Author: Zach_Wilson
This Barbie is a feminist parable fighting to be great in spite of Mattel’s input
Barbies might “just” be toys, but Barbie™ is an impossibly perfect paragon of glamorous femininity who’s had as many specialized professions over the course of her 64-year-long existence as she has bespoke outfits. There are few pieces of corporate-owned IP that are truly as Iconic (in the pre-social media sense…
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Google is testing AI-generated Meet video backgrounds
I am not big on blurring out or replacing my office background with premade images, but then again, I’m fortunate enough to have a small environment I’m completely in control of at my disposal, and I want people to see the Doctor Zhivago DVD on the shelf behind me. I…
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Roblox is going to let developers offer subscriptions in their experiences
Roblox is developing tools that will let developers offer subscriptions within their experiences, according to a blog post published Tuesday, which could prove to be a major new way for developers to make money in their experiences. Roblox already offers developers a lot of ways to monetize their experiences, including…
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Instagram Reels are about to get a lot more repetitive
Instagram is introducing updates to its Reels templates — a feature that allows users to make their own video based on someone else’s. The result could be a lot more content that looks exactly like everything else. Templates break down Reels into a preset format that users can drop their…
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Paul McCartney’s new podcast had to make some tough choices
This is Hot Pod, The Verge’s newsletter about podcasting and the audio industry. Sign up here for more. I’ve got a rather assorted issue of Hot Pod for you all today. First off, Paul McCartney is getting a podcast. I spoke to the executive producer of the new show to learn more about the…
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Capcom’s dino shooter Exoprimal is campy but clunky
When I first saw Exoprimal, I groaned because it looked like yet another game in which an interesting premise (fighting dinosaurs!) would be swallowed by the soul-sucking banality of being a third-person live-service multiplayer game in an era that sees such games released for a hot six months before they’re…
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