Wondery publisher, reports The Wall Street Journal. The deal gives subscribers to Wondery Plus “early and ad-free” access to the popular series, Amazon announced.
Wondery Plus subscribers will also get a once-a-year livestream of the Kelces’ show, according to the Journal. Otherwise, folks who listen to New Heights (which launched in 2022 and has since become one of the top US podcasts) on other platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch it on YouTube, probably won’t notice much of a difference.

Excited for @newheightshow to join the #Wondery Family! New Episodes drop on Wednesday starting tomorrow! https://t.co/cm9H7B0OaS pic.twitter.com/maeh9KHw7e— Wondery (@WonderyMedia) August 27, 2024

“Wondery understands the shared vision and will offer a wealth of experience and resources to take us to new heights,” said the two cohosts in Amazon’s announcement. “We are going to create some groundbreaking moments together through this partnership.” The brothers Kelce will give Wondery opportunities for other live events and first dibs on any product lines either of them decides to introduce, the Journal writes.
Podcast deals like this, which lack the total exclusivity of Spotify’s older deals, include Call Her Daddy and SmartLess, both of which SiriusXM nabbed this year. New Heights joins other Wondery Plus early access shows like Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert, which Wondery secured distribution rights for in July.

Travis and Jason Kelce after the 2024 AFC Championship. | Photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images

Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce, and his brother Jason have inked a $100 million deal to hand over distribution of their sports podcast series, New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce, to Amazon’s Wondery publisher, reports The Wall Street Journal. The deal gives subscribers to Wondery Plus “early and ad-free” access to the popular series, Amazon announced.

Wondery Plus subscribers will also get a once-a-year livestream of the Kelces’ show, according to the Journal. Otherwise, folks who listen to New Heights (which launched in 2022 and has since become one of the top US podcasts) on other platforms like Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or watch it on YouTube, probably won’t notice much of a difference.

“Wondery understands the shared vision and will offer a wealth of experience and resources to take us to new heights,” said the two cohosts in Amazon’s announcement. “We are going to create some groundbreaking moments together through this partnership.” The brothers Kelce will give Wondery opportunities for other live events and first dibs on any product lines either of them decides to introduce, the Journal writes.

Podcast deals like this, which lack the total exclusivity of Spotify’s older deals, include Call Her Daddy and SmartLess, both of which SiriusXM nabbed this year. New Heights joins other Wondery Plus early access shows like Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert, which Wondery secured distribution rights for in July.

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Photo by Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge

The Biden administration says that the number of EV charging stations in the US has doubled since 2021 as it announces another round of grants for states looking to install more charging locations.
The administration claims that there are now over 192,000 publicly available charging ports in the US, with approximately 1,000 new public chargers being added each week. That’s up from approximately 100,000 ports that were in operation at the outset of 2021 when President Joe Biden first took office.
EV charging is often held up as a culprit in the frustratingly slow adoption of electric vehicles in the United States, with EV owners frequently citing in surveys infrequent charging or broken equipment as one of the pain points in their experience. That said, the charging experience has improved in recent years, as thousands of new chargers have come online.
The administration claims that there are now over 192,000 publicly available charging ports in the US
Since his election, Biden has vowed to build 500,000 chargers by 2030 as a way to spur more EV sales, including $7.5 billion for charging expansion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. But the process has been slow going; in March, The Washington Post reported that only seven charging stations with 38 ports have been opened under the administration’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program. (A spokesperson for the Federal Highway Administration did not respond to a request for updated figures.)
Today, the administration is releasing an additional $521 million to 30 states for further charging installation. The awards are for state programs that missed out on the first round of funding and reapplied for round two.
According to the Electrification Coalition, which tracks EV funding, many of the projects receiving funding are focused on “creating access to charging for rural areas, disadvantaged communities and multi-unit dwellings, as well as charging for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.” In total, the money will go toward the creation of “more than” 9,200 new charging ports across the US, according to the Federal Highway Administration.
Examples include $102 million to the California Department of Transportation to build both EV charging and hydrogen fueling for freight hauling along 2,500 miles of highways. The Maryland Clean Energy Center will receive $33 million for EV charging in “rural, urban, and disadvantaged communities.” And the Seminole Tribe of Florida will get $933,600 to build seven charging stations across the reservation.
The funding push comes as many automakers have responded to slower-than-expected EV sales growth by canceling models or stretching out timelines. EV sales are still ticking upward, but the lack of affordable models and lingering charging headaches are still helping to depress growth.

Photo by Andrew J. Hawkins / The Verge

The Biden administration says that the number of EV charging stations in the US has doubled since 2021 as it announces another round of grants for states looking to install more charging locations.

The administration claims that there are now over 192,000 publicly available charging ports in the US, with approximately 1,000 new public chargers being added each week. That’s up from approximately 100,000 ports that were in operation at the outset of 2021 when President Joe Biden first took office.

