Bill News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Eleven global tech giants have pledged to do more to tackle the scourge of online scammers, the UK government said on Thursday, billing the promise as a world first. Amazon, eBay, Facebook, Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, Match Group, Microsoft, Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube have signed up to the Online Fraud Charter, which ministers say will better protect users.

One of my favourite games as a kid was the SNES version of Shadowrun, an isometric action-RPG all about that hacker life. Ever since I've longed for games to scratch a similar itch, and DataJack 2020 certainly fits the bill, a cyberpunk hacktivist action-adventure with light RPG elements. Tonight's PC Gaming Show saw the first gameplay footage and, by golly, Datajack 2020 and me are going to get along just fine.

The Epic Games Store’s next free titles have been revealed.

Sometimes you come across a project that makes you wonder if you're really handy at anything. This is one of those projects. A PC case with a simple yet stunning effect of gradually shifting in a never-ending loop, made by Ideal Idea; once you see all the work that goes into it, you'll maybe start to doubt your own DIY abilities.

It's been more than a year since the launch of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet properly introduced us to the Paldea region. A whole new area to explore filled with new and familiar Pokemon alike. The connections to Paldea throughout the Pokemon universe will continue for years to come, of course, including in 2024 when you'll be able to get your hands on an all-new Pokemon TCG expansion. Paldean Fates will be here in early 2024, and some of its products are available to pre-order at GameStop right now if you act fast.

Stability AI, the British artificial intelligence startup behind the Stable Diffusion image generator, has explored selling the company as management faces increased pressure from investors over its financial position.

The Cybertruck hasn't even hit the market yet, and Elon Musk already is lamenting that Tesla Inc. has dug its own grave. Its stainless steel body may be able to withstand bullets and arrows, but it's going to be a bear putting the panels together. It will be Tesla's first high-voltage vehicle, offering the benefit of faster charging, but also potential pitfalls. And it will be Tesla's only product dependent on in-house battery cells that are years behind schedule.

Hype for Fede Alvarez's Alien movie is pretty colossal with Ridley Scott already giving it high praise. Now, we finally know when it sits on the franchise’s timeline, and it’s got us speculating what this might mean for the plot of Alien: Romulus. 

Tumblr underwent a redesign in July 2023 when the platform announced it would improve its content discovery as well as ease the process of creating a page. The company claimed the changes were implemented based on user feedback. Now, taking another step in its feedback-focused process, it will also be removing the Tumblr Post Plus subscriptions. It allowed creators to share content behind a paywall for those subscribers who paid for the subscription. The company has said that it will be removed starting January 2024.

Following the round of layoffs that recently hit Bungie, it had been reported that Destiny 2’s next big expansion, The Final Shape, had been internally delayed to the summer. Bungie has now confirmed that to be the case.

The Black Friday 2023 sale has brought us a number of great deals, but nothing better than a solid discount on a smart vacuum. One of the deals that caught our eyes is on the Roborock Q Revo, which is a brand-new product released earlier this year with full automation at its core. Q Revo isn't only great at cleaning our floors, but it also does a brilliant job at washing itself and overall maintaining itself through auto tank refilling and auto dust emptying, along with mop washing and drying.

Black Friday may be behind us, but the good news is that the awesome deals on iPhones are rolling out for Cyber Monday! And guess what? You don't have to tie yourself into a contract; there are fantastic savings waiting for you if you decide to buy your new iPhone outright. This could even help cut down on your monthly expenses. Cyber Monday is like a second chance for those who missed out on Black Friday. While Apple's iPhones usually don't see the steepest discounts, there are still some exciting offers up for grabs during Cyber Monday week.

