Welcome to the roundup of the best Android games that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous week or so. Today's list is broken up into several segments, ranging from best, average, to mediocre. So whether you're looking for the best games of quality or are simply looking for the latest free-to-play gacha titles, you're covered. This week I have the sequel to the hit arcade sim Peace Death, a fantastic Sokoban-like puzzler, and an enjoyable robot war...

DJI’s drones and action cameras have become popular among content creators and photographers for their high quality and powerful automation. And naturally, many of the same people chose to pick up a Pixel 6 for its excellent photo and video quality. Unfortunately, this combination isn’t working out very well due to a bug or incompatibility that’s preventing DJI apps from performing as intended, and it’s leaving some devices virtually unusable.

If you're anything like me, smartphones have a habit of displacing all sorts of other tech in your life: cameras, calculators, remote controls — there really is an app for all things. For years I used my phone as an alarm clock, and that was a totally acceptable solution. A few weeks back I learned about a great deal on the Lenovo Smart Clock, and promptly picked one up — and let me tell you, this thing quickly won me over. Now with Black Friday shopping upon us, you've...

High-end smart lighting products are pricey (well, most of the time, anyway), but less expensive units do most of the same stuff. If you're not hung up on getting a premium name brand, you can save a ton today: Bulbs, lamps, lightstrips, and more from bargain smart stuff brand Govee are all discounted on Amazon.

The Philips Hue ecosystem cab be pricey compared to competing offerings from companies like Wyze and Govee, which means good bargains are all the more valuable. If you've been looking to get into smart lighting but the cost of Hue's put you off, we've got a great deal for you: right now, you can get an 80-inch Hue lightstrip along with a Hue hub for just $50 — $19 off what it's cost lately, and more than half off MSRP.

Forget about buying a new TV this Black Friday weekend. Our friends at XGIMI have just unleashed a deluge of discounts on their family of Android-TV-powered projectors, from the portable Elfin for $519 ($130 off), to the 4K HORIZON Pro for $1,499 ($200 off), and many more in between. You’ll have to act fast, though, because you can only get these deals from today through Tuesday, November 30.

If you've taken one look at the list of earbuds you can buy these days, you know your choices are endless. Not only has every major tech and smartphone company thrown their hats into the ring — Samsung, Amazon, Google, OnePlus, and more — but the third-party offerings are enough to make your head spin. I'm here to tell you that, out of the countless pairs of earbuds I've tried over the last few years, not one set has been as comfortable or reliable as my trusty...

WhatsApp is by far the largest messaging service in India. It's used by millions daily, not only for catching up with friends and family, but also for placing orders at nearby grocery stores, carrying out business dealings, group studies, and so much more. In a bid to turn the service into more than just a messaging platform, WhatsApp rolled out peer-to-peer payment support in the country using the Universal Payments Interface (UPI) last year. The company managed to do this after...

Wrist-mounted computers were, at one time, an exciting, new thing, and ever since the first Moto 360, I've wanted to be a smartwatch guy. But on Android, smartwatch generally means Wear OS (or, back in the day, Android Wear) — and historically, that meant frustrating performance, cruddy battery life, and stagnant software that went ages at a time without any meaningful development.

Enlarge / The only constant is change in Apple TV's adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation (credit: YouTube/Apple TV+)

When showrunner David S. Goyer took on the monumental task of adapting Isaac Asimov's hugely influential Foundation series of science fiction novels for Apple TV+, he knew it would not be a straightforward matter. As I've written previously, the author himself admitted that he wrote strictly for the printed page, and he always refused invitations to adapt his work...

Enlarge (credit: Talamo et al. 2021)

While our species was spreading across Eurasia and briefly sharing a continent with the last of the Neanderthals, someone took the time to carefully shape an oval pendant out of mammoth ivory, then decorated it with a looping dotted line. The pendant, unearthed at Stajnia Cave in Poland, was recently radiocarbon dated to around 41,500 years old. That makes it the oldest known example of a Paleolithic fashion that reached from France to Siberia...

Enlarge / That's a lot of mutations. (credit: Stanford)

On Friday, the World Health Organization officially named a new version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus a variant of concern, and attached the Greek letter omicron to the designation. The Omicron variant is notable for the sheer number of mutations in the spike protein of the virus. While Omicron appears to have started spreading in Africa, it has already appeared in European countries like Belgium and the UK, which are working to...

Enlarge (credit: Morsa Images | Getty Images)

Almost from the beginning of the COVID pandemic, reports have accumulated of persistent, weird, disabling symptoms in survivors, a syndrome that's come to be known as long COVID. The complex of fatigue, confusion, heart arrhythmias, gut disorders, and other problems—which may persist months after an infection begins or arise months after it seems to have concluded—has attracted attention and sympathy, intense patient activism,...

Enlarge / Computer illustration of Candida fungi (yeast). The most common representatives of Candida fungi are C. albicans and C. auris with similar morphology. C. albicans is found on the skin and mucous membranes of the mouth, genitals, respiratory tract, and digestive tract. The most common disease caused by C. albicans is vaginal candidiasis (thrush). C. auris was first identified in 2009. It causes serious multidrug-resistant infections in hospitalized patients and has high mortality...

Phileas Fogg (David Tennant), Abigail Fix (Leonie Benesch), and Jean Passepartout (Ibrahim Koma) set out on the adventure of a lifetime in a new TV adaptation of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days The series debuts January 2, 2022.

Jules Verne's 1873 novel, Around the World in Eighty Days, inspired numerous real-life attempts to navigate the globe, as well as various film, TV, and radio adaptations of varying success. The latest TV adaption by the BBC stars a perfectly cast...

(credit: Tesla / Aurich Lawson)

Tesla has been forced to turn down more than €1.1 billion in European subsidies for its planned battery plant near Berlin after delays to the flagship project breached a key condition of the funding.

The electric car maker had applied for the money through an EU program established to develop the battery industry on the continent.

The EU requires any sites in receipt of the funds to be the “first industrial deployment” of the technology,...

Enlarge

Apple doesn't typically like to associate itself with the madness of Black Friday, but if you know where to look, you can pick up some helpful discounts on many of the company's hottest devices. This year, Apple itself is dipping a toe in the deal pool itself by offering Apple Gift Cards with select devices on its own online store. If you go that route, note that Apple says it'll send the credit to your email address within 24 hours from the time your purchase ships or is...

Enlarge / We spend time getting to know some Aes Sedai in this episode, including Liandrin (Kate Fleetwood). (credit: Amazon Studios)

Andrew Cunningham and Lee Hutchinson have spent decades of their lives with Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson's Wheel of Time books, and they're bringing that knowledge to bear as they recap each episode of Amazon's new WoT TV series. These recaps won't cover every element of every episode, but they will contain major spoilers for the show and the...

Enlarge / Microphotograph of thalassiothrix frauenfeldii, Thalassionemataceae, phytoplankton. (credit: De Agostini Picture Library | Getty Images)

On November 19, 1969, the CCS Hudson slipped through the frigid waters of Halifax Harbour in Nova Scotia and out into the open ocean. The research vessel was embarking on what many of the marine scientists on board thought of as the last great, uncharted oceanic voyage: the first complete circumnavigation of the Americas. The ship was...

When HBO Max launched in May of 2020 boasting thousands of hours of content, they weren't lying.

The streaming service that came into our lives by way of yanking Friends from Netflix has proved to be an endless source of movie magic, with hallowed Hollywood favorites in the Turner Classic Movies collection to the works of directors like Kubrick, Hitchcock, Miyazaki, and Kurosawa.

Picking the best (and distinguishing them from our personal favorites) was no easy task, but we...

Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai hasn't been seen since publicly accusing government official Zhang Gaoli of sexual assault.

On Nov. 2, Peng made allegations against the former vice premier of China in a lengthy Weibo post, which was deleted half an hour later, CNN reports.

In the post, Peng alleged that Gaoli had sexually coerced her after inviting her to his house to play tennis with him and his wife. She noted that prior to this they had been involved in an on-off...

Rivian’s electric truck came out in October, but attention is still on the electric Ford F-150 Lightning and other future electric trucks. The Lightning is not arriving until 2022, but the anticipation for the first Ford electric pickup is growing. 

Autolist, a car shopping website, surveyed over 1,100 shoppers at the end of October and early November on their electric truck preferences. The site asked about the Ford, Chevy Silverado EV, Tesla Cybertruck, GMC Hummer EV...

Ah, autumn. It’s that special time of year when my favorite entertainment debate clamors down the chimney and into the minds of movie lovers everywhere. I’m talking about the most controversial question in seasonal cinema, an unanswered quandary of mythic proportions: Is The Nightmare Before Christmas a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie? 

For 28 years, this discussion of yuletide versus ghoul-tide has plagued fans of Tim Burton’s 1993 stop-motion masterpiece...

TL;DR: Snag 15 mixed bottles of wine from Wine Insiders for just $73.97 as of Nov. 19 — that's a whole 75% off a 15-pack worth $300.

If you're going to stock up on wine to prepare for the holidays, you might as well save as much money as you can in the process. With this exclusive deal for Wine Insiders, you'll get $15 bottles delivered to your door for less than $5 per bottle, and there's no coupon or promo code necessary. Just great, delicious wine you'll...

Like air fryers and slow cookers before it, the robo-vac is a time-saving appliance that’s found a special place in our hearts lately. Firstly, it’s a robot, and robots rock; secondly, it does boring housework we’re too busy (or too lazy) to do ourselves. Robo-vacs have also gotten a lot more affordable.

If you’ve been waiting for just the right time to buy one, Black Friday weekend is your chance. The first 100 Amazon orders for a Yeedi vac station on Nov. 27...

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Dark forces threaten the world, and it’s up to a band of unlikely companions, including the Chosen One, to save the day.

That fantasy formula is old hat at this point, but to its credit, Amazon Prime Video’s The Wheel of Time attempts to tell it with some new twists. While the show doesn’t always succeed, the overall result is an exciting adventure that gets better as it goes along.

Adapted from Robert Jordan...

Remember that sweary turtle that captured all our hearts in 2020 in the final of the Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards?

Well, he's got fresh competition.

This week, the awards — an annual competition supported by wildlife conservation nonprofit The Born Free Foundation and founded by Paul Joynson-Hicks and Tom Sullam — announced its new range of winners, and they're every bit as silly as last year's batch.

From unfortunate monkeys to gleeful elephants, and...

You know going into King Richard, there will be a happy ending. Anyone sitting down to watch this biopic probably realizes that the end title cards will list the astounding accomplishments of two of the world’s greatest athletes, Venus Williams and Serena Williams. This assured happy ending in the film makes the success of their younger selves feel inevitable, instead of anything but. Tennis was a sport long dominated by rich, white players. So, the rise of two Black phenoms from...

If you’re going to go to the trouble of making a live-action Cowboy Bebop, then it’s probably best to actually make a live-action Cowboy Bebop. Because what Netflix did isn’t that, and pissing off a bunch of ‘90s nostalgics wasn’t worth it. 

In this so-called adaptation of the anime classic, John Cho leads as intergalactic bounty hunter Spike Spiegel. The start of the reboot sees Spike joining forces with fellow space cowboys Jet Black and Faye...

Australia is trying to make it harder to be an internet troll, but at what cost?

Read more...

There’ve been a lot of things happening in the pages of My Hero Academia over the last year. The war between the heroes and villains saw a fairly big change to its larger world that left Deku and the rest of the 1-A kids as basically the last real hope for Japan in the fight against All for One and Tomura Shigaraki.…

Read more...

When Train to Busan hit theaters in 2016, it took off in the way several high profile projects from South Korea tend to do these days. With a passionate fanbase that both wants more from that universe, but very much not in the mood for a remake, it’s clear that the only way to appease those fans is a with a follow up.…

Read more...

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure is such an amazingly weird anime that it’s hard to not root for it. It’s also got a history of having pretty good music, and that trend thankfully continues with the upcoming sixth season, Stone Ocean. Ahead of its release later in the week, Warner Bros. Japan released the anime’s CG opening.

Read more...

The last few years have seen a successful streak of films and shows based on video games, primarily from Netflix. With future series based on sci-fi franchises Mass Effect and Halo in the works, plus ones based on various Ubisoft properties like Assassin’s Creed, gamers are in no shortage of seeing some of their…

Read more...

The Indian government didn’t mince words in a recent message to Elon Musk’s Starlink: Get a license before offering satellite internet services in the country.

Read more...

If you got in your car and suddenly found that Spotify’s Car View feature had mysteriously disappeared, I’m sorry to say that no, it’s not a bug. Spotify actually announced—although “whispered” would be more accurate—that it was killing Car View more than a month ago, but it looks like it hadn’t gotten to actually…

Read more...

When people worry about robots coming to take their jobs, I don’t think “poet” is what they had in mind. Enter Ai-Da, a highly realistic, AI-driven robot firmly rooted in the uncanny valley that can paint, draw, sculpt, and, yes, write its own poetry.

Read more...

Authorities worldwide have started taking steps to contain the spread of the new coronavirus variant Omicron as the holiday season enters full swing. On Friday, the World Health Organization recognized the heavily mutated coronavirus variant, which was first identified in South Africa, as a “variant of concern” due to…

Read more...

The second season of Netflix’s The Witcher is almost upon us, and that means more of Henry Cavill’s brooding (and not quite eternally grunting) Geralt of Rivia and his new, youthful charge Ciri. With a promise of more monsters to meet the business end of a steel or silver sword, a clip for the new season sees the…

Read more...

If you didn't cross off everything on your gift list on Black Friday, you're still in luck. Cyber Monday has brought a host of tech deals this year, and some of the best deals from a few days ago are still available. You can still find some of the best headphones, streaming devices, SD cards and other gadgets for less today, but we recommend buying what you need fairly quickly to avoid items selling out as well as excessively delayed shipping times. To make things easier, we...

Nissan will invest 2 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) over the next five years developing new EVs and battery technology as part of a grand plan it calls "Ambition 2030," the company announced. It aims to release 15 new EVs total by 2030, with electrified vehicles making up half its vehicle lineup at that point. 

The automaker said it will develop 23 electrified vehicles in total over the next eight years, with 20 of those coming in the next five years alone. It's...

Cryptocurrency mining consumes a massive amount of energy, and that's prompting a crisis in Kazakhstan. The Financial Timesreports the country's electrical grid operator KEGOC said it would start rationing electricity for 50 registered miners after their demand reportedly invoked an emergency shutdown mode at three power plants in October. They'll also be the first disconnected if there are grid failures, the quasi-public company said.

The energy ministry estimated that...

AMC is extending its fondness for the blockchain to the freebies you get with ticket pre-orders. The theater chain and Sony Pictures are giving away 86,000 NFTs to Stubs Premiere, A-List and Investor Connect members who buy or reserve tickets for Spider-Man: No Way Home showings on December 16th. Redeem a code through a special website and you'll get one of 100 designs available through the more eco-friendly Wax blockchain.

You'll need to order your tickets through the AMC...

You might get a surprise boost in computing power if you buy a Tesla Model Y, at least in China. Electrek has learned Tesla is shipping the electric crossover in China with an AMD Ryzen processor running the infotainment system instead of the usual Intel CPU. Performance variant owners have noticed the swap so far, but Tesla has historically used the same computing platform for all trim levels of a given model.

It's not certain if this is the exact same Ryzen APU as in the latest...

Australia could soon make life difficult for internet trolls — if at a significant cost. Reutersreports Prime Minister Scott Morrison has unveiled plans for legislation that, in some cases, could force social networks to reveal the identities of trolls and others making defamatory comments. A complaint mechanism would require online platforms to take these hostile posts down. If they don't, the court system could order a given site to provide details of the offending poster.

Black Friday online sales tend to climb ever higher each year as people grow comfortable with shopping from home, but not this time around. Adobe estimates combined Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day internet sales saw their first ever overall year-over-year decline in 2021, dipping from $9 billion in 2020 to $8.9 billion. That's not a calamitous drop, but Adobe saw it as a sign of shifting trends.

The tech firm believed the dip reflected a shift toward earlier shopping as buyers...

It's one thing to produce nanoscale devices, but it's another to study and improve on them — they're so small they can't reflect enough light to get a good look. A breakthrough might make that possible, however. UC Riverside researchers have built technology that squeezes tungsten lamp light into a 6-nanometer spot at the end of a silver nanowire. That lets scientists produce color imaging at an "unprecedented" level, rather than having to settle for molecular...

Never mind 3D-printing organs — eventually, the material could have a life of its own. Phys.orgreports scientists have developed a "living ink" you could use to print equally alive materials usable for creating 3D structures. The team genetically engineered cells for E. Coli and other microbes to create living nanofibers, bundled those fibers and added other materials to produce an ink you could use in a standard 3D printer.

Researchers have tried producing living material...

HBO Max has uploaded another alternative DC Comics movie cut, but it won't brag about this one. As CBR and The Verge note, WarnerMedia comms executive Johanna Fuentes has confirmed HBO Max accidentally uploaded the censored TV version of the 2020 movie Birds of Prey. While it's listed as the R-rated version from theaters, play it and you'll get the same 'family-friendly' edit you'd see on TNT.

Fuentes promised that HBO Max would upload the R-rated movie,...

Online sales during Black Friday took a bit of a tumble this year, marking the first time that spending has dipped lower than the previous year, as noted in a holiday shopping report by Adobe Analytics. Online shoppers reportedly spent a total of $8.9 billion this year, falling a little short of the $9 billion that was spent in 2020.

Adobe...

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 3 is the company’s lowest-priced foldable yet at its normal $999.99, but today you can get the trendy phone for way, way less than that. In an early Cyber Monday 2021 deal, the unlocked Z Flip 3 is available from Best Buy for $599.99 if you activate service on the device with your purchase.

That’s a colossal $400 discount from the Flip 3’s regular price and brings it on par with something like the Pixel 6. Google’s phone...

Welcome to the in-between of deals. Black Friday has come and gone. There were tons of great discounts, many of which even began well before the day after Thanksgiving, and our Verge Deals team worked to cover as many of them as possible. We even did a liveblog to bring you the latest up-to-the-minute updates. There have been deals on wireless earbuds, headphones, video games, 4K TVs, pre-built PCs, and even the occasional Nerf blaster. With so many savings already happening across the...

Cryptocurrency miners in Kazakhstan are facing widespread electricity shortages amid a surge in mining, as reported by the Financial Times. Kazakhstan has been grappling with an overloaded energy grid as miners flock in from China, which cracked down on crypto earlier this year and banned crypto-based transactions in September.

According to the...

Microsoft-owned GitHub is down, affecting thousands or potentially millions of developers that rely on its many services. GitHub started experiencing issues at around 3:45PM ET, with Git operations, API requests, GitHub actions, packages, pages, and pull requests all affected.

“We’re investigating errors affecting most GitHub services,” says an incident update on the GitHub status page. “We’re actively investigating and will provide an update as soon as possible.” The status page...

India has instructed the public not to preorder Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite-based internet service, according to a report from Reuters. As the report notes, the Indian government says that the company needs to obtain a license to operate in the country before it starts deploying its services.

Accordingly, the Government of India has asked the company to comply with Indian regulatory framework for rendering the satellite based communication...

Sony’s latest gaming console, the PS5, is one of many gaming gadgets that are hard to find in stock right now due to mostly online-only sales. If you are trying to get your hands on one, Amazon has restocked PS5 consoles right now, while supplies last (these links will help you add it directly to your cart — Disc, Digital).

I strongly suggest buying a one-year membership to PlayStation Plus, as the perks of having a subscription are great for...

Owlet has stopped selling its lineup of smart baby monitoring socks, which are supposed to track a baby’s vital signs and sleep patterns, after receiving a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). First reported by Deseret News, the FDA’s letter states that Owlet’s Smart Socks are considered medical devices, as they provide heart rate and oxygen level notifications, and that the company has been selling them...

HBO mistakenly added the censored version of Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) to its streaming service, but said it will replace it with the R-rated version soon, as reported by CBR.

Or… counterpoint. We have a version of the film that airs on broadcast cable and the unedited version of the film for streaming which has been up for a year (which the original post on CBR noted). Will be updated on Max.

Black Friday may be over, but the memory — and deals — remain. Right now, there are still a ton of great discounts to be had on 4K TVs, noise-canceling headphones, and gaming accessories. Some of these deals are likely to expire soon or run out of stock, but we’ll be doing everything we can to keep this page updated with all the deals left standing, many of which will likely carry over to Cyber Monday. Also, if you’re looking for more great gift ideas...