EV charging is often held up as a culprit in the frustratingly slow adoption of electric vehicles in the United States, with EV owners frequently citing in surveys infrequent charging or broken equipment as one of the pain points in their experience. That said, the charging experience has improved in recent years, as thousands of new chargers have come online.

Since his election, Biden has vowed to build 500,000 chargers by 2030 as a way to spur more EV sales, including $7.5 billion for charging expansion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. But the process has been slow going; in March, The Washington Post reported that only seven charging stations with 38 ports have been opened under the administration’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program. (A spokesperson for the Federal Highway Administration did not respond to a request for updated figures.)

Today, the administration is releasing an additional $521 million to 30 states for further charging installation. The awards are for state programs that missed out on the first round of funding and reapplied for round two.

According to the Electrification Coalition, which tracks EV funding, many of the projects receiving funding are focused on “creating access to charging for rural areas, disadvantaged communities and multi-unit dwellings, as well as charging for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles.” In total, the money will go toward the creation of “more than” 9,200 new charging ports across the US, according to the Federal Highway Administration.

Examples include $102 million to the California Department of Transportation to build both EV charging and hydrogen fueling for freight hauling along 2,500 miles of highways. The Maryland Clean Energy Center will receive $33 million for EV charging in “rural, urban, and disadvantaged communities.” And the Seminole Tribe of Florida will get $933,600 to build seven charging stations across the reservation.

The funding push comes as many automakers have responded to slower-than-expected EV sales growth by canceling models or stretching out timelines. EV sales are still ticking upward, but the lack of affordable models and lingering charging headaches are still helping to depress growth.

Read More 

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Sony will now let you customize your PlayStation 5’s DualSense Edge controller on your PC. The new Accessories app for Windows lets you customize button assignments, change stick sensitivity, adjust trigger deadzones, and more.
This replaces the “Firmware updater for DualSense wireless controller” app introduced in 2022. It takes things a step further by letting you customize your DualSense Edge controller the same way you would on your PlayStation 5. Like the outgoing app, you can still use Accessories to update the firmware on the DualSense Edge and the standard DualSense from your PC.

Starting today PC gamers can unleash the full customizable power of the DualSense Edge controller directly on their computer.With the PlayStation Accessories app, customize the controller’s settings and update its firmware directly from your Windows PC: https://t.co/QoPFGu8qC7 pic.twitter.com/FQHNkkfbSf— PlayStation (@PlayStation) August 27, 2024

Sony has already ported several of its top titles to PC, with the most recent additions including Horizon Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and The Last of Us Part I. It even released a PC adapter for its PSVR 2 virtual reality headset (although Sony still needs to iron out some kinks).
But with the launch of the Accessories app, it seems Sony is getting serious about bringing more tools to manage your account and device settings from your PC. Earlier this year, Sony also launched a PlayStation PC overlay that lets you view your friends list, Trophies, settings, and your PlayStation account — but it’s only available with Ghost of Tsushima to start.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Sony will now let you customize your PlayStation 5’s DualSense Edge controller on your PC. The new Accessories app for Windows lets you customize button assignments, change stick sensitivity, adjust trigger deadzones, and more.

This replaces the “Firmware updater for DualSense wireless controller” app introduced in 2022. It takes things a step further by letting you customize your DualSense Edge controller the same way you would on your PlayStation 5. Like the outgoing app, you can still use Accessories to update the firmware on the DualSense Edge and the standard DualSense from your PC.

Sony has already ported several of its top titles to PC, with the most recent additions including Horizon Forbidden West, Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and The Last of Us Part I. It even released a PC adapter for its PSVR 2 virtual reality headset (although Sony still needs to iron out some kinks).

But with the launch of the Accessories app, it seems Sony is getting serious about bringing more tools to manage your account and device settings from your PC. Earlier this year, Sony also launched a PlayStation PC overlay that lets you view your friends list, Trophies, settings, and your PlayStation account — but it’s only available with Ghost of Tsushima to start.

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Phones have been getting wet for years — but now they’re getting better at dealing with it. | Photo: The Verge

Millions of viewers are turning to videos to get the water out of their phones. I tried to figure out whether they actually work. Every day for the last four years, dozens of people have shown up in the comments of one particular YouTube, declaring their love and appreciation for the content. The content: two minutes and six seconds of deep, low buzzing, the kind that makes your phone vibrate on the table, underscoring a vaguely trippy animation of swirled stained glass.
It’s not a good video. But it’s not meant to be. The video is called “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED ).” There are many others like it, too. And the comments — “the community,” as so many there refer to it — are almost all people who just got their phone wet in one way or another. “Walked through a river with the phone in my pocket,” one recent one says. “Yeah the steam from the shower is the reason I’m here,” says another. “Was using my phone in the shower this is a lifesaver.” They go on and on like this, many of them from repeat offenders. “We are back once again the 3rd time this month.” “its been 3 weeks and im back again.” “Dropped my shit in the shower AGAIN!”

