Billionaire Elon Musk took over as owner and CEO of Twitter last week following a long saga between himself and the company. Now that he’s in charge of the social network, one of his first orders was to completely revamp the account verification program. On Tuesday, Musk confirmed that anyone will be able to get…

During Apple’s June WWDC keynote, Apple introduced a new collaboration software called Freeform. They spoke about this as a new flexible canvas whiteboard that can be used by multiple users in real-time, giving collaborators the ability to see, share, and contribute to projects dynamically. Think of this as the modern-day brainstorming session, but virtual. It’s…

Google Lens will only become more important going forward, and one sign of that is its addition to the google.com homepage today. more… The post See source

The long-standing Nvidia Shield TV is getting yet another Android TV update, this time with Shield Experience 9.1.1 which brings new power controls and a huge number of bug fixes. more… The post See source

If you’re not using dark mode on your Android device, you might notice that Google Assistant is using a dark theme regardless, and Google says that’s intentional. more… The post See source

The Google Nest Audio speaker can be paired with a twin for stereo sound. | Photo: Dan Seifert / The Verge Lots of retailers are wasting no time gearing up for Black Friday, Best Buy and Target are already rolling out some excellent deals you can check out, and it appears Google is kicking things…

An adjustment to Washington’s latest export control regime in October has prompted affected Chinese entities to reach out to US officials for end-user checks, sources say. See source

Besides boosted trade-ins, Google is launching a Pixel 7 and 7 Pro, as well as 6a, referral program where “you and a friend will both get a $100 Google Store credit.” more… The post See source

Signage is displayed outside of Occidental Petroleum Corp. offices in Carlsbad, New Mexico, US, on Friday, September 11th, 2020. Oil giant Occidental announced an enormous escalation of its plans to take planet-heating carbon dioxide out of the air. It signed a lease agreement on 106,000 acres in Kleberg County, Texas, where it would build up…

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge This is the free weekly edition of Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. You can sign up here. Hello, hello, hello. I hope you’re all ready for a busy, Amazon-packed issue. Because there’s a lot of Amazon news to go around today. First:…