Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard rocket flies again.

It’s been over a year and a half since Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket failed mid-flight, and more than two since its last crewed flight. Now, the company is go to launch six human beings into space. The company’s launch window begins at 6:30AM PT / 9:30AM ET, but will start streaming 40 minutes ahead of time on its website .

Blue Origin also normally streams its launches live on its YouTube channel , so it’s a pretty safe bet it will do so for its NS-25 mission tomorrow. Assuming the launch goes as planned, it will carry six passengers aboard , including the 90-year-old Ed Dwight, who was America’s first Black astronaut candidate but has never been to space. The other passengers are Mason Angel, Sylvain Chiron, Kenneth L. Hess, Carol Schaller, and Gopi Thotakura.

Jeff Bezos’ company decided to put its private space tourism flights on hold after a September 2022 rocket booster issue , which was later identified as an engine nozzle failure, triggered its uncrewed capsule’s emergency escape system.

The Federal Aviation Administration closed its investigation of the mishap in September last year, requiring Blue Origin to carry out 21 corrective actions that included redesigning the engine and nozzle components to prevent future failures. In December, Blue Origin launched 33 science payloads from NASA and other institutions into space. The capsule and booster were successfully recovered afterwards.

Repair is still a challenge, but replacing the battery is easier.

Apple’s newest iPad Pro is remarkably rigid for how thin it is , and apparently also a step forward when it comes to repairability. iFixit shows during its teardown of the tablet that the iPad Pro’s 38.99Wh battery, which will inevitably wear down and need replacement, is actually easy to get to. It’s a change iFixit’s Shahram Mokhtari says during the video “could save hours in repair time” compared to past iPad Pro models.

Getting to it still requires removing the screen, which is glued in and is connected to the iPad in four places, but iFixit was essentially able to pull the almost immediately after removing the screen (after removing the camera assembly and dealing with an aluminum lip beneath that, which made some of the tabs hard to get to). For previous models, he notes, you have to pull out “every major component.”

After that, though, the thinness proves to be an issue for iFixit, as many of the parts are glued in, including the tablet’s logic board.

But you can’t say the same for Apple’s new $129 Apple Pencil Pro , which shouldn’t shock anyone. iFixit’s Shahram Mokhtari was forced to cut into the pencil using an ultrasonic cutter, a moment he presented as “the world’s worst ASMR video.” (That happens just after the five-minute mark , in case you want to mute the video right there to avoid the ear-piercing squeal of the tool.) Unlike the iPad Pro itself, the Pencil Pro’s battery was the last thing he could get to.

By the time Mokhtari is done, the pencil is utterly destroyed, of course. He says the site will have a full chip ID soon that will include images of the MEMS sensor that drives the pencil’s barrel roll feature that lets you twist the pencil to adjust the rotation of on-screen art tools.

Hairo Satoh’s alternate-reality Nintendo handhelds go hard.

Have you ever looked at a Nintendo DS and thought it would be cooler if the top screen was swapped for the Game Boy Advance SP’s? Or looked at a Super Nintendo controller and wished it had a GBA SP screen bolted onto the back? Whether you have or not, Hardware modder Hairo Satoh, aka Retrohai hai Softbank, has you covered with some truly cursed reimaginings of Nintendo’s portable consoles. (Recall their portable emulated PlayStation built into the Takara Roulette Controller .)

Let’s go on a little journey through Satoh’s Instagram account. Before we get into my favorite mutated Nintendo handhelds — frankententos, if you will — know that Satoh also does some very pretty custom jobs on the company’s various portable consoles. And they’re made to order .

This one they posted recently is a good example. We are Known Transparent Case Stans here at The Verge , but this goes a step further with its colorful hologram stickers and ChromaFlair-style color-changing sheen. Oh, and it runs Game Boy Advance games.

That controller mod I mentioned up top isn’t the only time Satoh has turned a console gamepad into its own handheld. The GBA SP’s screen looks remarkably at home on an SNES (well, Super Famicom, technically) pad...

...and on a PS2 Dual Shock controller, too.

But why not jam one onto a Nintendo DS Lite, too? It doesn’t make sense at all, even if this is a mash-up of the two most attractive pieces of hardware Nintendo ever made, but I don’t need any justification for this thing’s existence. Also, this is the point where things start getting a little cursed.

I guess this is also a Nintendo DS?

Again, but more colorful.

Ah yes, the Original Game Boy Advance SP DS (OGBASPDS).

I’m enamored with the concept of a multi-position adjustable screen on this original DS.

What if... GBA SP but also T-Mobile Sidekick ?