For more on our wet phone mystery (and the future of AR headsets), check out this episode of The Vergecast.
If you believe the comments, about half the video’s 45 million views come from people who bring their phone into the shower or bathtub and trust that they can play this video and everything will be fine. I encountered it for the first time earlier this year after my nephew’s phone slipped out of his pocket and into a river near our Airbnb in a tiny town in Virginia. We semi-miraculously found his phone, then brought it inside and started trying to dry it off. A moment later, one of his friends just casually suggested playing “one of those videos that gets the water out.” We put on “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED ),” and ultimately, the phone was fine.
Ever since, I’ve been trying to figure out whether these videos really work. Are all these lucky shower scrollers just the beneficiaries of phones that have become far more waterproof and rugged in recent years? Or should we stop recommending rice and start recommending “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED )”?
The first thing I did was ask phone makers what they thought. No one at Apple, Google, or Samsung offered a more interesting answer than to point to a generic “what to do if your phone gets wet” support page, but a couple of other folks I talked to indicated they thought the theory seemed reasonable enough.

The theory goes like this: all a speaker is really doing is pushing air around, and if you can get it to push enough air, with enough force, you might be able to push droplets of liquid out from where they came. “The lowest tone that that speaker can reproduce, at the loudest level that it can play,” says Eric Freeman, a senior director of research at Bose. “That will create the most air motion, which will push on the water that’s trapped inside the phone.” Generally, the bigger the speaker, the louder and lower it can go. Phone speakers tend to be tiny. “So those YouTube videos,” Freeman says, “it’s not, like, really deep bass. But it’s in the low range of where a phone is able to make sound.”
The best real-world example of how this can work is probably the Apple Watch, which has a dedicated feature for ejecting water after you’ve gotten it wet. When I first reached out to iFixit to ask about my water-expulsion mystery, Carsten Frauenheim, a repairability engineer at the company, said the Watch works on the same theory as the videos. “It’s just a specific oscillating tone that pushes the water out of the speaker grilles,” he said. “Not sure how effective the third-party versions are for phones since they’re probably not ideally tuned? We could test.”
The company did, in fact, test. Shahram Mokhtari, iFixit’s lead teardown engineer, and Chayton Ritter, an engineering student who also works with iFixit’s editorial department, took four phones and got them wet. We went with an iPhone 13, a Pixel 7 Pro, a Pixel 3, and a Nokia 7.1, all chosen not scientifically but because they were the devices I had handy and was willing to destroy in the name of science. Each phone went into a UV bath for about a minute, after which Ritter took it out, tapped it to get some water out, played one of the water-ejection videos, and left it out overnight. The next day, he checked to see where there was still residue from the UV dye, an indication that liquid had gotten in and not come out.

Image: Chayton Ritter / iFixit
Four phones were dropped into this green sludge. For science.

The results were all over the place. The Pixel 7 Pro was essentially bone dry, the Nokia 7.1 was more or less ruined, and the iPhone 13 and Pixel 3 were somewhere in between. But these aren’t perfectly controlled tests, Mokhtari was careful to note: a phone’s seal can change over time or be broken in unnoticeable ways. He and Ritter both said emphatically that no matter what your phone maker advertises or what you’ve experienced before, it’s always a risk to get your phone wet. And it gets riskier over time.

Image: Chayton Ritter / iFixit
The inside of an iPhone 13, lit up with liquid residue. (All the green stuff is where liquid got in.)

As to the YouTube video’s role, though, the evidence was fairly clear. It works! A little. As he played the video on each phone, Ritter also took close-up video of the speaker on each phone, and in every case, the phone immediately blasted out a flurry of droplets. The effect didn’t last long, but it was clearly ejecting water that wasn’t coming out otherwise.
The videos weren’t a complete solution to the problem, though. A smartphone’s speaker seems to be powerful enough to push air out from right next to the speaker, but not to solve problems elsewhere in the device — particularly underneath the buttons, the USB port, or the SIM card slot, which were the other most common intrusion spots. And if it didn’t get the liquid out in that first burst, Ritter found it mostly just sloshed the droplets back and forth as the speaker moved. So, he says, “I say [the videos] kind of work. It can’t hurt, but I don’t see it being an end-all-be-all fix or a way to pull all the liquid out.”

Image: Chayton Ritter / iFixit
That burst of water comes right when the buzzing starts — but then stops pretty quickly.

That might be why companies like Apple and Samsung don’t offer water expulsion as a feature for their phones, when they do for their smartwatches. “There are fewer cavities and holes in the watches than there are on the phones, which allows them to design to push the water out from those cavities,” Mokhtari says. “On the phone, the speakers are located at the bottom and the top of the phone, which means you can’t get to cavities like the SIM card slot. It’s just not possible to push water out from those cavities.”
The good news for the shower scrollers is that phones really are getting more water-resistant: three of the four phones Ritter tested still worked fine, and the newest of them, the Pixel 7 Pro, had no lingering liquid at all. The bad news is that there’s no guarantee they’ll stay water-resistant forever. And the really bad news is that if you’re showering with your phone, you’re tempting fate even more. “I don’t know what other stuff is in shampoo,” Ritter says, “but it’s probably more conductive — very rarely are you getting what amounts to perfectly fresh water inside of your iPhone.”
So, sure, bookmark a water-expulsion video, and load it up in case of emergency. Join the “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED )” community, where everyone seems to root for each other’s device survival. But don’t trust it too much. Everyone I talked to ended up offering the same bit of advice: just keep your phone out of the shower.

