News Reporter
Jess Weatherbed is a news writer, and part of The Verge UK-based team. While passionate about the future of technology, she originally trained as a prosthetics makeup and wig-making technician, fuelled by a love of animatronics and practical movie effects.
Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews across computing, PC gaming and streaming. Additional bylines can be found at GamesRadar, PCGamer, Creative Bloq and Space.com.
Pre-orders are available for the Hyperkin DuchesS, which re-imagines Microsoft’s Xbox Controller S (the one that replaced the console's original “The Duke” gamepad) for Xbox One and Series X / S consoles, and PC.
The wired controller is available in White or Black variants, both priced at $49.99. Hyperkin says pre-orders will ship on August 21st.
IHMC showcased improvements to its Nadia robot that lower the latency of its VR-controlled inputs enough to play table tennis against a human.
The ultimate design goal for Nadia — named after famed gymnast Nadia Comăneci — is to achieve a human range-of-motion, having demonstrated its boxing capabilities last year in a Real Steel-like fashion.
There are four CPUs in the new Ryzen 9000 series, which includes the beastly 16-core, 32-thread Ryzen 9 9950X flagship. Pricing still hasn’t been disclosed, but it’s currently expected to align with the Zen 4 series chips.
The European Commission says it’s made commitments offered by Apple in January legally binding, allowing third-party developers to use the NFC functionality on iOS devices without being tied to Apple Pay or Apple Wallet.
The acceptance officially settles a four-year EU investigation and spares Apple from facing fines of up to $40 billion. EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager said:
“It opens up competition in this crucial sector, by preventing Apple from excluding other mobile wallets from the iPhone’s ecosystem.”
[European Commission - European Commission]