Give me this and the ability to emulate the fantastic vertical-scrolling shooter Ikaruga , please .

I’m sorry, what?

Ah, yes, this makes sense.

I can’t say I understand the extra buttons and d-pad here, but I respect the chaos.

The Nintendo Long Boy DS.

I think this is probably the final boss of Satoh’s inventive creations.

Satoh didn’t respond to us when we reached out, but we’d love to know more about these creations. How much of these are made up of custom hardware on the inside? How many of them are emulating Nintendo’s handhelds, rather than rejiggering its original hardware components to fit? If we receive a response, we’ll dig in some more.

One of them has a 419ppi OLED screen — and a fan.

The Analogue Pocket is the most advanced Game Boy to ever take actual carts, but Ayaneo has just unveiled a pair of emulator -centric pocket computers that could give it a run for its cash — including a modern take on the original DMG-01 Nintendo Game Boy that now includes a 419ppi OLED screen.

Unfortunately, we’ve only got renders and a few details today — no prices or full spec sheets — but those renders look pretty neat! I find myself most interested in the Pocket Micro, whose sleek design, twin joysticks and horizontal layout look a bit more practical than the stick placement on the Pocket DMG. Not to mention a bit of a Sony Walkman vibe from certain angles? Take a peek:

Below, you’ll also see the Ayaneo AG01 “Graphics Starship” eGPU dock the company already teased , as well as a Super Famicom themed retro power bank with a screen, and a new version of Ayaneo’s Mac-inspired mini-PC — now with a tilting screen and your choice of a AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS or Ryzen 9 8945HS chip, as well as 2.5Gbps Ethernet, a pair of USB4 ports, and six USB-A ports, and 65W worth of cooling.

Ayaneo says the Pocket DMG is powered by a Qualcomm G3x Gen 2 processor and has an active cooling system (read: fan) beneath its 3.92-inch, 1240x1080 OLED screen, while the aluminum-housed Pocket Micro has a 3.5-inch 960x640 IPS panel that allows 4x integer scaling for GBA games, and is powered by a MediaTek Helio G99 chip.

The AG01 is a AMD Radeon RX 7600M eGPU that connects over Oculink or USB4, similar to competitors from OneXPlayer and GPD. It has twin DisplayPorts and twin HDMI ports for video output, as well as Ethernet, USB-A, and an SD card slot, and room inside for an M.2 2280 SSD with toolless entry — just twist a dial on the back.

Last but not least, the Retro Power Bank is a 45.6 watt-hour (12,000mAh) battery pack with a tiny built-in OLED display for real-time monitoring. It has 45W USB-C PD input and output, and two USB-C ports, though it looks like you might be limited to 15W per port if you use both at the same time.

It’s not clear when, where, or how much any of these will cost: Ayaneo says the Retro Power Bank will be released “soon,” and will announce details later for the rest.

A TikTok spokesperson said the claims were “unsupported by evidence.”

Canada’s security agency is trying to dissuade Canadians from using TikTok, telling users that their data is “available to the government of China.”

In an interview with CBC News set to air on Saturday, David Vigneault, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said that “there is a very clear strategy on the part of the government of China … to be able to acquire … personal information from around the world,” the CBC __ reports .

“They’re using big data analytics, they have amazing computer farms crunching the data, they are developing artificial intelligence ... based on using this data,” Vigneault added.

The Chinese government’s ability to access user data is at the forefront of US efforts to regulate — and potentially even ban — the app. Congress passed a bill that would ban TikTok unless it divests from its Beijing-based parent company, ByteDance, in April. TikTok sued the US government over the law in May, arguing that the looming ban is unconstitutional.

TikTok has previously claimed that staffers in China are unable to access US and European users’ data. The company has undertaken two massive corporate restructuring efforts — Project Texas and Project Clover, referring to the US and European endeavors, respectively — to silo off user data from China. US user data is hosted in Oracle’s cloud infrastructure and isn’t supposed to be accessible by anyone outside the US, though a recent report by Fortune suggests efforts to secure US user data have been “largely cosmetic.”

“These assertions are unsupported by evidence, and the fact is that TikTok has never shared Canadian user data with the Chinese government, nor would we if asked,” TikTok spokesperson Danielle Morgan told The Verge .

Greek vs. Roman.

Delta Emulator is abandoning its current logo for a different, yet-to-be-revealed mark — because Adobe thinks Delta’s stylized letter “D” is a bit too close to its stylized letter “A” for comfort.