Phones have been getting wet for years — but now they’re getting better at dealing with it. | Photo: The Verge

Millions of viewers are turning to videos to get the water out of their phones. I tried to figure out whether they actually work.

Every day for the last four years, dozens of people have shown up in the comments of one particular YouTube, declaring their love and appreciation for the content. The content: two minutes and six seconds of deep, low buzzing, the kind that makes your phone vibrate on the table, underscoring a vaguely trippy animation of swirled stained glass.

It’s not a good video. But it’s not meant to be. The video is called “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED ).” There are many others like it, too. And the comments — “the community,” as so many there refer to it — are almost all people who just got their phone wet in one way or another. “Walked through a river with the phone in my pocket,” one recent one says. “Yeah the steam from the shower is the reason I’m here,” says another. “Was using my phone in the shower this is a lifesaver.” They go on and on like this, many of them from repeat offenders. “We are back once again the 3rd time this month.” “its been 3 weeks and im back again.” “Dropped my shit in the shower AGAIN!”

For more on our wet phone mystery (and the future of AR headsets), check out this episode of The Vergecast.

If you believe the comments, about half the video’s 45 million views come from people who bring their phone into the shower or bathtub and trust that they can play this video and everything will be fine. I encountered it for the first time earlier this year after my nephew’s phone slipped out of his pocket and into a river near our Airbnb in a tiny town in Virginia. We semi-miraculously found his phone, then brought it inside and started trying to dry it off. A moment later, one of his friends just casually suggested playing “one of those videos that gets the water out.” We put on “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED ),” and ultimately, the phone was fine.

Ever since, I’ve been trying to figure out whether these videos really work. Are all these lucky shower scrollers just the beneficiaries of phones that have become far more waterproof and rugged in recent years? Or should we stop recommending rice and start recommending “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED )”?

The first thing I did was ask phone makers what they thought. No one at Apple, Google, or Samsung offered a more interesting answer than to point to a generic “what to do if your phone gets wet” support page, but a couple of other folks I talked to indicated they thought the theory seemed reasonable enough.

The theory goes like this: all a speaker is really doing is pushing air around, and if you can get it to push enough air, with enough force, you might be able to push droplets of liquid out from where they came. “The lowest tone that that speaker can reproduce, at the loudest level that it can play,” says Eric Freeman, a senior director of research at Bose. “That will create the most air motion, which will push on the water that’s trapped inside the phone.” Generally, the bigger the speaker, the louder and lower it can go. Phone speakers tend to be tiny. “So those YouTube videos,” Freeman says, “it’s not, like, really deep bass. But it’s in the low range of where a phone is able to make sound.”

The best real-world example of how this can work is probably the Apple Watch, which has a dedicated feature for ejecting water after you’ve gotten it wet. When I first reached out to iFixit to ask about my water-expulsion mystery, Carsten Frauenheim, a repairability engineer at the company, said the Watch works on the same theory as the videos. “It’s just a specific oscillating tone that pushes the water out of the speaker grilles,” he said. “Not sure how effective the third-party versions are for phones since they’re probably not ideally tuned? We could test.”

The company did, in fact, test. Shahram Mokhtari, iFixit’s lead teardown engineer, and Chayton Ritter, an engineering student who also works with iFixit’s editorial department, took four phones and got them wet. We went with an iPhone 13, a Pixel 7 Pro, a Pixel 3, and a Nokia 7.1, all chosen not scientifically but because they were the devices I had handy and was willing to destroy in the name of science. Each phone went into a UV bath for about a minute, after which Ritter took it out, tapped it to get some water out, played one of the water-ejection videos, and left it out overnight. The next day, he checked to see where there was still residue from the UV dye, an indication that liquid had gotten in and not come out.

The results were all over the place. The Pixel 7 Pro was essentially bone dry, the Nokia 7.1 was more or less ruined, and the iPhone 13 and Pixel 3 were somewhere in between. But these aren’t perfectly controlled tests, Mokhtari was careful to note: a phone’s seal can change over time or be broken in unnoticeable ways. He and Ritter both said emphatically that no matter what your phone maker advertises or what you’ve experienced before, it’s always a risk to get your phone wet. And it gets riskier over time.

As to the YouTube video’s role, though, the evidence was fairly clear. It works! A little. As he played the video on each phone, Ritter also took close-up video of the speaker on each phone, and in every case, the phone immediately blasted out a flurry of droplets. The effect didn’t last long, but it was clearly ejecting water that wasn’t coming out otherwise.

