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I haven’t been able to find mine for years. | Image: Apple
The Apple Lightning to 3.5mm Headphone Jack Adapter may have bitten the dust, as it’s sold out (https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MMX62AM/A/lightning-to-35-mm-headphone-jack-adapter) at Apple’s online store in the US and much of the world, MacRumors reports. The accessory is reportedly still available from Apple in some countries, including France, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden.
If it’s truly gone, then this feels like the end of an era. Apple introduced the Lightning headphone adapter in 2016 alongside the iPhone 7, when it first courageously ditched the headphone jack (https://www.theverge.com/2016/9/7/12838024/apple-iphone-7-plus-headphone-jack-removal-courage). The company even included it with new iPhones for a couple of generations before it stopped doing that for 2018’s iPhone XS (https://www.theverge.com/2018/9/13/17852184/iphone-xs-headphone-jack-adapter-apple-event-2018), leaving customers to buy one themselves, pick up Lightning EarPods (https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MWTY3AM/A/earpods-lightning-connector?fnode=a0dbeb8dee6fd86ea822f8d662a2b254a157a1b59e78edf6dbd66d2072d0a7cfeb7f973caff7d7dba1b4dd054db20a8652967ef8e3b548dcc07c1fd04e2c7666076caa873ad927f546e6be3d25d9a759c4d6715cf1fd29124ce3c015272277b2), or get on the AirPods train (which many of us had started...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24299072/apple-lightning-to-3-5mm-headphone-jack-adapter-sold-out-apple-site)
Image: The Verge
An Ohio man named Larry Dean Harmon will serve three years in prison and forfeit more than $400 million worth of cryptocurrency and other assets, the Department of Justice announced on Friday (https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/operator-helix-darknet-cryptocurrency-mixer-sentenced-money-laundering-conspiracy-and). Harmon was indicted in 2020 (https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/13/21136749/doj-ohio-helix-bitcoin-darknet-cryptocurrency-laundering-crime) on money laundering conspiracy charges related to Helix, a darkweb cryptocurrency “mixer” service he ran.
Also known as crypto “tumbling,” services like Helix are designed to hide cryptocurrency transactions — often for illegal drugs — and the identity of people involved. From 2014 to 2017, Harmon processed more than 350,000 Bitcoin (about $311 million USD at the time) in such transactions, according to the DOJ’s announcement.
Harmon, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in August 2021, will be on...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24298962/larry-dean-harmon-charged-bitcoin-laundering-helix-mixer-cryptocurrency-darknet)
Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
Elon Musk’s X may have tweaked its algorithm to boost his account, along with those of other conservative-leaning users, starting around the time he announced his support (https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/13/24198034/elon-musk-is-backing-trump) of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. That’s according to a new study (https://eprints.qut.edu.au/253211/1/A_computational_analysis_of_potential_algorithmic_bias_on_platform_X_during_the_2024_US_election-4.pdf) published by the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), which found that Musk’s posts in particular were suddenly much more popular.
The study’s authors — QUT associate professor in digital media Timothy Graham and Monash University communications and media studies professor Mark Andrejevic — first looked at Musk’s engagement before and after his July endorsement of Trump (https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/13/24198034/elon-musk-is-backing-trump). They report that starting around July 13th, Musks’ posts received 138 percent more views and 238 percent more retweets than...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24298669/musk-trump-endorsement-x-boosting-republican-posts-july-algorithm-change)
Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge
Ge Wang (https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~ge/) doesn’t use computers to make music the way most people use computers make music. He uses computers to make... computer music. Wang works at Stanford, as an associate professor in the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics. He also conducts the school’s famed Laptop Orchestra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf7stgK0bOU), was a co-founder of the music app maker Smule, and created a programming language called Chuck that turns code into sound. He understands how computers, music, and humans interact more deeply than most. He also has some ideas about where it’s all headed.
On this episode of The Vergecast, the third and last in our mini-series about the future of music, we chat with Wang about what’s next for computer music. He tells us about teaching his...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24297892/ai-music-ge-wang-vergecast)
Image: Square Enix
We’re in a pretty good moment for sprawling, complex role-playing games. New releases like Metaphor: ReFantazio and Dragon Age Absolution, along with older titles like Elden Ring (including this year’s expansion (https://www.theverge.com/24180536/shadow-of-the-erdtree-review-elden-ring-dlc)), Cyberpunk 2077, and Baldur’s Gate 3 have sucked millions of people into their expansive worlds. They can be all-consuming experiences, offering players all kinds of freedom to explore their worlds and characters. But honestly? Sometimes I don’t want to fuss with conversation wheels or make difficult, narrative-altering choices. I just want to go on a big adventure and slowly turn into an overpowered hero fighting monsters — and that’s where the excellent new remake of Dragon Quest 3 comes in.