As the environmental, political, and above all, economic tension between the ultra-rich and the rest of the world continues to grow, it’s a topic that keeps driving dark, memorable movies — from Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winner Parasite to 2022’s The Menu, Pig, and Triangle of Sadness to a sub-track at the 2023 Fantastic Fest film festival, including this year’s Nick Stahl movie What You Wish For and the blistering Brazilian movie Property. Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, which played as a secret screening at Fantastic Fest, seems to fit the bill perfectly as well: It follows an Oxford freshman, Oliver (Barry Keoghan, sure to turn up in awards-season conversation again) as he awkwardly infiltrates the social circle of his ultra-rich classmate Felix Catton (Priscillaco-star Jacob Elordi). What follows is part horror movie, part classic Gothic novel, as Oliver hungers to be like Felix — or just to be Felix.

There's something magical about LEGO, and when the beloved building toy is combined with a setting as iconic as the Marvel Universe, the good vibes and fun go through the roof - even through the roof of this massive LEGO Daily Bugle set which is on sale for $300.99 this Black Friday, just a dollar higher than the set's lowest price ever.

The Christmas season is fast approaching and shopping will be on everyone's list. If you are an Apple Pay user, you will be glad to know that there is a new feature that will stop you from making silly mistakes like racking up huge bills or other shopping disasters. Notably, Apple has been introducing various new and advanced features to the iPhone with the iOS 17 update. Recently, Apple revealed that Apple Pay has a new feature that will enable users to see their bank account information to enable them to make informed purchase decisions. The bank account balance feature was rolled out with the iOS 17.1 update for Apple Pay users in the UK. Know what the feature is about and how users will be able to access their bank account balance details.

It’s hard to get excited for a new Contra game. It has been a series with some excellent ups and severe downs. As a publisher, Konami doesn’t seem to be the most discriminating when it comes to handing their properties to outside developers. However, the fact that Contra: Operation Galuga is being handled by the more reliable WayForward gives reason to be optimistic.

Following Epic's recent teases and the announcement of the Big Bang event, a reliable Fortnite insider has claimed that Chapter 5 will be the biggest update that the game "has ever had and will ever have".

Fade is an action RPG billed as a mix of Dark Souls' combat and Fable's narrative direction, and after shopping it around to publishers while self-publishing in extended Steam Early Access (which included a bit of a hiatus), solo creator Knight by Night has doubled down on independent work because they can't find a publisher deal that works for them. 

If you’ve been playing Minecraft for a long time, you know that Enchantments are pretty useful, albeit semi-permanent. When you waltz up to an enchanting table, the luck of the draw is one you’re stuck with. So, what are you expected to do when you get Thorns on your Diamond Armor?

While a little bit of contention is a good thing, the divisive Mob Vote in Minecraft has led to serious player outrage. Even after the voting has ended, social media hotspots like Twitter and Reddit are still debating the validity (and importance) of the mob that won the 2023 election: the Armadillo.

Christmas horror movies provide the perfect antidote to all the candy-coated festivities of the holiday season and there have been quite a few good ones in the past. We’ve had David Harbour as an axe-wielding Santa in Violent Night, Anna and the Apocalypse brought us a zombie Christmas musical, and who could forget the daddy of them all, Gremlins.

It’s no surprise that due to the overwhelming response from players concerning the Fortnite OG Map, some glitches involving multiplayer would arise. Players seem to have trouble stringing consecutive rounds together, with the Ready Up and Keep Playing Together buttons being disabled on Fortnite.

If you’ve been playing My Hero Ultra Rumble you may have noticed some players with a little extra flare about them. And by flare, we mean that in the literal sense.

Wizards of the Coast has officially announced the highly-anticipated United States launch of Dungeons & Dragons' The Deck of Many Things will take place in January next year, with information on launch dates for other territories promised down the line.

Warner Bros. has opened registrations for a Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League closed alpha test.