The videos weren’t a complete solution to the problem, though. A smartphone’s speaker seems to be powerful enough to push air out from right next to the speaker, but not to solve problems elsewhere in the device — particularly underneath the buttons, the USB port, or the SIM card slot, which were the other most common intrusion spots. And if it didn’t get the liquid out in that first burst, Ritter found it mostly just sloshed the droplets back and forth as the speaker moved. So, he says, “I say [the videos] kind of work. It can’t hurt, but I don’t see it being an end-all-be-all fix or a way to pull all the liquid out.”

That might be why companies like Apple and Samsung don’t offer water expulsion as a feature for their phones, when they do for their smartwatches. “There are fewer cavities and holes in the watches than there are on the phones, which allows them to design to push the water out from those cavities,” Mokhtari says. “On the phone, the speakers are located at the bottom and the top of the phone, which means you can’t get to cavities like the SIM card slot. It’s just not possible to push water out from those cavities.”

The good news for the shower scrollers is that phones really are getting more water-resistant: three of the four phones Ritter tested still worked fine, and the newest of them, the Pixel 7 Pro, had no lingering liquid at all. The bad news is that there’s no guarantee they’ll stay water-resistant forever. And the really bad news is that if you’re showering with your phone, you’re tempting fate even more. “I don’t know what other stuff is in shampoo,” Ritter says, “but it’s probably more conductive — very rarely are you getting what amounts to perfectly fresh water inside of your iPhone.”

So, sure, bookmark a water-expulsion video, and load it up in case of emergency. Join the “Sound To Remove Water From Phone Speaker ( GUARANTEED )” community, where everyone seems to root for each other’s device survival. But don’t trust it too much. Everyone I talked to ended up offering the same bit of advice: just keep your phone out of the shower.

Read More 

Image: The Verge

While we wait for a Switch 2 announcement, Nintendo is showing off 40 minutes of game announcements from indie developers and third-party partners. Even without a Switch 2 reveal, it’s been a busy period of announcements for Nintendo. There was a packed Direct in June filled with major reveals like Mario & Luigi: Brothership and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and last week, the company showed off its upcoming museum in Kyoto. Now we have a pair of events squashed together: the Indie World Showcase followed by a Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase.
Don’t expect any major first-party titles during either stream — sorry, Metroid fans — and Nintendo has confirmed it won’t be talking about its next console. Even still, there will likely be a lot on display. Nintendo says that the events will last around 40 minutes combined, which is a lot of airtime for video game trailers. (Here’s what went down at the spring Indie World Showcase for an idea of what to expect.)
Things kick off on August 27th at 10AM ET. You can follow along with all of the biggest announcements right here in the stream, and watch along at the embed below.

Image: The Verge

While we wait for a Switch 2 announcement, Nintendo is showing off 40 minutes of game announcements from indie developers and third-party partners.

Even without a Switch 2 reveal, it’s been a busy period of announcements for Nintendo. There was a packed Direct in June filled with major reveals like Mario & Luigi: Brothership and The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, and last week, the company showed off its upcoming museum in Kyoto. Now we have a pair of events squashed together: the Indie World Showcase followed by a Nintendo Direct: Partner Showcase.

Don’t expect any major first-party titles during either stream — sorry, Metroid fans — and Nintendo has confirmed it won’t be talking about its next console. Even still, there will likely be a lot on display. Nintendo says that the events will last around 40 minutes combined, which is a lot of airtime for video game trailers. (Here’s what went down at the spring Indie World Showcase for an idea of what to expect.)

Things kick off on August 27th at 10AM ET. You can follow along with all of the biggest announcements right here in the stream, and watch along at the embed below.

Read More 

Image: Paramount

Oh, hell yes! The first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is out, giving fans a first listen of Keanu Reeves as Shadow the Hedgehog.
Reeves doesn’t put too much spin on his interpretation of Shadow, sounding very much like himself. But considering fans were hype as hell that he was doing Shadow’s voice, I think Keanu doing his best Keanu will go over fine with audiences. The trailer sets up Shadow the Hedgehog as the toughest enemy Team Sonic has ever had to face, requiring them to call in outside help. Jim Carrey returns as Dr. Robotnik, who has apparently let himself go. For Sonic 3, they’re not wasting a drop of Carrey’s comedic talent, having him play not one Robotnik but two.
Shadow’s arrival was teased at the end of Sonic 2. Although we didn’t get to hear him then, various outlets later reported that Reeves had been cast as the black-furred, gun-toting hedgehog with an attitude problem. Yesterday, Paramount began teasing the trailer’s imminent arrival by projecting images of Sonic, Shadow, and perennial baddie Dr. Robotnik on buildings all over the world.