The game originally came out way...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/24297436/dragon-quest-3-hd-2d-remake-review)
Netflix had a very big night. | Photo: Al Bello / Getty Images for Netflix
Netflix peaked at “65 million concurrent streams” during the boxing match between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul last night, according to Most Valuable Promotions, the promoter for the fight. Those streams went out to 60 million households globally, the group said in a press release shared with The Verge via email. That’s more than twice the traffic (https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=66960X1514734&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2F2023%2F12%2F28%2Fnfl-ratings-dominate-nba-on-christmas%2F72052196007%2F&referrer=theverge.com&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theverge.com%2F2024%2F11%2F16%2F24298338%2Fnetflix-mike-ttyson-vs-jake-paul-fight-netflix-60-million-households-streaming-quality-buffering) Netflix could see for its Christmas Day NFL stream this year (https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/15/24157289/netflix-nfl-game-streaming-global-christmas-day), if everyone who watched last year (https://go.skimresources.com/?id=1025X1701640&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fsports%2F2023%2F12%2F28%2Fnfl-ratings-dominate-nba-on-christmas%2F72052196007%2F&xcust=__vg1116awD__24062067__________________https://www.google.com/) streamed it.
The crush of people trying to watch Tyson vs. Paul seemed to be more than Netflix’s servers could easily handle, as the social web was awash with complaints about the quality of the stream (https://voxmedia.stories.usechorus.com/compose/10629910-e438-4181-b312-8f5d10cb5a47), which many found to be muddy, or plagued with buffering and dropped connections. Downdetector recorded...
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Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images
Complaints about unwanted telemarketing calls have dropped for the third straight year, the Federal Trade Commission announced (https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2024/11/reports-unwanted-telemarketing-calls-down-more-50-percent-2021) yesterday. Reports of such calls have fallen by over 50 percent versus 2021, according to the FTC — a decline that could be thanks in no small part to stepped-up government efforts to fight irritating telemarketing and phone scams.
There were about 33,000 fewer unwanted call complaints during the 2024 fiscal year versus the year prior, writes the FTC. The drop affected all sorts of unwanted calls, although the agency writes that reports about debt reduction calls had jumped “more than 85 percent from last year.”
FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Sam Levine said that while illegal calls are still “a...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/16/24298278/ftc-illegal-scam-call-robocall-telemarketer-complaints-down-50-percent-since-2021)
The Freo X Ultra packs a lot of features for the price, including the ability to automatically remop your floors when necessary. | Photo by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge
Hosting Thanksgiving dinner is fun and all, but the amount of cleaning you have to do afterward can be exhausting. The Narwal Freo X Ultra robot vacuum / mop hybrid can help speed things up, though, and it’s currently down to an all-time low of $849.99 (about $690 off) at Best Buy (https://howl.link/v1t43gmm5nsbh) and Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CPLP422K?tag=theverge02-20) (when you apply the on-page coupon).
The Narwal Freo X Ultra is one of our favorite robot vacuums for mopping (https://www.theverge.com/22997597/best-robot-vacuum-cleaner). It features a commendable 8,200Pa of suction power and a host of welcome features, including a set of spinning triangular mops that allow it to clean hard surfaces exceptionally well. It can adjust the amount of pressure applied by its mop based on floor type, too, and can even make its own “cleaning decisions,” one of which will prompt it...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/16/24297331/narwal-freo-x-ultra-robot-vacuum-mop-sony-wh-1000xm4-deal-sale)
Concept art for Half-Life 2: Episode 3, from the Half-Life 2 20th Anniversary Documentary. | Screenshot: YouTube
Unsurprisingly, yesterday’s big Half-Life release wasn’t the sequel to Half-Life 2 or even the third Half-Life 2: Episode entry, but a 20th-anniversary update to Valve’s legendary 2004 game. And given what studio co-founder Gabe Newell has to say on the subject in a 2-hour documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCjNT9qGjh4) that the company released in tandem with the update, it seems less likely than ever that we’ll be seeing either follow-up anytime soon.
