One was from Syphon Filter and Days Gone developer Bend Games, while Schreier reports the other shuttered title was a live-service God of War game that Bluepoint Games “has been working on for the last couple of years.”
Bluepoint Games is one of several developers Sony acquired in recent years as it was building up a queue of live service projects, with many ports and remasters under its belt, including Demon’s Souls, the first three Uncharted games, Shadow of the Colossus, and others. Now, Schreier says the studios won’t close, but there’s no word yet on what their next projects will be.
The live service approach to gaming once seemed wide open following the success of Fortnite and other titles, but games like Concord, Anthem, and Redfall have shown how difficult it can be. At Sony alone, the list of canceled service titles Bloomberg has already reported on included the Spider-Man game revealed by the Insomniac ransomware breach, Twisted Metal, and a Destiny-linked game from Bungie called Payback.
However, we’re still expecting to hear more about Bungie’s revived Marathonextraction shooter and Fairgames, a PvP heist title from Haven Studios.
PlayStation did not say whether the cancellations will lead to layoffs but did say the studios will not close. A spokesperson for PlayStation tells Bloomberg the company is working with Bend and Bluepoint to determine their next projects
It’s coming a little later than we initially thought, but The Pokémon Company (TCPi) has finally announced when Pokémon TCG Pocket’s long-awaited trading functionality is rolling out.
Today, TCPi revealed that, along with Pokémon TCG Pocket’s next set of cards, the game’s trading feature is set to launch later this month. TCPi didn’t specify an exact date in its statement about the update, but it did explain that trading will involve some restrictions and costs.
In order to swap cards, people will first have to be friends with one another in the game. Trades can only occur if players are offering up cards with the same rarity, meaning that you won’t be able to trade powerful EX cards for more common ones that are easier to pull. Additionally, TCPi trading is limited to cards that have rarities of 1-4 diamonds or a single star full-art cards, and TCPi noted that “items must be consumed in order to trade.”
It’s not clear which particular items players will need for trades, but it feels likely that the process will involve spending Poké gold, one of Pocket’s multiple in-game currencies that can be purchased in exchange for real money. The item requirement sounds like logical (but not exactly welcome) way for Pocket to generate even more revenue given how easy it is to accumulate certain duplicates from every set.
In a follow-up post to X, Pocket’s official account stated that it was hearing people’s immediate concerns about how this is all going to work in practice, and encouraged everyone to provide more feedback once the feature is out.
Sony announced a collection of black PlayStation 5 accessories in the midst of CES last week, and you can now preorder them ahead of their release date on February 20th. The new DualSense Edge controller ($199.99), Pulse Elite headset ($149.99), Pulse Explore wireless earbuds ($199.99), and PlayStation Portal ($199.99) are all available for preorder from Sony, Amazon, and a string of other retailers starting today.
Sony’s new PS5 accessories are just as sleek as the black DualSense controller Sony released in 2021. The PS Portal now sports black buttons like the DualSense Edge, while retaining the slick black accents found on the white model. The Pulse Explore earbuds, meanwhile, now come with a jet-black charging case, while the Pulse Elite headset comes with a black charging hanger and a felt carrying case.
Despite the new look, none of the accessories introduce new features. The black PS Portal is the same handheld remote player we reviewed in 2023, with the same lengthy battery life and limitations as the white model (except it now supports cloud streaming). The new Pulse Explore and Pulse Elite support Sony’s low latency lossless wireless audio codec and are compatible with the PS5, PS Portal, Windows PCs, and macOS. As for the black DualSense Edge, the wireless gamepad continues to offer deep customization and great software integration with the PS5.
The settlement comes after a New York Times investigation found that GM had been collecting micro-details about its customers’ driving habits, including acceleration, braking, and trip length — and then selling it to insurance companies and third-party data brokers like LexisNexis and Verisk. Clueless vehicle owners were then left wondering why their insurance premiums were going up.
For example, one consumer told a GM customer service representative that “[w]hen I signed up for this, it was so OnStar could track me. They said nothing about reporting it to a third party. Nothing. […] You guys are affecting our bottom line. I pay you, now you’re making me pay more to my insurance company.”