While President Biden was in San Francisco finalizing an agreement between the US and China to open a dialogue on artificial intelligence, among other issues, a who's who of AI and military leaders gathered nearly 800 miles away for a secretive event in the Utah mountains. Over the course of three days last week, more than 100 AI executives and insiders, venture capitalists and government officials listened to talks about the AI arms race between the US and China, and mulled the impact of Biden's sweeping executive order on the industry. They discussed how AI could be used by bad actors and considered the next possible tectonic shifts in the industry. 

AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D | ASRock B650E Riptide WiFi | G.Skill Flare X5 32GB | $613.98 at NeweggThis combo deal from Newegg will save you as much as $61 dollars if you bought all of the parts separately, at their best current prices. This really is the perfect AMD Ryzen upgrade for a gaming PC.

Due to a technical situation at the charts company, we are using GfK data for physical game sales this month.

As if it wasn’t enough to have the Fortnite OG map return with the latest season, more crossovers are coming to help stoke the fire. Recent leaks have revealed another impressive crossover: Invincible skins.

Mass Effect writer Mac Walters has joined NetEase to establish new Vancouver-based studio Worlds Untold.

New Minecraft updates introduce fresh blocks for building and creating bases. Blocks associated with Copper and Tuff are novel additions to the game, promising expanded applications and enhanced aesthetics.

Minecraft reigns supreme when it comes to customization. Across all versions, you have the freedom to upload virtually any skin you desire, transforming your character into anyone you can imagine – whether it’s Markiplier or a wizard version of Steve.

The Tensor G3 found in the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro has so far disappointed when compared to its competition, making it imperative for Google to switch over to a fully custom solution to rival Apple’s A-series and the upcoming Snapdragon 8 Gen 4. Unfortunately, it will take some time for the rumored Tensor G5 to arrive, but according to the latest update, it will be mass produced on TSMC’s N3E process, the same one used to fabricate next-generation SoCs for Qualcomm and MediaTek.

Over the past few years, solo gaming has exploded in popularity, and with good reason. It’s a great way to get in some tabletop gaming when you don’t have your gaming buddies around. Recently, publisher BadCat Games has launched its crowdfunding campaign for its new solo game DreamEscape.

Don’t Starve Together takes the cartoonish yet subtly ghoulish experience of Don’t Starve and makes it multiplayer. If you’ve been playing with a friend for ages, you’ve probably run into questions about “revive.”

I was really hoping for a relaxing game. I needed one. Spirittea was promising that experience. Unfortunately, it’s a clear demonstration that there’s a fine line between relaxation and boredom.

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Elden Ring isn’t exactly an easy game, but one player has been working tirelessly for the last year and a half to assist players struggling to reach the credits.

A concept artist has listed potential launch windows for two upcoming Sony Interactive Entertainment games on their ArtStation page.

Netflix had an opportunity with Google where it would keep 90 percent of the revenue it earned thanks to a special and rare offer that was reportedly not provided to any other entity. According to documents and testimony in the Epic v. Google trial, the video streaming service declined the ‘once in a lifetime’ deal, but there were reasons for the company to come to that decision.

All it took for me to fancy giving this Steam gem a try was multiple reviews billing it as a mashup of magical action roguelite Noita and the likes of The Binding of Issac or Enter the Gungeon. Looks like I’m not the only one, either, as magical roguelike Magicraft is building up a fine raft of reviews and gentle buzz.

It's the Steam Deck's fault. I picked up Valve's handheld with the aim of using it to play anything and everything, but instead I've used it almost exclusively to play topdown racer Circuit Superstars and Amiga-era throwback racer Horizon Chase Turbo.

The failure of Hitman: Absolution meant that when Square Enix chose to divest Project 007 studio IO Interactive, some offers were as low as a single dollar.

There are few Marvel characters more synonymous with the '90s than Night Thrasher, one of the founding members of '90s teen superhero team the New Warriors. But according to the publisher, he's "leaving the '90s behind" in a new solo limited series from writer J. Holtham and artist Nelson Dániel.

The Overwatch League is no more. Activision Blizzard is moving away from the esports league to take its competitive Overwatch 2 scene elsewhere, the company announced this week.