Newell explains what he calls his “personal failure” near the end of the video (at this timestamp (https://youtu.be/YCjNT9qGjh4?t=7078)):
You can’t get lazy and say, “oh, we’re moving the story forward.” That’s copping out of your obligatiion to gamers, right? Yes, of course they love the story. They love many, many aspects of it. But sort of saying that your...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/16/24298091/gabe-newell-half-life-2-documentary-why-hl-3-never-happened)
Getty Images for Netflix © 2024
Netflix’s livestream of the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul boxing match (https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/31/24169091/netflix-mike-tyson-jake-paul-boxing-rescheduled) was a mess. I’m not talking about the bout itself — although people had their qualms with that (https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2024/11/16/mike-tyson-vs-jake-paul-was-an-entertaining-disaster/), too — it’s the livestream, which people across the internet complained was plagued by buffering, unstable, and unwatchable muddiness. That doesn’t bode well for Netflix’s live sports ambitions, especially its upcoming Christmas Day NFL games (https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/15/24157289/netflix-nfl-game-streaming-global-christmas-day).
I had the same experience, having tuned in a few minutes before Paul showed up in the back of a lowrider truck. For the vast majority of the 8-round match, I had to lean heavily on my brain’s ability to construct a cohesive picture from very little information to have an idea of what was going on. The X post below was very much what the...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/16/24298026/mike-tyson-jake-paul-netflix-livestream-quality-issues-buffering-dropped-stream)
Image: Samar Haddad / The Verge
So, you’ve finally decided to give Bluesky a shot. The social network has come a long way since the early bare-bones days of invite-only signups (https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23619270/decentralized-twitter-alternative-bluesky-ios-invite-only) and recently grew past the 15 million user mark (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/13/24295484/bluesky-15-million-users-social-media-x-musk). Along the way, it’s gathered a lot of familiar posting platform features, like direct messages (https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/22/24162749/bluesky-send-direct-messages), pinned posts (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/11/24267678/bluesky-app-update-pinned-posts-font-size-threads-pitch), and the ability to post videos up to 60 seconds in length (https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/11/24241994/bluesky-share-videos-update).
But there’s a lot more to it than that, and I’m not only talking about lore. (Yes, Bluesky has lore (https://faineg.substack.com/p/how-i-accidentally-ruined-bluesky), and that’s probably the most classic Twitter (https://www.theverge.com/c/features/23928461/best-tweets-archive-twitter-x-funny) thing about it.) It’s also got a number of features and settings you won’t find on X or Threads, like the ability to choose your own algorithm or moderation tools. These serve not just as a fast lane to getting the platform to feel...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/24295933/bluesky-social-network-custom-how-to)
Image: Playstack / Color Gray Games
The Case of the Golden Idol was a rewarding series of point-and-click murder mysteries (https://www.theverge.com/23433741/the-case-of-the-golden-idol-review-pc) that became one of my favorite games of 2022. And while I felt there was more story to explore about the titular golden idol, I wasn’t sure if a potential sequel could live up to its clever puzzles and fascinating, slowly unfolding story. Turns out, I had nothing to fear: The Rise of the Golden Idol, the newly launched sequel (https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/10/24267159/the-rise-of-the-golden-idol-release-date-trailer), easily surpasses the original by improving on just about everything.
At its core, Rise is a very similar game to Case. The new game takes place in the 1970s, around 200 years after the events of the original, and each of Rise’s cases drops you into a specific moment in time, typically during or shortly after a murder. You’re...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/24295956/the-rise-of-the-golden-idol-review-pc-playstation-xbox-netflix-mobile)
In which various government bodies fight over “permissionless” assets | Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The US Securities and Exchange Commission wants to “unilaterally wrest regulatory authority away from the States” when it comes to crypto, according to a lawsuit from 18 states (https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/attorneygeneral/documents/pr/2024/sec-complaint.pdf). These states want to halt the SEC’s enforcement actions, so they can manage crypto regulation instead. Also named as a plaintiff on the suit is the DeFi Education Fund (https://www.defieducationfund.org/), a special interest lobbyist (https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/summary?cycle=2024&id=D000092660).
Controversial SEC chair Gary Gensler (https://www.theverge.com/24280387/gary-gensler-sec-chair-presidential-election-2024) is named in the suit, along with other SEC commissioners. Gensler’s treatment of crypto during his time as chair has made him a punching bag for the industry — and for Republicans such as president-elect Donald Trump.