FTC accused GM of using a “misleading enrollment process” to get vehicle owners to sign up for its OnStar connected vehicle service and Smart Driver feature. The automaker failed to disclose to customers that it was collecting their data, nor did GM seek out their consent to sell it to third parties. After the Times exposed the practice, GM said it was discontinuing its OnStar Smart Driver program.
“GM monitored and sold people’s precise geolocation data and driver behavior information, sometimes as often as every three seconds,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement. “With this action, the FTC is safeguarding Americans’ privacy and protecting people from unchecked surveillance.”
The settlement also requires GM to obtain consent from customers before collecting their driving behavior data, and allow them to request and delete their data if they choose.
GM said in an unsigned statement that it was committed to customer privacy.
The Biden administration says it will leave it to incoming President Donald Trump to figure out how to deal with the mess of the TikTok ban, ABC News reports.
“Our position on this has been clear: TikTok should continue to operate under American ownership,” a White House official told ABC News. “Given the timing of when it goes into effect over a holiday weekend a day before inauguration, it will be up to the next administration to implement.”
But don’t get too excited just yet. Even though Trump has offered vague promises to save TikTok, there’s still not much he can do to eliminate the huge monetary risk companies like Apple and Google could face so long as the law is on the books. And for that matter, the same goes for Biden — unless he formally extends the timeline for a sale of TikTok by Chinese owner ByteDance by up to 90 days before the ban take effect.
The White House statement to ABC does not appear to suggest that Biden plans to take that route, and the Biden administration did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for clarification. But technically, to grant an extension, Biden would need to see progress toward a sale. So far, according to multiple reports, ByteDance has been focused on fighting the law, rather than exploring potential buyers. Even so, a handful of Democratic lawmakers led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) — who is trying to get Congress to extend the deadline — pleaded in a letter to Biden to use the 90 day extension.
While TikTok itself is not mandated by the law to shut down, it may still choose to go dark as it’s reportedly planned if it fears its US service providers including Oracle might choose not to risk helping it operate or update. TikTok, Oracle, Apple, and Google have not yet said publicly how they plan to handle Sunday’s deadline. We also still haven’t heard from the Supreme Court — which seemed poised to uphold the law and just said on Thursdaythat it “may announce opinions” at 10AM ET on Friday — but since it’s so far declined to pause it, the ban will at least technically take effect on Sunday, whether or not anyone else chooses to do something about it.
SpaceX successfully caught its Super Heavy booster for the second time. During Starship’s 7th test flight from Boca Chica, Texas, Super Heavy descended into the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms, allowing it to grab the booster.
Despite the successful catch, SpaceX lost communications with the Starship spacecraft mounted atop the booster. “It successfully separated from the Super Heavy booster, but during that ascent phase, a couple of the engines dropped out, and then shortly thereafter, we lost communication with the vehicle,” SpaceX’s Kate Tice said during the stream. “We are assuming that we have lost the ship.”
According to SpaceX, “Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn,” but said teams are still going over the data to find out why.
Several people who said they were on the islands of Turks and Caicos said they saw the Starship’s re-entry debris and postedvideos of it on social media.
This version of Starship featured “major improvements to reliability and performance” this time around, making the vehicle slightly taller, according to SpaceX.
Along with a redesigned propulsion system and an improved flight computer, this flight featured a new heat shield with “Multiple metallic tile options, including one with active cooling” to test alternative materials and a “backup layer to protect from missing or damaged tiles.” Before the flight, SpaceX also said that on the Starship’s upper stage, “a significant number of tiles will be removed to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle,” but it’s unknown if this was a factor in its destruction.
The Super Heavy booster in this test was also the first one to reuse a Raptor engine from a previous flight test.
At 403 feet tall, Starship is the biggest launch vehicle ever. It’s made up of two parts: the Starship spacecraft, which is designed to carry crew and cargo into orbit, and the Super Heavy Booster, which comes with 33 SpaceX Raptor engines that help propel Starship into space. Both the Starship spacecraft and its Super Heavy booster are reusable.