Judging from the trailer’s sad narration of Shadow’s life of pain and suffering, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is definitely taking its broader plot points from Sonic Adventure 2 — the 2001 game in which Shadow made his first appearance. We also got a glimpse of Maria, the girl Shadow befriends during his time as a lab hedgehog, and it’ll be interesting to see how the movie treats her fate.
Sonic the Hedgehog 3 chaos controls into theaters on December 20th.

Image: Paramount

Oh, hell yes! The first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is out, giving fans a first listen of Keanu Reeves as Shadow the Hedgehog.

Reeves doesn’t put too much spin on his interpretation of Shadow, sounding very much like himself. But considering fans were hype as hell that he was doing Shadow’s voice, I think Keanu doing his best Keanu will go over fine with audiences. The trailer sets up Shadow the Hedgehog as the toughest enemy Team Sonic has ever had to face, requiring them to call in outside help. Jim Carrey returns as Dr. Robotnik, who has apparently let himself go. For Sonic 3, they’re not wasting a drop of Carrey’s comedic talent, having him play not one Robotnik but two.

Shadow’s arrival was teased at the end of Sonic 2. Although we didn’t get to hear him then, various outlets later reported that Reeves had been cast as the black-furred, gun-toting hedgehog with an attitude problem. Yesterday, Paramount began teasing the trailer’s imminent arrival by projecting images of Sonic, Shadow, and perennial baddie Dr. Robotnik on buildings all over the world.

Judging from the trailer’s sad narration of Shadow’s life of pain and suffering, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is definitely taking its broader plot points from Sonic Adventure 2 — the 2001 game in which Shadow made his first appearance. We also got a glimpse of Maria, the girl Shadow befriends during his time as a lab hedgehog, and it’ll be interesting to see how the movie treats her fate.

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 chaos controls into theaters on December 20th.

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Image: AMD

AMD promised that Microsoft’s upcoming 24H2 update to Windows 11 would improve performance for its new Ryzen 9000 series CPUs, but it’s also giving a significant boost to some older Ryzen CPUs. Hardware Unboxed has tested the Zen 4-based Ryzen 7 7700X and the new Ryzen 7 9700X (Zen 5) on both Windows 11 version 23H2 and 24H2 and found a significant performance increase thanks to Microsoft’s OS update.
On average, Hardware Unboxed found an improvement of 10 percent across multiple games running at 1080p resolution on the older Ryzen 7700X running Windows 11 version 24H2. On the latest Ryzen 9700X, Windows 11 24H2 provides an 11 percent performance improvement on average in the same game tests. KitGuru has also tested AMD’s best gaming CPU, the 7800X3D, and found similar increases in some games, alongside improvements to the older Ryzen 9 7950X thanks to Windows 11 version 24H2.

The new benchmark results come just weeks after AMD launched its Zen 5 desktop CPUs, which failed to impress during early reviews. Reviewers found that in gaming the previous generation Ryzen 9 7950X looked like better value than AMD’s new flagship Ryzen 9 9950X.
Windows 11 24H2 will certainly improve the performance of these new Zen 5 CPUs, but since it’s also improving older Zen 4 processors, the performance gap still seems to be a little disappointing between the two architectures. Microsoft’s 24H2 update is anything but disappointing for Ryzen owners though, as it literally allows them to download better performance for their CPUs.
We’re expecting Microsoft to release its 24H2 update for Windows 11 in late September, but if you want to grab it early you can opt into the Windows Insider program and enable the Release Preview builds on your PC. If you’d prefer to clean install or perform the upgrade manually, ISO files for 24H2 are available here.

Image: AMD

AMD promised that Microsoft’s upcoming 24H2 update to Windows 11 would improve performance for its new Ryzen 9000 series CPUs, but it’s also giving a significant boost to some older Ryzen CPUs. Hardware Unboxed has tested the Zen 4-based Ryzen 7 7700X and the new Ryzen 7 9700X (Zen 5) on both Windows 11 version 23H2 and 24H2 and found a significant performance increase thanks to Microsoft’s OS update.

On average, Hardware Unboxed found an improvement of 10 percent across multiple games running at 1080p resolution on the older Ryzen 7700X running Windows 11 version 24H2. On the latest Ryzen 9700X, Windows 11 24H2 provides an 11 percent performance improvement on average in the same game tests. KitGuru has also tested AMD’s best gaming CPU, the 7800X3D, and found similar increases in some games, alongside improvements to the older Ryzen 9 7950X thanks to Windows 11 version 24H2.

The new benchmark results come just weeks after AMD launched its Zen 5 desktop CPUs, which failed to impress during early reviews. Reviewers found that in gaming the previous generation Ryzen 9 7950X looked like better value than AMD’s new flagship Ryzen 9 9950X.

Windows 11 24H2 will certainly improve the performance of these new Zen 5 CPUs, but since it’s also improving older Zen 4 processors, the performance gap still seems to be a little disappointing between the two architectures. Microsoft’s 24H2 update is anything but disappointing for Ryzen owners though, as it literally allows them to download better performance for their CPUs.

