Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Spotify’s number of premium subscribers rose to 188 million in its second quarter, while its monthly active users (MAU) now sit at 433 million, the company announced in an earnings release today. That’s a year-over-year increase of 14 percent and 19 percent respectively, and compares to the 182…
When I first decided to launch a Wednesday edition of Situation Normal, Christina thought I might be taking on too much. “Babe, that’s a lot more work,” Christina said. “And it’s not like writing the internet’s 57th most popular humor newsletter is bringing home the turkey bacon. Do you have time for a Wednesday edition?”…
Native Hawaiians have been protested against the construction of the Thirty Millimeter Telescope on Mauna Kea. Now a new law gives control of the land back to locals. This is an artist’s rendering. TMT International Observatory Earlier this month, Hawaiian Governor David Ige signed legislation that transfers control of Mauna Kea—one of two large mountains…
They may be some of the greatest athletes on the planet, but what’s a trophy room without a furry companion to share it with? Following pets of sports stars offer a unique glimpse into their lives. These legends may have clinched a victory under immense pressure, but they also find dog hair on their clothes….
The Gray Man, Netflix’s hugely expensive new action-thriller, has scored a huge opening weekend on the streaming service. The movie, which has cost a reported $200 million to make, is based on Mark Greaney’s book series of the same name. It follows Ryan Gosling’s CIA agent Court Gentry – aka Sierra Six, a highly-skilled, agency-sanctioned…
If you’re an Apple TV 4K owner with a pair of AirPods that support Spatial Audio, and a Disney+ subscription, then the latest free update to Disney’s app is a great bonus: you now get full Dolby Atmos support when watching in Spatial Audio. However, if you’ve got an Android TV or Google TV –…
Amazon has announced new security features and malware protection services for its cloud business, Amazon Web Services. At its AWS re:Inforce conference, the company unveiled updates such as Amazon GuardDuty Malware Protection, AWS Wickr and Kubernetes support for Amazon Detective. The headline product, Amazon GuardDuty, is designed to detect malware deployed on an instance or…
The language of the Droids in Stray has been translated and it’s a lot simpler than you may have thought. Or not, unless you believe someone over at BlueTwelve Studio created an entirely new language from scratch. Instead, it’s a simple cipher that fleshes out the overnight hit‘s world-building. And with it, you can finally…
Google’s parent company has reported a drop-off in profit for a second consecutive quarter, despite a handsome rise in revenue. As per the latest earnings report, Alphabet brought in a profit of circa $16 billion in Q2 2022, down from $18.5 billion for the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, total revenue for the quarter rose…
TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, has denied allegations made in a BuzzFeed report that cited former employees saying it pushed pro-China narratives through a now-defunct news app. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images Former ByteDance employees say the firm pushed pro-China narratives in its app, BuzzFeed reported. They said they were instructed to pin pro-China content on…