During its seventh test flight, Starship was supposed to deploy 10 Starlink “simulators” for the first time. These mock satellites are the same size and weight as Starlink’s actual internet satellites, but they weren’t supposed to stay in space. Instead, they would’ve had the “same suborbital trajectory as Starship” and would “demise upon entry.”
Update, January 16th: Noted the outcome of the flight and added videos of the debris over Turks and Caicos.
Apple has temporarily stopped showing notification summaries for news and entertainment apps as part of the iOS 18.3 developer beta released Thursday, according to reports from MacRumors and 9to5Mac. The Apple Intelligence-powered feature was criticized after it inaccurately summarized content from outlets such as the BBC.
Apple will reenable the notifications “with a future software update” as it continues to work on the feature, 9to5Mac reports. In the new beta, Apple will make it clear that the notification summary feature is a beta and “may contain errors.”
Additionally, 9to5Mac says Apple will let you disable notifications for specific apps from the lock screen or Notification Center in iOS 18.3 by “swiping, tapping ‘Options,’ then choosing the ‘Turn Off Summaries.’” The company will also use italicized text on the lock screen to make it easier to tell notification summaries and standard notifications apart.
The Verge reached out to Apple with a request for more information about these changes but didn’t immediately hear back.
Last month, the BBC called out Apple after the company’s notification summary feature wrongly summarized its coverage of the UnitedHealth shooter, suggesting the outlet reported that Luigi Mangione shot himself. Apple later said it would roll out an update to “further clarify when the text being displayed is summarization provided by Apple Intelligence.”
I’m not the first to note the irony of TikTok users flooding RedNote this week. The TikTok divest-or-ban rule was supposed to drive Americans away from a foreign-owned social network that was subject to influence or data harvesting by the Chinese government. Instead, it pushed them onto a different foreign-owned social network that poses the exact same hypothetical risks — and that might be subject to the exact same kind of ban.
TikTok faces a ban under the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and was signed last year by President Joe Biden (who is reportedly experiencing some buyer’s remorseright now). While it mentions TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, by name, it could apply to any company that meets the following criteria:
It operates a website or app with more than 1 million monthly users and lets those users make accounts to create and share content.
It isn’t a service that primarily lets users “post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews.”
It’s controlled by a foreign adversary, a definition that covers North Korea, China, Russia, and Iran....
Two major tech trade groups are challenging the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) effort to treat payment apps and digital wallets like banks. In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington, DC, NetChoice and TechNet claim that the CFPB’s digital payment regulation, announced on November 21st, 2024, is arbitrary and capricious.
“The CFPB’s unlawful power grab undermines the rule of law, further bloats the administrative state and puts American consumers and innovation at risk,” Chris Marchese, NetChoice’s director of litigation, said in a statement. “The CFPB’s actions create unnecessary roadblocks for businesses striving to meet consumer needs and set the stage for increased prices and reduced options.”
This is the second lawsuit related to the regulation. Google filed a lawsuit in December after the CFPB placed Google Payment Corp. under federal supervision. In a statement to The Verge, Google spokesperson José Castañeda called the rule “a clear case of government overreach.”
The rule, which went into effect in late December, lets the CFPB oversee digital payment processors’ compliance with federal privacy and fraud laws through “proactive examinations.” The bureau estimated that the apps included under the rule — including Apple Pay, Google Wallet, PayPal, Venmo, and CashApp — collectively process more than 13 billion transactions a year.
But NetChoice and TechNet claim that the CFPB didn’t sufficiently identify consumer risks or gaps in oversight that would justify the rule. “The bureau failed to show that consumer risks the rule was even meant to alleviate in its haste to dream up a problem in search of a solution,” the suit claims.
David Lynch, the director behind Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, and other unsettling works, has died, his family confirmed in a post on his official Facebook page. He was 78 years old.