We’re expecting Microsoft to release its 24H2 update for Windows 11 in late September, but if you want to grab it early you can opt into the Windows Insider program and enable the Release Preview builds on your PC. If you’d prefer to clean install or perform the upgrade manually, ISO files for 24H2 are available here.

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The new Garmin Fenix 8 series adds voice commands and a new Messenger app. | Image: Garmin

Garmin’s back with two new rugged smartwatches: the all-new Fenix 8 and Enduro 3. The $999.99 Fenix 8, one of Garmin’s top-of-line flagships, will get a built-in speaker and microphone, along with several new training features. Meanwhile, the $899.99 Enduro 3 will feature an LED flashlight plus solar charging to extend battery life up to 320 hours in GPS mode.
If there’s any theme to the Fenix 8’s updates this time around, it’s in making the device smarter while also giving athletes more choices. For example, it now has a built-in speaker and microphone so you can make and take phone calls from the wrist. You’ll also be able to issue voice commands like “set a timer for 5 minutes.” For voice commands, a connection to your phone isn’t necessary either.
This isn’t new to the Garmin ecosystem — the Venu 2 Plus was the first to add voice capabilities — but it wasn’t something you could do on the Fenix lineup. Garmin is also adding a new Garmin Messenger app, which will allow you to communicate with friends and family from the wrist. (The caveat is you and the person you’re texting both need the Garmin Messenger app installed on your phones.)

Image: Garmin
The Fenix 8 comes in OLED and solar charging models.

The Fenix 8 will also let you choose whether you want an OLED display or an always-on solar charging display. The former will be available in 43mm, 47mm, and 51mm. It continues Garmin’s trend of adding OLED to all of its watches.
However, many outdoors enthusiasts prefer lower-power displays that last longer during activities. For those folks, Garmin says the new solar display option is more effective this time around — though that always depends on usage. The solar models are available in 47mm and 51mm, with a respective estimated battery life of 29 and 48 days. That’s significantly longer than the standard Fenix 8 models, which get 10 (43mm), 16 (47mm) or 29 (51mm) days.
Design-wise, the Fenix 8 is also adding a new sensor guard and “leakproof” metal buttons. It’ll also have the nifty LED flashlights and EKG capabilities that Garmin introduced on the Fenix 7 Pro and Epix Pro models last year. For new fitness features, Garmin is adding advanced strength training with targeted 4-6 training plans tailored to specific sports. It’s also adding diving capabilities and a new map interface.

Image: Garmin
The Enduro 3 gets solar charging and a flashlight.

Meanwhile, the Enduro 3 is also getting some of the same updates. Namely, the built-in flashlight, the advanced strength training plans, Garmin Messenger app, EKGs, and now, solar charging. The solar charging makes sense for the Enduro line, which, as the name suggests, is targeted toward ultra-endurance athletes. The solar lens will purportedly get up to 320 hours in GPS mode, and 120 hours of GPS with the more power-intensive dual-frequency GPS.
Both the Fenix 8 and Enduro 3 will be available from today. The Fenix 8 will start at $999.99, though some models may retail up to $1199.99. The Enduro 3 will retail for $899.99.

The new Garmin Fenix 8 series adds voice commands and a new Messenger app. | Image: Garmin

Garmin’s back with two new rugged smartwatches: the all-new Fenix 8 and Enduro 3. The $999.99 Fenix 8, one of Garmin’s top-of-line flagships, will get a built-in speaker and microphone, along with several new training features. Meanwhile, the $899.99 Enduro 3 will feature an LED flashlight plus solar charging to extend battery life up to 320 hours in GPS mode.

If there’s any theme to the Fenix 8’s updates this time around, it’s in making the device smarter while also giving athletes more choices. For example, it now has a built-in speaker and microphone so you can make and take phone calls from the wrist. You’ll also be able to issue voice commands like “set a timer for 5 minutes.” For voice commands, a connection to your phone isn’t necessary either.

This isn’t new to the Garmin ecosystem — the Venu 2 Plus was the first to add voice capabilities — but it wasn’t something you could do on the Fenix lineup. Garmin is also adding a new Garmin Messenger app, which will allow you to communicate with friends and family from the wrist. (The caveat is you and the person you’re texting both need the Garmin Messenger app installed on your phones.)

Image: Garmin
The Fenix 8 comes in OLED and solar charging models.

The Fenix 8 will also let you choose whether you want an OLED display or an always-on solar charging display. The former will be available in 43mm, 47mm, and 51mm. It continues Garmin’s trend of adding OLED to all of its watches.

However, many outdoors enthusiasts prefer lower-power displays that last longer during activities. For those folks, Garmin says the new solar display option is more effective this time around — though that always depends on usage. The solar models are available in 47mm and 51mm, with a respective estimated battery life of 29 and 48 days. That’s significantly longer than the standard Fenix 8 models, which get 10 (43mm), 16 (47mm) or 29 (51mm) days.