Baldur's Gate 3 has been named PC Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards 2023 powered by Intel. 

Destiny 2 is currently in a rough spot. Player morale is at an all-time low, tanking after a round of Bungie layoffs and news of a reported delay for the upcoming The Final Shape expansion. And while Bungie is using the delay to double down on ensuring the new expansion is a smash hit, serious concerns about Destiny’s longevity are cropping up. Even if The Final Shape proves to be everything Bungie promises, inescapable factors persist against the game.

Armor sets have been pretty straightforward in the Monster Hunter series for a while now. With there being relatively few changes to the sets as games have come and gone, you still need to know which monsters have made the cut.

 Apple Inc. risks having to pay a €13 billion ($14 billion) tax bill to Ireland after an adviser to the European Union's top court said the iPhone maker's victory in an earlier challenge should be thrown out.

The latest patch for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Nintendo Switch has nerfed the Item Bagging strategy. This is a trick used by players to game the system and gain an unfair advantage over other competitors.

It has not been a vintage year for romantic comedies. (It hasn’t been a vintage year for this undervalued genre for quite some time.) There have been just a couple of brighter spots: Rye Lane’s colorful walk-and-talk through the streets of South London, Red, White & Royal Blue’s fanfic-adjacent queer romance. In series, Apple’s Platonic, with the ever-delightful pairing of Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen, attempted to twist the genre to focus on an obsessive, semi-toxic friendship. It found some rich material on the way, but predictably floundered when it came to the payoff because it had nowhere to go. This is the thing with rom-coms: More than almost any other genre, they are incredibly strictly codified, and you really do have to play them by the book.

The Reaper Cloth is necessary for anyone who enjoys the Duskull line in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. The evolutionary item can be somewhat elusive since you can’t simply buy it from one of the many shops scattered around Paldea.

Six years after its glitzy launch, Blizzard's grand experiment appears to be over. Blizzard confirmed in a statement to IGN that it is "transitioning from the Overwatch League," seemingly spelling the end for the competition once billed as the future of esports.

It takes some serious superhero firepower to take on Thanos, the Mad Titan. But in November 8's Thanos #1, a new incarnation of one of the most secretive and powerful super-teams of the Marvel Universe has reared its head, with some interesting new members.

By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

Movie Games and Vaporware have released the neon-soaked FPS Beyond Sunset into Steam Early Access today. It’s expected to stay there for six months before its full release.

The festive season is approaching and this is the time of the year when we indulge our loved ones with special presents. After all, you would want to gift something awesome to those who hold a special place in your heart!

By Andrew Webster, an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.

Nintendo has officially confirmed that it's working on a live-action movie adaptation of The Legend of Zelda alongside Venom producer Avi Arad and Maze Runner director Wes Ball.

When it comes to meta games for Pokemon spinoffs, none is as complex or ever-changing as Pokemon Unite. In the true fashion of a MOBA, new characters coming out can change the entire course of the game’s meta, more or less being solidified in their tiers from the moment players get a good handle on how they function.

Filed under:

In, players can take a long trip down memory lane, revisiting old haunts and favorite landing spots from seasons past. Billed as a nostalgia trip into distant past, resets the game and brings back the original island map for you to explore. However, picking a good landing spot is still a crucial step in winning a coveted Victory Royale crown.

MultiVersus' lead character artist, Dan Eder, has teased that one of the characters that is coming to the game in the future is "constantly angry", giving Daffy Duck fans like myself some copium to live off of.

If you're planning to buy an electric car in 2024, you'll want to compare models' price, range and charging speed. But you should also ask whether the car is capable of powering your home in a pinch. A growing number of EVs coming on the market can tap the considerable energy stored in their batteries to keep the lights on during a blackout and lower your utility bill when rates spike.