The post announcing his passing didn’t list a cause of death. But last August, Lynch revealed that he had been diagnosed with emphysema “from my many years of smoking.” At the time, he toldSight and Sound that he could no longer “go out” over concerns that he could catch covid, and that he likely would not be able to direct again in person. In a post about his diagnosis, he said that “recently I had many tests and the good news is that I am in excellent shape except for emphysema. I am filled with happiness, and I will never retire.”
The post, of course, had a very Lynchian addition: “I enjoyed smoking very much, and I do love tobacco — the smell of it, lighting cigarettes on fire, smoking them — but there is a price to pay for this enjoyment, and the price for me is emphysema.”
Here is the full statement from Lynch’s family announcing his death:
It is with deep regret that we, his family, announce the passing of the man and the artist, David Lynch. We would appreciate some privacy at this time. There’s a big hole in the world now that he’s no longer with us. But, as he would say, “Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.”
It’s a beautiful day with golden sunshine and blue skies all the way.
Lynch’s work is horrific, gorgeous, nonsensical, funny, and emotional — often all at once. His hit TV show, Twin Peaks, kept a cult following over the course of decades, from its debut in 1990 all the way to Twin Peaks: The Return, which returned in 2017.
Despite the darkness that lurked beneath many of Lynch’s works, his offbeat humor and personality endeared him to many — especially during the covid lockdown, when he uploaded daily “weather reports” to YouTube. For many people, it was a bright spot during a tough time: an icon of film sitting at his desk in an office that kind of looks like a concrete bunker, peering up at the sky to let you know what it’s like outside. Thank you for the update, David Lynch.
Tesla is declaring the Cybertruck to be “America’s bestselling electric pickup truck in 2024.” And yet, for the first time, the company is offering discounts of up to $2,600 on the low-poly truck, a sign that demand may not be as strong as Tesla would like you to think.
The discounts, which appear on the company’s inventory webpage, are as high as $1,600 for brand-new Cybertrucks and up to $2,600 for slightly used demo versions of the truck. The price reduction you see will depend on how you configure your Cybertruck.
The discounts come as the electric vehicle market is suddenly brimming with a multitude of offerings, from established players like Chevy and Hyundai to upstarts like Rivian and Lucid. People shopping for an electric truck, in particular, have a lot of options, including the Ford F-150 Lightning, Chevy Silverado EV, GMC Hummer and Sierra EVs, and Rivian R1T.
The truck that
“they won’t make” & that “nobody will buy”
… has become America’s bestselling electric pickup truck in 2024
But the Cybertruck is outselling all of those options, according to Tesla. How do we know? You’re just going to have to take Tesla’s word on it, because it doesn’t break out sales numbers for the Cybertruck — instead just lumping them in with its “other models,” like the Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi. As noticed by Electrek, that stands in contrast to how Ford reports its sales numbers.
For example, Ford said it sold 33,510 F-150 Lightnings in 2024. And Tesla sold an estimated 40,000 Cybertrucks, which would back up its claim that it’s the bestselling electric truck in the US. But again, those are just estimates.
The discounts certainly add a wrinkle to Tesla’s claim. Prices tend to be reduced when a manufacturer has too many cars to sell. And since Tesla bypasses the traditional dealership model to sell vehicles directly to customers, the discounts come directly from the company.
After appearing on the company’s inventory page late last year, Foundation series Cybertrucks were recently removed. And earlier this month, Tesla asked factory employees working on the Cybertruck line to stay home for three days, according to Business Insider. It would seem as if demand is starting to weaken — a phenomenon being experienced by almost every automaker with EVs to sell. After selling cars to all the early adopters, companies are struggling to push their products on more price-conscious, mass-market shoppers.
All of this evidence points to weakening demand for the Cybertruck. The EV certainly has its fans, but the polarizing design as well as Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s hard-right politics have been factors in the truck’s diminishing appeal.
And with EV incentives likely to disappear under President-elect Donald Trump and tariffs expected to roil the auto industry, the Cybertruck looks like it’s in for an even harsher 2025.