It’s not every day you see an app changelog that includes news of a legal threat, but get a load of this:

The situation unfolded quickly, according to emails Delta creator Riley Testut shared with The Verge :

On May 7th, Adobe’s lawyers reached out to Delta with a firm but kindly written request to go find a different icon, an email that didn’t contain an explicit threat or even use the word infringement — it merely suggested that Delta might “not wish to confuse consumers or otherwise violate Adobe’s rights or the law.”

But Adobe didn’t wait for a reply. On May 8th, one day later, Testut got another email from Apple that suggested his app might be at risk because Adobe had reached out to allege Delta was infringing its intellectual property rights.

“We responded to both Apple and Adobe explaining our icon was a stylized Greek letter delta — not an A — but that we would update the Delta logo anyway to avoid confusion,” Testut tells us.

The icon you’re seeing on the App Store now is just a temporary one, he says, as the team is still working on a new logo. “Both the App Store and AltStore versions have been updated with this temporary icon, but the plan is to update them to the final updated logo with Delta 1.6 once it’s finished.”

Adobe does have one logo that’s pretty similar to Delta’s, and all of Adobe’s logos contain stylized triangles with an almost identically shaped gap. They’ve had such a gap since 1982 when Marva Warnock, the wife of company co-founder John Warnock, first designed the mark.

But Adobe adopted a negative space version of the logo in 1993 and has used it ever since, one that’s harder to confuse with Delta:

I certainly didn’t think of Adobe when I first saw Delta’s logo.

The second screen is still growing.

After 2023’s big year for foldable phones , what’s next? According to these leaked pics, we can expect Motorola’s foldable Razr line to stretch that front cover screen even further on both versions. As revealed by 91Mobiles and Sudhanshu Ambhore on X , the Razr 50 Ultra 5G will feature a 4.0-inch screen on the outside, which is a noticeable upgrade from the 2023 Razr 40 Ultra (called the Razr Plus in the US) and its 3.6-inch front cover screen.

On the renders of this 2024 model, the new, larger outside screen stretches nearly to the phone’s hinge assembly, with only a small bezel area, giving users even more area to use without opening it to use the 6.9-inch pOLED display that’s inside.

Meanwhile, the cheaper standard version appears to have ditched last year’s tiny 1.5-inch cover screen for a 3.63-inch pOLED panel that mimics the Plus / Ultra experience from 2023. Allison Johnson found that size screen useful enough to serve as “...kind of a secret weapon,” so buyers could have a tough choice ahead of them.

A list of specs says the more expensive Razr 50 Ultra 5G will have slightly better cameras and more RAM than the cheaper phone, as well as support for 45W charging and a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset . However, as 91Mobiles notes, the cheaper phone seems to have slightly smaller bezels for the inner screen and a larger battery, at 4,200mAh vs. 4,000.

Last year, Motorola announced its new foldable lineup on June 1st , so if that schedule holds up, we should probably find out all of the official details soon.

Valve has yet to confirm details of the leak.

Valve’s next game appears to be a multiplayer hero shooter known as Deadlock . This is according to leaks from playtesters posted on social media earlier today, with some of the details verified by known Valve dataminer @GabeFollower and Valve watcher Tyler McVicker.

“Since testers started sharing Deadlock screenshots all over the place, here’s ones I can verify, featuring one of the heroes called Grey Talon,” @GabeFollower posted on X .

The post included four screenshots allegedly from the game, which features characters (one of which looks like the Sniper from Team Fortress 2) battling in a city map that seems reminiscent of Half-Life 2’ s City 17. Another image shows a hero named Grey Talon and includes the character’s weapon and ability icons with a short description.

Deadlock wasn’t a game Valve gave any indication was in the works, so its reveal is certainly surprising. Earlier this week, GabeFollower shared more information about Deadlock on their X page , writing that the game is “fast-paced interesting ADHD gameplay. Combination of Dota 2 , Team Fortress 2 , Overwatch , Valorant , Smite , Orcs Must Die .” The Verge has reached out to Valve for comment.

Though Valve is now mostly known for its PC publishing platform Steam and the Steam Deck , the company is still making games. Last year, Valve released Counter-Strike 2 , an update to the perennially popular Counter-Strike GO. Back in 2017, Valve president and co-founder Gabe Newell shared that the company was working on three “ full games” for VR , with one of them being the 2020 hit Half-Life: Alyx . Deadlock doesn’t seem to be a VR title, so there might be even more secret Valve games looming on the horizon.

Correction, May 17th: An earlier version of this story misattributed some of the info. Those portions came from GabeFollower, not Tyler McVicker.

The versatile smart home device can even play music.