Overwatch 2 is capping off 2023 with a new tank, and he sounds like an absolute unit. Mauga, who's soon to be revealed at BlizzCon but was leaked a tad early by a rogue Nintendo Switch ad shared on Reddit, is a beefy brawler packing not one, but two massive chainguns.

Mobile-based strategy game Warcraft Rumble has been released at Blizzcon 2023. You play it right now as the game is downloadable on both the Google Play store and iOS.

ARMA has been the king of absurdly deep milsims for about as long as I can remember, and it is very secure in its reign. Try as I might, I can't recall many games that ever really tried to challenge ARMA's dominance of the hardcore simulation realm, but now someone else has decided to give it a try. Gray Zone Warfare is the just-announced first foray into PC gaming from Madfinger Games—the mobile dev behind iOS and Android series like Shadowgun Legends and Dead Trigger—and bills itself as «an immersive tactical first-person shooter with a maximum focus on realism.»

In her one-room home on a quiet street in Agara, a tiny village three hours southwest of Bangalore that's fringed by rice paddies and groundnut fields, Preethi P. sits on a stool near a sewing machine. Normally, she would spend hours mending or stitching clothes, averaging  less than $1 a day for her work. On this day, however, she is reading a sentence in her native Kannada language into an app on a phone. She pauses briefly, then reads another.

Former World of Warcraft and League of Legends developer Greg Street has unveiled his new game, a fantasy MMO codenamed 'Ghost'.

Polyphony Digital has revealed what it’s billing as Gran Turismo 7’s “largest” update since the game’s release last year.

Gamers have been eating well throughout 2023, as it seems like the industry is pumping out an almost never-ending supply of quality titles. We've been handed some of the best reviewed games ever in recent months, thanks to Baldur's Gate 3 becoming a surprise smash hit, Nintendo knocking it out of the park with both Mario and Zelda, and Insomniac delivering arguably the best superhero game ever made.

Writer Robert Kirkman and artist Chris Samnee's hit creator owned title Fire Power from Skybound is about to reach its finale, and now the publisher is showing off some new interior pages from the penultimate issue of the series, Fire Power #29.

By Andrew Webster, an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.

With a new executive order, the Biden administration plans to reach deep into the non-legislative compartments of its policy toolbox to manage the risks of increasingly powerful AI systems while also promoting their development.

Movies inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s writing are often so oppressive that they can be exhausting. Lovecraft’s most central theme (apart from the virulent racism and all) was the idea that we live in a howling, empty void — a cosmos that’s indifferent to humanity at absolute best, and so inimical at worst that even a glimpse at the true horrors of the universe would drive most people insane.

It's common knowledge that Google pays Apple to be the default search engine on Apple devices, but the exact amount has been the subject of much debate. Typical guesses are north of $10 billion, but two sources tell The New York Times that the bill was "around $18 billion" in 2021.

In a multi-layered mistake that can't be adequately described within Baldur's Gate 3's conservative six-level magic system, one unlucky player has soft-locked themselves out of the RPG's final fight through an absolute clown fiesta of death and death gods, inadvertently writing the ultimate lesson on quick-saving. 

In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, players switch between playing as Peter Parker and Miles Morales, two characters with spider-bite origin stories. However, some may be wondering how old these protagonists are during the events of Spider-Man 2.

Tom DeLonge can’t believe he’s still relevant — but why wouldn’t he be? After building Blink-182 up into a rowdy, ridiculous pillar of the pop-punk era, DeLonge left the group to excavate his own obsessions. He formed his transmedia musical collective Angels & Airwaves, wrote children’s books, and started apparel lines. Then, in a move that would eventually rattle world governments, he founded To the Stars, a company aimed at uncovering the truths about Earth’s UFO encounters. DeLonge did not take his reputation as a high-profile paranormal theorist lightly, and in 2020, his advocacy for transparency about so-called extraterrestrial encounters led to the declassification of UFO videos and an official report from the Pentagon.