Design-wise, the Fenix 8 is also adding a new sensor guard and “leakproof” metal buttons. It’ll also have the nifty LED flashlights and EKG capabilities that Garmin introduced on the Fenix 7 Pro and Epix Pro models last year. For new fitness features, Garmin is adding advanced strength training with targeted 4-6 training plans tailored to specific sports. It’s also adding diving capabilities and a new map interface.

Image: Garmin
The Enduro 3 gets solar charging and a flashlight.

Meanwhile, the Enduro 3 is also getting some of the same updates. Namely, the built-in flashlight, the advanced strength training plans, Garmin Messenger app, EKGs, and now, solar charging. The solar charging makes sense for the Enduro line, which, as the name suggests, is targeted toward ultra-endurance athletes. The solar lens will purportedly get up to 320 hours in GPS mode, and 120 hours of GPS with the more power-intensive dual-frequency GPS.

Both the Fenix 8 and Enduro 3 will be available from today. The Fenix 8 will start at $999.99, though some models may retail up to $1199.99. The Enduro 3 will retail for $899.99.

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Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

You may have read headlines last week about Microsoft removing the Control Panel from Windows soon, but the death of the Control Panel has been greatly exaggerated. The inaccurate reports stemmed from a single support document, originally spotted by Neowin. Microsoft has now updated the support document to make it clear that Control Panel isn’t in danger of being removed from Windows anytime soon.
“The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app,” said Microsoft in its support note last week. While Microsoft has been working on moving Control Panel items to the Settings interface for more than a decade, this seemingly small update to a support document triggered headlines about the Control Panel being removed “soon.”
“Microsoft finally officially confirms it’s killing Windows Control Panel sometime soon” said Neowin, “Microsoft formally deprecates the 39-year-old Windows Control Panel” declared Ars Technica. Many others reported that the end of the Control Panel was near, but over the weekend Microsoft updated it support note to make it clear it’s merely in the continued process of moving items over to the Settings app.
“Many of the settings in Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app,” says Microsoft. I asked the company to comment on the original support note and the updated one, but Microsoft hasn’t provided The Verge with a statement in time for publication.

after inaccurate reports that Microsoft would be removing the Control Panel in Windows “soon,” Microsoft now says “Many of the settings in Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app” instead of “The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated” pic.twitter.com/eiY6dC5xbg— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) August 26, 2024

Either way, Microsoft has been moving more Control Panel settings over to the Settings interface in recent months. Windows 11 is finally getting mouse settings that let you avoid the Control Panel soon, removing another big reason for having to use the Control Panel.
Many Windows users still prefer the Control Panel interface to the Settings one, though. It offers up a lot of settings in an easy to use interface where you don’t have to dig into multiple levels to find what you’re looking for. Microsoft has been refining its Settings interface since Windows 8, with plenty of overhauls in both Windows 10 and 11.
The software giant still hasn’t added Control Panel to its list of deprecated features in Windows, so it’s not going away anytime soon. Microsoft typically adds Windows features to this formal deprecation list months or even years in advance to warn businesses and consumers of their removal.

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

You may have read headlines last week about Microsoft removing the Control Panel from Windows soon, but the death of the Control Panel has been greatly exaggerated. The inaccurate reports stemmed from a single support document, originally spotted by Neowin. Microsoft has now updated the support document to make it clear that Control Panel isn’t in danger of being removed from Windows anytime soon.

“The Control Panel is in the process of being deprecated in favor of the Settings app,” said Microsoft in its support note last week. While Microsoft has been working on moving Control Panel items to the Settings interface for more than a decade, this seemingly small update to a support document triggered headlines about the Control Panel being removed “soon.”

“Microsoft finally officially confirms it’s killing Windows Control Panel sometime soon” said Neowin, “Microsoft formally deprecates the 39-year-old Windows Control Panel” declared Ars Technica. Many others reported that the end of the Control Panel was near, but over the weekend Microsoft updated it support note to make it clear it’s merely in the continued process of moving items over to the Settings app.

“Many of the settings in Control Panel are in the process of being migrated to the Settings app,” says Microsoft. I asked the company to comment on the original support note and the updated one, but Microsoft hasn’t provided The Verge with a statement in time for publication.

Either way, Microsoft has been moving more Control Panel settings over to the Settings interface in recent months. Windows 11 is finally getting mouse settings that let you avoid the Control Panel soon, removing another big reason for having to use the Control Panel.

Many Windows users still prefer the Control Panel interface to the Settings one, though. It offers up a lot of settings in an easy to use interface where you don’t have to dig into multiple levels to find what you’re looking for. Microsoft has been refining its Settings interface since Windows 8, with plenty of overhauls in both Windows 10 and 11.

The software giant still hasn’t added Control Panel to its list of deprecated features in Windows, so it’s not going away anytime soon. Microsoft typically adds Windows features to this formal deprecation list months or even years in advance to warn businesses and consumers of their removal.

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