The temperatures are about to soar now that summer is almost upon us — and so are our cooling bills. If you want to keep comfy while saving money on your energy bills, it’s worth investing in Ecobee’s Smart Thermostat Premium now that it’s down to its best price of the year. Normally $249.99, right now you can buy it at Amazon , Best Buy , and directly from Ecobee for $219.99, which is $10 shy of its all-time low.

Ecobee’s smart thermostat is our favorite on the market, one that goes beyond your typical heating and cooling needs. It can adjust your HVAC system based on where you are in your home (if you’re home at all), and even keep your pets safe as you travel thanks to its support for various temperature alerts and reminders — a feature that saved my colleague’s rabbit as recently as last year . Ecobee’s premium thermostat also integrates well with Amazon Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, SmartThings, and IFTTT, so you don’t have to lock yourself into a specific ecosystem.

What’s even more impressive, though, is how versatile it is. Yes, it’s a smart thermostat, but Ecobee’s step-up model can also function as a decent smart speaker, an indoor air quality monitor, and even a hub for Ecobee’s smart security system . It doesn’t do a bad job, either. It can respond to both Alexa and Siri commands, and though it’s pretty basic as far as air quality monitors go, it can still calculate how clean your air is based on carbon dioxide levels, relative humidity, and VOCs. How many smart thermostats can do that?

Read our Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium review.

Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium

$ 220 $ 250 12 % off

$ 220

$ 220 $ 250 12 % off

The Ecobee Smart Thermostat Premium is an excellent option for adding smarts and some style to your HVAC system. As well as being a smart way to control your energy use, the thermostat can also act as a video intercom for Ecobee’s new doorbell camera .

$220 at Amazon $220 at Best Buy $220 at Ecobee

A few more deals to kick off the weekend

• Now through May 19th, Nomad is running a buy one get one free promo on all of its iPhone cases when you use offer code BOGOCASE at checkout. The sale extends to leather cases for all four iPhone 15 models, too, some of which are already discounted — including the attractive Modern Leather Folio case for the 15 Pro, which is down to just $48 ($12 off).
• For the second time this month, JLab’s Go Air Sport have fallen to $19.88 ($10 off) at Amazon , matching their all-time low. For the price, JLab’s fitness-focused earbuds have a lot going for them, including decent sound and dedicated hooks for a more secure fit. They also sport an IP55 rating for sweat and dust resistance, providing some extra peace of mind during sweaty workouts.
• Microsoft’s Xbox Wireless Controller is available from Verizon in white for $35.99 ($25 off), which is one of its best prices to date. The gamepad doesn’t have customizable buttons like some pricier models , but it still offers good comfort and features for the price. It supports USB-C and Bluetooth, for example, so you can use it with your Xbox, PC, or mobile device. It features a dedicated share button, too, letting you easily save and share clips with whomever you see fit. Read our guide to the best Xbox controllers.

I tested the GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker and loved how easy it was to use, but I still can’t cook a brisket like a pro.

My love affair with barbecue has been a slow burn. I’m from England, where BBQ means grilling burgers and steak in the garden on a gas grill. So, when I moved to South Carolina over a decade ago, I had no clue what pulled pork was or that brisket was even a thing. I learned quickly. Smoking meat is akin to religion around these parts, and I suspect many pitmasters would view the latest gadget I’ve been testing as something akin to heresy.

Today, barbecue is one of my favorite dishes — brisket from Lewis Barbecue in Charleston is what I would request for a last meal. However, while I fancy myself as something of an accomplished home chef, I have never had much luck smoking my own meats. So, I was intrigued to test the $999.95 GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker .

A smart indoor smoker, GE Profile’s gadget promises an easier, quicker way to get that smokey flavor; plus, it’s literally the only option if you don’t have the space or an accommodating climate for using an outdoor smoker. I do have an outdoor smoker, but it rarely gets used. It’s huge, requires a lot of prep, and I feel compelled to smoke a lot of meat to justify using it — plus, as mentioned, I’ve not been very successful making my own barbecue.

GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker

$ 850 $ 1000 15 % off

$ 850

$ 850 $ 1000 15 % off

The GE Profile Smart Indoor Smoker is an excellent gadget for smoking meats, veggies, and more from the comfort of your kitchen. While it didn’t handle the more classic BBQ cuts as well as I’d hoped, if you love that smokey flavor and don’t have room for an outdoor machine, it's a great — if expensive — option.

$850 at Amazon $850 at Best Buy

Its main tricks are being small enough to fit on your countertop (although it’s not small) and smoking food without smoking up your kitchen. Something called Active Smoke Filtration technology and an airflow system combined with tight gaskets and seals keeps the smoke in the appliance. This worked very well. No smoke escaped the oven at all during cooking, but I still got the lovely aromas. The one thing that did come out of the gadget was heat. My kitchen got very warm while using it.