There has been an ongoing turf war over crypto regulation (https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/15/23761117/crypto-regulation-binance-coinbase-sec). Until this point, the two major contenders were the...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/15/24297696/crypto-states-jurisdiction-sec-assets)
Illustration: The Verge
WhatsApp dropped the most “I can’t believe this wasn’t already there” feature this week: message drafts (whatsapp/post/DCXABF9vMJK" rel="nofollow">https://www.threads.net/@whatsapp/post/DCXABF9vMJK). Now, WhatsApp lets you know if you have unsent messages typed up in chats so you know to get back to them later.
To let you know about a draft, messages you’ve started writing will show a green and bold “Draft” word followed by what you’ve typed up. That way, you can ponder about finishing it when you open the app and not accidentally ignore your friends (though you still purposefully could, I guess.)
Drafts also end up at the top of the chats list, so you don’t have to scroll to search for lost ones. The feature is now available in the app worldwide, Engadget reports.
WhatsApp announced in July that it had hit 100 million monthly... (https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/25/24205421/whatsapp-meta-apple-ios-android-smartphone)
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/15/24297690/whatsapp-message-drafts-feature)
Image: Valve
Half-Life 2 is getting a major update (https://www.half-life.com/en/halflife2/20th) in celebration of the classic title’s 20th anniversary. In addition to Steam Workshop support directly within the game, Valve has fixed bugs and restored some content, added new graphics settings, updated gamepad controls, and a whole lot more. You’ll also be able to get the game for free on Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/220/HalfLife_2/) for free through November 18th at 1PM ET. After that, it will cost $9.99.
Valve is also now including the Episode One and Episode Two expansions with the base game. They’ll be accessible from the Half-Life 2 menu, and Valve says that “you will automatically advance to the next expansion after completing each one.” You’ll also be able to access the Steam Workshop within the Extras menu, which means you’ll no...
Continue reading… (https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/15/24297691/half-life-2-20th-anniversary-update-documentary)
Apple’s Lightning-to-3.5mm headphone adapter may be going away
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24299072/apple-lightning-to-3-5mm-headphone-jack-adapter-sold-out-apple-site
An Ohio man guilty of Bitcoin laundering must forfeit over $400 million in assets
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24298962/larry-dean-harmon-charged-bitcoin-laundering-helix-mixer-cryptocurrency-darknet
A study found that X’s algorithm now loves two things: Republicans and Elon Musk
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24298669/musk-trump-endorsement-x-boosting-republican-posts-july-algorithm-change
Making human music in an AI world
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/17/24297892/ai-music-ge-wang-vergecast
Sometimes you just need a straightforward, old-school RPG
https://www.theverge.com/24297436/dragon-quest-3-hd-2d-remake-review
Netflix served the Tyson vs. Paul fight to 60 million households
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/16/24298338/netflix-mike-ttyson-vs-jake-paul-fight-netflix-60-million-households-streaming-quality-buffering
The FTC says spam call complaints are way down since 2021
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/16/24298278/ftc-illegal-scam-call-robocall-telemarketer-complaints-down-50-percent-since-2021
Narwal’s Freo X Ultra, the best mopping robot available, is on sale for a new low price
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/16/24297331/narwal-freo-x-ultra-robot-vacuum-mop-sony-wh-1000xm4-deal-sale
Gabe Newell says Half-Life 2: Episode 3 didn’t happen because he was ‘stumped’
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/16/24298091/gabe-newell-half-life-2-documentary-why-hl-3-never-happened
NFL fans worry Netflix’s bad Tyson vs. Paul stream means it can’t handle football
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/16/24298026/mike-tyson-jake-paul-netflix-livestream-quality-issues-buffering-dropped-stream
Here’s some cool stuff you can do with Bluesky
https://www.theverge.com/24295933/bluesky-social-network-custom-how-to
The Rise of the Golden Idol makes a great puzzle game even better
https://www.theverge.com/24295956/the-rise-of-the-golden-idol-review-pc-playstation-xbox-netflix-mobile
18 states want the SEC to stop enforcing crypto regulation
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/15/24297696/crypto-states-jurisdiction-sec-assets
WhatsApp now lets you save message drafts
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/15/24297690/whatsapp-message-drafts-feature
Half-Life 2 is getting a huge 20th anniversary update
https://www.theverge.com/2024/11/15/24297691/half-life-2-20th-anniversary-update-documentary