More than 700,000 US-based users have downloaded RedNote, a popular Chinese social app, as the TikTok ban deadline looms — but they may find themselves looking for yet another TikTok alternative soon. A US official told CBS News that Xiaohongshu, the app more commonly referred to as RedNote, has many of the same issues that caused Congress to ban TikTok and that the app could eventually face a similar ban unless it divests from its China-based parent company.
“This appears to be the kind of app that the statute would apply to and could face the same restrictions as TikTok if it’s not divested,” the anonymous official told CBS News on Thursday, referring to the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, the bill under which Congress banned TikTok.
Among the problems lawmakers raised in the lead-up to the TikTok ban was the Chinese government’s sway over TikTok’s content moderation practices — an issue that appears to apply to RedNote as well. Per The Information, RedNote has begun removing US users’ posts that are considered “too sensitive” for the app, including posts discussing LGBTQ topics. Three people with knowledge of communications between RedNote and officials with the Cyberspace Administration of China told The Information that regulators are concerned about politically sensitive posts — and Chinese officials told RedNote’s government relations team to ensure that users in China can’t see US users’ posts.
Privacy advocates are also warning against using RedNote. In an emailed statement, Cooper Quintin, the senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said “anyone for whom privacy is a matter of personal safety” should think twice before downloading RedNote, adding that the EFF has similar concerns about US-based apps like Facebook.
“People looking for alternative social media apps should be cautious about the privacy implications of sharing information with an app that has not yet seen substantial public scrutiny outside of China,” Quintin said. “This is certainly not a platform which values free speech – it’s a heavily censored application on which topics such as political speech, drugs and addiction, and sexuality are more tightly controlled even than similar social networks. This is also not a platform that will protect you from US-based surveillance capitalism as it shares data with Facebook and Google ad networks.”
Microsoft is bundling its AI-powered Office features into Microsoft 365 Personal and Home subscriptions, but it’s also raising prices as a result. Previously, Microsoft 365 subscribers had to pay an extra $20 per month to get Copilot inside Office apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint as part of a Copilot Pro subscription, but Microsoft is now adding these AI features to Microsoft 365 apps for an extra $3 per month. Existing subscribers can opt out of the AI features and not suffer the price increase, though.
Microsoft has been testing adding AI-powered Office apps, the most important feature of Copilot Pro, into the Microsoft 365 subscriptions in recent months. What was previously only available in Australia, New Zealand, and a number of countries across Asia is now expanding to most markets worldwide.
While it feels like Microsoft is admitting that people aren’t willing to pay an extra $20 a month for AI-powered Office features, Microsoft argues it has always wanted to bring AI features to more users.
“We know that people are willing to pay for the integration into Microsoft 365,” says Gareth Oystryk, senior director of marketing for Copilot Pro and Microsoft 365, in an interview with The Verge. “Copilot Pro is an opportunity to learn from our power users and early adopters. Our plan all along has been how do we bring this value to as many subscribers as possible in a way that works for them and for us.”
Image: Microsoft
Copilot inside Word.
Copilot Pro isn’t going away, and Microsoft isn’t reducing its $20 monthly pricing, either. It will remain for power users who want priority access to the latest AI models, along with early access to new AI features. “We definitely have a place for Copilot Pro,” says Oystryk. “There is still a group of folks that enjoy the power use of Copilot Pro.”
Microsoft is raising the price of Microsoft 365 Personal and Home subscriptions by $3 per month in the US to bring these AI-powered Office features to all subscribers. “We are raising the prices of Microsoft 365 Personal and Family for the first time in 12 years,” says Oystryk. “We’ve never actually raised the price in the US and we’re raising it by $3 a month, along with similar amounts in other markets.”
Nobody likes price increases, and consumers are especially sensitive to being asked to pay more for AI features right now. If you don’t want to pay extra for these AI features, then Microsoft will have plans for existing subscribers to remain at the same price point without Copilot in Office apps.
“We’ve created two new plans that are really only going to be available for the next year, Personal Classic and Family Classic,” explains Oystryk. “They’ll be available as folks go through the renewal cycle. If they go to cancel they’ll have the opportunity to pick one of these Personal Classic or Family Classic plans.”
Image: Microsoft
Copilot in PowerPoint.
These plans will only be available to existing Microsoft 365 subscribers, and new subscribers will get AI-powered Office features by default with the new pricing changes. It sounds like the classic plans won’t get any of Microsoft’s big new features, though. “They’ll continue to get security updates and minor feature updates, but any new additional innovations that we deliver in the future won’t be included in those plans,” says Oystryk.
Microsoft is also introducing a new AI credits system today, alongside its Microsoft 365 subscription changes. It’s a new system that works across most of Microsoft’s AI-powered consumer experiences, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. You’ll get a monthly allotment of credits within Microsoft 365 Personal and Home to use on things like image generation in the Designer app or in apps on Windows like Paint, Photos, and Notepad. Copilot Pro essentially includes unlimited usage of all of these AI features, based on a fair usage policy.
Microsoft is also making it easy to turn off Copilot in Office apps if you simply don’t want the AI assistant or you’re a student and your school has policies against using AI. “The most interesting piece of feedback we learned is that there are times where our users want to turn off Copilot,” says Oystryk. “We’ve been working to add new settings to some of our key apps that allow people to toggle off Copilot.” This is coming to Word first today and then Excel and PowerPoint in the coming weeks.
Perhaps the most glaring omission in the Switch 2 reveal was the fact that Nintendo didn’t say anything about how powerful the new console is. We can see that the console is bigger, but what’s the screen size? Is it OLED or LCD? Is the screen resolution still 720p? Is 4K resolution supported?
Though visible for a few brief moments, the reveal video showed off the Switch 2’s new dock. What’s the docked resolution? Is it just a charging shell, or is it still required for TV play? Can you dock the Switch 2 in the original Switch dock, or will it support all the super-portable third-party docks?
The Switch 2 also features a second USB-C port at the top. It’s likely there to offer a way to...
Red Dye No. 3 is used in certain candy, desserts, frostings, and other treats. | Photo by Lisa Wiltse/Corbis via Getty Images
The US Food and Drug Administration is banning the use of Red Dye No. 3 in food, drinks, and medication, the agency announced Wednesday. The dye, which the FDA says gives certain candies, cakes, and frostings a “bright, cherry-red color,” was found to cause cancer in male rats.
Food manufacturers in the US now have until January 15th, 2027 to reformulate their products without Red Dye No. 3, while drugmakers must take action by January 18th, 2028. Its ban as a food additive comes 35 years after the FDA banned its use in cosmetics and topical drugs in 1990. California similarly banned Red No. 3 and other food additives in 2023, while the European Union, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand also restrict the use of the dye.
Under the Delaney Clause of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act), the FDA must ban foods that induce cancer in humans or animals. However, the FDA notes that studies involving other animals and humans “did not show these effects,” adding that claims stating Red Dye No. 3 in humans “are not supported by the available scientific information.”
Here are some foods that may use Red Dye No. 3, according to Amanda Beaver, a wellness dietician at Houston Methodist Hospital:
The FDA’s decision to ban Red Dye No. 3 comes just days before President-elect Donald Trump will be sworn into office. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s pick for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Service, has considered taking action against food dyes and other potentially harmful additives.
In a bid to get even more people regularly coming back to the theater, AMC is rolling out a new set of perks for the cheapest (read: free) tier of its loyalty rewards program.
Though AMC doesn’t seem to be getting rid of the original Insider level of its AMC Stubs membership, the theater chain announced today that it’s introducing a new Premiere Go! tier that will offer subscribers even more benefits. In addition to discounted tickets on Tuesdays, free (large) popcorn refills, and access to AMC theaters’ priority lanes, Premiere Go! members will earn twice the amount of AMC points (which can be redeemed for more discounts) for every dollar spent.