This is because it’s essentially an oven that adds smoke flavor. Unlike a true outdoor wood-pellet smoker, the Smart Indoor Smoker doesn’t cook your food with smoke. It uses a separate heating element that does most of the hard work while the smoke infuses it with flavor. This significantly cuts down on cooking time and means you use way fewer wood pellets. But I did find meats didn’t always achieve that tenderness you get from smoking alone.

If you want to smoke meat indoors, though, this is a very good way to do it. Purists might scoff, but it’s more efficient than an outdoor smoker. And while I found it hard to fit into my everyday cooking routine — it still can’t cook anything in under an hour — in the two months I tested it, I used it at least twice a week, far more often than I use my outdoor smoker. It’s super simple to use and easy to clean, and its neat Keep Warm feature meant I could put a piece of meat or some sweet potatoes in the smoker in the morning, and it would be ready for dinner time.

Two downsides are the price — $1,000 is a lot for a single-purpose gadget — and the size. Only consider this if you have a lot of countertop space or somewhere you can store it when it’s not in use. It’s short enough to fit under my cabinets, but not with the four inches of clearance the manual recommends. My husband didn’t want it near anything that might catch fire (he’s a firefighter and was deeply suspicious of this device, but it never caused any issues).

The smart smoker has three racks and a removable drip tray.

The smart smoker has three racks and a removable drip tray.

It needs to be big so it can fit the popular barbeque meats. GE Appliances says its three removable racks allow for enough space to cook three racks of baby back ribs, a brisket, a whole chicken, up to 40 wings, or a 14-pound pork butt. I did not test these capacity limits — there’s only so much meat one family can eat. But it didn’t struggle to handle anything I put in it, from a whole chicken to two racks of ribs to a sizeable brisket (halved).

The rest of the device is similarly well-designed. It has a nice big digital display that’s easy to read, with a large dial you turn and press to select temperature and smoke level, plus digital buttons for basic functions. There are six presets for brisket, pork ribs, pork butt, chicken wings, chicken breast, and salmon that can be activated from the device or GE Appliance’s Smart HQ app. Then there’s a customize option for setting your own smoke. The app isn’t required, but it offers some tips and tricks and can alert you when the door is left open, when the smoker is preheated, or when the food is almost done, which is handy.

To start a smoke, I selected one of the presets, chose whether to use the built-in temperature probe or a set cook time (annoyingly, you can’t use both), added the pellets, filled the water bucket — where the pellets go to be extinguished — and pressed start on the machine. Once it reached the set temperature, I had to press start again (which I couldn’t do remotely), and the smoking got underway.

My first brisket was full of smokey flavor but on the chewy side.

My first brisket was full of smokey flavor but on the chewy side.

The smoker did a great job infusing everything I cooked with a lovely smokey flavor, ranging from mild for shorter cook times to really rich for meats that were slow-cooked over eight to 10 hours. I liked that I could monitor and control the device from the app and use voice commands with Alexa to adjust the temperature.

But its smarts are limited. As is common with smart kitchen devices , I couldn’t remotely start the appliance. I was also disappointed that the smoker couldn’t automatically adjust the cooking temperatures for me. The Traeger smart smoker I have will adjust the temperatures over a long smoke, which takes a lot of the guesswork out of barbecuing. The GE Profile smart smoker required frequent manual intervention for bigger meats like brisket, including rotating the meat since the compartment doesn’t heat evenly.

Sadly, my manual intervention was not successful. While all the meats I cooked had excellent smokey flavor, my two attempts at pork butt and three tries at briskets all came out chewy. Chicken, salmon, and sweet potatoes were all fine, but those more complicated meats I struggled to get right.

To be fair, I struggle with those in the Traeger, too, but the GE Profile smart smoker didn’t make me a better pitmaster. That’s still a skill I guess a machine can’t learn. In retrospect (and based on a similar experience this professional griller had with the smart smoker), it’s likely that using the Keep Warm setting overcooked my meats. It takes a while for the internal temperature to get back down, so I probably needed to adjust the cook time to account for that.

What would be great is if this smart smoker was smart enough to do that for me. Or smart enough to adjust the cooking temperature automatically during a smoke so that the meat comes out tender every time. While this innovative gadget brings something new to the kitchen, right now, its smart features are fairly basic. Smart kitchen gadgets that help you cook are great, but what I want most from the smart kitchen are smart devices that help you be a better cook.

Photos by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge