Technology

Microsoft’s Solitaire game is turning 30 years old today. Microsoft is celebrating the occasion with a world record attempt of the most games of Microsoft Solitaire completed in one day. 35 million people still play Solitaire monthly, according to Microsoft, with more than 100 million hands played daily around the world. Microsoft Solitaire was originally included as part of Windows 3.0 back in 1990, designed specifically to teach users how to use a mouse. Grabbing virtual cards and dropping them in place taught the basics of drag-and-drop in Windows, which we still use today in many parts of the operating system. Microsoft Solitaire, originally known as Windows Solitaire, is one of the most played games in the world as it shipped in every version of Windows for more than two decades. That...

The latest stable version of Microsoft’s Edge browser finally adds support for extension syncing, meaning you won’t have to manually re-install extensions individually with each new device. Microsoft teased the feature as part of its Build announcement earlier this week, but the update log for the browser’s latest version (83.0.478.37, to be exact) confirms that it’s rolling out now. Alongside support for extension sync, the latest version of Edge includes a host of other improvements. You can now exempt certain cookies from automatically clearing when the browser closes (useful if there’s a particular website that you want to stay logged into), and Edge’s Collections feature now supports drag and drop to make it easier to save web pages and clippings. The browser can also now prompt you t...

Christopher Nolan, one of Hollywood’s biggest proponents of the theatrical experience, is the latest director to see his movie get the Fortnite treatment. The latest trailer for his upcoming film Tenet debuted in Fortnite on Thursday. Although very little about the film is actually known, Tenet is described as a movie set within the world of international espionage, and the first trailer and marketing material for the movie has played up a concept in which time moves forward and backward — hence the palindrome title. The new trailer expands on John David Washington’s main character as he learns to warp time, with the stake of the world and its future in his hands. Prior to Nolan’s Tenet trailer premiering in Epic Games’ massive virtual universe, Disney and director J.J. Abrams teamed up wi...

Twitter made it easier to see quote tweets on iOS on May 12th, and that new functionality is now available on Twitter for Android and for the web, the company announced today. If you tap or click on the “Retweets” word on a tweet, you’ll be taken to a new page that lets you look at one of two columns: a column showing retweets with comments and a column showing all retweets without comments. You can see how it works in the video below: Now on Android and web –– see Retweets with comments by tapping the Retweet count when you tap into a Tweet! — Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) May 21, 2020 The new feature the latest of many that Twitter has rolled out recently to make it easier to follow and track conversations on the platform. One that I’m a particular fan of is the new interface for thr...

Rare’s open-world pirate game, Sea of Thieves, is sailing to Steam on June 3rd, Microsoft announced today. For the past two years, Sea of Thieves was available on Xbox One and the Windows Store. The Steam version will cost $39.99 with cross-play support included between all versions of the game. If you own a copy on either Windows 10 or Xbox One, you will still need to purchase a Steam version to play it on Valve’s digital storefront. At launch, the Steam version will include all of the content previously released on the other platforms. This includes the Ships of Fortune update released last April that introduced a new emissary system, allowing players to become an emissary in the game. Sea of Thieves was a slow burn that has greatly improved over the last two years. As my colleague Tom W...

Avatar: The Last Airbender is back on Netflix after a seven-year absence, and if you never caught the show, now is a perfect time. Avatar isn’t just one of the best animated series around; it’s full-stop excellent television regardless of format. This might not be clear from episode 1, though. As premieres go, it’s charming but geared toward hooking children. Skepticism is okay! Just don’t pass it by without diving into one of its best episodes, “Zuko Alone” (season 2, episode 7). It’s a standalone tale that explains everything you need to know — a terrific martial arts Western with surprisingly rich characterization and a gut-punch ending — all in 20 minutes. In Avatar, there are four nations, each based on the mastery of a different element: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. The Fire Nation d...

A group of Thomson Reuters shareholders says the company’s technology databases are being used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to “track and arrest immigrants on a massive scale,” potentially causing reputational damage to the company. “Companies are facing scrutiny for contracting with government agencies carrying out the Trump administration’s inhumane family separation and indefinite family detention policies at the US-Mexico border,” states the resolution from the BC Government and Service Employees’ Union (BCGEU) General Fund and its Defence Fund, both of which are in British Columbia, Canada (Thomson Reuters is based in Toronto). “The UN considers such separation and detention illegal under international law and has stated the practice constitutes ‘arbitrary and unlawful inter...

Facebook has long believed in the promise of virtual and augmented reality extending well beyond entertainment, and we’re now getting a clearer glimpse at what that future might look like now that the current pandemic is reshaping how companies everywhere think about remote work. According to Andrew “Boz” Bosworth, Facebook’s head of of AR and VR, the company is already investing in “supercharging remote work and productivity” using those technologies. He even shared a video of what that might look like, featuring real footage of an experimental test using prototype Facebook hardware and software. This is real footage using prototype headsets. We’re always experimenting with future concepts using different hardware configurations as part of our proof-of-experience process — Boz (@boz...

Some Apple AirPods Pro cases now say the headphones are assembled in Vietnam, according to a Twitter user, multiple reports on the MacRumors forums, and one Verge staffer who recently purchased a pair, indicating the company may be reducing its reliance on Chinese manufacturing (via MacRumors). Typically, AirPods Pro units contain a message on the back of the case that says the device was assembled in China. Here’s a photo of what the new message looks like: Photo by Kara Verlaney / The Verge Apple famously assembles a large majority of its products in China. But the company has shown interest in, and even made sizable foreign investments toward, diversifying its manufacturing. That’s partly due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the ongoing trade war between the US and Chi...

Microsoft is making some improvements to its Windows 10 accessibility features, specifically centered around making the text cursor easier to see and follow using the built-in Magnifier feature. There’s also new text-to-speech functionality being integrated into the Magnifier tool, as well as improvements to Narrator (the built-in Windows screen reader), all set to roll out in the May 2020 Update. Microsoft had previously offered tools to adjust the size and color of the standard mouse cursor. Now it’s bringing similar options to the text cursor, allowing users with impaired vision to adjust the size, thickness, and color of the text cursor, along with adding a new, larger indication to easily find it on-screen. Similarly, the Magnifier feature will follow the text cursor in the middle of ...

ViacomCBS is licensing John Krasinski’s heartwarming weekly YouTube series Some Good News, making a once totally free and accessible show now locked behind a streaming paywall. New episodes of Some Good News will stream exclusively on ViacomCBS’s streaming service, CBS All Access, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Krasinski, however, will no longer host the show. Instead, he’ll step into a producing role, with a new host to be announced at a later date. After the episodes stream on All Access, they’ll “move to a number of the company’s linear networks,” according to the Reporter. It’s unclear which networks will get the show (ViacomCBS owns MTV, Nickelodeon, CBS, Comedy Central, and more), or how long new episodes will stream exclusively in All Access. Calls reportedly started coming in...

The outdoor theater on Fortnite’s new party royale island is finally being put to use. Tonight, at 8PM ET, the virtual space will be home to the latest trailer for Christopher Nolan’s time-traveling film Tenet. The trailer will air on an hourly basis, though it’s not clear how long it’ll be available. This isn’t the first time the world of film and TV has come to Fortnite. The battle royale game has been home to a clip from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker as well as Quibi’s reboot of Punk’d. However, both of those events took place before developer Epic launched a brand-new, nonviolent space in the game called party royale, which is housed on a different island. A separate area of the island has already hosted two live music events featuring Diplo and Deadmau5. Related Party royale could ...