Unlike the Insider tier, Premiere Go! Subscribers’ points won’t expire. But like the Premiere ($17.99 / year) and A-List (the monthly price varies by location) tiers, people using Premiere Go! will also be able to upgrade the size of their popcorn and fountain drinks at no additional cost. To become a Premiere Go! member, you’ll have to see at least eight movies a year or earn 5,000 points, and once you do, you’ll keep the status through the entirety of the next year.
In a statement about the new tier, AMC’s senior VP of marketing Ellen Copaken described it as a way of offering customers “an exciting and achievable pathway to unlock enhanced rewards simply by enjoying the movies they love.”
Everything about the new tier feels like AMC is trying to get more people to consider signing up for Stubs’ A-Tier, which launched back in 2018 as a direct response to MoviePass. And given how MoviePass’ legacy just became even more tarnished by former CEO Mitch Lower pleading guilty to fraud, Stubs is probably looking a lot more attractive by comparison now.
The Roborock Q5 Max Plus can’t mop, but it’s great for dry spills on carpets and hard flooring. | Image: Roborock
While you can pay close to $1,000 or more for a fancier robot vacuum with bells and whistles like mopping and AI object avoidance, sometimes, all you may need is a solid roamer with powerful suction. That’s exactly what the Roborock Q5 Max Plus is, and the all-time low price of $279.99 ($170 off) at Amazon and Roborock right now appropriately reflects that.
The Roborock Q5 Max Plus is quite similar to the Q5 Pro, which we typically recommend if you need something that’s great for vacuuming pet hair. That’s largely thanks to its dual rubber roller brushes, which can really dig into the carpet with greater friction to loosen up those hairs and other stubborn debris.
It also has the same adjustable 5,500Pa suction power and a 770ml dustbin that empties itself into a roomy 2.5-liter bin at the charging dock. That means you could go several weeks before manually emptying the dock. However, unlike the Q5 Pro, it doesn’t come with detachable mopping pads.
Like the Q5 Pro, the Q5 Max Plus uses Lidar navigation with multi-level 3D room mapping and keep-out zones, and it runs for up to four hours before it needs to return to the dock. You can manage and control all of this with the companion app, too, or control it with Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple Siri voice commands.
Nintendo has finally revealed the Switch 2 — but it didn’t reveal everything. Even still, the new console looks pretty much like a bigger, more refined Switch. Sure, that’s the straightforward and expected move from Nintendo. But it’s also exactly what I’ve been waiting for.
The first Switch was a revelation. When it launched, I marveled over being able to play The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on my TV and then take the console out of the dock and play in handheld mode curled up on the couch. Nintendo absolutely nailed the execution of combining its console and portable expertise into one great device, and ever since, the Switch has been a constant companion at home and while traveling.
I would have been disappointed if Nintendo messed with what worked for the Switch with the Switch 2. I’m glad it has a bigger screen, one that appears to be even larger than the seven-inch display on the OLED Switch. I’m guessing the taller Joy-Cons will be easier to hold, which could be a massive improvement for my hands, and attaching them from the side looks like it could be easier than sliding them up and down. The second USB-C port on the top will be a very welcome addition for easier...
Photo by Lokman Vural Elibol / Anadolu via Getty Images
Now that New York City has finally flipped the switch on congestion pricing, the big question is: Will it work? And if so, how well?
To find out, all eyes turned to an unassuming new web tool called the Congestion Pricing Tracker. The brainchild of two college-age brothers, the tracker uses real-time traffic data from Google Maps to calculate traffic times for chosen routes and days. The data is presented as a line graph of traffic times before and after congestion pricing went into effect on January 5th. Compare one line to the other to see whether traffic times have increased or decreased.
Unsurprisingly, depending on the route and time of day, the new tolling scheme seems to be working — perhaps even better than expected. Since January 5th, most drivers entering Manhattan below 60th Street during peak hours will pay $9 — or $2.25 for late nights and weekends. And that fee appears to be doing what it set out to do, which is to change the behavior of the people behind the wheel and funnel millions of dollars into needed transit improvements.
That was what initially drew brothers Benjamin and Joshua Moshes to the project. Benjamin, a senior studying math and...
